Slow night. Next part follows immediately.

--
Katsu "O-ka-ne" no Miko
"Erst wenn die Wolken schlafen gehen
kann man uns am Himmel sehen
wir haben Angst und sind allein...
Gott weiss ich wil kein Engel sein..." (~Ramms+ein~)




Warning: The characters belong to who they belong to and not me. Don't sue
me, I'm not worth your time. Special thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton for
writing the Anita Blake novels.

Addtional warning: Characters acting wildly OOC. You have been warned.

Additional Additional warning: Alternate reality fic. Events that have
happened or will happen in this reality not necessarily connected to what
happened in the real series in any way. Don't wave the time line at me, I
am beyond it now. A HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Additional Additional Additional warning: Extreme supernatural action.
Supernatural abilities are as defined by me in the shadow world, where this

takes place.

Additional Additional Additional Additional Warning: Story contains Yaoi,
Bad language, violence, and pretty much everything deemed us "unwholesome"
by Focus on the Family. (My Arch Nemesis...) If you are easily offended, do
not read. Also, extra warning is attached to this due to the "YUCK!" factor
during some scenes.



Acherontia Atropos Part V



My ass was a sorry ass indeed the next morning when it got hauled out of
bed. Note that I said "got hauled" instead of "got up." I didn't have the
pleasure of waking up on my own. Heero did it for me.

I guess I should have been grateful that he'd been thoughtful enough to
wake me up so that I wouldn't oversleep and miss yet another day of class.
Instead, I was just pissed. I'd never thought that I could throw a chair
with such accuracy, especially right handed. Heero ducked, though, so he
didn't get hit. It made a nice dent in the wall.

Heero had woken me up from a nice dream that involved him, a can of whipped
cream, and a set of handcuffs. So I had a good excuse to be cranky.

School was the same old stuff as always. Boring teachers, even more boring
lectures, and yet another lab in science where the teacher's assistant
wouldn't let me have a bunsen burner. Chemistry is only interesting when
it's hands on. When you have to sit back and watch everyone else playing
with potentially lethal substances, it just sucks. You'd think that after a
couple of months, they'd start to let me participate again, but no, the
teacher's assistant was being a dork. I mean, geeze, his eyebrows had grown
back ok.

As predicted, I was cornered by a group of girls and was forced to endure
their distressed cooing over my face until Quatre, who was passing by, took
pity and rescued me. Normally, I wouldn't have objected to the attention I
was getting from the ladies. Actually, I would have basked in it. But a guy
can only take too much "poor baby"-ing before he starts losing patience
with it. Especially when the guy has as much on his mind as I had.

"Ne, Quatre, thanks." I said as soon as we were out of earshot of the
lovely ladies. I dusted my jacket off. One of the girls had been eating
potato chips, and had gotten crumbs all over me. I'm a slob, yeah, but not
that much of a slob.

"No problem." Quatre said. We walked along in companionable silence for a
few moments.

"Did you hear about the latest incident? Someone broke into our room last
night and left us some guns and ammo." It's kind of sad when weirdness
becomes so commonplace that it turns into casual conversation. The story of
our lives.

"Aa. Trowa heard from Heero, and told me."

I grinned slyly and looked at Quatre out of the corner of my eye. "How go
things with Trowa, hm?"

I was awarded with a very cute, pink blush. That's Quatre, all over. He'd
admitted to me a long time ago that he had the hots--well, let's be fair to
Quatre--MORE than the hots for Trowa. And I was all for it. The two of them
were so damn cute together. The only problem was that Trowa was being about
as affectionate and open as Heero. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but
still, it was a source of endless frustration for Quatre. He and I
sometimes got together for several hour bitch sessions (at least they were
bitch sessions on my part) over tea when either of us were feeling too
frustrated to deal with the men, or, rather, /lack/ of men in our lives.
I'd have to say next to Wufei, Quatre was my best friend. I could talk to
Quatre about things that I wouldn't talk to Wufei about, and vice versa. It
was a great arrangement.

He didn't let the blush stop him from getting me back. "About as well as
things with Heero, I imagine." You wouldn't think it to look at him, but
Quatre has quite a dry sense of humor and a quick mind to go with all that
kindness and patience. But like I said before, looks can be deceiving. He's
not just another pretty face.

"Ouch! Stung!" I clapped a hand to my forehead in a dramatic gesture, and
immediately wished I hadn't. "Damnit!"

Quatre peered at me with concerned eyes. "Daijoubu ka."

"Aa, daijoubu." I shook my head. "I'm too absent minded."

"Hai."

"You don't have to agree!" I grinned, and Quatre grinned back at me. "Is
Trowa still upset about me throwing that cup at him?"

"I don't think he was ever mad about it at all. We all know what you're
like in the morning."

"I am a real monster, ne?"

"Until you get your coffee, yes."

We passed through the school lobby. The school was a pretty nice place. The
lobby floor was actual varnished wood, a real departure from the
grey-speckled off-white tiles that were in every other school lobby I'd
ever been in. It had wood panneling, too, and the main office had actual
glass doors. Very impressive. The only school I'd ever seen that was nice
was that Relena girl's school, but considering how rich she is and all
that, it wasn't that surprising.

I scowled. Why the hell did I have to think of Relena now? God only knows,
she might show up. I pushed the thoughts away, just in case, like the
devil, thinking about Relena would draw her attention. Instead, I took a
quick survey of the lobby. My eyes fell on the pay phones. There was
something I had to do with a phone...

The little white card. I pulled it out of my pants pocket. It was looking a
little less than white now, more of a kind of dusty gray from all the lint
it had picked up in my pocket, and it was half crumpled from me sitting and
walking. I grabbed the arm of Quatre's jacket and pulled him over to the
phone.

"What are you doing?" Quatre looked at me owlishly, but he didn't bother to
resist.

I tossed the card at him. "This was with the guns."

Quatre caught the crinkled little piece of thick paper and did his best to
smooth it out until it looked fairly neat again. He turned it over and over
until the faint penciling, which had somehow miraculously survived through
several hours in my pants pocket, caught his eye. "Who's the number for?"

"No idea. I figure I should call it, though. Someone went to a lot of
trouble to get me that number." I started searching my pockets for some
change to feed the phone. No luck. Quatre, ever helpful, produced some and
gave it to me. "Thanks, man. What's the number on that card?"

He read it off to me, pausing several times so he could decipher the faint
traces of pencil. When I had it all dialed, we waited. It rang, which was a
good sign, I supposed. And rang. And rang. And rang. After about ten times,
I got ready to just hang up so I could save Quatre's change...not like he
was hurting for the money or anything, though. I just figured that I could
borrow it off of him again some other time.

On ring number eleven, there was a click, and a woman's voice came on the
phone. It was a nice voice, fairly low for a woman. A good phone voice. It
was obvious that she said that one phrase a lot, though. Her tone had been
pretty flat through all of it. "Carmelita's. Tell me what dreams you'd like
me to make true."

I�d been expecting a lot of things, but that certainly wasn't one of them.

There was a lengthy pause. "Hello?" she said, with a little more animation
in her voice.

I managed to gather up my scattered brain, took a deep breath, and launched
myself into the conversation. "Er, hi. Gomen, ojou-san, you caught me off
guard." There was silence on the other end of the phone, which could mean
that she'd hung up. Just in case she hadn't, I bravely forged on. "Uh...My
name is Duo. I was given this number to call and no one told me why, so I'm
hoping that you know."

Pause pause pause.

"Ne, ojou-san? Are you still there?"

"Yes." The woman said, with an almost normal speaking voice. "I don't know
what you're talking about--wait."

Weird sounds started coming out of the phone. I think she'd put her hand
over the mouthpiece, but I thought I could hear muffled voices. Two women.
After a moment, someone else came on the line. She sounded a lot younger
than the other woman. "Hello?"

"Yes?"

"You said your name is Duo, right?"

"Yep."

"Good. Can you meet with me tomorrow?"

"What?"

"Tomorrow, five o'clock. The store is at the corner of ninth and Bowing,
you can't miss it. I'll see you then." The phone went dead. I couldn't help
it. I did that stupid ass stare-at-the-phone-in-shock thing.

"Duo, what was that about?"

I hung up the phone. "We're supposed to meet a woman tomorrow at five." I
looked at Quatre. "Want to be my backup?"

He looked a little surprised. I don't normally ask for backup, but this was
getting past the point of strange. "Sure."

"I want to bring along one more person, too. Do you know if Trowa is free
tomorrow?"

Quatre shook his head. "He said he and Heero have a mission tomorrow."

"Damn. Do you know if Wufei will be back by then?"

"He might be." Quatre raised his eyebrows. "It's that bad?"

"Probably not, but better to be safe than sorry. If Wufei's back, we'll
take him. If not, we won't. Sounds good to me." I reached over and pulled
the white card out of Quatre's hands, then crumpled it up the rest of the
way and tossed it at a garbage can. Swoosh. Go me.

***

Ceilings have got to be just about one of the most boring things in the
world to look at. They're blank, white, unadorned, and totally
uninteresting. So why the hell was I laying in bed, staring at mine?

Easy. The answer was sitting at the desk, typing on that damn laptop. I was
really starting to hate that stupid machine.

"Ne, Heero?"

"Aa."

"I'm bored." Yes, it sounded childish, but what else could I say in that
situation? 'Heero, I lust after your body?' I think not.

He didn't even bother turning around. "Do your homework."

I curled my lip at that particular suggestion. The homework in question was
laying in piles on the floor around my bed, a nice, pretty scattering of
books and papers. I hated homework. I didn't figure that I'd need it
anyway, considering I was probably going to get killed before I saw
graduation. Besides, the homwork was all chemistry and calculus, not stuff
that I cared about...and if I don't care about the subject, it's almost
impossible for me to buckle down and do actually work on it. "Ne,
Heero...."

"No." He said, very flatly.

That annoyed me. "You didn't even know what I was going to ask!"

"You should do your homework."

I stuck my tongue out at his back. "I was going to ask for your help,
jerk."

"You're smart enough that you don't need my help. You're just being lazy."

I could have gotten a little more pissed about that comment if I'd known it
wasn't true. But really, it was. I just wanted an excuse to get Heero close
to me. Though considering how he was acting, I had no idea why. Whatever
bug had crawled up his ass lately was really starting to wear thin. "Ne,
Heero?"

"What?"

Still no emotion. For all I could hear, I wasn't even annoying him. Fine
then. The real question. "Why didn't you tell me you were going on another
mission tomorrow?"

He actually stopped typing. Will the wonders never cease. "I didn't think
it was important." He said, very quietly.

"You didn't think it was important?" I was suddenly on my feet and stalking
over to Heero, and I couldn't even remember getting up. "So you were
planning to just go off on the mission tomorrow without even telling me?" I
could hear my voice getting a little louder with each word, but at that
point, I didn't care. "Did it ever occur to you, that as your friend, I
might get a little worried???"

Heero shrugged. "Quatre would tell you. He obviously did."

"It's not the same if you hear it from someone /else!!/"

Heero shrugged again. That was it. I turned around and stalked out of the
room, slamming the door behind me.

***

So I found myself outside, taking a walk. Again. Without a jacket or a gun.
The jacket wasn't that big of a deal, since it had warmed up even more in
the last couple of days, but the gun was a real pisser. I wasn't going to
go back to the room and get it, though. No way. I might be tempted to shoot
someone, and that would waste the silver bullet.

So I shoved my hands in my pockets and slouched off along my normal walking
route, toward the trees at the edge of the woods that lined the teacher's
parking lot. I was feeling unaccountably jumpy, even taking in to
consideration the fact that I had been attacked several nights ago. It
wasn't so much a jumpy feeling as the sensation that my skin was too small.
My hands itched like they were collecting static electricity, and my head
felt fuzzy with it. I cautiously felt my bangs to see if they were standing
on end. They weren't. I had no idea what it was, but being outside, under
the night sky with the full moon was making it a hell of a lot stronger.

I'd been feeling that way all night, which was probably why I had been so
quick to jump on Heero. Not that I was sorry about getting on his case,
lord no. I was just kind of mad at myself. The way I'd been going after
him, I'd sounded more like a scorned girlfriend than an angry friend. Not
good. I didn't think Heero would notice, though. Quatre would have, and
maybe Trowa or Wufei, but Heero was way to obtuse when it came to emotions
to get it. I hoped.

A flash of light color against the dark grey tinged world caught my
attention. I wasn't the only one walking out to the trees tonight. There
was someone else, but I couldn't quite make out their face, so I sped my
pace and moved to intercept. I reached the kid pretty quickly. He was one
of the boys from my class, Yan. He was still half dressed in his school
uniform. He'd just taken off the jacket and the tie.

"Ne, Yan! Matte!" I sped up a little more so that I could catch up with
him. He didn't even pause or stop, like he hadn't heard me. He did stop,
though, when I grabbed his arm. "What are you doing out here?"

Yan blinked a couple of times, like I had just woken him up, and looked at
me with surprised eyes. "Maxwell-kun?" Yan was a nice kid, and a real
refreshing guy to get to know after having spent some time with the other
pilots, because he actually acted his age. He was pretty good looking too;
golden skin with a permanent tan, dark sloe eyes, very classic oriental
features. Hell, he and Wufei could have been distant cousins, they looked
enough alike. He had something Wufei didn't, though; he was still innocent.
Completely and totally. "Duo?" He said again. "What are you doing out
here?"

"Taking a walk. What about you?" I didn't relinquish my hold on his arm.
Something was bothering me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"I was taking a walk too?" Yan made it sound more like a question than a
statement. He waved his free hand vaguely toward the woods. "I told some
friends that I would meet them out here tonight."

The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end, and I glanced toward
the woods. There was a light shape there, shining in the moonlight. It
looked human. As I watched, it was joined by another. Something told me,
though, that they weren't human. Not by a long shot. All of a sudden, I
really, really, really wished I had my gun. I started slowly backing away,
pulling Yan with me. "Yan, those aren't your friends."

"Yes they are." He looked back at them. "I've been meeting them here for a
couple of days."

I just stopped in my tracks, doing my best to keep an eye on the
two...wait, no, there were three now...figures at the edge of the woods.
With a slightly shaking hand, I reached up and pulled down the collar of
Yan's school uniform. He had two sets of neat puncture wounds, already
starting to heal, on his neck. Without really knowing why I was checking
there, I reached down and pushed up the cuff of his right sleeve. Two more
punctures on his wrist. "Oh shit." I said, very quietly. "Yan, come on,
let's go back inside. Now. Please." I started to pull him back toward the
school again. There were four figures at the edge of the woods, now.

Yan did something totally unexpected. He glanced back toward the woods, and
then his face twisted with sudden, inexplicable fury. And then dear little
innocent Yan yanked his arm out of my grasp, kneed me in the groin *hard*,
and took off running toward the woods.