A Birth day

Marcus walked into the hidden room, and his eyes landed on the shelves of torture devices first. 

"God. No wonder," Marcus said. "I'd say he's actually holding up remarkably well. What else have we got?" He saw the weapons on the wall, and he knew the carnage they could inflict. He saw the shelf of books, and he saw the bottles of potions. He went over and looked at them. "Jesus. These need destroyed--every one of them--so they can't fall into other dark hands. Bastards. Suzanne's involved in this up to her eyeballs. I'm sure of it." He turned and saw the open trap door, and he lit his wand and went downstairs. "Ruby? You said he's seen this down here?" he called. He hurried back up the steps. 

"It's a workshop," Marcus told her, infuriated "And they were making caskets, duplicates of the casket he was buried in in New Orleans. There must be a dozen of them down there. They've even been aged and scented to be an exact match. If I ever see your mother again, I'm going to kill her, and that's a promise. I'm surprised he hasn't lost his mind this afternoon. I'll go talk to Robert. Lucian needs to see this. We don't need him and his crew buggaring out until they've seen it all. Ruby, see if you can reach the boys back at the house and ask them if there is anything else on this property. Any other secrets we haven't seen. Minos, is it possible that there is some sort of Fae magic that can tell us if they're hiding anything else?" 

Minos nodded and gestured to Marcus for a moment. 

"You need to go fly about and see if you can pick up on anything, yeah?" Marcus asked. Minos nodded. "Go, Mate. We'll keep Angus together." Minos nodded and flew off. Minos flew to the cave and flew over to Aria and gestured towards Lucian and then to the cabin, hoping she would understand.

Ruby watched as Marcus headed down to the basement and returned sharpish " yes , he did unfortunately" she said then gasped as Marcus told her what was down there. she saw Minos leave the cabin and turned her back to the door " this place does need to be burnt down" she said as she crossed to the fireplace and opened the floo " Victor or Sam you there?" she asked once the flame was green.

Aria stood watching as they men brought body after body out of the cave she then heard a buzzing thinking it was a mosquito she waved it off then froze mid swat seeing Minos." Sorry" she said and watched him motion to the cabin " you want me to go back to the cabin?" she asked but saw him point to Lucian too " oh you want both of us at the cabin must be important, Hey Lucian they found something at the cabin, its urgent come on we have to get back" she called to him Lucian gave his ordered to his men and walked over to her and together they walked back to the Cabin.

" okay whats the rush?" Lucian asked as Aria went to Marcus glancing at Angus ass she passed then looked at Marcus worried.

"you found something that's upset Angus" she said softly to him.

"Oh, more than a little," Marcus said angrily. "If Suzanne ever breaks out of the asylum, she's mine. Just so you know. I call bagsy on that crazy wench." He looked at both Aria and Lucian. There's an enchanted room behind the medicine cabinet. You need to look at it, and yeah, we've probably all touched a couple things, but that's just bloody well too bad, innit? Oh, and do go down through the trapdoor to the basement because, yes. There's more."

"I'm gonna set a bombarda to this matchbox when we get done here today," Robert said, coming out from the bathroom, seething. "Yes, I've seen it. Didn't spend an inordinate amount of time, but just as a safety precaution. If you're not 100% sure you know what it is and how to disarm it, don't touch one bloody stinking thing. It's rather like going into a room filled with cheesed off cobras. Be extremely careful, both of you."

Aria looked at Marcus and saw the anger on his face she moved past him and into the room with Lucian behind her , Lucian was taking pictures with a muggle phone as proof and evidence for the files. Aria walked around the room and saw everything in it her demeanour was one of calm but inside she wanted to blow the cabin and its contents to pieces. Opening the trapdoor Lucian held it up until it could stay up by its self before then headed down. Aria lit up her wand and immediately stepped back into Lucian who placed his hand on her back before moving round her and looking at everything again taking pictures. Once they had seen though they both walked back out closing the door and moving back to the living room nether saying much.

"I have the photos as evidence " Lucian said then he paused " off the record , I'd burn this place to the ground and make sure all the metal things are nothing but a puddle of molten metal " he said and sighed seeing the flask he walked over and took a drink " sorry , I've not seen anything that bad in my career being an Auror" he said Aria looked at Marcus and shook her head in disbelief.

" its horrendous" she said simply and headed to the front door to grab some air " sorry I need..air" she said to Marcus and the others feeling some what sick being inside that cabin knowing what had possibly happened inside it.

Ruby looked at every one and then looked at Robert " so, what we going to do with this hell place" she asked ," I vote burn it" she said then looked to Angus and Robert.

"Unfortunately, we need to find out for sure who owns it before we do anything," Robert said. "If its yours and Angus's, you get to decide what happens to it. For now, though, given my position, I can absolutely cast a containment spell around it to keep everyone but Lucian and his team off of it until we clear the crime scene areas, and I can prolong that almost until Armageddon because I don't think there's a huge call for people wanting to get here."

"Where's Angus?" Robert asked. 

"Outside," Marcus said. "He wanted to smoke, so he went out the kitchen door to the back deck to have a couple minutes of peace. I'm keeping an eye on him. He's got a mug of firewhiskey with a little coffee in it. Yes, I added more firewhiskey to his cup."

"Good," Robert said. "Won't hurt him a bit. What I've seen here today is cruelty more than I think I perhaps have ever seen in one place. Go stay close to him, Marcus."

"Certainly," Marcus said. 

"Ruby, I presume the boys didn't know of any other surprises? Please tell me there isn't some sort of Halloween house of horrors on the other side of the woods," Robert said. "I want our part in this to be finished as soon as we can because I want to get him home. If there's nothing else here that we haven't seen..."

"We want the books, Robert," Marcus said. "There's a number of books on the shelf in that room. We want them to take a closer look at them."

"Noted. Now, go stay with Angus," Robert said. "Lucian, I presume you'll be alright with my taking a look at the books when you look at them? If there's nothing that seems to be needed for evidence, can we have them to take a closer look, in case there's anything helpful for us to stop the Gelding's enterprises?"

Aria stood out side and breathed in the air but it hung heavy around her after what she had seen. She saw Marcus walk out and go over to Angus she nodded and sat down on a fallen log. Ruby heard Robert and shook her head " none that they can remember, this place was the only one they knew of." she said as Robert then spoke to Lucian who nodded his head.

"go ahead I'll let the guys know you have free rain" he said sending a note to the men still out at the cave. A knock came at the door and he opened it to a few more men arriving he directed them to the back room " safe the books , Mr Lupin wants to go over them" he told the men who nodded and began collecting everything them could.

"Boys!" Robert shouted at Lucian's team members. "Use gloves when you handle those potions jars. They're all dark arts brews, and most of them are extremely dangerous. Some are pure poison. I suggest you merely get photos and then when you're finished with them, I'll stop down to your department and we'll destroy them safely so they don't harm anyone. And, whatever you do, do not touch the weapons. Don't even try. They're very rare and very dangerous. None of them have the safety on, and they're all primed to fire at the slightest touch. Consider it a wall of lethal booby traps, designed to kill anyone that touches them. Michael and I will remove them safely from the wall and either disarm them or put the safety back on. For now, I suggest you remove anything else you want out of there and then let me put a protection grid to keep everyone out for the next 24 hours. That'll give Michael and me time to make sure you aren't killed by trying to gather them up."

"Marcus," Angus said, snuffing out the very last bit of a cigarette that he had smoked completely down to the filter. "I have to get home. I have to find the deed to the house and see if this is all tied to it."

"We will," Marcus said quietly. "Robert and Lucian will make sure its secured, and if they don't, Aria will. As soon as we can get out of here, I'll take you home. I promise."  Angus nodded and handed Marcus back his cigarettes.  "You can hang onto them if you want," Marcus told him.

"They don't actually help right now," Angus said. "Taking care of things will probably be more helpful. I need to have something to do."

Lucian heard Robert talk to his men each looking over at him and he nodded " hes the boss" he said and the men all answered together saying " yes sir" then slipped on gloves to pack up the bottles and books from the first room.

Ruby looked to Robert and sighed " if we own this place Angus gets first blast here" she told him and Lucian .

"understandable but you have to find out if you own this or not first. " Lucian said " that's the first step, after that, if you do, torch it, if not its all evidence against the geldings" he added " and will be burnt eventually anyway" he stepped back as the first boxes began leaving the room to be stacked up and sent to the ministry the books were sent to Roberts office as per his request to study them.

Aria stood and watched from a far Marcus and Angus when they were done smoking and talking she stood up and walked over to them. " think its about time for your potion " she said softly " that and a rest in a more welcoming environment" she smiled to Angus.

After Robert had finished giving Lucian's team sufficient safety warnings, Robert went outside and heard Ruby talking to Angus about wanting to get him home.

"Yeah, I know, but I really need to be busy somehow," Angus said. 

"I agree with with Aria, Angus," Robert said. "You aren't the only one who found this disturbing today. This is, by far, the worst crime scene that Lucian and his team have ever seen, and I don't believe any of the rest of us have seen this level of rage and violence to this extent either."

"I have," Angus replied quietly, not looking at anyone, but looking off into the distance instead.

"I think we've all seen enough. Come on. I'm taking you and Ruby home," Robert said. "Michael will Aria and Marcus, you two head home and keep the duplex secure. I'm not necessarily expecting trouble--not unless Lucian can't keep a lid on this and it gets out to the press. And if it does, they'll be reporters all over the estate. Aria, when you get back, you get with Jack immediately and warn him. The security is already tight, but it might need to be tighter yet. I don't want any screw ups. This team has had enough today. You lot focus on making sure the kids are alright." 

Robert deliberately did not finish his sentence because he didn't believe he needed to. He trusted them to know that he was taking them home purposely so he could look after Angus himself. Angus had never ever spoken to anyone about what had happened in the time that he had been at Suzanne's mercy, but they had been with him the night in the swamp. They all still had some trauma just from that incident. And now Robert had some inkling into the mind of Suzanne. he could see just how criminal she had become. He could only think of one reason why she would go to so much detail to recreate the casket down to the last detail. He believed she was fully intending to continue to use that casket to taunt and torture Angus with, to try to ensure that he never had one moment's peace. She had been preparing to drive him mad if she could. 

First things first, though. He wanted to take care of his team first, and then he fully intended to go make a visit to Suzanne who was now in Switzerland in the very same lockdown unit that Evelyn was in.

Aria nodded as she listened to Robert " I'll go as soon as we return" she told Robert then looked to Marcus nodding she agreed to return with him to the duplex and let Jack know all that they had found. Lucian listened while tending to his men sending them to collect items and telling them to be careful around the weapons . As he heard his name he looked over at Robert.

"we got this Robert don't worry" he said serious tone in his voice as he looked at them all " I'll notify you if we find anything else or come across anything you need to check out" he added as a young Auror walked over with a check list he nodded to him and the boy walked back to the group packing up carefully the potions.

Ruby shivered as she saw one b its contents black as pitch but holding a slivery tone to it as the liquid moved inside it. Each bottle had its own unique label penned by her mothers hand as she recognised the writing on them.