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someone that was very frightened and withdrawn from reality.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.