LONDON CALLING

He took a bit of her chicken and smiled. "Very nice," he said. "Try the lamb navarin. Think of it as basically a completely lovely braised lamb stew." Angus watched Jack disappear and come back with anti monster spray.

"That's it!" Angus said. "I wondered what I did with it. Thank you for finding it, Jack." Abbey dropped her spoon in her empty ice cream bowl and yawned, getting sleepy, starting to rub her eyes. "Sam, I think you should take Abbey up with Jack and just tuck her into bed. If you don't want to mess with pajamas, just take her shoes off and tuck her in." He was sure, though, that Jack knew where the pj's were. Jack also was a very experienced parent and probably knew how to change a toddler that was dead on her feet into pjs before they could get fussy."

"Abbey, want a piggy ride?" Sam asked. Abbey nodded, and Sam picked her up and put her on his shoulders. She giggled.

"I bigger than you, Unca Jack!" she teased, still giggling. "Go, Piggy!" she told Sam. Sam headed upstairs, following Jack.

Ruby tried the lamb navarin. and smiled "oh it's wonderful," she said and smiled. She listened to Angus talk to Jack and continued to eat.

"oh don't worry, Pj's it is, " he said smiling as he headed up to Abby's room as if stalking something. Every so often he would give a light spritz as if taking out a monster. Once in the room he took out her PJs and laid them on the bed. He waited for Sam and laughed as he heard Abby say "Go Piggy!"" you hear her" hesaid to Sam.

Sam gave Abbey his best piggy snort, and Abbey laughed uncontrollably.

"I hope she never loses that little giggle," Sam told Jack. "She has to be one of the happiest little kids I've ever seen." Sam put Abbey down on her bed and picked up the pajamas. "Um...I've never dressed a girl before." He realized Abbey was small, but it still felt awkward to him.

"Unca Jack," Abbey looked at Jack. "Big smelly goggie not come in tonight?"

"What smelly goggie? What's a goggie?"

"He outside," Abbey nodded. "He gots all his furs on tonight, and he wanna come in the house."

"Somebody's outside that shouldn't be here?" Sam frowned.

"He bringed the goggies tonight," she nodded. "They go bye bye, but he outside. He mad. He mad, mad, mad."

"Do you have any idea what she's talking about?" Sam asked.

Jack watched as Sam placed down Abby and then stood not knowing what to do. He could not help but chuckle at the lost expression on Sams's face. " trust me at this age you just have to make it a game." he said "Abby you need to put on your anti-monster protective uniform" he said and held up the PJ top "you think you could do that?" he asked but listened to her words " yeah I do and I'll deal with him when we are done" he said softly as he slid the PJ top on Abby then held up her bottoms.

Once done he pulled back the covers " okay now ly down, Sam can read you a story, which one do you want?" he asked then lent close to Sam " I need to talk to the others, just read her a story, she'll fall asleep before you're done." he said and handed him a book filled with stories before heading down to the living room. " Abby says James is on his way here." he said to Angus and Edward, "Someone needs to warn the others, he'll need to know."

Sam took the book, turned down the lights, sat down on the bed, opened the book and started to read.

"Sam?" Abbey asked, interrupting.

"Yeah?" Sam asked.

"If the monsters come, what I do?"

"Wake somebody up," he shrugged. "My room is just across the hall. I'll leave the door open just a crack and if you have a bad dream and you want to come wake me up, its okay."

"Sanks," she yawned.

"No problem," he said. He started the book again.

"Well, he can come, but he's not going to cause any shite tonight because I'm in no mood for that," Edward said. He picked up his axe and put it right beside him. "And there's too many people here anyway. The worst he can do is maybe pick off somebody who isn't aware. I think he's far more likely to be looking for a way to get his hands on Khaat, Or--if he's carrying out some directive from Gelding, he'll be looking to get Robert or Angus or the boys. So, let's take care of that right now."

Edward stood up and used a sonorus and announced that they had a tip that James Blood was either on his way or was already here. He suggested that they stay at the ready until daylight when the moonlight would disappear. He also suggested to Khaat that she needed to be inside where James could not possibly get her. Brian got up with Khaat and made sure she got inside, and then Brian went upstairs and knocked on Robert's door. Robert answered, albeit reluctantly.

"Sorry," Brian said quietly. "Apparently Abbey just told Jack that James is either here or on his way."

"Abbey's always been right about that, so let's not take chances. Make sure Khaat, Angus, Ruby and the boys are inside. Anybody not skilled with werewolves needs to be off the grounds and inside someplace," Robert said. "Go to the armory and get Angus a pistol and load it with silver bullets. Don't leave him unarmed. Where's Abbey?"

"She's in her room. I just passed her doorway, and Sam's reading her a bedtime story."

"Good boy," Robert said. "Put Marcus and Khaat in Abbey's room for now. He can keep them covered, just in case. I'm assuming Edward knows?"

"He does," Brian said

"Good. Let's let him and Jack take charge of this. No one fights werewolves quite like Edward, and if James is involved, we need Jack. Jessie can join if he wants, but I won't insist on it. I'll come join you..."

"I don't think you should. If this is one of Gelding's plots, then he might have stationed James here to make an attack when we all thought it was over for the night, and Gelding would want nothing better than to get to you. I think you should be part of a last line of defense in the house this time. I'll add a few fighters to you.""

"Alright. Your call. Let's try it,' Robert said. Brian went downstairs, got the pistol and took it to Angus.

"Robert thinks you should be armed," Brian said.

"Thank you," Angus said. "Ruby, you don't need to stay to fight if you don't want to. That's entirely up to you. You could go make sure the boys are safely in the house and not easy for James to get to." Angus watched Marcus head inside to go see to Khaat and Abbey. Lee and his men were gearing up, and so were Daphne and her men.

Ruby had heard Jack then saw Brian hand Angus a gun already loaded , she looked at him and nodded " I'll check the boys" she said leaning over she kissed Angus " stay safe" she said then headed up the stairs to check on Victor and Sam, "Victor would you mind joining me in Abbys room" she said before rolling him across the hall to wait in Abys room entering quietly as possible so not to wake her as Sam read her story to her. 

Jessie walked in and saw Brain and Angus , He also saw the gun " silver bullets?" he asked knowing all to well Angus only had a gun when things wee about to get bad. Jack looked at Jessie and nodded his hed befoer making his way over to him.

"follow me, your about to meet my brother" he said and Jessie sighed " yes again" 

"he just won't give up will he?" Jessie asked and Jack shook his head.

"nope, stuborn, fat headed prat" he mumbled " hes got it into his head Khaat is his mate and he just has to have her." he said to Jessie explaining the obseshion that James had for her. " he won't acept shes married and dosn't want anything to do with him. Jessie sighed and shook his head.

"so a persistant pain in the.." he stopped and motioned behind him. Jack nodded.

"oh yeah, not just for me ether, brian, Angus and well now Ruby too" he chukled " every one if you thik about it." Jack stood looking out hoping he was wrong and it was fenrir not James but he doughte it.

Edward drew his axe and went outside. He could still smell the damage to werewolves that had been done in the battle earlier, and it made it a bit more difficult to try to detect if James was here. There had been a lot of werewolves here, and a lot of damage in a short time, and the stench hung in the humid night air. Edward actually, was hoping for a bit of a rain to take out the humidity and to cleanse the land of the odor. Still, he had no reason to doubt Abbey when she had seemed to be right.

Kate went downstairs to get a fresh icepack for her head, and found Pip sitting on one of Archangels perches, and it gave her an idea. A small bird in the night would not even be noticed, not like Archangel would. Pip was the size of a good many of the normal birds, but Archangel was so big that he would be very easily spotted by James and might well be damaged. Pip, however, would not gain anyone's attention because he was so small. She spoke to the little owl and ask him to be careful but to take a bit of a nightflight to see if he could see any werewolves on the grounds. The little bird was happy to help, and he flew off into the night. She turned all the lights off in the kitchen except one dim light so that Pip could get back without being seen. After several minutes the bird came back and told her that there was a werewolf in the woods, just north of the pond, and he seemed to be burying something. Kate scribbled a note to Edward and sent Pip to take it to him.

The little bird dropped down onto Edward's shoulder and delivered the note. Edward was pleased, and he sent the bird ahead of him to show him where he had seen the werewolf. Edward motioned to Jessie and Jack, motioning one of them to go northwest of the pond and one to go northeast. Edward was going to stay close to the edge of the pond and go around and then straight north. He hoped they would move quietly to perhaps try to sneak up on James and see what the heck he was doing.

Edward got around the pond and slipped quietly through the woods and then saw, by the moonlight, James digging in the ground in the woods. What the hell was that big oaf doing now? He was not transformed at the moment and he had a burlap bag with him, and he seemed to be planting something, covering it and moving on to do it again elsewhere. The only thing that made sense to Edward was that James was planting markers all over the woods. So that was how Gelding's people were getting in. That meant that during the daylight hours, Brian was going to have to have men walk side by side virtually through the estate and try to spot any sort of spots where James might have buried markers. Every one they could find and destroy would make them one notch safer.

Edward fired a blast of wandfire in James' direction, and it caused James' clothes to catch fire. James spun around in pain, and saw Edward approaching in strong, confident strides, swinging his axe, absolutely ready to take James out. Edward had no need to exchange any words with James. Edward was tired. It was exceptionally late and he was not in the mood to be fiddling around with James in the middle of the night. James let out a low growl and took a stance, ready to leap and try to attack Edward, something Edward had completely anticipated. Edward wanted to wind this up, take care of James, go shower, and head to bed. Edward got close enough, made a swing, and James flattened himself out on the ground without a fraction of a second to spare, the axe just whizzing above James's head. James made a dive for Edward's feet, hoping to knock Edward to the ground, but Edward leaped out of the way and took another swipe, hitting James' leg with a graze, but blood still spurted. It was going to be a serious wound if James didn't buggar off soon to get it tended. Well, if James bled out, it was a longer way to die, but James would still be just as dead.

"Damnit, Donohue, that hurt!" James growled.

"Well, bring your head over here, and let me finish the job," Edward said menacingly.

"Barmy old prick," James growled.

"If we fart around with this long enough, you're going to die anyway," Edward shrugged. "Die fast or die slow, I really don't care. Just die."

"I'd rather that be you!" James shouted, taking another leap at Edward. Edward dodged him and James fell into a big clump of forest bushes and bracken.

Jessie and Jack followed as quiet as they could behind Edward so as not to alarm any werewolves around they were moving away. Soon they stopped, Jack wanted to growl but subdued it as it would give him away Jessie motioned to James and then pointed to Jack who nodded that he was his brother. It was now they watched as Edward confronted James but they stayed hidden so not to make James suspishiose. when he fell into the braken they moved to stand with Edward both with wands drawn and there faces showing their dipleasure at him being on the grounds. " just give up brother, you won't win..you never win" Jack spoke to James.

Edward looked at Jessie and then looked at the bag that James had, as a silent signal for Jessie to try to get the bag if he could. Jack had James temporarily occupied. Edward decided to make a sweep with his axe and James' other leg, but he had to make it look purposeful, so he make a sweep, coming close enough to James' good leg to make James feel the breeze that his axe caused.

"Are you out of your mind, you old coot?" James shouted.

"I don't care how you die. Just do it," Edward said.

"You're a crazy sonofabitch, you know that?"

"Yup," Edward said, and he caught a glimpse of something glimmering around James' neck. "With a little luck I won't miss next time." Edward used wandless magic and set James' clothes on fire.

"Jack, grab whatever that is around his neck," Edward said, hoping Jessie could still manage to grab the bag.

Jessie heard Edward and nodded running in the iopasite direction he dodged the hands of two men that were with James and snatched up the bag tossing ot to land at the feet of Edward. Jack smiled as he heard Edward call out to him " my pleasure " he said and dove for James reatching out he grasped James around his neck his other hand grabbed the chain snapping it then holding it tight he let go jumped back and moved to Edward " got it." he said showing it glinting and dangling from his hand.

Jessie moved quickly to get out of reatch of one of the werewolves " your gonna die" one said and Jessie chukled .

"you can try" he said moving so he smacked head first into a tree snapping his neck clean and falling to the floor dead" told ya" he said and moved to Edward.