A Birth day

Marcus came downstairs and finished his cheesecake finally and his coffee.

"Well, the kids already know. She sent them letters about some hairbrained idea she has that some bloke she met who's in Jeffrey's Edelweiss house too. She says he's a Danish prince who has a summer castle in the Swiss alps, and she's going to marry him and make my kids all princes and princesses. Two problems with that. First, Edelweiss House is the name of Jeffrey's lockdown facility. Second, if she met some guy in there, he isn't a prince, and no Danish prince would have a castle in Switzerland. She's full of something, alright, but wisdom isn't it," Marcus said.

"How are the kids?"

"Pissed. They're livid. They've told both my parent and me that Evelyn is not going to get the chance to get anywhere near me. Ezra and Zane have both promised they'd 'take care of her' before she ever got the chance to lay a hand on me," Marcus said.

"You're very blessed to be so loved by your kids," Angus said. "They aren't buying one moment of her nonsense, are they?"

"Not for a fraction of a second," Marcus said. "And they have told my parents, that the devil has a better chance of getting central air conditioning in Hell before they'd ever go live with her." Angus laughed, amused. "My dad's calling the attorney in the morning to get him to put a stop to this latest craziness. He'll keep me updated." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Finn pawing at the door to go out, and he flicked his fingers to open the door. He checked his watch. "Kids have 30 minutes to be home on time."

"You can ask them," Angus said. "It's a nice gesture anyway."

"And if they're not home on time?" Marcus asked Angus, curious. "You aren't going after them, are you?"

"Certainly not. I don't know where they went. I didn't ask them. If I wanted to find them, I think maybe I could figure out how I could reverse the signals on their medallions to track them, but I really don't want to do that," Angus said. "I think it'll be far more effective anyway if they have to dread dealing with me when they get home. But they still have some time. They're not late yet."

"Well, I get your idea about wanting to reverse the signal, but that's probably trickier than it sounds," Marcus said. "I know when Michael built them, he built them for us to be able to find a fighter if they were in trouble, but that spell is tightly linked to the distress button being activated. I don't know if that's going to be as easy as all that. I know Robert's own medallion works something like that, but I do know from a conversation I overheard between Robert and Michael that Robert's medallion was constructed entirely differently. But then again, I'm not in the business of making espionage toys either. That's Michael's or Gabe's forte, not mine. At any rate, I bet if we needed to find them, we'd find a way."

"My plan is better. I'll wait for them to come in, and then ground them until sometime just after the apocalypse."

"Yeah, that works for me," Marcus laughed.

An hour passed, and the kids were now well over 30 minutes late. Angus wasn't overly concerned yet, but he definitely wasn't going to bed until the kids were home. Even more time passed, and when the kids were almost two hours late, Angus heard them trying to slip in very quietly. He heard the girls start to go downstairs while Sam and Victor closed the door to come into the living room.

Angus whistled loudly.

"All four of you," Angus called. "Front and center. You all have some explaining to do."

"Dad," Sam started to protest.

"I don't want to hear a syllable until I see all four of you, so your dates need to make an appearance," Angus said.

"Dad,..." Victor began.

"That goes for you too," Angus said. Sam went back towards the front door and looked down the steps.

"You'd better come," Sam told the girls. It took them a moment, but when the girls came in, it was obvious to Angus that Anise and the boys had gotten into a brawl. The boys' clothes were rumpled and a bit dirty. Anise had a badly bruised jaw and a black eye,. and a bruise across one cheekbone.

"Well, that's attractive," Angus said. "Where have you four been?"

"It isn't like that," Sam began.

"Isn't like what? I only asked where you've all been. You do realize it is now well after midnight, right?" Angus motioned to Anise to come over to him.

"Alright," Anise sighed, going over to Angus. If there was one thing Angus did know, even though he wasn't a healer, was what it was like to be hit in the face.

"Where were you brawling?"

"Knockturn Alley," she sighed.

"What an impressive place for an underage young woman to be," he said, looking at her bruises. She winced as he checked her face.

"But I saw that black woman. That American floozy...."

"Priscilla?"

"Yeah, and she had some black man with. He's a creep, you know that?"

"Yeah. I know he's a creep. Where'd they go?"

"Borgin and Burkes," she said.

"Of course they did."

"They were in there quite awhile. I followed them and tried to look in the window but...damn that shop window is filthy, you know that?"

"Its dirty on purpose. To keep kids like you lot from looking in. Not somewhere you should ever try to go."

"Well, some big gorillas caught me, so I fought my way out."

"What'd they look like?" Angus asked. She described them for Angus, and he nodded.

"I'll go get a patch kit," Marcus said.

"Ruby made you some hot chocolate," Angus said. "Go get it. Marcus will patch Anise up in a moment, and I'll discuss this in the morning. So get your hot chocolate and get to bed." They silently headed to the kitchen.

"What's got you picking vegetables at midnight, Jack?" Marcus asked, taking the patch kit and going over to Anise. He sat down on the edge of Angus's bed and opened the patch kit. Inside, he found some of Robert's bruise potion.

"Doesn't do much for the discoloration but it does help them to heal a bit faster and it does numb the pain for awhile," he told her. "Close your eyes. I can use it on your black eye too." She closed her eyes, and he used some of the lotion on a cotton ball and dabbed it lightly on her bruises all over her face. You were lucky. You could have ended up with missing teeth, a broken nose, a broken cheek bone or worse."

"Been in fights before," she shrugged quietly.

"Yeah, but you usually won, didn't you? One, you were with your pack, so they were going a bit easier on you. And, two, your canine skills won't help you a bit when you're in human form. And, three, criminals don't hold back. You're in the big leagues now, Kiddo. If you're going to brawl with the big boys, you need some better brawling skills. We'll have to teach you how to up your skills. Okay to take her off her morning run for one morning, Dad?" Marcus looked at Angus.

"Just one, yes," Angus said. "but not for you other three. You need to be hitting the track on time. Got it?" They nodded and took their hot chocolate from Ruby.

"That should do it for now," Marcus said when he was finished with Anise. "Go get your hot chocolate and get some sleep."

"Thanks for the vegetables. Rosaria and Carlo are with us for a week or two, and I'm sure she'll be making some delicious things from those vegetables. I appreciate it. These four went out on a double date, saying they were going to dinner and a movie, and this one here comes back with her face all busted up. I think it's a pretty predictable consequence of kids being in Knockturn after curfew," Angus said. "She's lucky she didn't break anything.

"You're welcome to double check her if you like, Jess," Marcus said. "The patch kit had bruise potion, but I didn't think I saw anything more than bruises and a black eye. Heaven knows I'm not a healer, though."

"I told her she could skip the run in the morning, but these other three little gray hairs need to hit the track on time," Angus told Jack.

"Gray hairs?" Marcus laughed.

"Every time I got a toe out of line, Edward said I was a gray hair--one more reason his hair was going gray--because my behavior was apparently turning his hair gray," Angus said. Marcus laughed.

"Oh, so that's where he got all that gray from. He got it from you."

"Ask him. He'll be quick to tell you, every one of those hairs is one I put there," Angus said.

"I bet you didn't ever do much of anything stupid," Sam scowled at Angus.

"No? Ask Edward. He'll tell you. Ask him about the rabid werewolf I tried to attack when I was nine."

"Nine?" Marcus looked at Angus wide eyed. "Did you lose your little mind or something?"

"No, I thought I had him for sure. I was well armed--with a corkscrew, and a plastic fork."

"What?" Marcus looked at him incredulous. "What the hell were you gonna do with those?"

"No clue," Angus laughed.

"How'd you get out of that one alive?"

"Sergio's dad. He got there just in the nick of time to save my little hide," Angus said. "We were sent to Sergio's area to take out a rabid werewolf, and I did a splendid job of finding him--when there weren't any adults with me."

"And there you were, at all of 4 foot nothing, with your trusty plastic fork."

"Pretty much," Angus laughed.

"Dear God. Makes Anise look like a saint," Marcus shook his head.

"Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Jess. We appreciate all the help we can get with this bunch, believe me," Angus said.

"Thanks, Jess," Anise said. The boys took their mugs and headed upstairs, and both girls headed downstairs with their mugs.

"I think it's under control til morning, Ru," Angus said. "You need to get some sleep. You and Aria are going to have a busy day. Don't forget that Rosaria and Carlo are early risers. It's liable to be a short night."

"I'll be down here, Aria," Marcus said. "I might doze off and on if it stays quiet, but I appreciate it if you get any time to relieve me when you get back from shopping tomorrow. Besides, when you two go upstairs, i'll help him clean up. That'll give us some privacy."

"Finn's already ahead of you," Angus pointed to Finn as the dog headed into the master bedroom upstairs. "Looks like you'll have a different male in your bed tonight, Ru."

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