AQUADUCT: FOUR

"Hasn't...hasn't Don been gone for an awfully long time now?" I twine my fingers nervously. This isn't really like me.
It's just that I can't forget what's out there now...that vampiress--

Leo looks up from his newspaper, yawning a little. "Yeah, you're right...Raph, you wanna come look for him?"

Suprisingly, Raph jumps up from the couch right away. Either he's just restless, or he's contemplating the same possibilities that I am contemplating.
"Let's get our gear," Raph ushers us out of the livingroom.

Master Splinter has already turned in for the night. We leave him a note on the kitchen table, just in case.
As we pick out weapons, we discover, glancing solemnly at each other, that we seem to have loaded ourselves with a lot more pointy weapons than usual...
I leave my chuks behind in favour of a pair of sais, and not too much to our surprise, Leo does the same.

"Heh, got a stake, Van Helsing?" I laugh nervously.

No one responds to my joke. Raph has told us how she survived both his stabs. So we surely hope the old stab-in-the-heart routine isn't just a myth...
Just as we're about to exit, Leo stops us.

"Look, maybe one of us should stay behind with Splinter. She knows where we live, after all,"

"Leo, we need as many people as we can get, here. She already outnumbers us, even if we're three," Raph says.

"And don't you think she'll outnumber Splinter, in that case?"

"Hey, you guys! I can stay here, okay?" I break them off.
They look at me, then nod, and head out the door. "Good luck," I say miserably, as the door slams shut.

We're walking along a rooftop, surveying the ground beneath us. We're not too far from the place Don said he'd go.
Luckily, me and Raph haven't fought much. We've been walking in a severe quiet, grim thoughts filling our heads; images of what we'll find. I've pictured Don, slumped over, half his neck gone in a bloody mess...
Better not think too much.

"Hey, look!" Raph half-whispers, pointing upwards to the top of a slightly taller building, "There she is!"

I direct my gaze to where he's pointing, and indeed, there she is. She's looking at a piece of paper, then folds it and places it neatly in a stack of more paper. She presses the stack to her bosom, sighing, then stuffs it in her pocket and leaps to the edge of the building, falling down deliberately. I expect her to fly. She doesn't.
Me and Raph are running, but there's no way we'll catch up with her. We clear the roof, leaping onto the other building, climbing up hastily, clinging onto bricks and ledges; leaning over the roof's edge, panting, we can see her slipping away into the shadows way down there.

"Geez, Leo, she was so close to where Don's supposed ta be, d'ya think h-- Oh, man. Oh, man..." He breathes heavily.

Raph's expression is terrified. On the building just across from this one, lies a heap with a very familiar outline.
It's Don.

"Oh, man..."

I've taken most of our weapons and dragged them into Splinter's room, and I'm sitting on the rug in front of his low bed, sais at the ready, my eyes glued to the curtain of beads dangling in front of the entrance.
It's so quiet I can hear the clock on the wall in the livingroom ticking.
Should I wake up Splinter? No, shouldn't I show 'em I can handle this myself? And he's not been feeling good lately--

"Hi!"

I stare. She's standing in the doorway, just like that, the beads rattling around her shoulders.  "Splinter! Splinter! Wake up!"
Splinter blinks, trying to focus, and then his eyes narrow in suspicion as they find the girl. He can probably sense it.

"Who are you?" He asks, his voice a little thick with sleep.

The vampiress cocks her head to one side and wrinkles her nose at the half circle of weapons in front of the bed.
"Whatcha doin', anyway?"

"Miss, who are you?" Splinter doesn't let himself get diverted.

She looks at Splinter as if noticing him for the first time. "I'm Isabel! Hi!" She beams, and lets her hands, which where tucked behind her back up until now, fall to her sides. I know I've seen that buncha papers before--

Her attention bolts back to me. "I just wanted ya ta know that I've read yer stuff, and I can't begin to tell you how wonderful I
think it is!"

Waitasecond-- I gave that to Donny! Oh, no...no, no, no...ya gotta be kidding me?
"What did you do to Donny?" I croak, clutching the sais tighter. Splinter has stepped down on the floor next to me.

Her smile becomes a little confused. "Who?"

I get up, slowly, feeling like someone is frying an icecube inside of me. "My brother. The one you took my work from," I say in a low voice, struggling to sound measured. Who the hell does she think sh--

"Oh, him!" Her confidence snaps back fully in her features, "I just took him for a lil' ride, but he wouldn't let go. I was kinda busy, so I just left his body on the top of the building,"

She left his b-- wh-- I can't believe what I'm hearing! And she says it almost...casually. Carelessly.
Like she doesn't know th-- "You-- sh-- m-- why? What did you do-- you...!" I can just barely find my voice, I'm so confused. What--

She pouts her lower lip slightly, looking at me with big, blue eyes. She tugs a little at her long, thick braid and starts to nibble and the end of it in a comically guilty fashion. Like a child. "Was that wrong?" She's honestly asking me this...oh my g--

I can't hold it back any longer. "What is with you?" I ask intently, quietly, the anger building up from inside.
Splinter puts a light hand on my shoulder. I don't look back.

She looks down, "I just wanted to finish reading it, and he was stopping me!" She's actually whining. "Don't you understand? I didn't want to play with him anymore, but he...he...!"

God, this is really getting out of hand... "You can't just throw him away like a goddamn toy!"

She doesn't comment.

Splinter speaks up. "Is he alive, miss?" Now why does he keep on calling her miss? She doesn't deserve--
I open my mouth, but suddenly Splinter's grasp on my shoulder increases more than just a couple of fractions. No, he's telling me, don't say a word. Take the cue from me, wait...we don't know enough about her yet. And she can lead us to Donatello.

A careful, cuteish smile tries to form on her features, but it can't. Something preventing it, and it looks like even she doesn't know what it is. Her expression is disturbing. It twitches for a moment, then falls to rest.

"I don't know." She looks at me, "But your work is great, I just wanted you to know that. It makes me feel...like...I..."

Her sentence doesn't complete. After a few second's pause, Splinter looks at her with deliberation. "Miss, I promise that if you take us to see Donatello, you will get some more to read from us. Isn't that right, Michaelangelo?" His hand shifts a little on my shoulder.

I glower at her. "Yes. That's right."

"Okay!" Her grin is back, oh, horrible apparition...the two fangs blind me, not because they're glowing or shining, but because they occupy my mind, and blind me from within...

"Let's go!" She skips along in front of us. Donatello...he must be all right...

Oh, how neat! He's coming with me!
I'm gonna talk to him all night, and I'm gonna tell him every little detail I loved about his writings! And-- and...and...
The footsteps halt behind me. It didn't surprise me that they chose to let me walk in front.
Though, naturally, I could change that order in the blink of an eye. Do they know that?

"Why are you stopping, miss?" The elderly rat is polite. But I can hear in his voice what's to expect.
It's not as if he's a wussy, that's plain enough. He's gonna react. He's just waiting for the right moment. I'm sure he's successfully practiced the element of surprise before, but this time...heh, it's almost sad. It's obvious that he's one of the best.
It's just there, in his eyes, in the way he carries himself. But he stands no chance.
There's something there to indicate that he knows this as well as I do.

"I...oh, sorry, just...we'll move on,"

Michaelangelo...oh, Michaelangelo, what I'd do to be like you. There's an extremely faint noise from his mouth that shows he's a little puzzled. He's wondering where my bizarre perkiness went. I'm kind of wondering that myself.

"We're here," I make a small flourish for the rooftop. But all that's left is a patch of empty concrete.
My two companions walk out into the center of the roof, looking around themselves. "Where is he?" Michaelangelo demands.

I sit down on the egde of the roof, my legs dangling into thin air. "He was here."

"You're lying. You've led us away for nothing!"

"We fell down here, almost like this!" I push myself off the edge. I yell up at them as I tumble down, "And I carried him up where you're standing now..." I have to strain my voice to be heard as the wind whistles past me and the distance between us get longer. The ground sends another "Crack!" through my body. The second time tonight. What a drag. I lift my head slightly, screaming up at them. "I dunno who's got him!!"

Michaelangelo's eyes are comically wide as he regards me, lying on the sidewalk. His mouth moves with silent contemplation, and, most likely, swearing.
The rat's mouth is shut, and his brow is crinkled. I start climbing quickly up the building again. When I'm up, they have only moved away from the edge.
It seems like they know it's useless to flee.

"That's how it happened," I pause, "only it wasn't a direct drop, so he might still be alive."

"All right, miss. We believe you." The rat glances at Michaelangelo, who nods slowly, not averting his eyes from me one second. He's decided I'm a lunatic, that much's evident. What a shame.
Maybe he'd change his mind if I helped them?

"Listen," I say in a diplomatic manner, "we'll go look for him, okay? He must be around here somewhere. And we'll look for your other brothers at the same time."

There's a faint intake of breath.
Nope, doesn't seem like they knew that I was aware of that the other turtles were out stalking me, looking for their brother.
I saw them. Heh. They had stakes and everything. It's almost funny.

"Very well."

I'm walking in front of them again, at their pace. If I'd used my own speed, we'd probably already have found them by now.
I'm resisting the urge to just pick them both up and start running. But I don't think they'd appreciate that, even if it'd increase our chances of finding the turtle still alive. But I'm guessing Michaelangelo's brothers have found him already, either way.
Ah well...at least now I've got something to do on a Saturday night, eh?

"Humming," Michaelangelo mumbles numbly, "she's actually humming..."

I smile to myself.

AQUADUCT: FIVE (coming)

"Aquaduct" copyright of Lola S. Cubish '99

Lola S. Cubish's TMNT Sewer Lair
Fan Fiction
Short,Weird Things