When full darkness had settled in for the night, the members of the Brotherhood
of Darkness, plus Rigo, once more gathered in the meeting room at Fairlawn. 
There were signs that they had come in some haste uncombed hair, missed
buttonholes, a smudge of dirt.  Several eyebrows were raised at the sight of the
thirteen year old twins seated on chairs next to their father.

"They've earned the right," Michael said, anticipating questions. "It was
Vivain's idea that led me to believe we could use Andrei."  

The girl grinned, enjoying the attention, while Galen scowled.  Andrei, perched
on Michael's desk, stretched his wings and managed to smirk; which isn't easy
when you have a beak.

Maggie nodded to the other two red heads. "Aye, they're old enough," she
conceded.  "About time they started learning the ways of the Brotherhood."  She
winked at Vivain.
                                             
"So how do we do this?" Gideon asked, taking a moment to tuck his shirt in. 
Even he looked slightly rumpled.  "We won't all fit in the limo."

"And I don't see how we can follow Andrei on the Freeway," Evan put in.

"Not Andrei, perhaps," Michael smiled, "but a magical tracking device, put on
Andrei and attuned to the computer in the limo...?"

"Can you do that?"

The Archdruid nodded.  "We are only blocked magically from contacting Ray, or
finding out where he is.  Nothing is blocking any other magic."

"Whoever has Ray and Estella seems to have overlooked a few things," Nicholas
commented.

"I suspect that whoever it is doesn't have a very high opinion of the
Brotherhood," Michael replied.  "If it is Matthew's old coven, then they likely
don't think that any magic other than their own is effective.  They've taken our
ace, I admit.  But that doesn't leave us powerless."

"We still won't all fit in the limo," Gideon said.

"No, but those who can't go in the limo can fit in my mini-van," Michael said.  "I
can get onto the Freeway without a computer."

"Can we go, Dad?" Galen asked, almost wild with excitement.

"Please?" Vivain added.

"Not this time," Michael said.  Looking at their crushed faces, he added, "And
not just because you're too young, or it would be too dangerous, or that your
mother would kill me.  But we don't know the situation we're going into or what
we're facing, and if we have to protect you, we won't function properly. 
Besides, there isn't enough room in the van."

"Your day will come," Pandora smiled at the twins.  "You have already made a
start."

"Let us go!" Rigo exclaimed.  "Enough talk!"

"For once, I agree with him," Francis said, from the opposite side of the room. 
"Let's go."

Michael looked around the room.  Apart from the disappointed expressions his
offspring were wearing, everyone else looked determined.  "Let's go," he
nodded.

He put on a falconing glove and Andrei hopped onto it.  There was a brief green
glow flickering around the falcon. 
                                                       
"I still do not understand," Rigo said, staring at the falcon as Andrei shrieked. 
"How is it that we can follow a bird?  It is night.  Hawks do not fly at night."

"Andrei's not an ordinary bird," Josh explained as they all made their way out to
where the vehicles were parked.  The twins, looking mutinous, trailed them. 
"He's magical, and he was made from Ray's blood.  It's a bit complicated, from
what I understand.  Gideon was there; he might be able to explain it better."

"I was inside the church at the time of Ray's wounding," Gideon said, before
Rigo could ask.  "I did not see Andrei's creation.  But from what I learned later,
that is essentially what happened.  Andrei was magicked out of blood and pain."

"But Ray's magic's being blocked," Francis spoke up, having drifted close
enough to hear this conversation.  "Nobody can reach him, and he can't reach us. 
They've probably taken his cards, he's cut off from his magic.  Doesn't that
mean that Andrei can't use magic, too, since he's Ray's?"

"That's what I originally thought, too," Michael said.  He smiled at his youngest
daughter.  "Until what Vivain said made me start thinking along another line. 
Andrei is made from Ray's wound, yes, but not from Ray's _magic_.  It was
Karra who made him, not Ray."

Light dawned in a few eyes, though others still looked puzzled.

"Please, who is Karra?" Rigo asked.

"A friend," Gideon replied.  "Although one I have not heard from in awhile.  It's
a long story; some other time, Rigo."

The gypsy vampire bowed.  "Of course, my lord."

Nobody except Josh saw Gideon roll his eyes.

"What if the magic man and my niece are very far away?" Rigo asked.  "How
will one small bird fly so far?"

"More magic," Michael answered simply.  "Andrei can use the particle and the
wave, just like the limo and the van."

"Ah, magic."  Rigo didn't understand, but knew better than to meddle in the
affairs of wizards.                

"Galen, Vivain, get back inside, please," Michael said to the twins.  "Everyone
else, choose a vehicle the van or the limo."

"Aw, come on, Dad, can't we please go?" Galen gave it one last try.

"No. It's a school night."  And that was that.         

The limo could seat six; besides the Oakwoods residents and Rigo, Alex went
along for the ride.  The Druids and Francis piled into the minivan.

"You are Romanian," Rigo nodded to Alex.

"But not Romany," Alex replied, with a slight smile.  "I am a Magyar."

Rigo chuckled.  "A Romanian vampire."

"I was a Count, in my life," Alex sighed.  "Go ahead and say it, everybody else
has."

But Rigo just laughed again.  "Count is not Romanian title," he said.

"I told you, my family were Magyar.  Hungarian. Romania was part of Hungary
when I ruled my estate there.  Count _is_ a Hungarian title."

"Do you miss the old country?"

Alex stared out the window of the limo.  "I have never been back," he replied, in
a tone of voice not calculated to encourage further conversation.

Evan made sure everyone was buckled in, and turned the key in the ignition.  He
awaited Michael's signal.

Michael ushered everyone into the van, kissed his children (not without Galen
making a face), made sure they went back into the house, and then unwound
Andrei's jesses from the grip of the falconing glove.

"Go find Ray and Estella for us," he said to the falcon. "If you do that, I'll
personally catch a rabbit for you."

Andrei spread his wings, shook them, and leapt into the air.  He circled around
the van and the limo, shrieking.  When he was certain he had everyone's full
attention, he took off, winging frantically south along the Cliff Road.

"Follow that falcon!" Michael cried, and leapt into the van.  He fastened his
seatbelt as Nicholas, behind the wheel, gunned the motor.

Both vehicles peeled out of the driveway of Fairlawn, in hot pursuit.

Watching from the living room windows, the twins sighed.

"It's not fair," Vivain protested.

"It _sucks_," her brother added.

Mary put an arm around each offspring.  At times like this, she really missed
Bess, who'd never expected to be a member of the Brotherhood.  But her eldest
daughter was studying hard at MIT.

"Come on," she said. "After we put Aisling to bed, " (the Edwards' son was 
sound asleep on the floor, one arm around Ruddigore, his cheek pressing into a 
pile of Legos), "We'll make some popcorn and watch a DVD, okay?"

"We can go next time, right, Mom?" Vivain asked.

"That's up to your father.  How about Lord of the Rings?"

"Okay," they chorused, hearts not in Middle-Earth.


Andrei reached the point where he could summon the tachyon.  He vanished.

First the mini-van, then the limousine, followed.


Estella's head reeled from the blow Eric dealt her.  A bruise was already
forming it hadn't been a polite slap.  Despite herself, she felt tears welling.

"Stop it," Ray coughed, raising his head wearily.  "Don't hit her again."  
                         
"That was just to get your attention," Eric said.  "Do I have it?"

"Fully."

"Then you will believe me, when I say that I will have her beaten?"

"Eric, there is nothing shitty I don't believe you capable of."

"Then you admit I hold all the cards?"

"All the..." Ray stared.  He hadn't even thought about the Trumps.  "Where are
my cards, you bastard?"

"Those things?  A bit too Zelazny, aren't they?  Nice artwork, though, I didn't
know you had a talent."

Ray bit his lip to keep from cursing.  He didn't want to say too much about the
cards a magic he had learned, and then made his own.  

"They're mine," he said.

"Ah, no, they're mine now, along with the keys to your car, your cell phone, and
the contents of your wallet.  Obviously, being on the Right Hand Path doesn't
pay well."

"I don't do it for money."

"That's good, because I'm not going to offer you any. You will be coven leader
for nothing, because otherwise she dies."  Bates moved so quickly that even Ray
had trouble following him, and suddenly there was a knife at Estella's throat.

"What happened to not killing your insurance?" Ray asked.

"I'm getting impatient."

"All right, Eric.  You win."  Ray spread out his hands.  "Put the knife away, and
we'll talk."

Knife, that was another thing Eric had taken.  Ray's knife.  Even more than the
cards, it was a terrible personal loss.

And then he knew how his magic was being held.  The Trumps and the knife,
two things imbued with his personality and magic, could be used to lock his
magic away from him.

"That's a terrible thing to teach a child," he said, when he saw that the knife was
no longer near Estella's throat.

"What?" Eric asked.

"To use someone's personal belongings against them."

"Deirdre is not an ordinary child," Eric replied.

"Ray, he's never let that girl outside," Estella said.  "Or let her go to school."

Bates looked at her.  "Technically," he said, "Deirdre does not exist.  Her birth
was never registered.  It's difficult to send a child to school when she doesn't
exist, wouldn't you agree?"  He nodded towards Ray, who was still slumped in
the chair, hurting too much to move.  "Besides, your boyfriend can tell you what
an excellent teacher I am."

"Don't do what he says, Ray," Estella urged him.  "Not even to save my life."

"Too late," Eric said.  He motioned to the thugs.  "Take him back to his room."

They hauled Ray to his feet, but even as he groaned, another sound came from
the front of the house. Incredibly, someone knocked at the door.  Ray was
unceremoniously shoved back into the room with Estella, one of the thugs was
left there to guard, and the door was locked.

"I hope it's not kids selling Girl Scout cookies," Ray managed to quip.

Estella helped him up, glaring at the unmoving strong-arm guard, and cleaned up
his bruises and abrasions the best she could.  She, too, wondered who had
knocked at the door.  It was too much to hope for rescue.

Cautioning his guards to stay within easy reach, Eric went to the door.  Whoever
it was knocked again.  From the outside, this looked like a large, but ordinary,
house.  Probably a political campaigner or someone collecting for some charity.

He opened the door to two lovely women; one with flaming red hair, green eyes,
a skirt slit to the neck, and stiletto heels; the other with curly dark hair and a
curvaceous figure, though she was less provocatively dressed.

"Hi," Maggie breathed at him, beaming from ear to ear. "We're your local Avon
representatives."

"Ding dong," Pandora intoned, standing aside.

Five pounds of furious feathers, beak and talons hit Eric in the face before the
thugs behind him could react.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, watch out for the falcon."  Maggie laughed, then turned to
the nearest muscle boy.  "Let's go out to dinner and a movie," she suggested.

"What?"  The thug watched his employer struggle with an enraged falcon; he still
didn't think that two beautiful women were much threat.

Maggie sighed and kicked him, hard and very accurately, in the groin.  By this
time, the other muscle man was moving.  Pandora had not stood idle, either.  She
had crossed the threshold and was turning towards the outside.

"Come on in," she called out merrily.  "It seems the owner of the house is a bit
occupied, so my invitation will have to do."

Eric managed to fling off Andrei; the falcon slid, stunned, down the wall and lay
in a sad little heap of brown feathers.

"Stop!" he cried out. "I do not invite you!"

"Too late, I'm afraid," said a voice at his ear.

He turned and saw fangs.

The other muscle man, stepping around his gasping, green-tinged colleague,
encountered Evan.  He was rapped neatly over the head with a cosh and left to
lie.  Evan whacked the other one, too, out of mercy.

Eric lashed out wildly at Alex, catching the vampire in the stomach, and then
raced into the house.

"They'll both be dead before you can rescue them!" he called out from the top of
the stairs.

Five vampires, who could move faster than thought, gave chase.  Evan starting
checking rooms for more muscle, this time with a gun in hand.  Michael had knelt
by Andrei and was tenderly holding the falcon, his eyes closed.  They let him be. 
Nicholas, Pandora and Maggie were prepared to meet any magical attack. 
Mitch, practically on all fours, was bounding up the stairs after the vampires. 

Evan burst a door down, gun drawn, then stopped in surprise.  He hadn't
expected to find a little girl.

"Who are you?" they both asked at the same time.

"Where's Eric?" Deirdre asked, drawing up her blanket in fear.  "What's going
on?"

Evan could see that she was blind.  "We're friends of Ray Griffin and of Estella
Smith," he said.  "Do you know Ray and Estella?"

"They are here," Deirdre replied.  "Eric brought them here.  I do not want him
here, he killed my father.  She is nice, though"

"We're going to take him away, so don't worry about that.  We want Estella too,
though. Do you know where they are?"

"Upstairs," Deirdre replied.  "But I hold his magic.  Eric asked me to."

"That's a bad thing to do," said Evan, trying to speak calmly.  "You should give
it back."

"He will hurt Eric."

"Honey," Evan said, with feeling, "there are ten of us in this household who will
all hurt Eric if we get hold of him.  Ray is our friend, and we don't want him to
be here, either, but he must have his magic back."

"Please don't hurt Eric," Deirdre begged.  "He is all I have."

"If you give Ray back his magic," Evan bargained, "then I'll see what I can do."

Deirdre appeared to be thinking about this.  Evan could hear thumps and bangs
and yells from upstairs and longed to be with the action, but this was important. 
Besides, the vampires and Mitch were probably enjoying themselves.    
                                             
"Eric would not ask me to do a bad thing," she said.

"Please... you didn't tell me your name."

"Deirdre."

"Deirdre, please.  I don't have the time to explain everything to you, but I think
Eric hates Ray, too, and wants to hurt him.  Ray killed your father in a fair duel;
Matthew knew the risks."  Evan was guessing, but who else could this child's
father have been?  "Please don't do this thing."

"You promise to take him away?  And her, too?"

"Far away, and we'll never trouble you again."

More yells and thumps.  The noise seemed to decide Deirdre.  She got up and
walked over to her dresser.  She opened a door, felt around in it for a moment,
then handed a small cloth bag to Evan, fumbling for his hand.

"These are his," she said.  "If you give them back to him, his magic will come
back."

"Thank you.  Stay tight in this room, and we'll come tell you when it's all over."

"Remember, you must not hurt Eric."

"I won't, but I can't promise about the others."


Upstairs, indeed, Eric was in serious trouble.  He had locked himself in one of
the stouter cells, but it hadn't been designed to keep out vampires.  The hinges
were even now pulling away from the frame as Rigo and Alex hurled themselves
against the door.

Francis, Gideon and Josh were concentrating on finding Ray and Estella.  The
thug guarding them had heard all the noise and concluded that a rescue was
underway.  He had dragged a heavy desk in front of the door and was threatening
Ray and Estella with a gun.

"If they come in here, you die," he said.

He didn't think about the window.  It was barred, wasn't it?

There was a grinding noise of metal in pain, and the bars were wrenched away
from the window.  Less than a minute later, a vampire and a werewolf leaped
through the shattering glass, shards spraying everywhere.  The thug aimed wildly
and fired; there was a yelp.

"Sorry, cove, got to be silver bullets," growled a voice just before fangs
descended into his throat.

Baron Gideon Redoak shook slivers of glass off of his ruined jacket and bowed
to the other two occupants of the room.  They were both staring at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Gideon?" Ray tried to stand up.  "I don't believe you just did that."

For a brief second, Gideon winked at him.  "It's not all roses and brandy, you
know," he replied.  He extended a hand, the manicure on which was now beyond
repair, to Estella.  "Shall we?" he asked.

"Is that Mitch?" Estella asked, horror and fascination mixed equally.

The werewolf raised a blood-stained muzzle.  He was somewhere between both
states, and having a hell of a good time.  "Woof?" he said.

"I think that's about enough, Gaylord," his employer told him.

"Bum."  There was a cracking noise, a blur of fur and skin, and Mitch stood up
in human form.  "My god, I kept my trousers on," he said in surprise.      
     

He and Gideon moved the desk away from the doorway, after kicking aside the
body of the guard.

The door was opened from the outside by Francis.  "Oh, hey, you look terrible,"
he greeted his best friend.

"Yeah, well, you didn't look so great when I rescued you, either."

"So, whose turn is it next?"

Ray just shook his head, and gratefully accepted Francis as a leaning post. 
Estella, looking dazed, had her hand tucked into the crook of Gideon's arm. 
Alex and Rigo, with Josh giving them advice, were doing their damnedest to
break down a door further down the hall.  Evan was just coming upstairs; he
stopped and spoke to Pandora and Maggie.  Both women cast a concerned look
at Ray, but went downstairs.

"The bastard is in here," Rigo grunted when everyone had reached the doorway
he and Alex were demolishing.

"I've given my word that we won't kill him," Evan said.

Everyone stared at him.  He held out a small cloth bag towards Ray. "My word,
in exchange for these."

Ray opened the bag, with an effort.  He reached in and drew out first a jackknife,
then a wallet, then keys, and finally a metal case that looked about the right size
for a deck of cards.

"You've seen Deirdre," he said.

"Who?" chorused several voices.

The door crashed open, the hinges weakened beyond all hope. Almost without
thinking about it, Alex reached in and grabbed the man cowering inside the room.

"Who is this worm?" he asked.

"Eric Bates," Ray answered.  "Matthew's right hand man.  Not really much of a
witch, but a power broker, the real brains of the outfit. He wanted me to replace
Matthew so he could have a coven leader he could control."

"Kill him," Rigo said.  "He kidnapped my niece."

"My daughter?"  A voice called from the top of the stairs. "My daughter is
here?"

"Oh, God," Rigo groaned. "We are in trouble."

A woman came down the hallway.  She didn't stomp.  She didn't stalk.  But
almost everyone in the Brotherhood found themselves pressing back against the
handiest wall.

"Mother?" Estella stared. "How on earth did you get here?"

Estella's mother wasn't an evil gypsy crone.  She did tend towards a lot of gold
jewellery, and she did have a scarf around her neck, but she was a fairly
ordinary-looking woman of about sixty-two or three.

"I had to call many people to find you," she said.  "Nobody would tell me
anything!  Would a phone call have hurt?"

"We were prisoners, mother!" Estella protested.

"I was speaking to Rigo."  Her eyes held the big vampire like a pin to a butterfly. 
"I had to call the wife of one of these people, a gadjo!  You could have told me
what was happening with my daughter!"

Rigo looked at the floor, scuffling his shoes.  "I am sorry," he said, sounding
about five.  "Even we did not know where we were going."

"Neither did Mary," Maggie pointed out.

"I called her when we arrived," Michael said.  "And told her approximately where
we were."

"She told me enough," said Estella's mother.  "She has more common sense than
the lot of you, that one!"  She turned to Eric, still squirming in Alex's
unbreakable grip.  "So, we must spare your life, or be forsworn.  Hah."

Eric looked a little pale.  This might have been because Alex was hurting him.

"I promised Deirdre," Evan said.  "She gave Ray back his magic in return for
Eric's life."

"That's my little girl," Eric coughed.

Estella's mother turned to Ray.  She sniffed.  "So, you are the boyfriend.  We
will talk later."

"Yes, ma'am," Ray croaked.

"Chavi," she said.  She looked around at the bemused members of the
Brotherhood.  "I am Chavi Smith, Estella's mother.  This," she indicated the
miserable Rigo, "is my uncle Rigo, and this is my daughter Estella.  And all of
you?"

Hasty introductions were made.  By this time, Pandora, Michael and Maggie
were returning to see what was going on. Michael carried a recovered Andrei;
Pandora led Deirdre.  More introductions were made; absurd as it seemed.   
          

"Could you put me down?" Eric asked, his voice a bit strangled. "With all of you
here, and my men dead, there's nothing I can do."

"I wouldn't trust you if you were beheaded," Ray told him. "Don't let him go,
Alex."

"No problem," the Count replied amiably.  Vampires don't tire easily.

"Please," Deirdre spoke up.  "It was promised to me that Eric would not be hurt. 
He has always looked after me."

"He has kept you a prisoner in this house!" Estella said. "He has used your
power for his own gain."

"He is all I have."

Everyone looked at Ray and Estella.  As Eric's most recent victims, the decision
was up to them.

There'd been too many deaths already in this house. Too much blood on his hands. Eric
deserved to die; but Christ, who didn't, among all the people here? He couldn't do it; couldn't
sanctify Eric's death here and now, in cold blood. Especially not with Deirdre there. He did
some quick thinking. 


"All right," Ray said, feeling the pressure of Deirdre's sightless gaze.
"Eric, you get to live.  But you will disassemble the coven, and scatter the
members; they are forbidden to ever assemble again as a group.  Each of them
will be watched."  He looked at Evan, who nodded.  There were lots of
Nameless Ones.  "There will be no more talk of anybody replacing Matthew. 
Time to move on with your life.  This place is to be destroyed.  Brick by brick, if
necessary.  You'll take Deirdre and move her into a real house; and let her live as
normally as possible.  I don't care what you have to do to fix it up legally; that's
your problem.  But you're to let her go to school and be a real teenager.  We'll
be checking.  And you train her to use her powers properly, not only to your
benefit.  I may very well check up on you and give her some training myself. 
And if you ever move against any of the Brotherhood again, all this is null and
void and your head will be stuffed and mounted for the meeting room.  Agreed?"

Alex growled and tightened his grip.

"Agreed!" Eric spat out.

"Deirdre, does this make you happy?" Estella asked the girl.

"Yes," she smiled, for the first time since any of them had seen her.  "Eric, we
will still be a family, a real family, and I can go to school!"

Alex put the former witch down.  To everyone's surprise, Eric clasped Deirdre to
him.  "My dear child," he said, "forgive me for the way I've treated you."

"What do you know," Francis muttered.  "He has a heart."

"If he steps out of line, we'll find out for sure," Mitch said.

"Let's get Ray home and get those bruises looked at," Pandora spoke up.

"Andrei?" Ray peered blurrily at the falcon in Michael's hands.  "What's he
doing here?"

"He led us here," Michael replied, letting Andrei go.

The falcon flew and landed on Ray's shoulder, pecking at the earring.

"Good," Ray said, and collapsed, quite undramatically, into Francis's arms.

He woke up in the mini-van, with people peering in at him, his head pillowed on Estella's 
lap.  Nobody had wanted to stay in the house, but they were waiting for Ray to recover
before heading home.

"We'll get you patched up," Estella  assured him.  

"How did your mother get here so quickly, anyway?" he asked.  

"Would you believe that this is my home town, and she only lives half an hour's 
drive from here?"

"You still owe me a weekend visit," sniffed Chavi from the other side of him.

"Oh, mother," moaned Estella.  "Is now really the time?"

"Of course," her mother replied.  "After all, we must discuss wedding plans."

"Wedding?" echoed the voice of everyone in the van.

Andrei shrieked.

The End