The next morning was hell, and so was school. The only thing that I was living for, and not going home sick for, was Zombie Land waiting for me just a couple hundred yards away from the school. I could do this, I repeated over and over again in my head. Imagine how disappointed I was when I left school and was met by Francois telling me he didn't want me down in Zombie Land today. For my safety he said, but I was too mad to care. He offered to walk me home, but I refused. I started towards the bus, which had pulled away by the time I got there, and Francois was following me. 
    Groaning at my bad luck, I turned around to face Francois. 
    "This is all your fault." I told him, putting my hands on my hips.  "Now I have to walk home."  
    "I'm sorry. I'll walk you." I really wanted to turn him down, but I hated walking home alone, so I let him. Francois was even so nice as to carry my heavy ass backpack home for me too.
    When we got to my house, Mom was still at work and Dad had run off on some errand. Tom wasn't home, but that was nothing new. I invited Francois in, and he agreed. 
    "Is there any particular reason I can't go today?' I asked because I knew it was the only chance I was going to have. 
    "It's all part of my plan to figure out who's trying to kill you." Francois said, but didn't elaborate.
    "Which is?" I asked after a minute of waiting. 
    "I can’t' tell you. It would ruin the plan." I felt a little bit of paranoia take over right then. What was he doing without me knowing? Was it something bad? It was quite similar to the feeling I got the last time that he wouldn’t let me go to Zombie Land 'for my own protection'. 
    "I Mark in on this?" I asked skeptically.    
    "Yes." Francois nodded and then pulled my math book out of my bag. "Shall we?" He asked sitting down at the kitchen table. 
    "Fine." I sighed knowing that I wasn't going to get anywhere with the conversation we were having. It was a little bit of a comfort to know that Mark was in on this too. He seemed to be the level headed one of the two, or at least the one who was more in line with what I wanted and how I wanted to rule then Francois was. 
    After about ten minutes of arguing the finer points of statistics, which Francois was right about but I wouldn't admit, my Dad came home and stared at the Zombie sitting at our kitchen table. He would never believe me if I told him what Francois really was, but he would laugh and tell me that I should stop taking the things I read in those fantasy novels too seriously. Dad always took everything in stride. 
    "Hey, you must be Lucy's math tutor." Dad said and left the room. Presumably to go watch T.V. in the room next to the one Francois and I were studding in. 
    "I should go now." Francois said a little after that. I didn't argue, if he needed to leave there was no way I could contest that. It wasn't like I was allowed to know Francois' awesome plan. 
    After school the next day, Francois also showed up telling me that he wanted me to stay top side. In fact, that was the last time I saw him until Friday. He had told me to stay away until he came and got me and that day was Friday. I was so happy that I hugged Francois and pulled him all the way to the big fucking hole. He looked glum and like he was about to do something very painful, not that I really noticed until later. 
    We walked down the hallway to the Counsel room in silence, which was a little nerve racking because I still wanted to know Francois' plan. He hadn't mentioned hide or hair of it since I had asked him about it. Francois was also walking very fast; my short legs almost couldn't keep up. If he was nervous about this, how should I be feeling? Scared? Was someone going to try and kill me? Did Francois think that they would be able to save me if someone did?
    When we entered the Counsel room, everybody was already there, including Stella which was a first. Apparently, Mark and Francois thought that we would need all the people thinking on this as we could get. He had even included Nemus and Nancy, who I had not seen in forever. I sat down in my chair, and as everybody looked at me, I looked between Francois and Mark. They were the ones with the plan. 
    "There’s been a ghost following Her Majesty." Francois suddenly began. Hearing him call me "Majesty" again was strange after him calling me Lucy for so long. I think that I preferred Lucy.
    "We think someone is going to try and kill her.' Mark continued. Hearing it come out of his mouth made everything much more real and I felt a pit start to grow in my stomach. This was really real, and there was nothing I could do about it. I hated feeling helpless, but that's what I was. With the Vampire conflict, I went and spoke to people and had at least some control. With the Dead Fetuses I could at least work on something while we had put a temporary patch on the thing. Here there was nothing I could do because I didn't have any understanding of anything that was going on. I didn't even understand why anyone would want to kill me. 
    "I don't know what to do but try and draw the killer out. We'll have to make it very public that she's heard and hope that the killer does something stupid."
    "Haven't your spies picked anything up about this, Francois?" Nancy asked from her corner. Francois shook his head in dismay.
    "Nothing. They’re still listening, but it seems that the guilty party knows our every move; we must do something they would never expect. That's why we must put the Queen in danger. I don't like it, but what else are we to do? Leave her in the human world?" 
    "No." Nancy said. "That wouldn't work. She's useless to us up there." It seemed as though as much as Nancy disagreed with me, she didn't want to kill me. That was a relief. The look in Francois' eyes showed that he was mentally checking her off the list of suspects that he had made in his head. Then he shot a glance at Nemus, another suspect on his list. I assumed that he was near the top too, because he was one of the few people that had met me and hated me. People like Derik, Elise, and Sam were off the list because when they had met me Steve was already following me. You never knew about the Vampires, but I really didn't think that sending an assassin to kill the Queen was really their style, not after meeting Antony, and if they had I think that they would have called Steve off by now. Erica had only spoken good things about him.  
    I suddenly got what Francois and Mark were planning. They weren't going to make it public that I was here and available to kill, they were going to try and trick Nemus into killing me because that was the only way they were ever going to catch him. Great, I was the bait in a plan that might get me killed and no one had even been polite enough to ask for my permission. There was nothing that I could do but hope this was going to end well, because what could I do? Tell Francois there was no way in hell that I was going to go through with this? If I said anything now we would never catch him and I would never get out of this alive, because there wasn't any doubt left in my mind that Nemus was trying to use Steve to kill me. 
    "I think that we should write to Antony and ask for help." This suggestion was met with nods from everyone but Nemus who frowned. "We're going to need all the help we can get if someone is trying to kill me."
    "I still don't trust the Vampire, Majesty." Nemus said hesitantly. Of course you don't you worthless little weasel I thought back, but didn't dare say it out loud, I had to let Francois go through with his plan.
    "I do, and that's really all that matters. We need their help and I'm not going to take chances with my life. Are you?" There was no way he could say yes to that with out risking his own neck and Nemus was too much of a coward to do that.
    "I just fell that..." Nemus was still trying to argue.
    "I'm over ruling you, Nemus. We're sending for help." The matter was closed after that and the letter was sent within a half hour. I was a little bit worried at how long it was going to take Antony and his soldiers to arrive and if it was too late, but there wasn't much I could do about that but hope for the best.