It was 18 hours before the blizzard run out of snow and steam.  With the first sign of clearing Julian and Puff took to the skies. Their people were fine, and ready to be put back on the trail. Nakim was now far too in awe of the vampire he'd thrown his lot in with to object to much with regard to the plans the vampire's relayed.

Angus's men were even then being given a suggestion that they'd hidden in a cave just off the path to ride out the storm, and the vamps were pulling back from there. All that needed to be done at this point was to put Nakim, Betty Jo and Jolie in place at the meeting point, and Nakim would say they'd beaten the storm to the summit.

After they were dropped at the meeting place Nakim made camp, starting with getting a fire going and then setting up a tent to get them out of the cold while they waited.  Then he made tea and settled down to wait.  Above him the dragons were keeping watch while back at the ops center they were holding their breath.  Angus's men were about ten minutes out on the trail.  Laz shifted in his chair and looked at Marc, pacing back and forth.  He shook his head and returned his attention to the feed they were getting through Julian and relayed onto the screens by one of Cal's monitors.

The two women were huddled together in the tent, only Nakim sitting at the campfire when three of Angus's men trudged into camp. They were feeling surly and a bit poorly, and they put all that down to being cramped into a cold cave for hours trying to avoid either freezing to death or falling to their deaths by slipping on the still snowy and ice-packed trail.

Nakim stood as they approached, nervous, wary, but then he'd been that way every other time as well. Above, in the clouds, Julian and Puff kept watch and sent back the feed.

In the ops center Marc stopped pacing and gave his full attention to the screen.

They looked like Bhutanese natives, which meant they could have been from anywhere from Nepal or Tibet or China or anywhere else in the Himalayas.  Brown skinned, black hair and eyes, and wrapped in garments made of sheep skins, they rode into camp at a trot and didn't dismount.  The leader grunted and pointed to the tent and Nakim brought the women out, and then stood back.

The leader slid from the back of his pony and began circling Jolie and Betty Jo, a leering look of speculation on his face, but he didn't touch them.  When he was satisfied he gestured to Nakim again, who went and brought their ponies and helped them mount.  Then the leader tied the reins of the women's pony's to the saddle horns of his men.  Finally, sneering at the look of desperation on Nakim's face he let out a whistle and another man came riding into camp stopping at the edge, a child of about ten held in front of him.

"Tarik!" Nakim cried. The boy struggled in the arms of his captor, but was not allowed to go to his father. Nakim fell to his knees crying, as the man holding the boy turned and rode away with the child.  The leader looked at Nakim and spat, narrowly missing him.  Then, laughing he snapped his fingers at his men and the three of them rode out of the camp.

Carmine was not a witness to this, but Trevor made damn sure he kept a copy for the vampire.  He wanted that boy rescued, even if nothing else went right, and he trusted Carmine to manage it somehow.

Julian, from Puff's back, was sending back images of the trail, and the comms were working now, so they had the visuals on the trackers in both Jolie and Betty Jo.

Nakim watched until they were out of sight and then stood, his face hard and struck camp before heading down from the summit and back to Beirut to wait.

Ian, standing behind Trevor and off to the side, was the opposite of Marc, who seemed unable to be still. Ian stood motionless, hands crossed on his chest, feet apart, only his eyes moving. He showed no emotion when he caught the glimpse of Betty Jo either, although if anyone was looking they might have noticed his eyes lingered on the screen long after her image was gone.

They watched on the screen as Angus's men retraced their route back the way they'd come.  After they'd gone about a mile up the trail Laz saw the blinking lights disappear while Julian reported that it appeared that they'd zapped out rather than continue on on the snow covered trail.

Marc and Ian shared a look. Spence who'd been sitting off to the side doing a Times crossword went pale. This was it, he knew. He held his breath. If they couldn't find them, even a hint...

Trevor was swearing, Laz and Paul were grabbing gear in case they needed to get on scene in a hurry.  Natha just ignored them and widened the field on the scope and then widened it again superimposed on a map of the region.  She waited a moment and then the lights reappeared.  She started punching buttons, narrowing the field back down and then ran the mapping program that would give them coordinates on the location.  "Yang Tse Dzong," she said, "north eastern portion of Bhutan, along the Chinese border."  Then she went back to the scope where as she was resolving the image, the lights disappeared again.

Trevor passed Julian and Puff the coordinates and they zapped to the new scene and immediately began relaying details and pictures of the place, Julian's voice a constant drone as he gave estimates of elevations, sizes, numbers of people he'd seen, how deeply he thought the fortification ran down into the mountain.  When he'd finished Laz told Morrigan to send Quinn and Kalie to take over watching the site and told Julian to come back in.  When he arrived Trevor, Marc, Ian and Laz were already deep in plans for how to take the site, planning to move after dark that night.

Carmine strode in about then, the early onset of darkness here in winter a help towards getting the vampires involved.  Trevor showed him the scene with Nakim's son Tarik and then he sat down to plan with the others.

Natha kept feeding them information as the dragons provided it. Quinn reported he could not sense Dinah and keened about it. Marc took a second to send him some reassurance that the thread he sensed of her was still there. To keep up hope.

They had zapped off the trail and reappeared in the middle of what looked like the central courtyard of fortified village, or so Betty Jo thought, looking around.  There were stone walls encircling the perimeter, watch towers at the corners.  Angus's man motioned for Jolie and Betty Jo to dismount and then bound their hands with plastic handcuffs behind their back.  He grabbed Jolie's arm and another grabbed Betty Jo and they took them through a series of arched gateways, deeper into the structure before leading them into the house and on towards the back of it.  He knocked sharply on a closed door and at a word opened it and went in.  He bowed and said some words Betty Jo didn't understand to the man behind the desk.  Then he bowed again and he and his man left, leaving the women to face the man who, she presumed, was their host.

He didn't say a word, just rose and came over to them, examining them.  Then he went back to his desk and picked up a phone.  Betty Jo could hear it ringing and then she heard McNeill bark orders to who ever picked it up.  In a few minutes she saw the bookcase begin to swing open and two guards emerge.

They weren't roughly handled, so long as they followed the orders, which weren't in English but were pretty clear. Enter the dark stone hallway behind the bookcase and go down the stairs. Betty Jo looked over at Jolie, trying to help her with her fears, and to help her deal with her own.  They began to walk down a series of short stone steps that led to a hallway and a modern elevator. There they waited for a guard to hit the button and when it opened they stepped in.  Before the guard entered Betty Jo watched him use a retinal and a voice pattern scanner. Only then did the buttons in the elevator become active. He hit the bottom one.

He led them out of the elevator and down a hallway.  On one side were a series of locked doors with a small window in the upper center that looked like cells.  On the other side were what looked like an exam and delivery room, a lab and a closed door at the end of the hallway.  The guard unlocked one of the cells and pushed Jolie in that direction.  Then he opened another and shoved Betty Jo inside.  He pointed to the pile of clothes on the cot and then her indicating she should change.  Then he locked the door.  Betty Jo looked at the garments, a shapeless pair of loose cotton trousers and tunic sort of top in a nondescript gray as well as a pair of panties and a bra.  She shrugged and started changing.  Then she sat down to wait.  About ten minutes later a guard came back and set down a tray of food, collected her clothing and left.  Betty Jo eyed the food distastefully and decided to wait.

Angus, watching them on CCTV, was waiting in the lab when the guard returned with the clothing.  He combed each piece methodically for hairs and then cut out the center portion of the underwear the women had been wearing and dropped them into separate beakers filled with a clear liquid set on heated elements.

They had a plan, they agreed. The mages and dragons would airlift the vampires in for the first wave, the mages going in second. Only afterwards would any talented go in, because of the warnings they'd had of an alarm set to detect talent used there other than his own.

Carmine directed the dragons to where his vampires waited and the dragons began ferrying them closer to the dzong, on the slopes below it where they wouldn't expect anyone to attack from.

The dragons left on watch reported the humans had withdrawn into the building. Carmine winked out to join his people.  They were committed. Vampires were advancing silently toward the dzong.

In the bunker Angus studied the results of the DNA typing he'd run on the women and suddenly crumpled the paper violently, throwing it, then sweeping the lab bench clear.  His face twisted with rage, he headed towards Dinah's cell.  She was laying on the cot on her left side in a fetal position, semi conscious and clutching her belly, her face a mass of bruises and contusions, one eye swollen shut and dried blood flaking off her mouth and neck as she moved.  Angus turned on a CCTV monitor attached to the ceiling and switched to a channel that showed Jolie in her cell, sitting on her cot, her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap.

Angus grabbed Dinah by the hair and jerked her up and around to see the TV.  "Who are they," he screamed at her, spittle flying from his mouth and spraying her face.  When she didn't respond he punched her in the mouth, and screamed the question again, while her blood splattered him and the wounds on her mouth began bleeding again.

Dinah groaned, trying to focus and then doubled over as a contraction hit and she began shaking as another grand mal seizure began.  Angus swore at her, smashing his fist into her face again and flinging her away.  Then he left the room, locked the door behind him and went to a phone on the wall outside her cell.  He keyed in a series of numbers and an alarm sounded in the bunker while above ground men began running, working feverishly to secure the site.

The dragons reported the sudden activity and everyone in the ops center froze for one heartbeat. Then, with unspoken accord Trevor shouted into the comms. "They're onto us. Go! Go! Go!"

Vampires were scaling the rock face quickly and were suddenly swarming over the walls. Briony swooped down with Carmine aboard, Nicco behind him. Julian and Ian winked out and reappeared as the vampires hit the stone floor of the dzong's courtyard and rushed toward the buildings.

Angus ran for the elevator, screaming profanities, ignoring everyone.  When the elevator didn't respond immediately he began slamming his fist against the panel, ignoring the pain.  When the door finally opened for him he punched the button for the uppermost floor and paced, muttering to himself while it ascended.  When he reached his study he half ran for his desk, where he opened a drawer and pulled out something that looked a lot like the controller for a remote controlled toy and began to key in a series of commands, then he pushed the green button labeled "Arm" followed a second later by a red button labeled "Destruct Go" and flung it away.  Then he opened his safe, extracted a briefcase and winked out, leaving the controller to announce the start of the count down...beginning with t minus thirty minutes to an empty room.

As Angus zapped out Laz and his people zapped into the courtyard, fanning out in pairs, moving towards the center of the site, behind the vampires.

The vampires fought who they had to and tossed aside who they could. Carmine lead his own small group at the head of them, this Prince not prone to stay safely in the rear. Nicco was just behind him, Uberto at his side.

Anja, her heart pounding, finally hoping to help get her charge to safety had a look in her eye that made anyone seeing her coming at them bolt.

Marc was the first to reach the study.  He found the remote and picked it up.  "Trevor!" He said. "Destruct feature set, tell everyone to get who they can the hell out of here!"  Marc was screaming in his mind for Dinah.

Ian reached out to Betty Jo through the connection Julian had made for them. He called to her, sensed her alive, and got a rough idea where she was. It wasn't a directional beacon but he knew she was close. She had to be here.  He ran into the study as Marc was blasting the bookcases out of his way looking for what he knew had to be there. Then suddenly the narrow stone hallway was revealed and the two of them rushed down it.

Spencer, frustrated as hell, was with Julian, who was back aboard Puff trying to figure out an overall strategy and direction on how best to get the place evacuated in the shortest possible time.

Laz and Paul hit the study as Marc and Ian found the elevator.  He left Paul trying to figure out a way to disarm the controller to halt the countdown while he followed after Marc and Ian, the knapsack on his back filled with the supplies Jolie had entrusted to him.  Outside the vampires had control of the dzong, while Chance and Tobie were herding the non combatants, all women, into one room.

They contacted the Refuge and began zapping the non combatants out of there as soon as they collected them.

Anja wasn't far behind Laz. She glanced over at Paul where he was talking to Trevor trying to find a way to halt the thing, when Julian's voice cut in saying forget it, best thing was to find where it was sending to.   He zapped in, Spence hanging on for dear life.

"Everybody's in the hallway. Elevator with scanners," Paul said, taking the remote with him and following Anja, Spence and Julian into the hallway. Julian and Ian shared a look and two white pulses of magic wiped out the electronics on the controls.

The elevator went dead.

Julian looked down at the elevator floor and blasted a hole in it big enough to get them through one at a time.  "Got your rapelling gear?" he asked Laz.  "Me, I'm jumping."  Marc had already gone through the hole ahead of everyone.

Laz looked at him, then swung out and grabbed one of the cables and started sliding down it.  Paul was right behind him.  By the time he got there Marc had opened the first security door and was heading towards the second.  He and Paul began methodically clearing the rooms as they came to them, opening the cell doors while the women cringed back against the wall.  Ahead of them Marc blasted out the next door and he and Ian went through, followed by Julian.

Carmine arrived then just as one of the doors they blasted revealed a frightened boy cringing up against the wall.  Nicco hurried in and grabbed the boy's arm, zapping himself and Tarik off and away.

Marc's systematic destruction of doors finally was nearing the end of the hallway.  Betty Jo was pounding her door. Ian broke that one down and took her into his arms, as Marc blasted the one holding Jolie.  Jolie rushed out and saw Spence's huge eyes from behind Julian.  Marc hit the last door and took it out himself. He froze when he saw Dinah then shouted, "Jolie!"

Jolie sent Spence a look and then ran for Marc.  When she saw Dinah she said, "I need my backpack from Laz."  Then ignoring everything else, she knelt down beside her and laid a hand on her stomach, feeling the contraction that was just starting and then checking her pupils and her pulse.  "She's seizing and in labor," Jolie said standing up.  "There's a delivery room across the hall, can you move her there?"

Marc picked her up as gently as possible and carried her there, touching her mind, reassuring her, telling her they had her and that she and the babies would be fine.

Jolie took the pack from Laz as she passed him.  It was, she was relieved to see, a standard delivery room equipped with a fetal monitor and an incubator.  "Can you run an IV?" she asked Laz as she began to pull a rolled bundle of surgical instruments from the knapsack followed by two IV bags and some medications.

Laz nodded and started searching for what he needed.  He found it when he opened a closet, where he also found two women, cowering on the floor.  He ignored them and grabbed the IV set up and the pole and went back to Dinah where Jolie had already stripped her and was doing a pelvic exam.  He wrapped the tourniquet tight and hit the vein on the first try.  He taped it down and hung the bags Jolie had set out, opening them wide.

Jolie looked up, frowning.  Then she stripped the gloves off and grabbed two prepared syringes and tossed them to Laz.  "Through the line," was all she said.  Behind her the women had come out of the closet.  They looked at Jolie and Dinah and then one moved for the fetal monitor and began hooking it up, while the other brought an oxygen tank from the closet and drew the mask over Dinah's face. Jolie watched for a minute and then started scrubbing while the women turned on the autoclave and dropped her instruments in.

Finally one nudged Laz out of the way and began attaching Dinah to a heart monitor and sliding a blood pressure cuff on her upper arm.  The other began sponging away the blood on her face and neck.  Jolie let one of the women help glove her and then studied the fetal monitor and the ECG tracing from Dinah.

Paul showed the remote to Marc. It displayed 20 minutes left. Marc, casting one last glance at Dinah headed out the door with Paul in pursuit. Julian and Carmine were working their way back up the hallway and eventually found an office.  "I'd bet there'd be some sort of access from here,"  Marc was saying. Julian and Carmine were examining the walls, testing them, and then Carmine grunted with satisfaction. He'd found a hidden switch, one that perhaps only a vampire's sensitivity would have felt. A door popped open and a steep set of stone stairs led down into blackness.

Spence was staring at the remote Paul kept waving around.

"Wait.  What's that?" he asked.

"Controls the destruct ... computer I'd guess. Some sort of coded access."

"Codes..."  Julian said, and grabbed Spence by the collar. "Since we don't have Melly, you're next best thing. Come on."

Ian created a magical light and Spence, attached to Julian by the mage's firm grip followed behind Ian's light. Betty Jo, having tired of standing around came with them.

"Someone, get her out of here, " Ian said gruffly with a nod at Betty Jo. "Get everyone we can out of here."

Anja reached for her to send her back to the Refuge but Betty Jo was having none of it. "Ah'm here for the duration," she replied, and ran down the stairs after the mages and the vampire.

Carmine, whose vision was better than the humans, looked around with interest.  They came to the bottom of the stairs and found a console. It had a screen that was counting down. Carmine peered at it. "I suppose we could just blast it?"

"Wait!" Spence yelled, as Julian looked like he was seriously considering that plan. "Get the top off the thing."

Julian and Ian were trying to figure out the screws when Carmine just ripped the faceplate off. "There, caro," he said to Spence. "I believe I'd like to keep this place, so I ask you, most humbly, to stop it from blowing up."

Jolie pushed everything out of her mind and visualized the two incisions she needed to make.  Then, having prepped Dinah as best she could she picked up the scalpel and made a high vertical cut on her abdomen, then retracted the incision.  Next she made a second cut through the uterus and retracted it.  She drew the first baby out, clamped and cut the cord and handed it off to one of the women, then repeated the procedure with the second baby, which she handed off to the other woman.  Then she delivered the placentas, checked the field and closed the first incision and then the second.

The women had hooked the babies up to pressurized oxygen and were forcing the fluid out of their lungs.  Jolie, setting stitches methodically heaved a sigh of relief when she heard first one and then the other start to cry.  She glanced at the ECG monitor and then gave Dinah another injection through the IV line and watched as her pressure continued to drop.  Then she injected Phenobarbital into the line and waited while the last of the seizure tremors ended.

"I need to get you back to the Refuge," Laz said, remembering a promise he'd given Marc, to get them out, no matter what. "There's a bomb. We need to be sure they're safe."

Jolie nodded. Dinah was stable, the two babies were fine. "Can you move the equipment too?"

Laz nodded. He contacted the Refuge infirmary and they grabbed everyone in the room and the equipment translating all of it instantaneously to the Infirmary.

Marc was prowling around the the room where Spence was sweating over the open panel.

"I do not mean to hurry you, Caro Spence, but we are down to ten minutes," Carmine's silky voice said.

Marc looked around, sensing when Dinah and the babies were zapped out and zapped himself back up to Angus's main study. He began ripping out drawers of the desk and zapping what paperwork he could to the ops center. Then he prowled the room, finding a safe. He sent his mind into it, saw no detonators rigged and slammed his mind into the door, shattering the lock.  He pulled it open and found some schematics which he zapped down to where Spence was staring at a maze of wires.

That done, he looked further and found a private bathroom.  And a toothbrush. Exactly what he wanted. He grabbed it, and opened his palm, his sigil flaring brightly. A helix rose and whirled in the air above his hand. He then turned his attention to the toothbrush and brought a helix up out of it.  He compared the two and nodded.  He closed his eyes and stored the information and then opening his eyes, the helices and the sigil dissolved.   He zapped himself back down to the lowest basement where Spence was explaining as he looked at the schematic.

"Okay, it looks pretty simple. I'm pretty sure it's the blue one, because see that symbol? It's been around since the time of cave paintings, showing up around the world, from cultures that aren't ever believed to have talked to one another, never mind traded. Phoenician maybe originally, hard to say."

"Spence," Julian was saying patiently, "shut the fuck up and pull the blue wire."

"But everyone should get outta here before I do just in case," he gulped, looking at Carmine, "I'm wrong."

"Caro," Carmine said, "I have faith in you."  The vampire glanced at the others who all winked out except Julian and Marc. Then with a look at them Julian grabbing Spence's collar the last three there winked out. Carmine reached over and pulled the blue wire.

Jolie blinked as she reemerged in the Refuge infirmary, Tabitha standing there waiting with an incubator ready for the babies.  Jolie let Doni take over Dinah while she moved the babies into the heated incubator, and she and Tabitha diapered and clothed them.  Jolie had specified an incubator large enough to hold both babies, designed for twin preemies.  She was connecting the monitoring leads when Christopher zapped himself to the infirmary using his bond with the babies, chortling with glee to have them back.  Tabitha swept him up out of Jolie's way, letting her finish, then she closed the incubator and started the oxygen flow.

Christopher was pushing at Tabitha trying to zap away, anything to get to see Marc or Dinah.  The babies he already had in view. Tabitha held on determinedly making him howl with displeasure.

Trevor back from the hills, so to speak, stood in the usual ops center at the Refuge, looking around like he hadn't a clue where he was.

Spence stood there, visibly shaking staring at the comms, hoping to hear something from Carmine.  Ian was standing with Betty Jo wrapped up in his arms.  "Do they need to check you out?" he was asking, looking her over critically.  "I prefer the original look, by the way."

Anja was hanging out by the door to Dinah's room, flushed to see how badly she'd been beaten, but relieved that finally she was safe.

Marc  was in the room, waiting patiently for a moment alone with Dinah, once everyone was sure she was stable. He hadn't touched her after carrying her from one room to the other at the dzong. He had only one thing on his mind. Babies, even Dinah, were now, at this second, only a secondary issue.

Jolie, satisfied the babies were as fine as she could make them glanced from Marc to Dinah and caught Tabitha's eye,  Doni had left a few minutes before.  Tabitha, holding the still furious Christopher, followed her leaving Marc alone with Dinah.

Jolie headed for the ops center and saw Spence, waiting patiently and just walked into his arms without saying a word.

"Caro," came a voice over the comms, "it was the red wire."

Spence froze, staring at Jolie.

"Liar," Julian said, slapping Spence on the back. "It was the blue one."

A ragged cheer went up from those who were slumped in various stages of exhaustion around the Infirmary.  Trevor's voice came from the Ops Center telling everyone to stand down.

Marc's eyes flicked over everyone but Dinah and finally, there was no one near them and he stepped toward her, reaching for her mind, before reaching for her hand.

Laz, watching from across the room, just waited.

Marc followed the nascent connection down deeply into Dinah's mind. She was drugged after the surgery and her conscious mind was not available, but down more deeply he could still connect. And what he was looking for was a basic piece of her new DNA now anyway, not a conscious process.  He went carefully, sending mental reassurances as he went, letting her unconscious know who it was, and sensing the easing of fear or worry as he did so. Then finally, he found it. It was something she didn't understand but had accepted. He asked for and got entry to the part of her mind that could use it. He opened his palm and the helix off the toothbrush rose. He'd seen her do it, she'd used it to find him. So he understood the principle and that was half the battle. He had a grid up in front of him in a matter of moments, and he began sorting through the traces of hundreds of thousands of those with close matches and shifting them off as he did so, narrowing the focus and drawing it downward, and downward to a small, very specific grid on the map.

He dropped his hand, backed out of Dinah's mind. Kissed her ever so softly on her forehead and took a step back.  As he did Laz moved forward and as Marc zapped out Laz, a hand lightly on his shoulder, went with him.  When they zapped back in Marc spun around while Laz said, "He's yours.  But I've got your back."

Marc didn't waste any energy on argument. He nodded. They were standing in an open field, which since it was still dark, could have been most anywhere. The field, more a meadow, was fairly high up in altitude, though.  Cold seeped into Laz, who still hadn't warmed up from Bhutan.

Marc hadn't brought a weapon beyond his mind. He intended to use it and to use it slowly and painfully. He was flipping into his Abaddon persona, the one that had no mercy, and no remorse. There'd be no stopping him before he finished and Laz could do what he wanted so long as he didn't get in the way.

Marc's mind scanned, now that he knew he was close. There were ancient ruins near them, barrows too, buried under the often turned fertile dirt.  Marc set off toward a glow that must be a town just beyond a hill.  Laz followed about ten paces behind as they neared the town, letting Marc lead the way.

As they reached the summit of the hill they looked down on a calm loch. The town lay at the eastern end of the loch. Marc turned more west, following the crest of the hills. Cottages were scattered along the side of the loch. It was a sparsely populated area, a long way from the nearest city and nearest motorway, so spared, still, the burgeoning population of the rest of the world.

Laz watched Marc's eyes focus on one cottage in particular.  He didn't seem inclined to zap over there, instead taking his time, walking purposefully but not hurriedly toward it, as if daring Angus McNeill, if he was there, to see or sense him coming.  It was an old stone cottage, small with a thatched roof.  Probably two down and two up, and maybe not even running water inside.  There was thin trail of smoke coming from the chimney, the smell of burning peat in the air and light shone in the window, so there was someone there.

Laz saw the sensor as Marc stepped through it. Marc didn't even give it the slightest bit of attention. The light in the cottage winked out. Laz watched, wondering how Marc would stop him from winking out, having no doubt he would.   He could feel the air on his skin, heavy and tense with the storm building over them, moving into the area.

Inside the cottage Angus McNeill looked out the window and snarled his rage at them and then he zapped out.  And when he zapped in he was still in the same place he'd been, in his cottage. He looked out the window and the same men were still approaching.

The one reached out for his mind, in a way he'd never felt before. He knew then, this was the father of Dinah's children.  He cursed again and tried to zap out. Again he found himself where he'd stood before attempting it.

The man came to a stop just outside the cottage. "McNeill," he called. "Come out. I've no objection to leveling the place but I'd rather see your face when I kill you."

Angus snarled in defiance and launched the power of his mind against the man, a blazing sheet of power that ignited the grass as it traveled towards him, lighting up the night like a lightening flash, crackling with power.  It showed the man's face, set and expressionless, his eyes flat and glittering.

Marc raised a hand and stopped the power almost casually, as if he were waving away an irritating gnat. When the power grounded out at his feet, Marc reached up into the storm that was building above them.  Power arched down to him, flowing into him, making him glow like a demon, He raised a hand and a line of power shot out and the cottage exploded with a clap like thunder, so loud Laz couldn't hear for several heart beats.

Angus stood amid the rubble facing his daughter's lover, rage making foam around his mouth as his breath rasped in and out between his teeth, madness consuming him.  "She's just garbage," he screamed into the night, "just stinking garbage."  He emulated his attacker as the words rang out, spittle flying and grabbed power from the storm sending it whistling like an out of control locomotive through the night headed directly for his head, snarling profanity as it flared brilliant blue and white, reeking of ozone and flowed all around the man, who stood there unmoved, unharmed, and undaunted.

"Just garbage," Marc repeated quietly. "Come here," he said.

Angus, to his horror, felt his feet begin to move toward the man standing in the field.

"See what it's like when someone takes control of you. Enjoy the feeling."  Marc was fueling his coercive talent with the storm, forcing Angus to come to him.

Laz watched as if it were a movie unfolding in front of him, wondering why the inhabitants hadn't rushed into the night to see what was wrong.  He could see Angus struggling against what Marc was doing, the sound of his insanity filling the night with a fury to match that of the storm overhead, sending the wind whipping in violent gusts already damp with the first of the rain.  It was an icy cold rain, like the anger in Marc, dangerous in its coldness, ready to freeze on anything it touched, encasing it in a coating of glittering ice growing thicker and thicker until it destroyed what it covered with the inexorable force of it's own sparkling weight.  Like the power Marc was drawing to himself out of the storm, glittering in its barely controlled ferocity, beautiful like a world shining under ice and just as inexorable, just as deadly.  Laz stood in the cold and didn't notice it, the part of him he knew as death exalting in the destruction of Angus McNeill; the exultation keeping him warm.

Angus screamed in fury as his body betrayed him. Marc didn't move, didn't change expression, his face icy, unexpressive, unfeeling. Angus's advance stopped when he came within three or so feet of Marc. They looked on one another, and Marc tipped his head to once side as if he were considering what to do next.

Angus McNeill stared his own death in the face and didn't recognize it.  His hands crooked and his nails like claws, he lunged forward, aiming for Marc's eyes,

Marc let him get to within inches of his eyes. He hadn't moved a muscle. Angus froze in position. "You aren't worth it," Marc said, staring into Agnus's eyes. "I was ready to rip you limb from limb, I was ready to rip out your intestines inch by inch. You don't deserve it. You deserve the death of a worm."

Angus spat in his face.

Marc smiled. Angus exploded. Laz didn't move.

The both of them were covered in gore. Marc stared straight ahead.  He seemed frozen where he stood, dripping blood and bits of brain and other bodily fluids.  Laz drew a deep breath and the storm exploded overhead, torrential rain in falling sheets, so cold it was almost ice.  In seconds it had washed them clean, puddling what was left of Angus and then running it away over the ground towards a lower place. Laz just waited.

Marc stood there, looking down at what was left of Angus. "Let's go home."

"Yeah," Laz said and they winked out, back to the Refuge.

They stood outside the Infirmary. It was brilliantly lit, they could see movement by the windows. Snow was falling softly, and they could hear a hiss as if the snow were mixed with sleet.

Marc turned to Laz. "You go on in. You hate the cold. I'll be along in a minute."

Laz nodded and headed inside.  As he opened the door he turned back for a second, looking at Marc.  Then he went looking for Anja, finding her sitting where she could see Dinah's room.  "Hi," he said, sitting down next to her, soaking wet and smiling.

"You should go shower, change. Get warm and dry," she said.

"Come with me," he said.

Anja looked over at Dinah. She was surrounded by people who loved her, her babies were in the room, Doni standing by watching her. Even Christopher was still there, now asleep near the incubator.

"Yes," she replied and took his hand.

"Good," he said and kissed her.  Then he drew her up and zapped them out of there to his house, where it was warm and the sun was setting, roses and pinks spreading across the sky.

Marc, standing outside in the snow, watched the sunrise. He was wet and cold but somehow it didn't seem to matter. He reached outward following just a hint of a thread. She was there at the end of it, her mind feeling his and smiling, waiting for him.

Dinah woke in an instant, moving from unconscious to awake without any transition.  But he was there, in her mind, cradling her and it hadn't been like that before the agony started.  Then she'd been alone and now she wasn't.  She was smiling when her eyes fluttered open knowing where he was even before she saw him, so he was the first thing she saw, just like she wanted it to be.

He reached out a hand and took hers in his. "You'll be fine. Hell and Spawn are fine. Your father's dead."

Memory flooded her face as she took it in, took in too the fact that she wasn't pregnant anymore.  "How are you," she whispered, squeezing his hand.

"I'm good, now that I have you back," he replied.

She shifted towards him, her eyes filling with tears.  "I'm so sorry,  it must have been...I tried to get to you, to find you but I couldn't."

"Hey," he said, wiping at her tears with a thumb. "We're together now, and that's what matters. All the rest is just history that we can worry about when we're both gray and stooped and bored with life."

She reached towards him with her free hand, bunching his shirt in her fist, shaking her head.  "I love you so much," she said, struggling against the tears and the tiredness trying to overwhelm her.  "I love you.  I'll do whatever you want to not do that to you again."

"Hush. Rest now."

"Will you stay?" she asked.  "Please."

"Yes, of course." He held her while she slept, getting no sleep himself, just watching her.

When she awoke he was beside her, dressed, and with a tray of food. With his urging, she managed to nibble on some of the food.  Finally she leaned back against the pillows.  "Thank you," she said, her eyes drifting closed while he moved the tray away.  "Can you get me out of here?" she asked finally.  "Somewhere where it's just you and me and lots of sky?"

"I know just the place," he said as he scooped her up into his arms.  They winked out.

Below her the beach was black and the water turquoise, the waves with vivid white caps.  The sky was high and tropical, just a few clouds trailing across it.  She turned in his arms, to face him, the sun on her face, her eyes huge and liquid with tears.  "I wasn't afraid of anything except never seeing you again.  That was all I wanted."

He buried his face in her hair. "I, on the other hand," his voice muffled by her hair, "was fucking terrified about everything."

He lay her down on the sand on a blanket he'd conjured up and stretched out next to her, having zapped them both into bathing suits. "It's peaceful here. I can't remember the last time I slept."  His eyes were heavy, his hand was in hers.

"Then sleep now," she said, fitting herself along the length of him.  "I'm not going anywhere."

He slept finally, never letting go of her hand. It was several hours later when he opened his eyes. The sun was dropping lazily toward the horizon. The water slapped equally lazily at the sand several yards below them on the beach.

He smiled when he saw she was watching him.   "Hey. Sorry about that."

She just shook her head, smiling at him.  "You needed it.  How are you?"

"That's our new refrain, isn't it. 'How are you' repeated over and over again every ten minutes."  He was smiling at her. "I'm thirsty. How about you?"

"Yeah, me too."

He zapped them some clothes and back to a nice beach bar, where he ordered them both drinks.

"So," he said, meeting her eyes. "We're parents. Scary thing, that."

She smiled.  "We were parents before, what's changed is the degree of parenting required.  But unlike most other new parents we have back up parents already lined up."

"Yeah, true. I'm just..." He looked away, obviously trying to get his emotions under more control. "The only thing that kept me together was.. that I knew you were still alive."

"You knew...you mean you knew he wasn't going to kill me, at least not right away?"

"No, I mean I sensed you. There's this thing.  I .. Stephen pointed it out to me at first. It was just a tiny little thing but it gave me hope."

"You sensed me how?  I mean I couldn't sense you.  At least I don't think I could because the needing to was like...like needing to breathe and not having any air.  And it just kept getting worse, the harder I tried to find you."

"The thing that's connecting us, this thing," he said and activated the connection. "It's .. It's a bond, like Doni and Stephen have. It's forming, only just. Barely.  I could use it because I've had it before. But... It's something you should think about. Because if you don't want a bond... Well, if not,  we need to stop it now, really soon. Otherwise we won't have a chance to do it."

She went still, all expression leeching from her face.  "Is that what you want?  To stop it?"

"I.. I've never heard of one forming this fast, Dinah. You've barely even had a chance to understand your new abilities, the whole... The babies, the House... If we let it form, it's forever. There's no changing our minds."

"I didn't ask you that.  I asked you what you wanted to do, if you wanted to stop it."

"No, no I don't."

"So," she said, "let me get this straight.  Way back last summer you were only interested in an affair and even tried a couple times to dump me because I was interested in more.  Now you want to bond with me, forever.  Am I to assume from this that we're no longer just having an affair?  That I've graduated from being your main squeeze to the woman you want nagging you about picking up your dirty socks?"

"You left out the part where you willed to me half your worldly goods, and I might add that's a considerable amount of goods, and the part where I knocked you up."

"True," she said judiciously.  "I did.  And the part where we can't keep our hands off of each other to the amusement of all who know us.  As well as the part where I can't live without you, that there's nothing that will ever matter more to me than you, not even our children.  And that when I couldn't get to you I thought I'd go insane."

"There is that," he agreed.

"But before I say yes there's something you should know first."

"What's that," he asked, a smile playing on his lips.

"Well first I can't promise to stop socking you.  The second is I can't stay here."

"As luck would have it, I don't have a glass jaw. Define here."

"In the last however many months since I've known you and it's hard to believe, when you think about it that it isn't even a year yet, someone has tried to kill or kidnap me four times by my count.  It's a sobering thought and an experience I've no wish to repeat.  So, in pondering that fact whilst I was away recently, I discovered that I have my heart set on you buying me a starship and us loading the dragons on board and heading out to the Rim and whatever is past it."

"Hmmmm," he replied eying her.  "And the hellspawn?"

"Stay here with Tabitha and the rest of the commune where they'll be loved and cherished and spoiled rotten to make up for us not being here very much," she said.

"Well, nothing says we can't run your House out of a starship.  But we'd need a few friends to go along."

She nodded.  "It's our House and I know.  Like Kal and Morrie, first of all.  I'm also thinking Laz would go."

"Really?" he asked.  He hesitated a bit then said, "You'd be leaving a lot of things behind."

"What's important will be here, always.  And if we're needed we'll come back.  The rest, well...it isn't all that important or I won't be leaving it behind."  She looked at him, searching his face.  "But would you be happy?"

"I'll be happy," he replied, reaching out to cup the side of her face in his hand.

She leaned into it, her eyes closing.  "Doni and Tabitha put me back good as new, I'm sure," she said  softly.  "Take me someplace and make love with me."

"You're joking," he said looking at her like he was too terrified to touch her never mind make love to her.

"No, I'm begging you," she said.

He took them back to the beach.

He conjured up a blanket and lay her down on it and whisked away their clothes. He kissed her stomach where the scars should have been, and her face where the bruises had been, and then the rest of her, while she held him tightly, her hands relearning him feverishly.  When he finally entered her the forming bond between them came to pulsing life and she knew she'd come home.