Inheritance

"Oooh, berries!" Abbey beamed, delighted to see strawberry ice cream in front of her. She looked at Eli. "'Sanks!" She gripped the spoon in her fist and listened to Eli reassuring her that she was safe with him, and she believed him. If he said he was a kitty and could keep her safe, then that was good enough for her.

"Doggies scare me too," She agreed with them. "It a good thing you a kitty. I no know what I am when I put my fur on. I sometimes go swim in the pool. I no know how to take my fur off. Papa has to help me take it off."

It was true. The Labrador in her loved to swim, and sometimes it got the better of her. The instinctive lure to water drew the transformation out of her, and more than once, someone would find a Labrador puppy in the pool. So far as Abbey understood, that was normal too. No one had ever told her otherwise. She had no clue how to change back, though, and "Papa" usually helped her get "unstuck."

"Doggies used to come only in the dark," she told him. "Now they come sometimes in the sunshine too. I no like that. Daddy builded me a playhouse, and I no go there by myself no more." She was getting used to having bodyguards in her own life, even at home. It was becoming just a fact of life.

She looked at Archangel who was now strutting on the floor of the ice cream shop beside Abbey's chair. When Eli spoke to him, the bird screeched at him, making other people look at them and laugh at the stubborn bird. When Eli said "protect," though, the bird cocked his head to the side for a moment. "Protect Khaat." That had always been the one command that he had been trained to give his life for if it came to it. His supreme directive. He looked at Abbey--Khaat's little one that he had been left to protect.

"Go get Mama!" Abbey said. She scrambled down off her chair and went over to the door of the shop and opened it for him. "Go, Archie!" The bird finally obeyed and made two short gliding hops to the doorway and then made a leap into the air and took flight to go find his owner.

Abbey came back to her chair and looked at Eli. "How you know how to talk to him? He no listen to me. He listen to you more better."

The clerk at Flourish and Blotts looked at Khaat like she'd lost her mind when she came back sporting the ridiculous ill fitting, old cloak with its mothball smell, especially on such an unseasonably warm summer day. Khaat ignored it.

"Where's my daughter?" She asked, having searched the aisles and found them empty.

"I...thought you knew," he stammered. "The deputy minister left here with her awhile ago--shortly after you left. He had your bird too."

"Depu...Eli? She left with Eli?"

"Yes. Wasn't she supposed to?" he asked her. She was trying to make things look like business as usual, and it wasnt' working.

"Oh. Yes. Eli," she was now in a boldfaced lie. "That's right. I forgot." She gave the clerk a phony sigh of relief. "Thank you. I'll go find them." She turned to leave.

"Chief Warlock," He called her as she got to the doorway. She turned back. "They went the other way--to the north." He pointed the opposite direction down the street.

"Oh yes. Of course they did," she said. "Thank you. I'm a bit off my game today."

"Perhaps you're a bit overheated in that...lovely cloak," he said.

"Oh..." she said, unprepared with an excuse. "Its...It's...a family heirloom. I'm just taking it for repairs."

"Oh, certainly," he nodded, not buying a moment of it. She turned to leave again. "Chief Warlock, Madam Malkin's is just across the street."

"I..I knew that," she said. "I think I'll go catch up with Eli first."

"Perhaps its best," he said carefully, studying her. She heard the screech of Archangel as he came and landed on her good shoulder, simply somehow by the luck of the draw. The bird nuzzled her head in reassurance. Khaat wanted to believe that meant Abbey was alright. She hurried down the street with other wizards looking at her, and wrinkling their noses, partly from the mothball smell, and partly with the stench of the paint thinner fumes from the rags under her shirt. She had a passing thought of what the Quibbler would make of this nonsense if it made their gossip column. "Chief Warlock Goes Nutters..." the headline passed through her imagination. "Brilliant," she said to herself sarcastically. She reached the outside of the ice cream shop and saw through the shop windows. Inside was Eli, Fauve, and, finally, Abbey. Abbey seemed to be chattering with Eli and appeared no worse for wear. She sighed with relief. He had evidently found her fairly quickly. Thank goodness. Now, if she could just get in, and get out and get Eli to buy her lies, all would be well.

"Wish me luck, Archangel," she said softly, before opening the door and going in.

For someone who still spoke regularly to Robert Dent, it was truly terrifying to see how very much like her father Abbey was. It wasn’t something that Elijah felt he’d ever get used to but he promised he’d endeavour to try. Robert had remarried in a fashion that was entirely him. He found a Princess of sorts and decided he rather liked the manner in which she lived so he married her on a whim and, as far as Elijah knew, was expecting yet another addition to his brood - the majority of which Elijah doubted Rob had ever mentioned to his wife. He missed Abbey, though. Elijah knew that for fact, new wife or not. There was something you couldn’t ever erase and that was the love you felt for your child.

Elijah’s eyes glazed a bit as he thought of Katherine. Kitty. His redheaded daughter whose smile would have lit a thousand ships alight and seen men go batty in love with her at a single glance. She was a fair beauty, one that Elijah never would have thought he’d have lost. But of course, Chase and her recklessness had seen to that. She’d lost herself and their daughter all in her anger towards Eli and the blame she placed upon him for something he had not caused, blame he did not deserve. For it, they’d lost their only child. A child he had loved since the day he first learned of her and would continue to until he breathed his last breath. No parent should ever have to bury their child.

But of course, all Purebloods suffered that. His parents had. Their parents had. He knew that, again, in some manner or another, he would. He and Mira were related, cousins in some way, anyway. Just as the Rookwoods, Cordelia and Augustus, had been related and in that they lost her and their unborn son. It happened with the Averys. With the Malfoys. The Yaxleys, the Macnairs, the ... Purebloods. Always, always Purebloods - and most especially, the Blacks.

Elijah swallowed back the tears he felt in his eyes and raised a smile to his lips for the benefit of the children, one of whom was babbling away while the other stared at him, sensing his disquiet.

“Archangel’s just afraid I’ll eat him,” Elijah assured Abbey, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. “But I wouldn’t.” He added swiftly, just in case the child became concerned for the welfare of her mother’s bird.

Elijah looked up, hearing the sound of the door open and his nose wrinkled at the palpable smell of age that wafted in through the door. It wasn’t Khaat. She still bore the benefits of youth. No, it was that godforsaken cloak she wore that smelt as though her Great-Aunt Flossy and her sister Tessy both died in it and proceeded to rot away, too. Then of course it was dumped in an attic and for some ungodly reason, Khaat decided she liked it.

“What in the name of Merlin’s pants are you wearing, Khaat Lupin?” He asked incredulously.

The relief that came over Khaat was like a flood. Abbey was safe. There were no safer hands than Eli's when it came to a child. Any child. The deep sigh left her before she could reel it in and even attempt to look smooth. She went over to the table, trying to the looks that she was getting from the other customers who were dressed appropriately for the suffocating heat. Khaat had noticed it. Moreso with the miserable ancient cloak. She had a passing urge to steal the chocolate malt from the child at the next table and pour it over her head for some relief from her heat overload.

"Abbey," she hugging her, "Are you alright?" Abbey normally clung to her mother, but her sensitive sense of smell had her wrinkling her nose.

"Take it off," Abbey frowned. "It smells."

"You know I need to drop this off for Papa," she said. "I'll do that and then I'll be rid of it."

"Papa bigger," Abbey said, feeling a tad defiant about something she knew was wrong. She looked at Eli. "Papa higher. Waay up here." She stretched her little hand up as high as it would go to prove her point.

"Abbey, don't point," Khaat said quickly, trying to cut the three year old from ratting her out. "Um...Eli, I really should go drop this lovely heirloom off to be repaired. Could I leave her with you for a couple of hours? Emergency cloak repairs can take some time..." It sounded ridiculous even as she said it. Who needed an emergency winter cloak repair in August. And who needed two hours to drop it off at the cloak shop? Epic, spectacular fail! she thought to herself. Even Abbey's not that dumb!

The wool had most certainly not been pulled over the eyes of Elijah Nathaniel Krum. No, all of the wool had been put into that Merlin-awful excuse for a cloak that was totally inappropriate for summertime. So, when all of the sensible reasons had been exhausted and if one actually listened to the intuitive child that was the product of Robert and Khaat, there was only one ridiculous reason left: Khaat was, first of all, lying, and second of all had seemingly had quite the productive meeting with a lycanthropy sufferer.

Elijah rose from his chair, his hand coming to rest atop Fauve’s head. She looked up at him questioningly before turning to smile at Khaat. Elijah dropped his hand and moved back his robes to put his hands on his hips. His eyebrows rose to his hairline and he allowed the brewing smirk to rise on his mouth, unrepentant in its visible amusement.

“I trust the doggies weren’t too unkind, Khaat.” He teased. “Should we get you to St. Mungo’s for a once over or shall I call your father now?”

Elijah was bluffing, of course, but he wanted to see, mainly, if he was right. If he was, he wouldn’t tell Robert provided she at the very least let him look her over. Healing magic was something he’d slowly become accustomed to and while he wasn’t superb, he had to admit that for whatever she needed, he was sure he could oblige - even if it was with only a couple of potions.

“Don’t lie to my face,” he spoke softly, for her ears only.

She decided to stand tall, to adapt her father's tough exterior and try to make it work for her. Sometimes it worked for her, and sometimes it didn't. This was questionable. The damned cloak smelled odious, and it was stupidly hot. Her hair was getting damp, but Eli was not about to make it easy for her. He had called her right out on her lie. Well, did she really expect less? And she had no clue how to answer him. She suddenly noticed she could hear the ticking of a clock.

Or, wait. Was it a clock? Drip, drop...drip, drop,...drip, drop...That wasn't a clock. She looked around to see where the noise was coming from. She caught sight of Abbey, who was looking at the floor between the two of them. That made Khaat automatically look down too, in time to see the drip, drop was being made from drops of blood that were pooling on the floor from underneath her cloak. Brilliant. Just brilliant. She pulled her glance up fast to look at Eli eye to eye.

"Not in front of the children," she said in a whisper. The fact was that Abbey was the least of her concern. She'd seen this before. She was, at three, already used to this. Comparatively, though, the shop was full of innocents that did not need to know until there were more facts. She had intended the man in front of her to be one of those innocents, but he wasn't going to be just blissfully ignorant.

"That a lotta boo boo, Mama," Abbey piped up. Khaat rolled her eyes, increasingly frustrated. She spoke to Eli again.

"Unless you have a bandaid in your pocket or a roll of duct tape,..." she was considering the latter for her three year old's mouth, "you need to let me go. This is not a public affair." She didn't feel she could go to St. Mungo's. She did trust Eli. She didn't trust letting anyone else know. It was too dangerous.

Testily, Elijah met Khaat’s gaze measure for fierce measure. He wasn’t going to back down over this; it was ridiculous - stupid, even. Khaat couldn’t go on like this and Elijah knew that as long as she did, the more trouble she’d get herself in. It was a given thing, really, and he should’ve known better, should’ve known all about it, but he couldn’t help but think each time he was confronted with her reality that there had to be something else, something less cut-throat and terrifying; something which would keep the children ignorant of the danger that was presenting itself to them more and more every day.

“Your daughter is as brusque as her father. It is bollocks, Khaat.” Elijah told her as gently as possible while still retaining a firm tone. “You need to sort this. I won’t always be there in Flourish and Blotts to pick Abbey up. Next time, it might not be someone friendly. If we’re not going to St. Mungo’s then I am taking you home, alright?”

He looked at Khaat pointedly and gestured for Fauve to get up and she did so obediently, reaching for her coat as she did so. She came up behind Elijah, reaching up to take his hand, and he looked down to see that she’d already donned her coat. He returned his gaze to Khaat and raised his eyebrows pointedly.

“Right, that’s decided then. We’d better go and see Robert, hmm?” He inquired jovially as though he was talking about the weather or something equally as inane.

He wished it was.

"Abbey," Khaat said gently, "come. Its time to go." Abbey got down off her chair and spotted the bird, who appeared to be gawking at the puddle of blood on the floor.

"Ewww," she wrinkled her nose again. "Archie, no. Mama, Archie bad...."

"Archangel," Khaat said, "come. Leave it." She attempted to cast a spell with her injured shoulder and the only thing she managed to do was to get the puddle to cast little ripples, as if someone had tossed a stone in it. Well, wasn't that just a wee bit further humiliating?

A store clerk, certainly not over 16, came and cleared his boyish throat. He drew his wand and cast a spell with a shaky voice, but the puddle disappeared.

"Well done," Khaat said with a cordial smile, trying to not appear even further embarrassed. She was outdone by a acne faced teen, while wearing a cloak made for the Arctic. Eli would eat this up with great relish for quite awhile to come. She looked at him as the clerk cleared the ice cream dishes and disappeared back behind the counter.

"Don't say a word," she said to Eli, not sure she could swallow one more dose of indignity. She walked out of the ice cream shop, holding tight to Abbey's little hand, and looked about. She saw Madam Malkin's--her mother's shop. It was in the opposite direction from St. Mungos or her father, but it was right across Diagon Alley. It was surely closer--just steps away. She figured she could find something there to stop the bleeding.

"Over here," she said. "Abbey, let's go see Gram."

"Gam!" Abbey's face brightened. She looked at Fauve, excited. "Gam gots lotsa books!" She tugged on Khaat's hand. Khaat knew Eli wouldn't leave her without an explanation. She motioned to him with her injured arm, finding it was definitely stiffening.

Khaat went into Madam Malkin's, and one of her mother's trusted clerks, a perky little redhead named Phoebe, looked at her and the cloak as if Khaat had come into the place naked. Abbey pulled free from Khaat's hand and motioned to Fauve, running to the back room where Kate kept a bit of a sitting room--including books and toys for her grandkids.

"Your...your mother isn't here..." Phoebe said.

"That's fine, Phoebe," Khaat said. "Are there any customers?

"No. Not right now."

"Good. I...I'll be in the office. Lock all the doors--please. Close the place for a few minutes. I need to know I wasn't followed."

"Of course," the clerk scampered to the door and turned the key and headed for the back. She knew Khaat wanted to be alone. "I'll stay with the girls, shall I?" Phoebe asked. Khaat nodded, grateful as Phoebe went to pamper the girls a bit, then looked at Eli, feeling only a trifle safer.

"I have a small problem," Khaat told Eli softly. She picked up a stack of silk pashminas, the closest thing she could find for a bandage or a sling either one, and she laid them on the counter.

"There have been some attacks. They've come to the estate. Breeched our protection spells. They're coming more often. They've killed three of the men working with us who were backing up my bodyguards at night.

"I..was always safer during the day or away from the estate. I thought the other kids were safe if I left all the guards with them...." She looked at him. "I've never seen them here--until today. I thought they were just after me. I..., well, it looks like I was wrong."

She unfastened the cloak, and it fell to the floor of the shop. Her shoulder was a mass of blood--four deep claw wounds in the front of her shoulder and one in the back. Her shirt was bloodsoaked and saturated.

"The one I see--he's enormous. He's well over 6 foot before he's transformed. A few inches under 7 foot, I'd guess. Muscular." She paused to try to hide how frightening this one was, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to see that. Werewolves rarely frightened her, but this one--he was another matter. "Eli, when he's fully transformed and standing upright on his haunches, he's bigger yet. Over 7 foot, I'm guessing."

Typically, Purebloods weren’t at all fond of Muggles or Mudbloods or Vampires or Werewolves; they all sort of came under the same blanket of weird and scary - a blanket which categorised threats to the magical way of life. Elijah, particularly, was not exempt from that irrationality but felt that he could be let off knowing his fear only extended to the latter two and anyone by the name of Felix Barker, regardless of whether it was the man himself or some random unfortunate who shared his name and therefore the wide-eyed looks of anyone who had the misfortune of coming across the ‘real deal’. No, Muggles and their magical children were no threat to Elijah. Vampires and Werewolves were however, particularly the Werewolves.

Especially the Werewolves in Khaat’s case; and his. But unlike Khaat, he didn’t have them on his front doorstep.

Swallowing, Elijah ran his fingers through his hair, trying to unriddle his furrowed eyebrows as he processed what the mother figure in his life was trying to tell him. He wasn’t feeling glib enough to suggest an electric fence or a taser though he wouldn’t put it past himself to mention it to Brian or Robert at a later date. However, at seven foot tall... they could probably jump both with some more springing left in them.

“I’ll never like dogs,” Elijah remarked with a wry grin before crossing his hands behind his back, looping his fingers together as his mind paced in thought.

He pressed his lips together into a tight line for a moment before deciding to broach gently something which he had been wondering.

“I know trouble finds Lupins as a rule but don’t take this the wrong way....just, what have you done to rattle their chains? The Department of Fluffies has been dealing with a load of suspected lunar wolf attacks for the last few weeks but they don’t know, really, where to start. Dogs that are in the more harassing of moods than just mindless violence. Is it because of Remus or something else? We’ve got sanctions waiting to go through the Wizengamot but I’m not sure what good it’ll do. If all else fails we could go fox hunting but replace the foxes with werewolves.”

Another wry smile flitted onto Eli’s face before his expression changed into one of abject concern at the sight of the blood all over her.

“Are you alright?” He asked in reflex. “Obviously not but ... can you manage that on your own?” He frowned a little as he stepped forward and look at Khaat carefully. “When they come onto the estate...are they there when they know you’re alone or are they there knowing everyone is there or ... are they not afraid of groups of wizards?”

It was difficult to ascertain their cowardice or lack thereof.

But how could you be cowardly when you were over seven foot tall?

Some puny human with a stick in his hand wasn’t going to be particularly terrifying, was he?

“I feel as though that was a pointless question. A better question is what is Robert doing about it and what can I do about it?”

"Abbey likes them even less," She said. "Poor thing. She's seen more at three than most of the adults in Diagon Alley. Tear the shirt, please.  I can't see. There's too much blood," she said calmly. She would have just taken it off, but the idea of having Eli see her in her bra was distasteful for her, despite the fact that her bra covered more than her bikini.  That was hardly the point.  

"I have to pull the shirt away from the wound.  My mother's going to kill me for putting these pashminas to such shameful use.  Oh well.  The best we can do is bandage this for now.  I'll have to try to find my father to close this later.  They seem to be soaking their claws into something that makes ordinary touch healing completely ineffective.  Annoying as hell."  

She tore what she could of the shirt and got even further annoyed seeing how long and deep the claw marks were.  Her father would not be pleased--whenever it was that she could find him.  It would be time consuming to heal.  "Damnit," she cursed softly.

She listened to his questions. "Good questions," she said, picking up a snowy white silk pashmina, wadding it up, and pressing it to her shoulder as best she could. She could hear her mother's voice in her head. "Khaat Karina! My best silk pashminas! You couldn't use the cotton shirts, could you? Or the boxers? No...It had to be stacks and stacks of my pashminas!" Her mother would be far more irked with the pashminas than the fact that she was bleeding out all over the floor in the Madam Malkin's showroom. No, Kate Lupin had become accustomed to seeing someone almost entirely bleed out right in front of her eyes and seemed to be about as immune to it rattling her as the average papercut. The pashminas were, however, fair game for criticism.

"This bonehead who is the alpha of this rogue bunch, from what I can figure, is the brother of one of my bodyguards. He goes by a totally bogus alias now of James Blood. Tacky, I know, but there it is and he's taken Fenrir's whole business of werewolf supremacy way too seriously.  What he's said to me is that all he wants is to replace us mere humanoids with the superior werewolf race.  That's all," her last remarks falling as bitter sarcasm. "And here's the thing. He seems to be quickly mastering Fenrir's ability to transform partially or fully at will, without any relevance to moonlight. And that in itself is horrifying and has horrendous implications.

"He's particularly irked with us because Remus betrayed 'his own kind' by being benevolent towards humans and desiring to be more human than beast.  Apparently that galls him for some odd reason.  And, the fact that my family supports tolerance and inclusion rather than segregation pisses this jerk to no end.  

"The other thing that supremely jangles his nerves is this..." she fingered the necklace around her neck. "So far, its one of the few things that slows him down. He wants this stone in the very worst way. I'd gladly give it to him but I can't seem to find a way to do that without beheading myself.  And he's very eager to solve that dilemma for me, but I don't think I want him to do it."  She was frustrated by how hard this was bleeding.

"How about using however many of those you need to, to try to soak this up a bit?  I have no ruddy idea where my father is today.  His schedule's been a bit schizophrenic lately. Might take me a bit to find him.

"This guy isn't afraid of anything," Khaat said. "Since we're all inferior beings in his book, he sees this as some grand murderous game and we're merely hunting sport for him. He's rather enjoying watching us all squirm.  The good thing is that some of our protection spells, when we've layered them upon each other, seem to be somewhat effective. The werewolves haven't been able to breech into the house. We keep the kids there.  Its the safest place we know. That, and we believed that off the estate was better than being on it  Clearly, we're wrong about that bit now.

"What Daddy and I have been trying to do is to keep him focused on us while we research some way to track them, find out where they're based out of, and, most likely, kill them all. I don't see a choice, and neither does my father. Blood's turning more people all the time to werewolves either by force or by the lure of immeasurable power--or at least that's his sales pitch. He's got a pack of young aggressive males that are eager to do anything he asks for his promises of power and promotion, and his women hang on his every word because of his, alleged,...virility."  She saw no further need to explain the women's irrepressible need for Blood's affections.  "Honestly, I've seen him fully transformed, and I have to admit, I don't think its all that, so unless werewolves are different in that regard, there has to be something else that is more alluring than his anatomy."

"We've always been safe off the estate. I dont' know how they got the location of our unplottable estate, but the whole pack comes there, day or night and just intends to make a bloodbath out of it. We've hired extra guards and fighters, and we've recruited Edward Donohue who literally wrote the book on werewolves and werewolf slaying.  He's been staying with us. We brought Edward out of retirement, and so far, he's kept most of us alive.  We've lost a total of seven fighters since this began--three of them last night.  But we've worked on keeping this a private matter, because as long as it was local, and directed at us, we saw no sense in spreading panic.

"I have a sneaky feeling that keeping it secret is really going to be blown all to hell.  Eli, I don't think we're going to have a choice. They're not based on the estate that we can find.  They've now decided to infiltrate London.  This is now not just a battle for my family.  This is now becoming a battle for all of humanity.

"The best weapon you've got right now is me. Frightening as that is." She pointed again to the stone. It was the only thing that they had found that would drive him off even temporarily.  "But so far as we know, I have the only one in existence, and Flamel must have taken the secret of its creation to the grave. I see no choice but to inform my father, then alert our allies and then tell the public so they might protect themselves.  Perhaps a task force amongst the aurors, and allow Edward to either lead it or consult and advise them. Do you see any other choice at all?"