Acherontia Atropos Part 8

Author's note: I am well aware that this could be construed as a

negative portrayal of "witches". However, if you're reading this

and feel like you should be offended by me not giving everyone a

shiny and happy view of witchcraft, please consider: Not all

witches are the same. (And that doesn't even begin to touch on the

fact that this is an alternate universe.) Thank you.

* * *

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said. It was the

honest response, considering what kind of place she was working at

-- I wasn't sure I wanted to know what kind of art she was talking

about. She gave me a penetrating look, but she let the comment

pass without saying anything else.

For a moment, it was a normal handshake. Then the hair on my arms

and the back of my neck abruptly stood up and did the hula. I

pulled away as quickly as I could without being too rude. My hand

was tingling, like the pins and needles feeling you get when your

foot falls asleep. Carmen smiled at me. "Are you alright?" She

asked pleasantly.

"Just peachy." I waited until she turned her attention to Wufei,

and then glanced at my hand. Apparently the tissue glue hadn't

worked quite as well as I'd thought, because I'd bled through the

bandage, nice and fresh. I didn't like this one bit. "I'm guessing

that you're Carmen, right?" I kept my voice neutral. Carmen was

not making it on my good list so far. People that make me bleed

never get on the 'nice' list, no matter what their excuse.

She idly rubbed the soft fabric of her robe over her breast.

"That's correct. I'm the one you talked to on the phone. You

didn't say anything about bringing friends."

"Sorry. I never go anywhere without my backup. It's a healthy

habit to have." I shrugged, not sorry at all.

"Don't trust me?"

"It's been a bad week." I stuffed my hands in my pockets. "And I

don't have a reason to. I didn't even know your name until

now...the only reason I knew to call here was because left me this

phone number as an anonymous tip. Not exactly confidence

inspiring."

"I see. I'm sorry. I thought that you would have been warned about

this." She kept rubbing. Up and down. Up and down. There was a

bump under her fingers, which I presumed was her nipple. I was

getting a really funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I was

pretty sure it had nothing to do with whatever hormones were

flowing in my veins. It wasn't that kind of funny feeling.

"It would have been nice." I muttered.

Carmen either didn't hear me or just ignored me. She offered her

hand-the one that wasn't busy-to Wufei. "And you are?"

"Wufei." he said grudgingly, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on

Carmen's right ear. He looked like he was putting some serious

effort into fighting off a blush. Not that I wasn't fighting off

one too. He took her hand and shook it. Nothing happened. Maybe it

had all been in my head. Right.

When she was done with Wufei, she turned her attention to Quatre.

He smiled at her. "My name's Quatre. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He offered his hand to her. That's Quatre. Always pleasant and

polite, never mind the fact that we were in the ever so slightly

odoriferous basement of the

bondage and leather hut and shut in a tiny room with someone

that...well, I wasn't quite sure what the hell Carmen was.

Strangely enough, Carmen didn't shake Quatre's hand. She only

stared at him, her mouth compressed into a thin line as if he'd

just tried to hand her a dead rat and she was too polite to say

anything about it. After a moment, he gave up and tucked his hand

back into his pocket, his smile becoming faintly puzzled.

"Now that the intros are done, would you like to tell us WHY we're

here?" I asked. I wasn't exactly the most polite person on earth,

but I wasn't normally not rude, either. Right then, my nerves were

understandably getting a little frayed.

She glanced at us, then back at the sagging bed. "Wouldn't you

like to sit?"

In perfect unison, we shook our heads. "We're fine."

Carmen shrugged and sat. The bed made some interesting squealing

sounds and sagged a little more. "You're here because my coven was

given a message through one of Iour/I anonymous contacts that

we were to keep an eye out for you and help you."

"Coven?" I raised my eyebrows.

Carmen looked surprised. It wasn't necessarily good, though,

because that meant that I knew less than she was assuming I knew.

And I'd just informed her of it. Go me. Give the woman you don't

know the advantage. She crossed her legs and the bathrobe rode up,

exposing a generous amount of thigh. A real generous amount. "A

coven is a group of witches." The robe slipped even more. She

definitely wasn't wearing underwear.

I suddenly developed a whole new interest in the molded out paint

of the wall just to the left of her ear. "Witches. I see now. It

all makes perfect sense." I wondered if there was solidified

sarcasm dripping on the floor yet.

"You really don't know anything, do you."

I sighed, going beyond the point of exasperation. I was suddenly

just very tired. "Look, I just found out last week that vampires

exist. Be nice." Yeah, I actually said 'be nice' to a woman that

would belong on the list of people that my mommy warned me about.

Or would have warned me about if she'd lived that long. Whatever.

I didn't think it was possible, but she managed to look more

surprised. "But I thought..." she gave me a sharp glance. "You

didn't shake hands right, though..." Her voice trailed off on a

bemused note.

My hand was still tingling. "What the hell did you do?"

"I read your aura." She shrugged, like she'd just said that she

baked a cake or something. No, no, nothing weird happening here.

Just another day at the shop. Sure thing. "You have one of the

strongest auras I've ever seen. Normally, only people that

practice the Art have that sort of feel to them."

I had to ask. "The Art of what?"

"Magic of course."

Yeah. Magic. Of course. It all made perfect sense now. NOT.

My internal comment must have been pretty obvious, because Carmen

coughed politely. "Magic does exist, you know. You should know,

actually. You have more than your fair share."

"Sure." Whatever. I didn't feel like arguing. A real first for me.

Carmen wisely let the subject drop. "I'll begin at the beginning,

then. I am a member of the local coven of witches. The woman that

brought you down, Hara, is also a member of the coven." There was

a kind of odd note in her voice. It sounded like...jealousy?

"She's higher rank than you, isn't she." I glanced up. It made

sense. Call it a hunch.

"Yes." Carmen's eyes widened. "I'm fairly new to this area, and

I'm not terribly powerful. Hara is one of the high witches. High

witches are like the ruling council." She explained.

I had to admit, while this sounded like something out of a role-

playing game, it was kind of interesting if you could suspend your

disbelief long enough. Considering the events of the last few days,

I didn't have a lot of disbelief left to suspend.

"What do you do?" Quatre asked. I glanced at him, and he twitched

on shoulder. I guess I wasn't the only one that was finding the

little lesson interesting.

"We do a lot of things, Quatre." a small, dangerous smile quirked

Carmen's lips, and she ran two of her fingernails up her thigh.

They glittered in the stark light. "We have to keep our power base

stable and protected, and we need to repel any outside encroachers,

like the vampires that you seem to be having problems with. That

is probably why we were contacted. We have a common enemy." Her

hand moved off of her thigh and she absently picked at a loose

thread that was hanging off of one of her sleeves. "For the most

part, covens are simply interested in staying hidden."

"Why?" I asked.

"Do you have any idea what the general public would do if they

knew witches were real? Look how well you're taking it."

She did have a point.

Carmen smirked. It wasn't an expression that I liked. "If you keep

playing, Duo, you're going to find that there is quite a lot

that's kept hidden from the population in general."

The superior attitude thing just pissed me off. "If I'm lucky, I

can kill the vampires and go back to being blissfully unaware." I

said.

She actually laughed at me. "I don't think you'll be able to. Once

you're in the field, everyone's going to want to try you

out...especially considering that interesting aura of yours." It

suddenly struck me how small the room was. Great. Claustrophobia,

too.

I shrugged a nonchalantly as I could. "Yeah, we'll see. Until then,

can we just cut to the chase? Dinner's coming and I'm hungry." A

lie. I didn't think I'd feel like eating when I got back to the

school. I had way too much on my plate already.

"I have a client coming anyway." Carmen shrugged, the movement

oddly fluid. "You will need my help to find the vampires."

I nodded, deciding that she didn't need to know that I'd already

found a couple on my own. I doubted I'd be that lucky again anyway.

"Probably. We were given an idea of how to kill them, but we don't

know how to look for them."

"Hunt them during the day. You just have to find their resting

place."

"Somehow, I don't think they're going to have a little neon sign

that says 'resting place here.'" I said.

"Correct." Carmen hesitated, tapping her chin with one long,

obviously fake fingernail. Hers were bright, metallic blue. "I can

try to locate them for you, if you can bring me something that

belongs to one of their victims." She saw my confused look. "The

vampires would have drank the person's

blood...so a small part of that person remains inside them. I can

try to locate that, if I have an object I can take an impression

from. Actual blood would work best, but I doubt you'd have access

to any. I'd rather not try unless it's necessary, though. It takes

a great deal of energy, and could attract the attention of the

master vampire." She looked a little nervous, which was odd.

"Whoa, slow down. Master vampires?"

Carmen sighed. "Just like there are greater and lesser witches,

there are greater and lesser vampires. Master vampires control the

lesser ones, to a certain degree. Masters are very powerful. The

only reason vampires would even hunt together is because there is

a Master forcing them to cooperate."

"Great." I wanted to moan or bang my head against the wall. So we

were dealing with five normal vampires, plus the other EXTRA one

that I had hoped I was imagining. Shit. Not my week. "We need to

find these things, Carmen. They're eating high school kids. It's

bad publicity, and if someone figures out that vampires exist,

they might start wondering about the other stuff."

Carmen paled a little. Ah, a palpable hit. I am so good.

"So come on...you help us, we'll kill them and then that's one

less worry you have."

"I can't." She shook her head and looked at me, wide-eyed. "I said

that maybe I could...but...I'm low in the coven. I can't pull that

much power without permission."

I sighed. "Then get permission. This is important. You don't want

anyone to find out about you witches, right? It's in your best

interest." I gave her my best charming grin.

It must have been my sincere, boyish charm that wowed her. Yeah,

me and Christopher Robin. "I'll do what I can. It's going to take

a couple days, though. I can talk to Hara right away, but it'll

take time to contact the rest of the high ones."

"Fine. If that's as good as it gets, I'm not going to push it."

Carmen hesitated, and actually started nibbling on the end of her

fingernail. I had the insane urge to tell her not to--that nail

polish of hers was probably radioactive if you went by color. Not

a good thing to ingest. "There's something else you can try, while

I'm trying to get permission."

"What's that?"

"Contact the Master of the City."

"The what?" I could feel another lesson coming on. My brain

protested loudly that it was already too full. I told it to shut

up.

"The Master of Tokyo." Carmen kept nibbling at her fingernail. It

was starting to get on my nerves. "Most vampires are set up like

my coven is...they try to keep to themselves and out of the public

eye. They aren't going to like a bunch of rogues moving in and

killing, because it will definitely attract attention to them. We

don't deal with the vampires often, so I don't know who the Master

is, or where you can find him...but he's the Master that rules all

of the vampires in Tokyo. We're in his territory."

Yippee. More vampires. But no. These were good guys. Right. "No

idea where he is. No clues to find him. That isn't real helpful."

"If you want to meet him, he'll find out, and if he wants to see

you, he'll find you himself." Carmen shrugged. "I'm just saying

that he might be able to help you."

"Alright, I'm going to make a concrete rule, right here." I said,

images of corpses with their throats torn out dancing in my head.

"Normally, I hate to generalize, but this is an exception.

Vampires are monsters. I'm not going to deal with them." I felt a

smile creep onto my lips, one that felt a lot like my special

Deathscythe-piloting grin. "I'm going to kill them."

"Have it your way." There was something very final in Carmen's

words. "I'll talk to the high witches."

"You do that." I pushed away from the wall and dug through my

pockets until I found an old receipt. Why the hell had I paid so

much for a damn bowl of ramen? I must have been pretty flippin'

hungry. Whatever. I found a pen in my other pocket and wrote down

the phone number for our emergency landline. Heero's a useful

little guy to have around. "When you hear something back, call

me."

She took the paper and nodded, tucking the slip away...somewhere.

"I'll do my best."

"Thanks." I turned to leave. Quatre and Wufei were already half

out the door. Perfect exit. The effect got kind of ruined, however,

when Carmen grabbed my arm and I yelped. I really hate getting

startled.

Carmen let go of my arm as quickly as she'd grabbed it, shaking

her hand like she'd just gotten burned. "You say you have no

magic." Her voice was a little amused.

"Someone told me I have an affinity for the dead. I can go for

that. " I shrugged. "But not magic. That's too weird."

Carmen's eyes widened, the narrowed. "It's more than that, Duo."

She stood and leaned forward until her lips were nearly touching

my ear. It reminded me uncomfortably of Victoria the Vampire.

"Stop denying what you are, or something bad will happen to you."

It wasn't a threat. At least I didn't think it was. Carmen laughed

very softly, and kissed my ear.

I took a very deliberate step away from her, and then another and

another before I turned and walked quickly out of the tiny room,

shutting the door firmly behind me. I wasn't running away.

Really, I wasn't.

centerb* * */b/center

After our little encounter with Carmen, we went back to the dorms

with all possible speed. I guess we were just eager to get back to

a place where things made sense. It was pretty sad when you want

to be in your dorm room because it was better than the alternative.

The alternative had been pretty nasty. It was dark by the time we

emerged from the basement of Carmelita's. I'd thought it was

creepy in the daytime; at night, it was flat out scary. There were

all sorts of interesting people gathered up on the main floor,

most of them wearing long coats and hats with the brims pulled low

to cover their eyes. When we pushed our way through that crowd, a

few of them pressed in a little too close for comfort. At first,

we all tried to ignore them. Then, some enterprising little soul

grabbed Wufei's butt. I'd never heard Wufei make a sound quite

like that before.

I'd also never heard anyone make sounds quite like what that guy

made when Wufei snap kicked him in the crotch, then applied a

swift knife hand to the side of his neck.

Hara showed up right after that and cleared a path so she could

throw us out of the shop. It came as something of a relief. Hey,

but what other fifteen year old could say he's been kicked out of

an S&M shop by a witch?

As I watched Hara's barely-clad derriere retreat back into the

shop, I couldn't help but hope that Carmen was kidding about her

being a high witch. It didn't seem right, somehow. Not that Carmen

really fit my idea of a witch, either.

Wufei was understandably kind of upset once we'd gotten back to

the dorms, though he'd managed to maintain an even strain until

then. Quatre went right to his room; I think he wanted to think

about things. That left me to soothe Wufei's extremely ruffled --

er -- tail feathers, and as much as I like Wufei, that still

wasn't exactly quite my idea of a good time. It took nearly two

hours to get him calmed down enough for a coherent conversation,

and after that, it took still more work to get him unwound enough

for bed. I guess it was the first time that he'd ever gotten

grabbed like that.

By the time I had Wufei safely tucked in and crept my tired way

back to my room, it was well after midnight and I was pretty damn

tired. I couldn't even go back to my room through the hall; I knew

that there were teachers patrolling, so I had to go back by way of

the window. That ledge might have been a piece of cake in full

light when I was fresh from bed, but it wasn't nearly as much fun

in the dark when I was so tired that I was seeing cross-eyed. Not

to say that it wasn't easy. It just wasn't any fun.

Heero was back. The room was illuminated with the gentle, blue-

tinted glow of the evil machine's screen. The light from the

laptop softened the angles of his face until, for a moment, he

didn't look like a soldier any more. He looked like just another

guy my age, and he was absolutely beautiful. I sat on the window

ledge for a long moment and looked at him. Then I started

shivering. I really didn't think that any view was worth freezing

my ass off out on the ledge, so I opened the window and went

inside.

The laptop screen went abruptly blank and Heero looked up. "You're

back late." he remarked.

I hopped through the window and shut it behind me. Damn, I was

freezing. I grabbed the blanket off of my bed and tried to play it

nonchalant. "Yeah, had to get Wufei tucked in." My shoulder rig

wouldn't settle comfortably under the blanket, so I took it off

and dumped it under my bed.

"Really." Heero shot me an intense, unreadable look.

"It's been an interesting night." Poke, poke, poke. I settled down

on my bed.

Heero glared at me. "It must have been. You smell bad."

"Jerk." I took a cautious sniff. I did, indeed, smell of eau d'

Carmelita's. Ugh. And I was getting the smell all over my nice

clean blanket. Double ugh. "Look at that. You're right for once."

Not exactly the snappiest come back I've ever said, but it was the

best I could think of at the time. I stood and ditched the blanket,

then trundled over to the bathroom. "I'm taking a shower."

"Good."

I sneered at Heero before slamming the bathroom door behind me.

The effect was, of course, lost in the darkness; that was a shame,

because it was one of the best sneers I'd ever done.

centerb* * */b/center

Some days I wondered if it was possible to die from chronic sleep

deprivation. This was one of those days. I'd gotten about three

hours of bad sleep, mostly because I was busy brooding over what

Carmen could have meant by telling me I'd be sorry. If she'd meant

to make me feel paranoid, it certainly had the desired effect.

By the time it hit morning, I was too tired to be high strung.

Normally, getting shorted on sleep wouldn't bother me in the

slightest, but lately I'd been feeling drained. Multiple injuries

did that to a guy. I'd had a hard time finding my way to the

cafeteria, since my eyes were glued shut. When I went through the

breakfast line, I grabbed a tray and piled on as many cups of

coffee as it could hold and stumbled off to my regular table. By

now, the kids in charge of the line knew better than to try to

stop me.

"Morning, Duo!" Quatre sang out. He knew better than to call any

morning 'good' around me. Quatre was, obviously, a morning person.

Sometimes I wondered how the hell we managed to be friends. If he

were anyone else, I would have killed him a long time ago.

I grunted as he set his tray down and took the seat across from me,

still smiling cheerfully. He'd obviously recovered from the

disturbance that our adventure at Carmelita's had caused. Either

that, or he was feeling good because Trowa had made it back in one

piece, again. I was betting on number two.

Quatre started to tear into the plethora of food that was laid out

on his tray. I did my best not to watch. There was something about

eating food in the morning - it was just wrong. Most, days, I was

lucky if I could manage to choke down toast. So I drank my coffee

and did my best to not see Quatre oinking down an entire plateful

of slightly runny, bright yellow school cafeteria scrambled eggs.

If that old saying was true, and you are what you eat, Quatre

would be a full-blown supermarket with extra large tea isle and

dairy section.

After finishing off my second cup of coffee, I felt human enough

to attempt coherent speech. "You're in an unusually good mood this

morning, Quatre." I said. My voice was gravelly in my ears.

He paused mid-bite and smiled brightly at me. The eggs were

quivering in a rather gelatinous fashion on his upraised fork. I

looked away. "Am I?" He asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah." I nodded and took a slurp of my third cup of coffee. Three

sugars and four creams. It was like drinking melted espresso ice

cream. Yum. Wufei wandered into the cafeteria, looking about as

awake as I felt. I waved at him, and he headed over. Unlike Heero

and Trowa, we didn't have early classes, so we normally ate

together. Well, to put it more accurately, Quatre ate and Wufei

and I watched him. Wufei seemed to share my aversion to even the

thought of food in the morning. He usually just had some tea, or

if he was feeling unusually hungry or awake, a little bowl of rice.

It must have been one of those unusual days, because he went

through the food line and got himself a tiny bowl of rice and a

very large mug of tea. He curled a lip eloquently at the plateful

of eggs that Quatre was halfway through demolishing.

Quatre paused again. "Actually, I think you're right. I am in a

good mood."

I almost choked on my coffee. Wufei made a quiet snorting sound

and succeeded in blowing bubbles in his tea.

"Trowa was in our room when we got back." He smiled and started

eating again.

I recovered before Wufei, hope for Quatre suddenly flaring in my

heart. "And?"

He paused. "And what?"

"And what happened?" I felt like crawling over the table and

shaking the answer out of him. I used to I wonder if Quatre really

was as innocent as he acted, or if it was just an act designed to

drive me absolutely bonkers. I figured it out pretty quickly. No

one could be that innocent.

"Oh, he said that he missed me." Quatre grinned.

I almost dropped my coffee cup. Just almost, though. I'd never let

coffee go to waste like that. "That's it?"

"It's an improvement." Quatre pointed out, raising one of his

eyebrows.

"True." I nodded.

Quatre went back to eating his breakfast, I went back to drinking

my coffee. Wufei, who had remained wisely silent throughout the

entire exchange, just shook his head slowly and kept picking at

his rice.

***

It took me five cups of coffee before I was feeling human, and it

was a vague, shaky sort of human at that. I was awake enough to

make myself presentable for class, which was to say that my shirt

was tucked in most of the way and my tie was laying almost flat in

the general area that it was supposed to be in. I hadn't bothered

with the gun, even though I was pretty sure that I could have

hidden the shoulder rig under my uniform jacket without it making

too obvious a lump. I wasn't quite that paranoid yet.

Class was just about ready to start when I got there, though I

wasn't the last one to get in. A girl wandered in after me. She

was wearing a white turtleneck shirt under her regular button

shirt, which I could understand, considering that it was chilly

and some thoughtful soul had left all the classroom's windows open.

I kind of wished that I had a turtleneck myself.

The teacher came in and we'd all just about settled down to an oh-

so-fascinating discussion about differential equations when there

was a polite knock on the door. Lo and behold, one of the school

guidance counselors, a mousy little man that whose name I couldn't

even remember, was standing there when one of the other students

opened the door.

I instantly had a bad feeling. According to my experience, the

guidance counselors tended to keep to themselves. My theory was

that they didn't like reality encroaching in on their little world,

where kids have conflict resolution sessions instead of fights.

Not that I didn't trust counselors or anything.

My worst fears were immediately confirmed when the little mousy

guy said, "We need to see Duo Maxwell, please."

This could only be about one thing. I'd thought that the

counselors had given up yesterday after I bailed out of my room.

I'd underestimated them, my bad. I glanced at the window. The

classroom was on the first story. It would be easy. Unfortunately,

I was seated far enough away from the window that I didn't have a

clear escape route. Damn the calculus teacher and his obsession

with alphabetical seating anyway.

I could make a break for it, probably get caught and hauled off,

or I could willingly go with them into the jaws of hell.

Gee, tough choice there.

I slid out of my seat and skittered toward the window, keeping as

low as possible. As I combat scooted my way past Heero, he gave me

a look that said he thought I was being very stupid in no

uncertain terms. I ignored him. The window went up easily, and I

had one leg over the sill-

"Maxwell get away from the window and come to the front of the

classroom, please."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck...