Chapter 18

Waking up with a massive headache, bright sunlight and a cell phone blaring in my ear was not the way to start off the day. But waking up next to your ex, wearing no clothes and remembering nothing of the night before was even worse. Well, that's where I am at now. Trapped under his arm, smelling of liquor and other things I will not mention. My head felt like a rock concert was going off in it and I was chained to the speaker tower.

I reached for the phone and answered it. "What?"

'Bout time you answered. I have been calling for the past hour.' Ezio.

"Tone down the volume. Sorry, I just woke up. What did you need?" What the hell did I do last night and how much did I drink?

'Hung over? You know drinking on the job is bad for us. It leads us to do really stupid things.' He chuckled on the other end.

"Yeah, no kidding. I don't think we left the room. I hope we didn't leave the room. I don't remember if we did or not." I rubbed my hand across my forehead. I had a mass headache and had nothing for it.

'I just wanted to tell you we would be there this afternoon. We are in Missouri now. Our flight takes off in a hour. Desmond is with us. I had to get him away from the nuts for a time.'

"Okay, tell him hi from me and I will see you when you get here. I am getting off here because I think I need to throw up." I felt the bile rise up in my throat.

Not waiting for a response, I pushed Altair's arm off of me and bolted into the bathroom. I grabbed the side of the toilet just in time as the contents of my stomach revolted. I hated throwing up. I hated being hung over. Who's great idea was it to drink anyway? Oh wait, that was mine. Well that was just stupid. Why did I want to do that? Damn. I can't even remember now.

"Ugh." I held onto the side of the toilet, waiting for my stomach to calm down. I would never drink again. Never in a million years. I would rather face a Templar firing squad than touch it again.

"You sound like I feel."

I turned slowly and looked at the doorway. Altair leaned heavily against the frame. "What the hell did we do last night? And for once neither of us are bleeding."

He went answer, but held up a hand and promptly threw up into the sink. I was so glad something like that did not bother me. I leaned against the wall, while he finished. Once everything came up, he rinsed the sink out and handed me a toothbrush, then prepped one for himself.

I took it without complaint and brushed my teeth. Having the taste in my mouth was enough to make me throw up again. I didn't want to do that. I hated doing that. There was nothing worse than getting sick in front of people.

"Okay,what did we do and how much did we drink?" I grabbed a t-shirt from the dresser and threw it on. I found my underwear in the nightstand drawer. He threw on a pair of boxers.

He sat slowly on the bed, holding his head and stomach. "I'm not sure, but I never want to drink like that again."

I sat next to him. Well, what's done is done. We were paying for it now. Massive headaches, sore stomachs and all around feeling of blah. I did not want to move. Hell, I was up for crawling back into the sheets and sleeping the rest of the day away. "What time is it?"

He grabbed the phone and looked at it. "Damn. It's 11:48. We really must have partied hard last night. Now, I wish I could take it back and had a peaceful night. Or at least remembered what all we did."

"I know how you feel. Maybe there are clues in this room to tell us what the hell transpired on our drunken escapade." I looked around the room. Everything was everywhere. We were not this messy. Usually our things were well organized and packed. That way if we had to run quickly, all we had to do was grab a bag and go. "Looks like we had a blast, or we fought? I just can't remember."

"Well, we had better get this mess cleaned up before they get here. I do not want to explain this." He stood, although slowly and made his way to the small table that was there.

Beer bottles, liquor bottles and the like littered the surface. Well, no wonder we were fucked up. If we drank all of that, I am surprised we are awake this early. I began to pick up the clothes and things on the floor. Feeling underneath the bed, I grabbed a bag and pulled it out. It was small and contained two ring boxes. "What in the...?"

Opening them, I sat back on my rear. They were wedding rings. Silver and gold intertwined together. They were quite beautiful, but why would they be under the bed? Did we...? "Altair, did we...?" I looked up at him. He turned and had a sick expression on his face. He held up a piece of paper, while I held up the rings.

"I think we actually did it. Oh God, we really need to stop doing this." He walked over to me and sat down on the floor next to me. "I think we had a drunk Vegas wedding, and went all out. Well hell."

I grabbed the paper from him. Sure as shit, it was a marriage certificate with our names on it. Our REAL names. Altair Ibn-La'Ahad and Alanna Isabella Dowd. "You have an ID with your real name on it?"

"Apparently. I didn't know I did, but you need one to get married. Maybe I had someone make it last night. Now they know we are here." He looked at me and I him. This was not something I wanted to explain to Ezio, Desmond, or anyone else for that matter.

I leaned on his shoulder. He rested his head atop mine. We just stared at the paper that claimed we were man and wife. I didn't know what to do. Was I happy? I don't know. I was really, really confused. We never planned to stay together like this. "So, what is our plan of attack?"

"I say we finish up this room, go get some food and decide on what to do after that. My head hurts too much to think about this right now." He lifted his head and went to move, but I laid a hand on his knee.

"Why don't we leave the mess for later? They won't be here for at least four or five more hours. I say we go get food and clothes, then clean. I want out of here, and I think you do as well." I managed a smile for him.

He, in turn, smiled back. "Sounds like a plan."

We got up, grabbed the clothes that didn't reek of alcohol or other bodily fluids, and walked towards the door. "Hey, did we have that duffel before last night?" I looked at the black bag sticking half way out from under the bed.

"Not unless you brought it with you. Mine is in a book bag." He shook his head. "And the guns are in the car."

"Then..." I grabbed the bag, and opened it. Stacks of cash were laid neatly in the bottom. Wrapped with binders from the Stardust Casino. "Either we won it, or robbed the place."

We both just stared at the money. There had to be at least a quarter of a million there. "Alanna, next time we have the great idea to drink, let's not. I say we just swear off all alcohol and be done with it. What more surprises await us in the world?"

"I don't know, but we need to know where the money came from. I think we might have won it, because it would be really hard to rob a casino. I know, I tried years ago just for shits and giggles. I think my headache is getting worse." I pushed the bag back under the bed. "Lets get out of here and deal with this later."

"You want to leave that much cash in the room?" He looked to where I just pushed it to.

Sighing, I grabbed the bag and handed it to him. "You carry it then."

He took the bag and we walked out of the room. Sunlight filtered into the hall from the windows at the end of the hallway. I pulled my sunglasses out of my purse and handed Altair his. My head was throbbing and so wished for my dark velvet curtains in my high rise condo with my nice queen sized pillow top mattress and goose feather comforter. I sighed happily at the thought of that room.

"What's got you smiling?" He asked as we approached the elevator.

"Thinking of home. I would love to be there right now. Comfy bed, dark curtains, big, flat screen television. Oh how I miss that place." I smiled at him. "You might like the decor. It's very old world. Something that would fit you."

"Have to see it sometime." He walked into the elevator when to doors opened.

We rode downstairs in silence. There was nothing really left to say. I mean, it seems we had done everything last night. Went on a drunken rampage through the streets of Vegas, won a lot of money, and got married to boot. This day was going to be strange indeed. I mean, I had no clue in what to say to him besides our current mission, or the weather.

Silently we walked through the lobby, and headed out the front door. I knew of a good place to get a bit to eat a few doors down. The nice thing about Vegas was everything was in walking distance. Food, entertainment, and the drinks, which I can not stress how much I will never touch again.

"So, what's for brunch?" Altair pushed the bag farther up onto his shoulder.

"There's a place not far from here. Breakfast all day. Good coffee too. Let's put the bag in the car. I am not carrying a load of cash around this town. That's just inviting trouble." I headed for the small gray sedan that we had. It was a loaner from someone Ezio knew up north. My car stuck out like a sore thumb. An electric blue 1965 Ford Mustang with twin white racing stripes was not something you saw everyday. If I got to Los Angeles some time this year, I could get my work truck. I had driven it down from Montana.

He popped the trunk and sat the duffel next to the gray bag that held our small arsenal of semi automatic guns and a few that were not so legal. With his license as a bounty hunter and my conceal carry, we wouldn't get into too much trouble for them. "Better?"

I nodded. "Much."

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Our meal out was not exciting. We sat, ate, and formed a game plan for the meeting to come. I had a bad feeling about it, but I was not going to say anything. I knew Sebastian. He was not the type that would talk face to face. He would send his goons to do his dirty work. I really didn't want to take out men that I had worked with. Some were good guys that had families. I did not want to harm them unless it came to that.

When we returned to our room, showered and cleaned up, I relaxed on the bed, while he sat at the table. Guns, knives and the assortment were spread out everywhere. He had broken down both of my hidden blades and his one, and was cleaning them, along with the guns we had just purchased.

"Hey, hand me that cleaner right there."

I looked up from a map of Vegas, trying to find the best place to have a meeting that would give us a tactical advantage and not have our asses walking into an ambush. "Huh?" I forgot what he asked for.

"Gun cleaner? At your feet? Hand it here." He frowned, causing the scar on his lip to stand out.

I rolled over and sat up. "You know, if you frown like that all the time, your face will get stuck like that." I threw him the can, and watched him.

"Uh huh." He caught the can with his right hand and continued his work.

Shaking my head, I was about to back to my map, when someone knocked on the door. Four eyes looked at the door. It was too early for Ezio, Desmond, and Jenna. Altair grabbed the Browning Hi-Power 9mm, handing it to me, then grabbed a Colt M1911 .45 for himself. I answered the door with the gun cocked and held behind my back.

A woman stood there, hands clasped in front of her, slightly shaking. "A...are you Alanna?" She asked looking up and down the hall.

My eyes narrowed. "Maybe, who wants to know?"

"My name is Maya. Michael is my little brother." She looked at me, blue eyes wide. "He was with you in Italy."

The young boy who we sent home shortly after landing in New York. I had Jenna book him a one way ticket back to Utah, and get him as far as she could away from us. I would not drag a kid down in this mess. "Come in here." I opened the door, ushered her in, looked down the hallway each direction, and closed the door.

She stood there, wide eyed and completely scared. "Sebastian sent me here. He has Mike."

I looked at Altair, then back to Maya. "Have a seat and start from the beginning." He pointed to the stiff hotel chair that didn't have a gun on it.

She complied and looked at us. I sat on the bed while Altair leaned against the door. "When Mike came back from Italy, he told this wild tale about a huge shootout, explosions, and the legendary Apple of Eden. I didn't believe him at first. I mean, he's been obsessed with the old legends since our father would tell him when we were little. He was an assassin, but he kept us off the Farm. Said we needed to live a normal life and not the life he knew. Well, I didn't follow the path my father did, but Mike wanted to. Even after Dad was killed.

"He was so excited and told me that he met two assassins straight out of the old legends." She hung her head. "I should have listened to him."

"Maya, what did he say?" I didn't like where this was heading. If Sebastian knew about us, this could cause too many problems. Especially since he was aligned with the Templars now.

"He told me he eavesdropped on a conversation between Jenna, our cousin, Ezio Auditore, and Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. I mean, he has to be making it up, right? Said you and they were immortal. They died hundreds of years ago. I reread the stories." She raised her head and looked at me, blue eyes pleading. "When he told me that he was going to help you again, I tried to stop him. He is only a kid. He is fifteen."

"I thought he was older, maybe eighteen. Why in the world would they send a fifteen year old boy on a job like that?" Altair stood up straight and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I would have never brought a boy that young to an extraction that large. That is asking for trouble."

Maya turned her head to look at him. "I don't know. This was his first mission. He had been training for many years and volunteered to go. I tried to stop him, believe me. When he left again, I tried to find Jenna, but her cell phone is off and there has been no uses of her credit card. I have no way to find her. So I went to the one man that sent them to Italy."

I was beginning to see the picture now. "He went to Sebastian to find us, hoping the man knew where I was. Damn it!"

"You know Sebastian?" Maya raised an eyebrow.

I sighed and stood. "Yeah, I do. I was part of his security company for years. I had just recently left his services because of a disagreement in the food chain. I did not like some of the missions he was sending us on. The security jobs were fine. Guard this person, keep that one out of trouble, but the assassin jobs were a bit peculiar. He sent four of us to extract two people from Abstergo. We were shut down before we even made it onto the lot."

"So, let me make sure I have this straight. Sebastian, the man that wants our heads, has your brother and you came to us because of a story he told that two old assassins are still alive? That right?" Altair paced the room.

"Yes. Sebastian sent me here to tell you to meet him tomorrow at the Hard Rock Hotel. That will just be to talk. He wants the two assassins, Ezio and Altair, you two, Desmond Miles, and Jenna." She sighed and closed her eyes.

"Well, it will be hard to have myself and Altair in the same room." He sat heavily on the bed. I sat a comforting hand on his leg.

Maya's eyes opened back up. "Wait! They are alive?" I nodded. "Mike was telling the truth? I can not believe this. But why would it be hard for you and him to be in the same room together?"

"Because I am him. I am Altair."

I knew he did not want anyone to know that. Too many people now knew who we were. It was only a matter of time before everyone found out and we were hunted to the ends of the Earth. No, I would not let that happen. I would kill anyone that knew before we were experiments. We had gone too long hiding what we were, and within the span of a month, more people knew about us than all through history.

"And Ezio? Is that true as well?" She looked hopeful. She wanted it all to be true.

I chuckled. "Yes. He is on his way here. With your cousin and Des." I tone turned serious. "Maya, you have to listen to me. You can not tell anyone about us. No matter what."

She smiled. The first time since she walked through the door. "Oh I promise. I don't talk to anyone inside the Guild. I am not an assassin. I am a teller at a bank in Salt Lake City. I am just doing this to get my brother out of trouble."

Great, this day was just getting better and better. Wake up with a hangover, naked and married. Won a quarter of a million dollars at a casino, don't remember any of it, and then find out Sebastian now knows who I really am. So much for the surprise ambush we were hoping for. Hopefully the others arrive soon. My head could not take any more abuse.