Acherontia Atropos Part 12
I was standing in Yan's cemetery again, underneath one of the
statues; this one was of an angel. The angel was looking a little
worse for wear; the wings were broken and one of its hands had
been severed. It still reached out its good hand in a gesture of
supplication, though, and the carved face was serene, still and
unchanging. It couldn't feel pain; why should it care if one of
its hands was missing? There was rusted barbed wire wrapped around
it, I guess to hold it together. The rust had run and stained the
stone beneath it dully. It looked like blood in the moonlight.
Someone was laughing, giggling quietly in a high pitched, child-
like manner. I looked up, and saw Trowa and Quatre, sitting on the
shoulders of the angel. They were both smiling. Wufei lay at the
statue's feet, curled up in a ball like a faithful dog...or
someone that was very frightened and withdrawn from reality. His
shoulders trembled.
The earth beneath my feet shifted, and I fell to my knees. Dew
that had collected in the grass soaked my pants legs, and I was
suddenly very cold. The ground shifted more, sliding around like
something was moving under it, then began to flow outward, like
water. A hand shot up from the grave.
I stared in horrified fascination as the person struggled from the
grave until the were half out of it. The boy turned toward me, and
I let out a soft, whimper. He had bright red-orange hair, but his
face was Heero's, and he stared at me with flat, dead, cerulean
blue eyes. Heero was panting for breath as if he had just finished
a long race, and his eyes filled with need.
My hand stung. I looked down, and blood welled up from between my
fingers. Slowly, I held my hand out toward Heero. It was right. He
was mine.
Mine.
"Drink, Heero. Take the offering and walk again." A large, fat
drop of blood fell from my hand and hit the grass. Energy danced
along my skin, seeking a home. Heero grabbed my wrist and sucked
the blood from my fingers, tugging at the power deep inside of me.
Darkness washed over his hair, changing it to crimson, then black,
and I smiled softly, my eyes fluttering shut...
"DUO!"
Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and my eyes flew open. I let out
a loud, very high pitched yelp, flailing wildly. I was hopelessly
tangled in the sheets. Immediately, Wufei let me go and backed off,
rubbing his ear with one hand and directing a grimace at me.
When I freed myself, I sat up, carefully pulling the sheets up
over my lap. God, that had been weird. Especially taking in to
account the way it was effecting me... I managed not to blush
through sheer force of will, and I looked Wufei in the eye. Either
he hadn't seen anything or he was being tactful. Considering that
Wufei was normally about as subtle and tactful as a rhinoceros
horn up the backside, I was going to vote for option one and hope
I was right. "What?" I said, somehow managing to keep my confusion
out of my voice. Point for me.
"You were moaning in your sleep." Wufei said. "Bad dream?"
I shifted uncomfortably and cleared my throat. "You could say
that," I murmured. Hey, Heero crawling out of a grave certainly
qualified as nightmare material! I'd just forget about the rest of
it. I glanced at the window, deciding that a change of subject was
in order. Dull light was slowly trickling in through a crack in
the curtains. It was still pretty early, then. "What time is it?"
I asked.
"About 7:30 in the morning," Wufei said.
I nodded. That felt about right, according to my (faulty) internal
clock. "Have the guys come back yet?"
Wufei shook his head. "Not that I know of. I haven't heard them
come in."
"Were you awake the whole time?" Great, now came the guilt.
He shook his head again, smirking slightly. "I slept. I simply
remained alert for any activity occurring outside the room. No one
has come in or gone out, as far as I could hear." He rubbed his
ear and shot me a nasty look. "Though I can't say how much I'll be
hearing, now. Someone could probably march a Gundam down the hall
and I wouldn't hear."
"That's what you get for startling me," I said, and stuck my
tongue out at him. "Excuse me if I've been feeling a little more
high strung than normal, lately."
Wufei shrugged, and I shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, Wu-man, mind if
I use your bathroom?"
He shook his head. "Go ahead."
I looked at him. He looked at me. Neither of us moved, and he
raised an eyebrow. I reeeeeally wanted to blush. "Would you mind
doing me a huge favor?"
"What?"
"Would you mind grabbing me some fresh clothes out of my room so I
don't have to streak across the hall in a towel?"
For a long moment, I thought he was going to argue. His eyebrow
cranked up to nearly his hairline, and he gave me an extremely
hard, skeptical look. I smiled winsomely. That's me. Duo the lost,
cute little waif. "Fine," he said. Go me. I'm so cute that not
even Wufei can resist my charms. Right.
As soon as Wufei had left the room and the door shut behind him,
the blush I'd been holding in for the last few minutes suddenly
manifested. My face felt like it was on fire, but then again, I
was feeling a bit warm all over. I scrambled out from the tangle
of sheets on the bed and hurried to the bathroom, shutting and
locking the door behind me. I needed a cold shower. Yeah, that was
it. The cure for all ills, even weird ass dreams.
As soon as the freezing water hit me, I yelped and forgot how off
balance I was feeling.
Almost immediately, someone pounded on the bathroom door. I cursed
and turned the shower off. "What the hell is it?" I yelled as I
clawed my soaking hair out of my eyes with one hand and felt along
the wall, attempting to figure out where the towel rack was with
the other.
"Duo, get out here now! We have a problem!"
I paused for a moment. Wufei sounded really upset. Shit. Something
bad was going down. I managed to find a towel to wrap around my
waist. There wasn't an extra one for my hair, so I'd just have to
drip on the floor. It was Wufei's problem to deal with,
considering that he was the one hauling me out of the bathroom.
After slipping on the tiled floor of the bathroom and almost
cracking my head on the edge of the sink (only a desperate grab at
the towel rack saved me) I managed to get the door open and
stumble out into the safer, carpeted portion of the room. "What?"
I demanded crankily.
Wordlessly, he handed me something. "Huh?" I looked down at the
little object. It took a minute for what the thing was to sink in.
"Oh God!" I dropped it on the floor and covered my mouth with my
hands.
It was hair--three locks of hair, black, light brown, and blonde,
tied together in a little bundle with a ribbon that used to be
white. Used to be. It had rusty red stains all over it. Dried
blood. The bits of hair were splattered liberally too; they were
stiff, and the only reason I could tell the blonde hair was in
fact blonde was that the ends of the lock were still relatively
clean. "Oh God..." I said again, stumbling back until I hit the
wall. I leaned against it.
Wufei crouched and picked up the hair, a look of revulsion on his
face. "This was pinned to the inside of your room's door with
Quatre's butterfly."
"Oh shit." I laughed, and it had a very frightening edge to it.
"Can't they leave a NORMAL calling card? How about a note that
says 'Yo, I have your buddies, play nice or they'll be wearing
cement overshoes.' or something like that!" I trailed off into a
giggle. It had to be the vampires. There was no one else it could
be, and they had the guys now. I'd told Heero I wouldn't go with
him. I cut down their fighting strength. Oh shit. I slid down the
wall and put my face in my hands. The towel rode up a great deal,
but I didn't care. Quatre and Heero and Trowa might be dead, and
it was my fault. All my fault...
"Stop that!" Wufei growled and grabbed me by the arms, hauling me
to my feet. He slammed me roughly against the wall. "What the hell
are you doing?" he hissed. "The others have been captured and you
have a mental breakdown? Are you really that WEAK?"
He slammed me against the wall again. Wufei's face was only inches
from mine. I couldn't escape the anger in his eyes... or the fear.
If they could get three of us, including Heero, we didn't have a
chance...
Wufei slammed me against the wall once more. "Didn't you listen to
a goddamn thing I said last night, Maxwell?" he snarled.
That, more than the violence, hit me like a slap in the face.
Wufei had been calling me by my first name for over a year, since
we became friends. And now, we were back to being strangers. What
he'd said last night...
For one long instant, everything inside me froze, every emotion
that I'd been directing at myself. Then it exploded. Suddenly, I
was angry, angrier than I'd ever been in my entire life. They were
playing with me again, trying to break me so that I couldn't be a
threat to them. They were using the others to mess with my mind.
Hot rage flooded through me like molten metal. I grabbed the
collar of Wufei's shirt roughly and pulled him close with sudden,
manic strength, until our foreheads touched. His eyes widened as
he looked into mine.
"I," I said very carefully, "Am going to fucking KILL them." I was
breathing heavily, and my arms were so tense that I shook.
Suddenly, Wufei smiled. "No." he said. "WE are going to fucking
kill them."
***
It was a unique sensation; I was so hot with anger inside that I
had transcended rage. All that was left was a malevolent, deadly
calm. All it took was one look at Wufei to see that he felt
exactly the same way, and I knew for a fact that it was just as
unusual for him as it was for me.
The vampires hadn't just invaded our lives and turned our worlds
upside-down. They hadn't just screwed with my head until I was
reduced to a pathetic, scared little wreck. Now they had struck at
the very foundation of our lives; the other pilots, the only
people the Wufei and I had that we would trust, or count on, or
love.
More than friends. More than families. More even than our
reflections in a mirror.
They were OURS. This happening in war was one thing, but this
wasn't war to the monsters. This was a game. Play with the funny
little humans. Step on their anthill and watch them scramble. Poke
them with a sharp stick.
I was going to rip Cheree's head off and force feed it to her.
That was just to start.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was down the hall and into
my room. There was a blood stain on the back of the door, and a
crack in the word where the knife had been stuck. I ignored it.
Instead, I pulled on my clothes, grabbed my shoulder rig, wiggled
into it, and shoved the rowning
into its holster after I got the safety back on. The black
windbreaker went on next, I shoved some extra ammo in the pockets,
and I was good to go. The guys had taken the other guns, so I
didn't have a backup weapon. After a fast stop to use the phone, I
walked quickly back to Wufei's room.
"Do you have a gun?" was all I asked.
Wufei shook his head. "No. I prefer other weapons." He pulled the
mattress off of his bed. I let off a low whistle. It looked like
he was keeping an entire damn cutlery catalog's inventory under
his mattress. And I'm not talking about the friendly fork and
spoon kind of cutlery, either. "Go grab the coat out of my
closet," he said.
I did as I was told like a good little boy. There was only one
coat in his closet. It was a grey trench that I'd never seen him
wear before. I grabbed it off the hanger and took it over to Wufei.
He was pushing down his pants legs--he'd just gotten done putting
ankle sheathes on for knives. Wordlessly, I handed him the coat.
"Do you want a couple?" he asked, jerking his head toward the
still large selection. Then he grabbed a knife that looked more
like a really short sword and tucked it down his back. The coat
went over it, and he looked like little, innocent Wufei again, not
the walking one-man knife show. Little innocent Wufei after he
joined the mafia, that is. I snorted and grabbed a knife to tuck
up my sleeve. You never can be too careful these days.
"Where's the hair?" I asked. Wufei handed it to me, and I tucked
it into another of the convenient pockets in my windbreaker. I had
to resist the urge to wipe my hand on my pants afterwards. The
thing felt very strange in a not nice sort of way. "Ok, Wu-man,
ready to go?"
He nodded. "I assume that you have a destination in mind."
I grinned. "But of course."
Half an hour later, we were standing out in front of Carmelita's.
Wufei looked less than thrilled. I felt about the same. I was
still too pissed to care, though. The wave of anger that was still
burning me took me through the doors and up to the front desk.
Hara was there, waiting for us in her usual state of undress.
Fancy that. I grinned my best, most pleasant company smile for her,
then cut right to the chase. "Where's Carmen?"
"Carmen's getting ready to entertain a client." Hara crossed her
arms, her eyes quickly taking in the store around us, to make sure
there was no one there to overhear us. There wasn't. Maybe no one
felt like buying porn so early on a lovely Sunday morning. Imagine
that. She glared at me. "Carmen told me what you wanted her to do.
I refuse to allow it."
I never stopped grinning. "Why?"
"We can't afford to antagonize the vampires."
"Bullshit. They're messing in your territory, too."
She shook her head. "No way in hell."
I shook my head right back at her. "That's not the way it works,
Hara. Either Carmen is going to do this for us, or you will.
Either way, someone is going to tell me where I can find those
assholes before I leave this store. I'd prefer it was Carmen
instead of you, because I like her better, but you'll do just as
well." It struck me that it might not be a good idea to piss off
one of the local witches. Then it struck me that I really didn't
give a shit. I'd probably get myself killed tonight, anyway.
"No," she said again. "Get out."
Wufei cleared his throat. "You might want to reconsider," he said,
very calmly. It stuck me as kind of funny. Normally I'm the good
cop.
I leaned toward her, over the counter. "That's not one of the
options, Hara. Look, the line's in the sand now, you're going to
have to pick your side. Either your going to help me find the
vampires so I can kill them, or you're going to be my enemy." My
grin broadened. "And trust me, you don't want to be my enemy. All
the vampires can do is screw with you, then kill you. I can do
worse." I hadn't thought of it before I said it, but yeah, I
guessed I could. If I could just figure out how I'd managed to
call Yan to me last night, I could do a LOT worse.
She stared at me, and for one moment, her eyes went completely
white. Something almost like a physical blow hit me, and it was
all I could do not to take a step back. My entire body started
tingling with that pins and needles feeling.
I gritted my teeth. "What was that?" I demanded. "Are we going to
get into a pissing contest now?" My eyes narrowed, and I fumbled
around internally for the power that I had felt last night, hell,
every night for almost a year. It was sleepy and protested when I
nudged it; the sun was out and it didn't want to play. But I woke
it up anyway and did the only thing I knew how to do. I threw it
at Hara.
She DID take a step back. Her face was pale, and she was shaking.
Oh lord, she was trembling all over. What the hell had I done?
"Get Carmen now," I said. I hoped she would do it. I hoped that
what I'd done would be a good enough bluff for her. I was out of
mystical shit, and I was afraid that the next thing I'd have to do
was go for my gun...and I learned a while back that you don't go
for your gun unless you truly intend to kill someone. Heero still
hadn't quite figured that one out on a subconscious level. "I
don't have time for this shit. If we go into another round, I'm
going to end it."
Wufei stepped forward and touched Hara's arm, and smiling politely
at her. Damn, he's a good actor... or maybe he just didn't like
the way I was treating her. We'd hash that out later. I knew I was
in the right--she'd started it! "Get Carmen, please," was all he
said.
Hara jumped when he touched her arm, but she immediately relaxed.
She nodded stiffly, just once, her eyes still wide and round in
her face. "I'll go get her," she said. "She'll have my permission
to do the spell if she can."
Alright. Now for the easy part. I hoped.
I'd worry about how I managed to scare the piss out of a high
witch later.
If there was a later.
I was standing in Yan's cemetery again, underneath one of the
statues; this one was of an angel. The angel was looking a little
worse for wear; the wings were broken and one of its hands had
been severed. It still reached out its good hand in a gesture of
supplication, though, and the carved face was serene, still and
unchanging. It couldn't feel pain; why should it care if one of
its hands was missing? There was rusted barbed wire wrapped around
it, I guess to hold it together. The rust had run and stained the
stone beneath it dully. It looked like blood in the moonlight.
Someone was laughing, giggling quietly in a high pitched, child-
like manner. I looked up, and saw Trowa and Quatre, sitting on the
shoulders of the angel. They were both smiling. Wufei lay at the
statue's feet, curled up in a ball like a faithful dog...or
someone that was very frightened and withdrawn from reality. His
shoulders trembled.
The earth beneath my feet shifted, and I fell to my knees. Dew
that had collected in the grass soaked my pants legs, and I was
suddenly very cold. The ground shifted more, sliding around like
something was moving under it, then began to flow outward, like
water. A hand shot up from the grave.
I stared in horrified fascination as the person struggled from the
grave until the were half out of it. The boy turned toward me, and
I let out a soft, whimper. He had bright red-orange hair, but his
face was Heero's, and he stared at me with flat, dead, cerulean
blue eyes. Heero was panting for breath as if he had just finished
a long race, and his eyes filled with need.
My hand stung. I looked down, and blood welled up from between my
fingers. Slowly, I held my hand out toward Heero. It was right. He
was mine.
Mine.
"Drink, Heero. Take the offering and walk again." A large, fat
drop of blood fell from my hand and hit the grass. Energy danced
along my skin, seeking a home. Heero grabbed my wrist and sucked
the blood from my fingers, tugging at the power deep inside of me.
Darkness washed over his hair, changing it to crimson, then black,
and I smiled softly, my eyes fluttering shut...
"DUO!"
Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and my eyes flew open. I let out
a loud, very high pitched yelp, flailing wildly. I was hopelessly
tangled in the sheets. Immediately, Wufei let me go and backed off,
rubbing his ear with one hand and directing a grimace at me.
When I freed myself, I sat up, carefully pulling the sheets up
over my lap. God, that had been weird. Especially taking in to
account the way it was effecting me... I managed not to blush
through sheer force of will, and I looked Wufei in the eye. Either
he hadn't seen anything or he was being tactful. Considering that
Wufei was normally about as subtle and tactful as a rhinoceros
horn up the backside, I was going to vote for option one and hope
I was right. "What?" I said, somehow managing to keep my confusion
out of my voice. Point for me.
"You were moaning in your sleep." Wufei said. "Bad dream?"
I shifted uncomfortably and cleared my throat. "You could say
that," I murmured. Hey, Heero crawling out of a grave certainly
qualified as nightmare material! I'd just forget about the rest of
it. I glanced at the window, deciding that a change of subject was
in order. Dull light was slowly trickling in through a crack in
the curtains. It was still pretty early, then. "What time is it?"
I asked.
"About 7:30 in the morning," Wufei said.
I nodded. That felt about right, according to my (faulty) internal
clock. "Have the guys come back yet?"
Wufei shook his head. "Not that I know of. I haven't heard them
come in."
"Were you awake the whole time?" Great, now came the guilt.
He shook his head again, smirking slightly. "I slept. I simply
remained alert for any activity occurring outside the room. No one
has come in or gone out, as far as I could hear." He rubbed his
ear and shot me a nasty look. "Though I can't say how much I'll be
hearing, now. Someone could probably march a Gundam down the hall
and I wouldn't hear."
"That's what you get for startling me," I said, and stuck my
tongue out at him. "Excuse me if I've been feeling a little more
high strung than normal, lately."
Wufei shrugged, and I shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, Wu-man, mind if
I use your bathroom?"
He shook his head. "Go ahead."
I looked at him. He looked at me. Neither of us moved, and he
raised an eyebrow. I reeeeeally wanted to blush. "Would you mind
doing me a huge favor?"
"What?"
"Would you mind grabbing me some fresh clothes out of my room so I
don't have to streak across the hall in a towel?"
For a long moment, I thought he was going to argue. His eyebrow
cranked up to nearly his hairline, and he gave me an extremely
hard, skeptical look. I smiled winsomely. That's me. Duo the lost,
cute little waif. "Fine," he said. Go me. I'm so cute that not
even Wufei can resist my charms. Right.
As soon as Wufei had left the room and the door shut behind him,
the blush I'd been holding in for the last few minutes suddenly
manifested. My face felt like it was on fire, but then again, I
was feeling a bit warm all over. I scrambled out from the tangle
of sheets on the bed and hurried to the bathroom, shutting and
locking the door behind me. I needed a cold shower. Yeah, that was
it. The cure for all ills, even weird ass dreams.
As soon as the freezing water hit me, I yelped and forgot how off
balance I was feeling.
Almost immediately, someone pounded on the bathroom door. I cursed
and turned the shower off. "What the hell is it?" I yelled as I
clawed my soaking hair out of my eyes with one hand and felt along
the wall, attempting to figure out where the towel rack was with
the other.
"Duo, get out here now! We have a problem!"
I paused for a moment. Wufei sounded really upset. Shit. Something
bad was going down. I managed to find a towel to wrap around my
waist. There wasn't an extra one for my hair, so I'd just have to
drip on the floor. It was Wufei's problem to deal with,
considering that he was the one hauling me out of the bathroom.
After slipping on the tiled floor of the bathroom and almost
cracking my head on the edge of the sink (only a desperate grab at
the towel rack saved me) I managed to get the door open and
stumble out into the safer, carpeted portion of the room. "What?"
I demanded crankily.
Wordlessly, he handed me something. "Huh?" I looked down at the
little object. It took a minute for what the thing was to sink in.
"Oh God!" I dropped it on the floor and covered my mouth with my
hands.
It was hair--three locks of hair, black, light brown, and blonde,
tied together in a little bundle with a ribbon that used to be
white. Used to be. It had rusty red stains all over it. Dried
blood. The bits of hair were splattered liberally too; they were
stiff, and the only reason I could tell the blonde hair was in
fact blonde was that the ends of the lock were still relatively
clean. "Oh God..." I said again, stumbling back until I hit the
wall. I leaned against it.
Wufei crouched and picked up the hair, a look of revulsion on his
face. "This was pinned to the inside of your room's door with
Quatre's butterfly."
"Oh shit." I laughed, and it had a very frightening edge to it.
"Can't they leave a NORMAL calling card? How about a note that
says 'Yo, I have your buddies, play nice or they'll be wearing
cement overshoes.' or something like that!" I trailed off into a
giggle. It had to be the vampires. There was no one else it could
be, and they had the guys now. I'd told Heero I wouldn't go with
him. I cut down their fighting strength. Oh shit. I slid down the
wall and put my face in my hands. The towel rode up a great deal,
but I didn't care. Quatre and Heero and Trowa might be dead, and
it was my fault. All my fault...
"Stop that!" Wufei growled and grabbed me by the arms, hauling me
to my feet. He slammed me roughly against the wall. "What the hell
are you doing?" he hissed. "The others have been captured and you
have a mental breakdown? Are you really that WEAK?"
He slammed me against the wall again. Wufei's face was only inches
from mine. I couldn't escape the anger in his eyes... or the fear.
If they could get three of us, including Heero, we didn't have a
chance...
Wufei slammed me against the wall once more. "Didn't you listen to
a goddamn thing I said last night, Maxwell?" he snarled.
That, more than the violence, hit me like a slap in the face.
Wufei had been calling me by my first name for over a year, since
we became friends. And now, we were back to being strangers. What
he'd said last night...
For one long instant, everything inside me froze, every emotion
that I'd been directing at myself. Then it exploded. Suddenly, I
was angry, angrier than I'd ever been in my entire life. They were
playing with me again, trying to break me so that I couldn't be a
threat to them. They were using the others to mess with my mind.
Hot rage flooded through me like molten metal. I grabbed the
collar of Wufei's shirt roughly and pulled him close with sudden,
manic strength, until our foreheads touched. His eyes widened as
he looked into mine.
"I," I said very carefully, "Am going to fucking KILL them." I was
breathing heavily, and my arms were so tense that I shook.
Suddenly, Wufei smiled. "No." he said. "WE are going to fucking
kill them."
***
It was a unique sensation; I was so hot with anger inside that I
had transcended rage. All that was left was a malevolent, deadly
calm. All it took was one look at Wufei to see that he felt
exactly the same way, and I knew for a fact that it was just as
unusual for him as it was for me.
The vampires hadn't just invaded our lives and turned our worlds
upside-down. They hadn't just screwed with my head until I was
reduced to a pathetic, scared little wreck. Now they had struck at
the very foundation of our lives; the other pilots, the only
people the Wufei and I had that we would trust, or count on, or
love.
More than friends. More than families. More even than our
reflections in a mirror.
They were OURS. This happening in war was one thing, but this
wasn't war to the monsters. This was a game. Play with the funny
little humans. Step on their anthill and watch them scramble. Poke
them with a sharp stick.
I was going to rip Cheree's head off and force feed it to her.
That was just to start.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was down the hall and into
my room. There was a blood stain on the back of the door, and a
crack in the word where the knife had been stuck. I ignored it.
Instead, I pulled on my clothes, grabbed my shoulder rig, wiggled
into it, and shoved the rowning
into its holster after I got the safety back on. The black
windbreaker went on next, I shoved some extra ammo in the pockets,
and I was good to go. The guys had taken the other guns, so I
didn't have a backup weapon. After a fast stop to use the phone, I
walked quickly back to Wufei's room.
"Do you have a gun?" was all I asked.
Wufei shook his head. "No. I prefer other weapons." He pulled the
mattress off of his bed. I let off a low whistle. It looked like
he was keeping an entire damn cutlery catalog's inventory under
his mattress. And I'm not talking about the friendly fork and
spoon kind of cutlery, either. "Go grab the coat out of my
closet," he said.
I did as I was told like a good little boy. There was only one
coat in his closet. It was a grey trench that I'd never seen him
wear before. I grabbed it off the hanger and took it over to Wufei.
He was pushing down his pants legs--he'd just gotten done putting
ankle sheathes on for knives. Wordlessly, I handed him the coat.
"Do you want a couple?" he asked, jerking his head toward the
still large selection. Then he grabbed a knife that looked more
like a really short sword and tucked it down his back. The coat
went over it, and he looked like little, innocent Wufei again, not
the walking one-man knife show. Little innocent Wufei after he
joined the mafia, that is. I snorted and grabbed a knife to tuck
up my sleeve. You never can be too careful these days.
"Where's the hair?" I asked. Wufei handed it to me, and I tucked
it into another of the convenient pockets in my windbreaker. I had
to resist the urge to wipe my hand on my pants afterwards. The
thing felt very strange in a not nice sort of way. "Ok, Wu-man,
ready to go?"
He nodded. "I assume that you have a destination in mind."
I grinned. "But of course."
Half an hour later, we were standing out in front of Carmelita's.
Wufei looked less than thrilled. I felt about the same. I was
still too pissed to care, though. The wave of anger that was still
burning me took me through the doors and up to the front desk.
Hara was there, waiting for us in her usual state of undress.
Fancy that. I grinned my best, most pleasant company smile for her,
then cut right to the chase. "Where's Carmen?"
"Carmen's getting ready to entertain a client." Hara crossed her
arms, her eyes quickly taking in the store around us, to make sure
there was no one there to overhear us. There wasn't. Maybe no one
felt like buying porn so early on a lovely Sunday morning. Imagine
that. She glared at me. "Carmen told me what you wanted her to do.
I refuse to allow it."
I never stopped grinning. "Why?"
"We can't afford to antagonize the vampires."
"Bullshit. They're messing in your territory, too."
She shook her head. "No way in hell."
I shook my head right back at her. "That's not the way it works,
Hara. Either Carmen is going to do this for us, or you will.
Either way, someone is going to tell me where I can find those
assholes before I leave this store. I'd prefer it was Carmen
instead of you, because I like her better, but you'll do just as
well." It struck me that it might not be a good idea to piss off
one of the local witches. Then it struck me that I really didn't
give a shit. I'd probably get myself killed tonight, anyway.
"No," she said again. "Get out."
Wufei cleared his throat. "You might want to reconsider," he said,
very calmly. It stuck me as kind of funny. Normally I'm the good
cop.
I leaned toward her, over the counter. "That's not one of the
options, Hara. Look, the line's in the sand now, you're going to
have to pick your side. Either your going to help me find the
vampires so I can kill them, or you're going to be my enemy." My
grin broadened. "And trust me, you don't want to be my enemy. All
the vampires can do is screw with you, then kill you. I can do
worse." I hadn't thought of it before I said it, but yeah, I
guessed I could. If I could just figure out how I'd managed to
call Yan to me last night, I could do a LOT worse.
She stared at me, and for one moment, her eyes went completely
white. Something almost like a physical blow hit me, and it was
all I could do not to take a step back. My entire body started
tingling with that pins and needles feeling.
I gritted my teeth. "What was that?" I demanded. "Are we going to
get into a pissing contest now?" My eyes narrowed, and I fumbled
around internally for the power that I had felt last night, hell,
every night for almost a year. It was sleepy and protested when I
nudged it; the sun was out and it didn't want to play. But I woke
it up anyway and did the only thing I knew how to do. I threw it
at Hara.
She DID take a step back. Her face was pale, and she was shaking.
Oh lord, she was trembling all over. What the hell had I done?
"Get Carmen now," I said. I hoped she would do it. I hoped that
what I'd done would be a good enough bluff for her. I was out of
mystical shit, and I was afraid that the next thing I'd have to do
was go for my gun...and I learned a while back that you don't go
for your gun unless you truly intend to kill someone. Heero still
hadn't quite figured that one out on a subconscious level. "I
don't have time for this shit. If we go into another round, I'm
going to end it."
Wufei stepped forward and touched Hara's arm, and smiling politely
at her. Damn, he's a good actor... or maybe he just didn't like
the way I was treating her. We'd hash that out later. I knew I was
in the right--she'd started it! "Get Carmen, please," was all he
said.
Hara jumped when he touched her arm, but she immediately relaxed.
She nodded stiffly, just once, her eyes still wide and round in
her face. "I'll go get her," she said. "She'll have my permission
to do the spell if she can."
Alright. Now for the easy part. I hoped.
I'd worry about how I managed to scare the piss out of a high
witch later.
If there was a later.
