"Where is Michelangelo?" it asked again.

My head still throbbed from the beating I had suffered the day before. But I was happy. "Every day that you waste asking me questions is another day closer to The Calling."

"I'm well aware of that," it said. We had entered unfamiliar territory. It was talking now. Not much, but anything was welcome. Even its permanently condescending and aloof attitude were an improvement over the mind numbing questioning of the past few days. "Why don't you tell me what The Calling is? You seem quite eager to talk about it."

"What makes you think I want to talk about it?"

"Well, you're the one who keeps bringing it up all the time. I want to talk about my brother."

I tisked at him and shook my head. I could feel pain squeezing the top of my skull and my nose ached with the movement. "You're losing patience, Leonardo."

"You may feel safe with me after what Raph did to you yesterday, but if our brother dies, then I guarantee that your last breath will come quickly."

"Are you threatening me?" Finally, I thought.

"No, I'm making a promise. If they take one of ours, then we must take one of theirs."

I didn't want to talk honor with a mutated animal. "When will Raphael be back?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Why?"

It narrowed its eyes and cocked its head, looking nearly amused at my concern. "He's unavailable. Why? Do you miss him?"

I was silent and it resumed the maddening questions. I lay down and tried to sleep to block out the rest of the day.

I was awakened some time later by fingers prodding my body. "Wake up, sunshine."

"Raphael?" I asked, drowsily. I craned my neck to see my visitor, but pain shot through my head.

"No, this is his brother. How does your head feel?" Brother? Which brother? The only brother left was Donatello. "It hurts right? I can't say that I'm really surprised. I thought that Raph had broken your skull at first. But I guess you'll live. Sit up and I'll give you some Tylenol."

I dutifully obeyed. It reached out to look at the gash on the back of my head and I pulled back. I knew that that would have hurt Raphael, but Donatello looked vaguely annoyed.

"Don't cheat me out of looking at a bloody wound. You're only hurting yourself if it gets infected anyway. I could care less if you want my subhuman fingers on you."

I leaned forward so that it could see the back of my head. I could feel its fingers pulling the hair away from the gash. "Looks fine," it said.

"Where is Raphael? Your brother said that he was otherwise occupied."

Donatello smiled, looking away at the door. "I know that this is a diversion." It kept watching the door and smiling, as if waiting for someone or something to walk through. "How stupid do you think I am? There's nothing you can gain from Mikey. I mean, maybe a location on us, but your people could do that through proper reconnaissance."

"You talk a lot," I said. I found it interesting, but I was quickly becoming uncomfortable.

"Your people must have known that we would spend all of our resources to find him," it said. "And don't get me wrong, we would and we do."

"I like watching you busy worker bees looking for your lost drone." Keep it distracted. Go for the hurt.

"Yeah, that crap might work on Raph and even Leo when he has a bad day, but you're talking to me now. I know you're the Necromancer's son and that he's taught you enough to know how The Calling works. And so I'm sure that you know the location of the place."

I felt like he was reading my thoughts from the inside out. "I demand that you send Raphael back in."

"You demand?" it asked, smiling back at the door again. "I don't think you're in a position to demand anything. Now, I don't think that your dad's flunkies would keep Mikey in the same place that they're going to conduct The Calling. Too risky. If he escaped…" it laughed to itself. "If he escaped he would be able to report the location and the jig would be up. And for some reason I don't think that The Calling is going to bring fluffy bunnies and Christmas presents to the citizens of New York. It would be a good idea to keep that location separate and secure."

It was right of course. The location of The Calling was totally separate from my father's headquarters, where Michelangelo was most likely being held. I had been warned about this Donatello creature by my father. It was as intelligent as or more so than the common human and would try to outwit me if we ever spoke. I leaned back against the wall and laughed in its face, knowing that nothing it could say would ever persuade me to betray my father or his plans.

"What do you know about embalming fluids?"

Embalming fluids? This was a distressing line of conversation. "They are used to preserve the dead."

"Ah, must come in handy for a guy who tries to control the dead…"

"DOES control the dead…" I blurted out angrily.

"What use would it be to raise the dead if they rot within in a few days? That would ruin everybody's party. I have reason to believe that your father has recently got a hold of a really large amount of formaldehyde and gluteraldehyde, which is also called phenol. They were stolen by your father. I'm betting that it would take a really big warehouse to store all that crap."

I could feel my blood freezing in my veins.

"And you wouldn't want any old person to see it, so it would have to be in a relatively abandoned part of town and you'd have to have some kind of tanker truck to transport the stuff to wherever The Calling is going to go down. Am I on the right track so far?"

"I would expect as much nonsense from a thing like you," I said, although I could hear the fear in my voice, betraying myself.

"Oh, I thought you might be bored," it said, as it reached for something that it had kept concealed. It was a folded up sheet of yellowed paper. "I thought you might want a little souvenir from home. To remind you of your daddy."

It was a sheet out of the Necrometer. The book of instructions and mystical secrets of the dead. I could recognize the symbols that spelled out, "When the dead overcome the living…" But of course the creature couldn't read it. My breathing was panicked and ragged and I tried to calm myself as I shoved the page behind my back to hide it from the thing. How did they get this?

"Well, thank you for that. You may have information about my father, but so far I've heard nothing indicating that you're any closer to finding your beloved Michelangelo. Imagine how lonely he must be? And I know that my father is not nearly as polite to his guests as you are."

It looked at the door again and sighed this time. No smile. Then it said, still staring at the dungeon door. "I've spent days out there thinking up ways to hurt you. Do you want me to list them all? They're pretty creative and leave minimal scarring. My favorite is the tazer. But I have other things to do. I have to go out there and think and come up with solutions to whatever your crazy dad is planning to do to the city. Not sit around thinking up interesting ways to kill you."

It moved towards the door and I heard it say as it left the room. "That's Raph's job."