Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton and the Berkley Publishing Group do not authorize this author. All characters that you recognize belong to Laurell K. Hamilton except for the ones created by the people in this group. This is solely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: R just to be on the safe side

Hard Days Night

Part Three

Morning came all too early in my estimation.  Groggily I rolled until I could see the bedside clock.  My eyes shot wide, shit!  It couldn't really be that late could it?  The glaring red numbers showed the time to be 2:37pm.  Damn, damn and double damn!  I jerked upright and froze as the muscles in my shoulder began to spasm uncontrollably.

"Lilli," I half yelled hoping that she was indeed home.

The door opened and Lil's blonde head appeared through the doorway.  "Yeah?"

"I need help," I pleaded.

"I'll say you do," she remarked as she entered the room.  "I can't believe you sometimes you know that?"  Whatever else she was going to say was cut off when my arm jumped spastically.  "Jesus, why didn't you say something," her tone annoyed as she crawled up on the bed and began to massage my left shoulder.

"Because you were too busy giving me a piece of your mind," I replied half-heartedly.

"And I'm not finished, I'll have you know," she snapped as she continued to work on my shoulder.  "I just want to get one thing straight.  From here on out, if you ever, and I do mean ever bring that woman into my home again I will hurt you both."

Her fingers were digging in painfully, "Lil, that's a little too hard."

"Sorry," she commented easing up a bit.  "What really bothers me is that you brought that woman in my house rather than coming to get me."

"Lil, the house reeked of sex.  The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt your... uh, fun," I finished lamely.

"Aluna Marie Bastion," Lil said in a tone remarkably like my mother. Cringing, I knew it was a mistake to tell her my full name.  "I oughta slap the shit outta you.  How could you ever think that I wouldn't help you?  It wouldn't matter what I was doing if you needed help I would have come running."

"I'm sorry Lil.  I really am, but I guess I just wasn't thinking straight," I admitted sheepishly.

'I'll say," her voice dropped back down to normal then said. "Were you serious about what you said last night?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

She sighed heavily.  "I thought so.  So when are you going to call Anita?"

"Right after I call work and talk to Buchanan."

"Yeah, you might want to do that since he's been leaving messages since about 10 o'clock this morning," she said offhandedly.

I shot out of bed grabbed the phone and dialed the station without another word.  Waiting for the automated message to finish I punched in Buchanan's extension.  His gruff voice answered on the second ring.  "Buchanan, Juvenile Division."

"Hey David, it's Luna," I said trying to keep my voice normal.

"Bastion why didn't you call if you weren't going to come in today," he questioned harshly.

"I ran into some trouble last night," I said quietly.

He fell silent.  It was a long tense silence, then his voice dropped, "What kind of trouble are we talking Luna?"

"Crazy ex-boyfriend kind of trouble."

"So you finally dumped him," he sounded shocked.

"Well not officially, but healing shoulder wounds kinda takes the romance out of the relationship," I said snidely.

"I suppose this means you'll be taking a sick day?"

"That's not all I'll be taking," I mumbled.

"You better watch what you say around me, Bastion," his voice was still low but the impact of his words wasn't lessened.  David took his job very seriously.  He was a cop first and foremost.  For some it was just a paycheck for him it was a life style.

"Forget you heard that, in fact if I was you forget I said anything other than I'm taking a personal day and leave it at that."  I wasn't playing around either.  I knew after this was all said and done Shang-Da would want to know who I'd talked to and what had been said.  I didn't want Buchanan caught in the crossfire.

"Gotcha, okay," the sounds of scribbling could be heard over the phone.  "Personal day, will be in," he paused and asked, "Hey, when do you expect to come back into work?"

"What's today?"

"Thursday, I take it you would like to have Friday as well?"

"If it's not going to cause any problems then yeah, otherwise forget it and I'll be in there bright and early tomorrow,"I stated distractedly.  Lilli was making of show of tapping her non-existent watch.  I knew what she meant.  She thought I was taking up too much time with him.

"No, it's not going to be a problem.  Just make sure you're here on Monday morning.  Oh and Luna," he hesitated a moment.

"Yeah?"

"Be careful.  We still don't know anything about him.  San Francisco doesn't have a damn thing on him.  If he's good enough to keep away from prying eyes there's no telling what he's been doing."

"I'm always careful Buchanan.  You just make sure that I get paid for those two days.  See ya Monday,"I said seriously.

"Will do.  Make sure your ass actually makes it into the building then." He hung up.  I didn't really expect him to say good-bye but it would have been nice.

Turning to Lil, I sighed and flung myself back on the bed.  "Well," she said impatiently.

"Well what?"

She growled at me.  "You know damn good and well what.  Now spill."

"I'd been growing suspicious of Shang-Da's behavior of late and wanted to know if there was a possible connection.  So I had Buchanan check into his records."

"And," she demanded.

Passing a hand over my face.  "And the bastard's clean."

"Did you really expect anything else?"

"Yes," I said immediately then sighed.  "No.  Hell, I don't know!  I was just hoping that there was something to confirm my suspicions," I stated irritably.

Lilli rolled her eyes.  "Luna, you're such a contradiction in terms.  On the outside you seem so hard and street savvy, but on the inside you're naïve and idealistic.  You constantly surprise me, and not always in a good way."  I opened my mouth to defend myself she pointed a finger at me.  "No!  Call Anita, I still need to talk to Richard."

My mouth was pinched and I sat up phone in hand dialing Anita's number.  The phone rang endlessly.  It was the middle of the afternoon she had to be home.  Why wasn't she answering the phone?  Finally the machine picked up.  "Hi you've reached Anita.  I'm not answering the phone right now.  If it's important you know where to reach me.  If you need me to call leave a message.  BEEP."

I crossed my eyes and sighed into the machine.  "Damn it Anita pick up the fucking phone!"

There was a click as the phone was snatched up.  "Don't use that kind of language with me," she said stiffly.

"Don't screen your calls then," I said crossly.

"What do you want," she asked tersely.

"We need to talk."

"About what," she asked stubbornly.

"The fucking weather," I said grumpily.

"Watch the language," she warned.

"Fine, I'll give you the reader's digest version.  Shang-Da attacked me.  I've made a formal challenge for a first blood match.  It was witnessed by a couple of the lukoi.  Richard will be notifying you shortly with the details," I hung up the phone and looked at Lil.  She had a smirk on her face. "What!"

"You just hung up on Anita without giving her all the information and you think she's not going to call back?"  The phone between us rang.  Lilli looked pointedly at it.  She read the caller ID screen and handed it to me.  "It's for you," she said with not just a little amusement.

Crossing my eyes I took the phone from her and hit the talk button. "Yeah," I asked even though I already knew what was coming.

"Don't you ever do that again," Anita stated angrily.  "I wanna know what happened and why you would do something like that."

"First off, don't get an attitude with me.  You're the one screening your calls then getting huffy when I told you I needed to talk," if she didn't have to be nice neither did I.  Inhaling sharply I sat up quickly and motioned to my shoulder hoping Lil would get the message.  She did her fingers kneaded the muscle helping to ease some of the pain.

"Fine, I handled it badly, is that what you wanted to hear," she asked testily.

"No Anita, it's not.  For once I would just like to say we need to talk and be able to do just that.  Anita, when have I ever said that and it wasn't important?  Give me a little credit," I said irritably.

I heard her sigh. "You're right.  I shouldn't have snapped at you.  There's a lot going on right now."

Wow!  That was quite an admission especially from Anita.  "Do I even want to know?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone.  I could almost picture her rubbing her forehead contemplating whether or not to share.  "Naw, from the sound of it you've got more than enough on your plate as it is."

It was the truth, but despite my bitching, whining and complaining she was very good at taking care of us.  I may not always agree with her methods but since none of us were dead or in jail, I guess she was doing something right. "Are you sure," I asked giving her one last chance to share, not that I thought she would, but it never hurt to try.

"I'm sure.  So what happened?"

Trying to give as unbiased account as I could I filled her in.  She said nothing as I told her the whole story.  When I finished I kept waiting for her to say something.  She didn't.  The silence stretched between us until I finally couldn't take it any more.  "You still there," I asked somewhat hesitantly.

"Yeah, I'm here."  She sounded like she was lost in thought and had automatically responded.

"Well," I asked starting to get impatient.

"Things have gone from bad to worse, Luna," her words ominous.

"What do you mean," a thread of fear worked its way into my voice.

"Richard called here not more than an hour ago saying that you provoked Shang-Da and he wants satisfaction."

The growl escaped me before I'd even had a chance to stop it.  It wasn't a good sign.  I was trying to remain calm and it wasn't working.  "He what," I practically shouted into the phone.