Marriage is Murder

"Two," Edward said softly. "Blood and Robert's daughter. I smell him, and I smell her perfume. He's alone with her. But the fact that we can still hear them tells us he hasn't killed her yet. She's still alive--for the moment."

"Go ahead," Khaat said, sighing tiredly. She looked at Blood with boredom. "Make your move--if you can."

"Then I shall start by ripping that stone off your neck!" he shouted.

"Go right ahead and try," she said, now truly unafraid. She knew too well what the stone would do. She watched him transform even further into the werewolf, losing more of his humanity by the second. She began to hear her own heart in her ears out of her own fear.

"MOVE!" the audible voice of Remus came from..well, where the hell had it come from?

"Go, go, go!" Robert commanded from outside, heraing Remus's voice. Inside, the stone around her neck began to scream a deafening high pitched, shrill siren. The light was so bright that shot out of it that all Khaat saw was a painful green blast, and then her own sight went entirely blind. Her knees gave way and she tried to roll out of the way, but she couldnt see even the sllightest glimmer of light.

Edward flew into the room, with the others close behind their wands drawn. The noise threatened to make them deaf and the light threatened to blind them all.

"Khaat!" Robert shouted. "Get a grip on that damned thing!" She groped her neck to find the chain and to try to get her hand around the stone. When she wrapped her hand around it, it burned the palm of her hand like a hot coal.

Khaat couldn't hold onto the stone anymore. She could smell the burning flesh as it burned her hand. And between that, the deafening sound in her ears, and fact that the stone had quite literally blinded her, it was overwhelming. She collapsed to the stone floor, striking her head on something quite hard as she fell.

"Just hold onto him, Son," Edward said. He slid a stone out of the way in the wall and produced a set of heavy glowing handcuffs and shackles. "Never thought I'd use these again," Edward said. He handcuffed and shackled James and the moment the chains locked into place, James was transfigured back to being fully human--against his will.

"Azkaban?" Edward asked.

"No," Robert said. "We're on Italian soil. Daniella will deal with him."

"Then I trust I can borrow Jack here to help me deliver him," Edward said.

"Certainly," Robert said. Brian went over to Khaat and found her unconscious on the mausoleum floor with a bleeding wound to her forehead from apparently hitting her head on a corner of one of the stone vaults. "Get her out of here, Brian," Robert said. "I'll be along shortly."

"Italian," Robert corrected Jack. Then, he looked at James, "As a matter of fact, Jack, yes there is something I'd like to say. " He walked up to James and thrust his wand hard into James' throat, hard enough to make James cough and gasp for air. Edward just watched. Edward could see, in Robert's eyes, that Robert was about to 'forget' that he believed in the common good.

"You have no idea," Robert hissed in James's face, "how very evil I can be. If you have harmed one hair on her head, I won't kill you. But you will most certainly wish I had. In fact, I will make it my business that you stay very much alive and completely at my mercy until you bore the hell out of me...." James made a move to try to grab Robert around his throat and Robert responded by a massive, nonverbal cruciatus curse.

James fell to the stone floor in the tomb, screaming in agony. Robert knew that James had severely miscalculated how much power an angry father could muster.

"I did warn you," Robert replied coldly. Edward didn't move, fully believing that James had had this coming to him for a very long time.

Brian apparated back to the villa and laid Khaat on the sofa. There was blood all over her face. The green necklace around her neck had still not settled. Not completely. He wrapped his own hand around the stone and tried to concentrate on how very much he loved Khaat, and how safe they were now here at home, hoping somehow the stone would stop. The screeching stopped and the light grew dim. The heat stopped.

He was about to check her when she began to come around. She opened her eyes and panicked, starting to fight immediately. He caught her wrists and tried to reassure her. And in the process, he heard her panicking.

"I can't see! I can't see!" she was saying.

"Shh," he soothed, wishing he had more help at the moment. "Shh. I'm right here. You're safe. We'll fix it. It'll be alright--I promise."

Edward knew that Robert was very likely to leave the spell in place for a very long time, and honestly, Edward wasn't against it--except that he didn't want Robert losing forcus off of Khaat--the reason why they had come to Italy from England the instant that Edward had felt the intrusion across the protection line he'd laid.

"Robert," Edward said gently. "Let us have him. We'll take it now. You go take care of your family. Let us take out the trash. Your daughter took a hit. She needs you."

Robert turned to Jack. "Feel free to hurt him as much as you like," Robert told him, unable to resist kicking James deliberately in his ribcage. James went unconcious from more pain than he could tolerate. Edward laughed bitterly. The man who wanted to make himself so invulnerable had collapsed at the hands of a 62 year old angry father. James Blood wasn't so tough after all.

"I'll see you back at the villa," Robert said to them. "Thank you." He apparated back to Khaat and Brian's villa. The first he saw was Brian holding Khaat, who seemed to be highly upset. Brian looked at Robert.

"I need your help. She says she's blind," Brian told him. Robert went straight to her and slid his hands between Brian and Khaat and laid his hands on her head and then over her eyes. His touch was calm and sure. He cast a spell to sedate her slightly and to relieve her pain. He checked her hearing and then found she had a heart shaped burn on her chest where the stone had laid against her skin, and her hand was badly burned from how hot the stone had become in her hand. He stopped the bleeding on her forehead, but it was going to leave a bruise.

"Khaat," he said to her very gently and soothingly, "Listen to me. Its temporary. Its a flash burn. Nothing more. I'll pop home and bring the necessary drops to heal your eyes. It won't last. I promise. And I'll bring some ear drops for the temporary hearing damage, and we'll tend your burns. If Jess can't come and help Brian for a bit, I'll send Angus. I'll be back within the hour. I promise. In the meantime, the spell I cast will help you relax. I'll have Brian fix you some tea and you can just sit here and relax."

"No,..." she said quickly, clutching Brian tightly. "I...I don't need tea. I..I'll be alright."

"Okay," Brian said. "I'm not going anywhere." Brian reassured her gently. Robert sent a mesage through the floo to Jess, asking if she could come and help Brian tend to Khaat until he returned.

"Could one of you brew some calming tea for Khaat?" Brian asked. He wanted to do it himself, but he didn't believe she was going to let go of him any time soon.

Robert apparated to St. Mungos and got a black messenger bag and filled it with all the equpiment he thought he would need and enough potions and teas to supply Khaat's cabinets in the villa completely for a very long time. It was just not something she and Brian had needed to do up to this point. Well, that was clearly different now. He had Hannah send a message to Kate so she wouldnt worry.

"The stone's never reacted like that," Khaat said. "Not ever. Something's wrong with the stone and I can't get it off."

"Before you jump to conclusions," Brian said, soothing her. "Let's wait and talk to your father when he gets a chance to talk to us. Maybe its not what it looks like."