Marriage is Murder

Khaat heard Jack's distress call, and she bolted from her room behind Jess. Marcus ran after her. This wasn't going to be good.

She ran inside and saw the room almost totally destroyed, her father unconscious, and Brian laying in a pool of his own blood. Jess was tending to Brian already. She went quickly to her father and was about to start to treat him, when Marcus interfered again, and pulled her back.

"You can't touch him," he told her softly. She tried to wrestle free from his grasp, but he held on tightly. "No, now listen to me. Your father believes not spreading the curse is important enough to risk not just his life for, but when James attacked you, your father believed not spreading the curse was important enough to risk your life for too. You need to respect his wishes."

"I can't just leave him here!" she was angry now.

"We won't," he said. He fired red sparks from his wand out the broken bedroom window. "Where's that bloody vampire when you need him?" he sighed.

A moment later, a black swirling mist formed in the room and became Escobar. The vampire looked around the room casually. He saw Khaat still struggling to break free of her bodyguard's iron grasp.

Noiselessly, he walked over to Robert. He looked at Marcus and Khaat. "Move out of my way and let me work" he said quietly. She hesitated. "If you want to do something useful, get rid of the blood in this room before it triggers me into being very, very hungry," he added. He knelt by Robert and began to check.

"Nothing lifethreatening," Escobar said. "He's going to hurt for awhile, but he's going to live. On the other hand,..." he glanced at Brian. "He might be an entirely different story."

"Your helpfulness seems to be limited this morning," Marcus narrowed his eyes at Escobar, not liking that the vampire seemed to be less than hopeful that Brian would live. Escobar cast him a sarcastic glance, not bothered by Marcus being irked with him.

"We can touch Brian," Khaat said, unphased at Escobar. "We can't touch Daddy. Please."

"Alright, alright," Escobar said, taking charge of Robert. "Go do something else and let me work." He drew his wand and flicked it and levitated Robert and floated him out of the room to one of the spare rooms.

"Thanks," Brian said weakly to Jess. "I don't know if I can give you that long. If Robert is still out of control when he wakes up, I'll have to be up. And I don't want to hurt him."

"You wont have to," Michael said. "I've asked Escobar to use a strong calming spell on him. It seems that spell is something that vampires are particularly gifted at. Makes sense once you think about it. However, I do know what he was fighting for. I'm just not going to let him run a fool's errand."

"That's not like him," Brian frowned.

"Its not that the errand is out of the question, but for him to do it? In his position? That's foolish."

"How do I help?"

"You don't. He's alive, and he's not buggaring off in the next few minutes. So--I'm about to go subvert my good friend and take his map and send Brant."

"Brant?" Brian frowned. "Why Brant?"

"Aside from Robert? Brant's the only other potions maker here under 70," Michael said. "As I said to Kate a few moments ago, trust me." He headed down the hallway and called, "Belby! I've got this. Don't let her be stupid!" He went downstairs to find Brant.

"Yes," Michael said. "For now, you work for me. Not Robert...."

"No,..." Brian began. Michael held up his hand.

"Leave it, Brian," Michael said. "If Robert continues to be angry, better he be angry with me for these choices and not you." He looked at Brant.

"You'll be going to Siberia. I presume you know how to survive a Siberian winter. I have Robert's map. It looks like treacherous ground, and that's just from what I can decipher from glancing at it. There's a great deal of it in code--a code that Robert has obviously broken but didn't bother to make it easy for us by translating it for us. He likes little brainy puzzles like that, and I haven't taken the time with this.

"You'll be on your own, and you'll just have to deal with it as it comes. You'll be meeting a contact of Robert's and picking up a package and bringing it back.

"Apparently the danger is not in the going but in the bringing back of the package," Michael said.

"Brant," Brian said, reaching for the map from Michael, "Khaat's seers powers are usually fairly accurate. If this task was one that caused Robert the kind of fear she picked up on, then there is more than likely good cause for it. Don't take this quite so casually."

"Indeed," Michael said, letting Brian look over the map. "My understanding is that you are to pick up some of the most deadly potions ingredients in existence. These are ingredients that haven't been used in England in your lifetime because of how dangerous they are. They're all but outlawed here, and rarely used anywhere in the wizarding world anymore. Getting there isn't the issue. Getting back with them alive is.

"And your contact has no issue whatsoever with killing anyone he doesn't trust. Here's the thing with that, though. He doesn't trust anybody. The winter weather may be the kindest part of the trip.

"The route is mapped out relatively clearly," Brian said. "Or it would be to Robert's mind. The trail is an old code. That's not the business I'm worried about. The old code is a simple map reading code. Remus taught it to us years ago, and we used it to play hide and seek. Your trail starts on the western edge of Siberia and ends suddenly in the middle of the mountains.

"The part of the map you need to worry about are the little bits along the way. That's a new code--one I've not seen before. I'm guessing these are obstacles. The closer you get to the end of the trail, the more frequently they occur. It must be the wizard's security. And would guess they get more dangerous as you get closer.

"The bits you're talking about are in two different colors, Brian," Michael pointed out.

"Yes," Brian said. "It reminds me of a bedtime story Remus used to tell about an adventurer. He talked about the adventurer running into one set of obstacles on the tale to the treasure and another set on the way out--to stop anyone from escaping if they actually got to the treasure. If I'm right, you'll have to have your wits about you every inch of the way there and back.

"You don't have to do this," Brian said. "Just so you know. The chance of any potion working from these sorts of ingredients has to be so incredibly remote that you might be just on a wild goose chase that Robert is doing because he's so utterly desperate to get rid of the curse. He might well have intended to put his life on the line for any chance to be normal again. This is most likely completely pointless. You don't have to go. I can try to reason with him when he wakes up. Or Michael or Edward. He might listen to us--depending on what he's like when he wakes up."

Khaat could sit by no longer. With Marcus following her, she went to the spare room where Brian was, hearing talk about a mission for her father. Something he'd been willing to fight for, clearly.

"I'm going with you," she told Brant. Brian rolled his eyes in exasperation at her. He glanced up at Marcus who was also understanding the ridiculousness of it.

"No," Brian told her. "You're not. I can't have you waddling about the Siberian mountains in January. For goodness sakes--your left arm is paralyzed. You couldn't climb an icy mountain side if your life depended upon it. Not to mention that you're 7 months pregnant and you can't even see your feet. Those mountain passes are entirely too narrow for you to get through safely...."

Her eyes narrowed at him in anger. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

Marcus looked at Brian cautioningly. Marcus well knew from experience how testy women could be about their figures by the time they reached their third trimester, and Brian was certainly now on shaky ground with her. He was hoping Brian would not continue to put his foot in his mouth with her.

"No!" Brian said quickly. "I'm saying that those paths up the mountains are so narrow that, right now, you're just going to be wider than...."

Khaat's right hand flinched, and Marcus could see her tense up.

"He's not meaning that as it sounds," Marcus tried to temper her by speaking softly into her ear.

"He means it exactly as he says it," she hissed back at Marcus, her eyes never leaving Brian.

"Oh, come on!..." Brian began. She turned around and headed for the door. She spun around and glared at him angrily.

"Next time you carry the baby and do the labor room, if you've really got it all under control," she said, furious. She left, storming back to her room.

"I"d have thought you'd have know better, Mate," Marcus said to him, turning to go after her.