A Birth day

Ruby looked up at Angus walked down and she smiled to him as he walked passed with Finn hot on his heels to be let out. She watched him leave to walk the dog. Returning some time later she watched as he picked up the paper and read it before commenting on an article " she back?" Ruby asked " I noticed you woke a few times last night " Ruby continued making several different dishes ready for any one who was to come down for breakfast.

Aria woke slowly and smiled seeing Marcus beside her moving closer to him she cuddled against him before slipping from the bed to shower and dress knowing Marcus was still sleep. Heading down she heard Angus talk to Ruby " Morning guys, Pricilla still being a pest?" she said rubbing Finns head as he padded past her.

"I don't think she ever left me. Not really," Angus said. "She hadn't been in my dreams for quite awhile, but she was back again last night. And now there's an article in the Prophet. There was a strange symbol left painted the phone booth is a voodoo symbol. Its the same one she used in New Orleans to identify herself, like a signature. I am quite sure she left that there on purpose because she doesn't know, physically, where to find me. She can haunt my dreams but she hasn't been actually able to find me. I still think this is about money on Priscilla's part. Don't think I haven't considered that if there were a higher bidder to reverse this bit and go back and harass and haunt Suzanne, I think she absolutely would."

Ruby sighed and nodded to Angus " she needs to find some one else to pester" she said finishing the food and placing it on the side board for every one to help themselves " foods ready" she said softly as she looked to Angus " lets eat" she picked up a plate and was about to put food on it when she heard the babies cry . Placing down the plate she headed up to the nursery.

"we'll get them" Aria said a she headed up behind Ruby . Once in the nursery she changed Dimond as Ruby changed Caprice then they both returned to the living room. " they just wanted to let us know they wee awake." she said smiling as Dimond held tight to her. Ruby placed Caprice in her high chair while Aria set Dimond in the play pen where she then placed down her bowl of fruits to eat.

When Ruby went upstairs, Angus fixed plates for Ruby and him and set plates down at their places. When the babies cried, Marcus dressed and came downstairs and plated up breakfast for Aria and Marcus and put that at their places as well.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Marcus told Angus quietly while the girls were still upstairs with the babies.

"I did," Angus said. He folded the paper open to the story about the mark at the ministry and handed it to Marcus.

"Damnit," Marcus cussed softly. "Robert's going to come unglued about that. Mark my words. You will hear from him before he goes into the ministry this morning. He will definitely come."

"He's too busy for her nonsense," Angus said.

"You're missing the point. This isn't about her. He will come because this is about you," Marcus said.

"Screw her. What are we doing about Evelyn?"

"Screw her too," Marcus said. That made Angus laugh.

"Thank you, no," Angus said, and that made Marcus laugh.

Aria saw Marcus walk down and smiled " morning" she said as she moved to sit next to him " thank you for the plate" she said as she began tucking in. Ruby smiled to Angus as he gave her her plate.

"I think you should at least let him know" she said " maybe there would be something he could do, a protection ward or something, what about Caprice, your grand mother, could she help?" Ruby asked as she took a bite from her food. Ruby watched Caprice eat her food quietly. Aria looked over to Dimond and smiled seeing her eating while playing with a stuffed bear.


Jack finished with the grounds men and motioned to each as to where they were to go , Jessie walked down and stood with him " what's with the hubbub?" he asked and Jack chuckled .

"Evelyn, Marcus Ex escaped from Jeffery's clinic and he thinks she will come here so I'm making sure every one has orders to keep an eye out for anything unusual until she is placed back in his clinic" he explained . Jessie nodded as he listened and looked around .

"well I'll keep my eyes peeled" he said as he began to walk towards the running track.

"Ruby cooked," Angus said. "I just put it on a plate."  As he spoke the kids came in, dressed for the day.   They fixed their plates and sat down at the table, as Robert knocked.

"Come in," Angus called.

"He can't," Marcus laughed. "Aria set a bit of a new spell last night." He flicked his fingers at the door to unlock it and open it. "Now you can come in," Marcus called.

"Thank you," Robert said. "Have you seen the paper yet?"

"Yeah," Angus said.

"And?"

"And what? She's just playing games," Angus said. "I plan to focus on helping Marcus to find Evelyn."

"Have you heard from Priscilla yet?"

"Last night--in my sleep. But that's the first in a long, long time," Angus said.

"What's this about a sketch?"

"What sketch?"

"You did a sketch about a necklace?"

"Oh. That sketch. Yeah. Jack got part of her necklace, and I remembered it, so I did a sketch of the whole necklace."

"Kate seems to think there was something she had that she doesn't have now, and I'm wondering if it was that necklace."

"Maybe. What about it?"

"She thinks that necklace was what let Priscilla hone in on you, and without it, she can't find you except perhaps in your dreams. She thinks that Priscilla is not the great mystic she wants the rest of the world to believe."

"She isn't. She knows how to do folk charms, do a few traditional magic charms, and make some trinkets. And she knows how to do enough muggle magic to make herself look scary as hell."

"Do you mean she's not dangerous?"

"She is dangerous, but what makes her dangerous is plain, old fashioned, murderous tendencies," Angus said. "And whatever tinkering to try to blend folk magic and traditional magic that we don't normally try to do. Her out-of-the-box thinking puts her a leg up on us that we're not prepared for."

"And she still wants you dead," Robert said.

"Wonder how much I'm worth."

"What?" Robert asked.

"I wonder how much Suzanne has offered to pay Priscilla to off me. We know what she's offered to pay James--she's offered to give him Khaat. Which isn't even worth the price of this newspaper because she doesn't have Khaat, and she's never going to have Khaat. So that contract isn't worth a farthing."

"You do have a point."

"Makes me wonder how much she's offered to pay Priscilla."

"No clue, but now I"m curious too," Marcus said. "Thanks a lot. That didn't even enter my head til now."

Ruby finished her food as she heard the knock looking to Angus then to Marcus she saw the look of embarrassment on Aria face as she realized she'd not taken of the charms off the doors. " oops my bad" she said as Marcus removed it and Robert entered the duplex. They both sat and listened to him talk of the article in the paper and of Pricilla and how she could do him little harm.

Ruby gasped as he asked how much Robert thought was on the table for his death she didn't want to think about that at this point in time. She set down Caprices Sippy cup and handed Aria one for Dimond , " any way to block her from entering his dreams?" she asked hoping there might be one.

"Of course," Robert said. "He can use thre dreamless sleep potion he's had now for some time."

"I'm not ready to use that yet," Angus said.

"Why not?" Robert asked.

"Because as long as I'm gaining some sort of useful information in my sleep, we can use that," Angus said. "I don't think she has any idea that her attempts to wear me down are actually helping me because she leaks little unintentional things to me."

"Well, I'm okay with you getting what you can as long as it doesn't drain you too much," Robert replied. He handed Marcus and Angus each a vial of potion. "This is a blend of the meds Jeffrey's been giving her. "He gives her several different things, and so I blended it into one solution. These are concentrated one dose vials. If you catch her, give her just one. That should be enough to help you contain her from becoming violent and should help you control her to return her to Jeffrey. Now, there's a little bit of a catch. Her meds have to build up in her system over time to be the most effective, and we don't honestly know how long she's been cheeking her meds. So, you will get a little bit of a nudge from them with this first dose. It'll take effect straight away, but that little nudge is only going to last an hour or so. If you find her and catch her, don't monkey around with her. Contain her, give her the potion, and get her straight back to Jeffrey before it wears off."

"I have absolutely no desire to be around her one moment longer than I need to be," Marcus said. "We'll get her home."

"Oh, and do try not to catch the mumps while you're out. We've only seen a very few cases in the community at large, so I think this was another one of those biological weapon things like the tainted potions we saw. We can't be sure if its the same person, but it could well be, so stay on your toes, wont you?"

"Certainly," Marcus said. "Have you tested any of the vaccine yet?"

"Well, yes, I've given about five doses out to some of the staff working over at the cabin, and all five reported some degree or another of a headache and some other assorted symptoms. Two were off their feet because of that headache, and for some reason, it seems to strike men more than women. Even when the women do report a headache, they've all had milder symptoms than the men. Why, I don't entirely know yet. That's why I haven't brought any for you two, knowing I didn't have a ghost of a chance in getting you to not go out today. Let's hope you aren't exposed to anything while you're out. If you are, get straight home, and let's try to nip it before its starts."

"It'll work after we've been exposed? Isn't' that backwards?"

"Of course it is, but again, I know you two boys. You wouldn't stay home here today even if I ordered you home. So, we'll talk about that vaccine later. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Angus said.

"Alright. If anything changes--anything at all--you let me know. Consider yourselves all on a bit of a short leash til we get some of this chaos under control," Robert said. "Got it? All of you."

"Got it," Marcus said. Robert nodded and left.

Aria and Ruby looked at Robert as he suggested the dreamless potion and Agnus said he didn't want to go down that road just yet because he was gaining information each time she contacted him " well if it getting us useful info " Ruby said and looked to him and smiled. When the vaccine was mentioned she looked back to Robert listening as did Aria who was watching Dimond in her pen.

" yeah these two are about as bad as the babies for not staying put" she said and chuckled." yeah we'll stay on the safe side any symptom's we'll go right to the hospital" she said as she saw Ruby nod " won't be good for the babies to catch it ." She stood up and moved to the kitchen poring a cup of tea for herself loving the flavour as she sipped it " this one of Roberts , its nice" she said savouring the fruity flavour of the tea

Marcus and Angus got breakfast as they talked about a list about where they thought they should check to see if they could find Evelyn. Marcus's money was on Hogsmeade or at his unused apartment in London. Marcus knew of a couple of bars Evelyn liked to frequent if she thought she could pick up someone there.

"I think we have a list of where to start hunting now," Marcus said. "At least a few places. We'll take the girls to Evan, and then we'll get to work."

"Don't make lunch for us," Angus told Ruby and Aria. "There's no telling where we'll be or if we're on a trail or not. If we have time, we'll just catch something while we're out. Is there anything you need while we're going?"