A Birth day

Aria looked at Kate and listened " ah , okay , Angus found this in the basement near the magical crystal generator, ours went out last night, our window was open and he thinks it was tampered with so was going to ask Robert if he could take a look , I'll leave it with you for when he's done" she said " and my sympathies to the family" she said as she handed Kate the small bottle she had with her. " its from Angus and Marcus they had to go someplace as they saw Caprice again?" she said " I don't understand it but she made them take their brooms too" she tried to explain.

Ruby finished reading and began putting the , well what was left of the breakfast things away she had charmed Angus plate to stay warm to she left it on the side covered for his return and began cleaning up.

Jessie was walking to the sink hole with some rope tying it off he heard voices from below " hey down there , " he called and abseil down to the bottom " oh wow , that's some tunnel" he mentioned seeing Marcus and Angus. " I was going to do a bit of exploration today, Chris is with Yu home schooling and well I had the day off." he said as he glanced at the opening behind them. " mind if I come with?" he asked taking out a torch and turning it on " safer than a wand" he added and chuckled as he looked at the sides of the tunnel " this is recent." he said.

"I'll give it to him. Thanks, Aria. It's hard telling what it could be. Didn't set off any alarms, though. Strange," Kate frowned. "I hope it has some harmless explanation, but I'll leave that to him." She listened to Aria said Caprice was hanging around. "Well, Caprice knows that Angus has been having some trouble from Suzanne and Priscilla, and she certainly knows that Priscilla is tinkering with some powerful dark arts stuff. Now that Angus has some means to see her or feel her presence, I think she's trying to keep a rather protective eye on her family. It isn't all that different from the fact that Khaat is able to communicate with Remus, and that's something that Robert can't do. And to the best of my knowledge, he can't communicate with Teddy either. I think it takes not only ability on both sides of the veil but an overwhelming desire to reach across to each other. It does take significant energies on both parties to do it. That's why conversations only last a moment or two, generally, at best. Even for a well trained medium, it can be massively draining."

"We wouldn't have found it at all if my gran hadn't led us here," Angus said to Jessie.

"We know its recent," Marcus said. "This wasn't that far from where we rescued Abbey, and I'm positive it wasn't here then. I don't think it originated here. I think it originated at the other end, wherever that is, and they've only broken through recently. The duplex was broken into last night. Angus and I are positive. They tampered with the house's crystal converter. They got in through the cellar window and left by the balcony off the master bedroom. Not sure why they went upstairs, but I'm sure we'll answer that too eventually. Is your gran still here, Angus?"

"Yes," Angus said. "She's ahead of us."

"Be very careful. Let's not trip any sort of alarms or anything that whoever built this might have installed along the way. Eyes open, wands at the ready," Marcus said.

Aria listened to Kate and nodded as she spoke " agreed" she said handing over the small bottle to her. Listening to her speak of Caprice she sighed and nodded " how do you cope with it all?" she asked " the knowledge of they could be watching " she said " to think my brother could be watching me, unnerves me a little." she said .

Jessie listened to Angus and Marcus and then looked behind him and spoke " well I don't see her so, I'll have to take your word for it, but glad she's here" he said shining the light ahead of them. He nodded hearing Angus talk of being careful of alarms and maybe booby traps that might have been set to stop snoopers looking around.

"Well, it doesn't work exactly like that," Kate laughed. "First of all, it takes a lot of energy, so they don't have the focus generally speaking to be able to hone in on the parts of your life where you really don't want your brother to be watching. They tend to save their energies for the things that are important. And, second, most seers have learned to put up some good boundaries to protect their own energies. If you've ever had a hotel room with a door to make it adjoin to the room next door, it's rather like closing that door for the night. Its blocking that contact off temporarily to give yourself some peace. Angus is entirely too new to know how to do that, but I'll teach him."

"You know what I don't see?" Angus asked.

"No. What?" Marcus asked.

"Footprints. There should be some in the soil here, but there aren't," Angus said. "None at all."

"Well, maybe they know a charm to obliterate them. It wouldn't be that hard," Marcus said. "A bit of a breeze would blow the dirt and dust in here around and erase every trace they'd ever been here."

"And leave us clueless."

"Maybe. What am I smelling?"

"I dunno. What?"

"You need to work on your powers of observation. I smell something. Something chemical."

"Oh. That. That isn't anything. That's just some of the fertilizer we use on the crops," Angus said, Marcus scowled at him.

"As Sherlock Holmes once said, 'You see but you do not observe,'" Marcus said. He flicked his wand to cast a quick spell, and the light from his wand shot off to his left. "See that? Direction spell. The light shows true north. It's pointing left, so we're going east. Actually northeast. Towards the fields. This is the absolute opposite direction of the other tunnel we found some months ago."

"Which means we have to be under the fields. We're smelling fertilizer because they're planting and fertlizing the fields for this years crops."

"So where will we end up when we reach the northeastern corner? What's on the other side of this property boundary?"

"It's just scrub land and an old abandoned quarry. Mostly sandstone and quartz, but most of the rock that was useful to muggles was all mined out a long time ago. Muggles just rip stuff up and then walk away and leave a right mess."

"I bet you a fish and chips supper we come out in that damned quarry," Marcus said. "Quarries run rampant with tunnels. We're gonna end up over there, I bet."

"Could be," Angus said. "This is awfully far below the surface though."

"Well, most protection grids don't even attempt to reach below what would be about 7-10 feet--the depth of a cellar. They could have laid it this deep to avoid our grids," Marcus said.

Aria listened and nodded s Kate explained to her about how seers know and see spirits. " good to know he's not watching" she said and yeah I think he does kneed to learn it if he's going to have any peace, Rub's accepted it a part of him but it still gives me the chills each time he says he's seen Caprice."

Jessie listened to Angus and smelt the fertilizer in the air as they moved he also looked at the ground and nodded not seeing foot prints . " have to agree with Marcus could be the wind in here sifted the dry dirt to cover them." he said moving his foot to show how easily the dirt blew in the wind. Jessie chuckled when Angus bet a fish supper they were headed to the Quarry " you men the large half filled one to our northwest boundary?" he asked " knew having that there would be an issue" he said softly as they moved down the tunnel.

"No," Angus said. "I mean due east, not the northeast. The one northeast isn't very deep, and they do still mine some stuff out of there from time to time. There's another one, about 3 miles from our eastern border. It's a lot older ad one hell of a lot deeper than the one you're thinking of. The muggles mined the crap out of this old one, and then some chemical company came in and did sort of sketchy work there. Not sure what it was, but the muggles authorities shut it down and cordoned it all off completely with chain mesh fences and some other security measures. Even wiped out the road to get back to it so that none of the muggles would know how to find it."

"Watson, I think you're probably right," Marcus said. "Think about it. Not even the risk of muggles to obliterate. It's perfect for them. Short out the electronic security system, if there is one, and simply make a portkey. Port in, and port out. Easy peasy."

"That's what my money's on. There were rumors that there was some sort of radioactive or contaminated soil but nobody ever proved it, so we might want to tread lightly if thats' where we end up," Angus said.

"Definitely. I don't think the girls would like it if we came back glowing in the dark," Marcus teased.

Jessie listened and thought for a moment " oh that one, yeah I thought it had been filled in, guess I was wrong." he said as they walked. He moved quietly as he listened to them talking " oh I don't know , make it easier to find you in the dark" he said and chuckled.

Aria had thanked Kate and headed back to the duplex. Entering she saw Ruby in the kitchen backing a batch of rolls and shortbread biscuits to add to a tin she was filling. " Kates got that bottle Angus gave me" she said sitting sown on a stool to watch her. Ruby placed a small plate in front of her with a biscuit on and a cup of coffee .

"great now relax and try these" she said as she placed a tray of cinnamon buns in the oven to cook after she took one out " something to keep me busy while they are out doing what ever it is they are doing" she said " I'll call Edward and Simone and see if they want to come over for a bit." she said sending over a note in the shape of a bird.

Angus and Marcus laughed about how they'd be easier to find in the dark.

"I think part of the reason some quarries don't get filled in is because it would take entirely too much soil and rock to do it," Marcus said. "Especially if its a deep one, like Angus says it is. It does feel like we're walking for miles, though."

"We are," Angus replied. They walked for quite awhile yet, and then Angus was starting to see light. "We're coming out somewhere."

"Well, this should be inter..." Marcus began, and Angus motioned to them to hush. He saw his gran motioning to be quiet. Angus proceeded as close to a noiseless pace as he could manage in the rocky dust below their feet. He saw his gran pointing at something, and he lowered his wand to firing position. Marcus copied his movement, figuring Caprice was alerting him somehow. And then both Angus and Marcus saw a number of men who had made a bit of a camp several feet outside the tunnel entrance. It looked like nothing more than a campfire, some folding chairs and a cooler with some food. This was a hasty sentry post, Angus figured. Angus couldn't tell yet, at this distance, if they were wizards or muggles.

Jessie listened as they walked and chuckled along as they did to his easier to find comment. But soon he saw Angus motion for them to be quiet and walk softly he drew his wand and walked with them crouching as they drew close to the end of the tunnel. He saw what they were looking at " four men." he said softly to them " watch and wait?" he asked Marcus not sure what to do. He knew that Marcus and Angus would know if they were muggle of Wizard.

Ruby took out the rolls and placed in the short bread biscuits as Caprice woke from her nap. " I'll get her" Aria said and walked over picking her up she noted she needed changing and headed up to the nursery changed her and brought her back down " all clean, he was just wet" she said smiling.

Angus looked at Caprice.

"Are there any more, Gran?" Angus asked in a nearly silent voice. She shook her head no. "Gran says there are only these four. Let's use a petrificus and freeze them," Angus suggested. Marcus nodded and then looked to Jessie to make sure he had the plan. "I'll get two if you each get one," Angus said. Marcus nodded. "On the count of three, then," Angus said. "One...two...three. Petrificus Totalus!" He fired and got one man and then immediately fired a second one to get the man furthest away from the fire. They fell immediately like planks of wood.

When all four men were down, Angus left the tunnel and looked around. This was surely the oldest quarry. He could tell by the long, overgrown grass, and aging muggle office buildings, etc. Marcus meanwhile had gone to the men and were searching them, and he was taking things off them. He handed Angus and Jessie each one of the wallets of each of the men. Two of them were American--from Baton Rouge. One of the other men was from Le Mons, France and the other was from Dijon, France. The American men had voodoo tattoos but the French men had no tattoos. All four carried wands.

"Gues that answers half my questions," Angus said.