Now, she turned, closing the door behind herself, and saw Ian sitting where she'd left him. He was toying with his scotch, making water rings on the table, keeping his eyes away from hers.

She leaned back against the door for a moment before joining him in the living room, taking a seat across from him.  "I gather from," she said, "from what you said earlier that you've made a decision regarding our relationship."

"I'm not sure I understand you," he replied quietly.

"Earlier you said 'were seeing each other,' as in not doing so any longer."

"Ah. Yes. Well. I was trying to give you deniability. So that your friendship with me did not .. limit your options."

"So we are still seeing each other?  In spite of the fact that you've not chosen to return my calls?" she asked.

"I wasn't returning your calls because... because I expected to be at odds with your boss."

Betty Jo shoved her hair back from her face and then stood up.  "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"If that will make you feel better, certainly."

"What would make me feel better, Ian, is for you to tell me what's going on with you," she said.

"I wish I knew," he replied quietly, meeting her eyes. "I used to know."

"Oh lordy, honey" she said softly, kneeling in front of him and taking his hands in hers.  "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking you seeing me is not a good idea for you. It will do you no good in the end, and bring you only trouble. Ask your father."

"Since this is about you and me, I'd rather you told me," she said.

"I've never pretended to be a good man. You, Betty Jo, you deserve a good man."

"I know you aren't a good man.  You're an honorable one which, for me, is much more important.  Good men are like Stephen or Leroy.  For a woman like me they make great friends, but would bore me to death as anything else.  Plus I'd spend all my time worrying about whether I'm behaving well enough to suit them or not."

"What is it you want, Betty Jo?" he asked after a moment spent just watching her.

"I don't know yet, not all the way.  What I do know is what I said before, you in my life.  But I'm thinking that's starting to become a scary thing for you.  I'm thinking that me in your life...that you worried about hurting me or not being good enough...that's about you starting to care more than you're comfortable with."

"Let me tell you what I think you want. You want a husband, babies. You want a stable relationship, family. I'm not ever going to manage that. So as I see it, it would be better if we stopped seeing one another. Sooner is easier than later."

"Yes, I want those things, I see them as good and valuable in themselves.  What do you want?"

"I've tried them. I don't want them again."

"That wasn't what I asked," she said.

Ian sighed. "You see. That is the difference. I don't want anything for me. I'm tired, Betty Jo. I just don't see a future for myself. You need to follow yours."

Betty Jo shook her head.  "Men are so incredibly clueless when it comes to women," she told him flatly.  Then she arched up, kissing him, catching him by surprise, her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

He hesitated for a few heartbeats and then kissed her. He picked her up into his arms and carried her to bed.

"So," Leroy said as he handed Lis a vente latte. "He been quiet?"

Lis gratefully sipped the hot coffee.  He'd been parked in front of Ian's house overnight. Well, since he'd gotten back from DC anyway. "Well, he's got his house warded all to hell so it's hard to tell what he's up to, you understand."

"Yeah, but he's still in there, right?" Leroy pressed.

"Yeah, so far as I can tell. And he's been cooking up something. I'm just not sure what."

"He's gonna try for those artifacts, bet your balls on that. And BJ wants me to stick to him like glue if he does try it."

"Wait," Lis said. "I thought you said he was going to do this in conjunction with Jonah whoever and even maybe the Zoo?"

"Yeah, well, don't count on it. Ian is basically a loner. He's gonna feel more comfortable doing it on his own, and keeping anybody else outta the loop. My problem is to figure out how to keep in the loop. So, like, will you know if he leaves?  And can you tell where he's going?"

Lis frowned over his latte. "Maybe. You could just kinda march in there and tell him you're tied to him for the duration."

"Think he'd buy that?" Leroy asked.

"No," Lis admitted.

"Yeah, me neither. So I'm gonna have to figure out how to latch onto him as he takes off, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, at the moment he's fine, so let's not get ahead of ourselves," Lis advised.

Lis had barely gotten the words out when he noticed the chimney, previously emitting ordinary silver gray smoke that had, along with that from the other chimney's on Old Park Lane been scenting the air with the smell of burning wood had undergone a transformation.  Still silver gray it now glittered and sparkled with multicolored sparks.  Stranger still, even from where he and Leroy were he could heard the sharp, fast crack of discharging electricity bringing with it, wafting on the backside of the sweet smell of burning apple wood the unmistakable tinge of ozone.

It was the sound of shattering glass that got Leroy's attention.

"What the hell?" Leroy zapped both himself and Lis around the back of Ian's house and seeing a shattered floor to ceiling window in the study he zapped them into the house through it.  Ian lay, singed and smoking on the Aubusson rug. "Ian!" Leroy said, kneeling down beside him. "He's alive anyway. Let's get him to the refuge."  The three of them zapped out, leaving a stricken looking Edwards racing into the room from the hallway.

They emerged from zap-space, the winking in and out in between place that was neither here nor there and had no when, in the main treatment room of the Infirmary.  Doni smelled Ian's burns before she saw them or the two who'd brought him to her treatment room.  It was a smell she knew, that she responded to automatically, shoving Leroy out of the way and moving Ian onto a bed while flowing into him, glowing golden.

Leroy flipped open his cell phone and called Betty Jo. "Ian's been hurt," he said. "I brought him to the Refuge. I think he was trying for the artifacts," he explained.

"I'm at the office.  Can you come and get me?" Betty Jo asked, already heading for Rimes' office.  "And we'll need to stop and get daddy."

Leroy hung up the phone and showed up in a heartbeat.  He was standing at the front door to the Zoo as Betty Jo came racing out. "Why do we need your daddy?" Leroy asked, taking her hand and waiting to find out just where daddy might be.

"At the apartment, but hang on a minute, honey," she said, drawing him after her to Rimes' office.  "Why daddy depends on what happened to Ian.  What sort of magic he tangled with," she explained, knocking on the door of the boss's office.

Rimes said, "Come in," as he made some notes on a piece of paperwork and tossed it in his out box while simultaneously already at work on the next.  "What's up?" he asked, glancing up at the pair.

"Looks like Ian was trying to get the artifacts and got hurt.  He's at the Refuge and I'm headed there."

Rimes' eyebrows flew up but all he said was, "keep me posted."

Betty Jo nodded and allowed Leroy to zap them to her apartment where they declined food, picked up Jonah and then relocated to the Infirmary.  Doni was still working on Ian, though the smoldering clothes were gone and the worst of the burns looked a lot better.

Ian was still unconscious but the sense of him was more normal. "When's he gonna wake up?" Leroy asked the nearest healer not in a trance.

Thea looked over at Doni.  "Hard to say, I don't know what's wrong inside his skull," she said.  Then she frowned and started towards the bed calling out, "Hey, what are you doing?  Back off!" to Jonah who had placed a hand on either side of Ian's head and closed his eyes.

Betty Jo stopped her, catching her arm before she could interfere.  "He knows what he's doing," she said.  "This was done with magic most likely when Ian triggered some protective or warding spell.  Daddy's making sure the spell isn't still hurting him."

Ian's eyes flew open as Jonah got thrown up and back into the nearest wall, landing against it with an 'oof' as the air in his lungs rush out.

"Well, he's awake now," Thea said while Betty Jo went to help her father up.

"Queen of stating the obvious," Leroy commented fighting back a grin. He walked over to where Ian lay and grinned down at him. "Not exactly the way to please your lover, mistreating her daddy and all."

Ian's eyes weren't quite focused yet though, so it was unclear he understood the comment.

Jonah grinned.  "I'd say the spell's not a problem either." He looked down at Ian.  "That's quite a punch you've got there Cecil."

"Why do you keep calling him Cecil. Yeah, you pronounce it cooler than us Americans but still..." Leroy commented.

"When I knew him he was Cecil Broome," Jonah explained.

"What, the whole can't die so hide who you are thing goin' on?" Leroy asked. "And are there enemies out there looking for Cecil Broome and for you, whoever you were then?"

Jonah shrugged.  "Both probably.  Me, I had a reason to want a quiet life.  Someday that may change again."

Betty Jo, listening in silence opened her mouth to ask a question and then shut it, new understanding alive in her eyes.

Ian's eyes seemed to find reality and they latched onto Betty Jo.

She took his hand.  "Hi," she said softly.  "Leroy brought you the Refuge when you got hurt.  But you're gonna be fine."

"Yo," Leroy said by way of a greeting. Lis, standing off to the side just nodded. "We, uhm, figured you might need fixing up."

"I would have been fine," Ian replied after a moment.

"Leroy didn't know that."

Ian nodded at Betty Jo, acknowledging the truth of the statement.  Thank you, Leroy."

"Sure. Next time take me with, though, huh?"

"You're expecting a next time?" Jonah asked.  "What was going on this time?"

"I set off a magical trap. It caught me by surprise," Ian replied, eying Leroy who refused to be cowed by that grim look Ian could aim at folks. Leroy just grinned.

"Around the objects?" Jonah asked.  "Did Collins sense you?"

"As it hit me he did. I was vulnerable there for an instant or so," Ian admitted.

"So he knows you're still looking for them?  Where are they?"  Jonah asked.

Ian's eyes narrowed. "Why would it be you want to know, Jeremy?"

"Uhm," Leroy commented watching this, "ain't we supposed to be hunting the artifacts together?"

"Pretty quick to get suspicious there aren't you Cecil?"

"Can you deny I've plenty of reason?" Ian countered coldly.

"Yeah, actually I can," Jonah said easily.  "You've as much reason to suspect me as I have you."

"I expect nothing less," Ian retorted.

"Look you two, knock it off. We gotta get that stuff back. So go punch each other out AFTER the op," Leroy hissed at the both of them.

"How are we going to do that?" Betty Jo asked.

"Well, they are unlikely to move them from where they are. They have what appears to be a working shield on them and they've stopped me, or so they think," Ian replied. "How we can get them to change up things, I've no idea at present."

"Well," Jonah said, "we can exploit the fact that they think they've stopped you.  Make them think the trap worked better than it did and then do what we planned."

"What exactly was it we planned?" Lis asked.

"That we're going to make them think Ian's out of the picture and then we go after the objects, leaving me uncovered in the hope that that will draw Collins out at which time Ian reappears and he and Daddy take him out," Betty Jo said.

"You should be able to show them an unhealthy aura," Lis replied thoughtfully. "Do they know who you are Jonah? Or are you an unknown as far as they are concerned at this point?"

"Unknown," Jonah said.  "The benefit of the simple life."

"I wouldn't be quite so certain of that," Ian commented. "They're aware of Betty Jo. They might well have poked around to find out about her family."

"Which would have not told them much," Jonah said.  "At the most that her father's an unimportant and uninteresting mage who treats it like it's a game."

"Okay, so what..." Leroy muttered, thinking aloud. "Ian appears to be badly injured. Jonah's a rather weak-kneed mage, and BJ and the Zoo go after the artifacts on their own. Why? I mean, they've seen Ian hurt.  Or are we gonna try to convince them the Zoo doesn't know Ian made a try for them?"

"What difference does it make if the Zoo knows or not? Ian's out of it and the Zoo still wants them back." Betty Jo asked.  "Though the sooner we do this the better."

"Well, I was thinking they'd think the Zoo was crazy if they knew their alarms knocked out and badly injured a powerful mage, is all," Leroy answered. "You're thinking they're so sure of themselves they'll not give the Zoo a second thought, or what?"

"Why would they?  We're not talented.  We're just the government.  They've already demonstrated they think we're clueless," Betty Jo said.

"Ohhh kay.  Obviously I don't want a job with the Zoo.  Let's do this then. Ian. Make yourself look pathetic."  Leroy just grinned at Ian's eye-roll.

Betty Jo grinned.  "Sure you want the job.  We've got an office right next to mine just for you.  We can do lunch, all four of us."

"Talk about fading into the woodwork!" Leroy commented with a laugh. Lis, however, looked a bit envious.

"All right, take notes. Here's the details on where the artifacts are and the layout of their defenses," Ian said.  Leroy created a pad and pen for him to write on, and Ian drew the layout.

"So we go in and in the process of getting them Betty Jo gets left uncovered as a temptation to Collins," Jonah said looking at Ian's diagram.  "Only you're really watching her, right Cecil?" he added, looking hard at Ian.

"Right. Just you guys do your job," Ian said with a frown. "We want to draw Collins out, but not put Betty Jo in too dangerous a situation."

"I'll be fine," Betty Jo said.

"Of course you will be," Leroy said with conviction.

The artifacts were stored in a bank vault, one of those with impossible to break into safe deposit boxes, and one of those which took their customers wishes very seriously. When Betty Jo presented the information to Rimes and Coop, they decided they'd have to try to get a warrant and cover even their asses on this one.

The warrant was arranged and the four left for the bank while Ian waited in the ether as it were, alert for the first sign of magic, and Coop and the other two sisters waited outside as back up.

Betty Jo smiled her professional smile and presented her credentials and her warrant to the third person she'd been shuffled to.  From manager to vice president to president she'd moved to higher and higher floors of the building, her smile dazzling each in turn, her southern air head persona leading the first to ignore her companions, the second to leave them in the lobby of the vault area and the third to offer her coffee and pastries.  The coffee...a fragrant dark Italian roast...and the pastries....delicate, butter rich and flaky bits that melted on the tongue...she welcomed.  "But ya'll know," she said with a laugh, "that now every time I eat a pastry it'll be a reminder of how nice ya'll are being to me.  Ah sure appreciate it."

The president smiled happily and offered her some more coffee.  "I'm glad you like them Ms Dubois.  I hope they make up for the inconvenience of having to wait for our attorney.  He should be here anytime."

Betty Jo wiped her mouth carefully, her tongue peeping out to catch an errant crumb while she folded the napkin and laid it aside.  "Well, perhaps while we wait you could take me down to the vault and go over for me how these things work here.  I mean the process for placing items in the vault itself.  I understand those are a special set of safety deposit boxes."

"Why certainly my dear," he said, not even realizing he'd been overly familiar with a federal agent holding a search warrant.  "If you'll just come with me I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.  You may be assured of my cooperation in all things."

Betty Jo rewarded him with an intimate little smile, letting loose with an almost imperceptible flutter of her lashes.  "You sure are the nicest thing," she said, as the elevator deposited them in the lobby of the vault where Leroy, Lis and Jonah waited.  There were three security guards watching over them, expressionless and silent with their hands resting lightly on the brown horn grips of their guns.  Betty Jo flashed them fifty million watts of dimples, making one blink and the other two shift a bit as their attention was diverted from the boys to the girl.

"This is the vault, Ms DuBois," the president said, his arm an arrow pointing the way away from the temptation of the young and muscular.  "Access is restricted to bank personnel and depositors, controlled by palm print and key codes," he explained, demonstrating with his own hand.  "And that is all after you have signed in and presented a picture ID.  It's all very secure.  The entire place is covered by camera."  He tried out a smile.  "So we recommend that people smile when they're in here."

"Ah'm sure you do," Betty Jo said, smiling at him.  She turned at the sound of the elevator returning, her smile growing as Collins stepped out.  "Ah see you're attorney's arrived."

"Ah yes, it looks like it, sent over from the firm we use.  And you are?" the president asked, "I don't believe we've met before."

"Joshua Crowley," Collins said.  "Mr. Alexander is down at the Federal Building so they sent me along.  I hope you don't mind?"

"No, no.  That's fine.  This is Ms DuBois from the..." he broke off and turned to Betty Jo.  "Who did you tell me you were with?"

Betty Jo smiled and advanced, her badge in one hand and her other one extended.  "The Justice Department," she said lightly, shaking Collins' hand.  She allowed him a split second to scrutinize her badge and then flipped it closed with an audible snap and traded places with it with the warrant.  "And this is our warrant to search the vault," she said, offering it like she'd offered her hand.

Collins took it and gave it a glance before flipping to the signature at the end.  "It's in order, sir," he said to the president.  "I'd let them go ahead and get it over with."  He moved over to the desk with document, pulling a pair of glasses from his breast pocket.  "I can keep an eye on things, sir, and then when they're through give you a run down on what they found and what they've taken with them, if anything."  Then Collins looked over at him with a laugh.  "But I forgot.  You'll need to open the boxes for them won't you?"

The president nodded and pulled out a set of master keys.  "That's true," he said, leading Leroy, Lis and Jonah into the vault.

When Betty Jo moved to follow Collins detained her, clearing his throat gently.  "Ahem, Ms DuBois, if you could just lend me a moment of your time?"

"Why sure thing," she said.

"If you could just explain this portion of the list of things you're looking for?  Artifacts of..." he said, looking up at her and pointing to the document.  "Right there, I can't make out the handwriting."

Betty Jo leaned down and as she did the three guards entered the vault, pulling their weapons while Collins drew a small gun from his pocket and pressed it into Betty Jo's side, grabbing her and pulling her upright and back against him using his hand against her mouth for leverage.  "Would that be artifacts of power?" he asked in her ear.  "The ones your boyfriend wants back?"  He ignored her struggles.  "Oh no, my dear," he said, watching her eyes frantically look towards the vault.   "By now your friends and your would be flirt are surely taking a little nap.  Oh see, I was right," he said watching the three guards exit the vault.

"It's time for us to take a little jaunt."  He jerked her head around sideways so he could see her face.  "Now my friends there are going to wait with your friends and if they don't hear from me that you've been well behaved they'll kill all four of them.  So when I remove my hand you'll keep that beautiful mouth shut and we'll walk out of here arm in arm like we're very close friends.  Got it?"

Betty Jo nodded carefully.  When he removed his hand she wiped the back of hers across her mouth and looked at the smear of blood on it from where he'd cut her lip on her teeth.  She glanced towards the vault and them returned her attention to Collins.

"Ready to go, my dear?"  he asked, taking her arm and pulling her close.

She nodded and let him lead her into the elevator and out the back of the bank building to where a limo was waiting.  Collins shoved her into the back and followed her in.  The chauffeur holding a gun waited until Collins had cuffed her hands behind her back, then turned around and closed the window between the front and back seat.  Collins watched Betty Jo in silence, his own gun back in his hand.  When the limo was safely away and speeding down the George Washington Memorial Parkway toward the Beltway he pulled out a cell phone and called the guards in vault.  Then he handed Betty Jo an handkerchief for lip which had started bleeding again.  "Don't want blood on your nice frock.  So difficult to get out."

The one who answered the phone grunted, said "Right, got it," and hung up.  Then he and the other two checked the four unconscious men, picked a box, opened it and extracted a large package, closed the vault door and left the bank by the back exit.

Ian appeared in the bank vault and zapped three of the four unconscious men out of there. When he got them to Betty Jo's apartment he dumped each of them none to gently onto the hard floor. "Terrific. Just terrific," Ian muttered, as he paced the room, running a hand through his hair. "I knew this wasn't a good idea. It's a damn good thing I've got a very subtle magical tracker on her, isn't it?"

Coop and the other two sisters waited and then waited some more.  When the alarm inside suddenly went off they had their first clue.  The arrival of DC's boys in black and white pouring into the lobby behind them was their second.  The injured president, tottering feebly towards a chair in the vault area, a locale they gained access to by dint of holding their badges before them, while letting nothing and no one impede them, was their third.

Bobbie Jo looked around, met Coop's eyes and led the way back out.  They arrived at Betty Jo's apartment just as Jonah was regaining consciousness.  Jonah ignored the advent of his two youngest in favor of glaring at the man responsible for ensuring his eldest remained safe.  "Well," he demanded, forgetting finesse and debonair charm, "What the hell happened to her?"

"Collins made off with her. What, I should have let them kill you three? Don't think I wasn't tempted."

Lis was finally coming round, and offered, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Tracker? You sure Collins won't sense it?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Ian replied grimly.

"So where is she?" Billie Jo asked, while Bobbie helped Lis into a chair.  "Where's mama?" Bobbie wanted to know.

"My place," Billie Jo said, moving towards the phone.  "We'll let Daddy tell her."

"Don't get smart with me, Billie Jo!" Jonah said.  "Where is she, Broome?"

"With Collins obviously.  By the way, here are the artifacts. If nothing else, we could do a swap," Ian suggested.

"When did you get the artifacts?" Coop asked, taking them from him.

'I lifted them the moment the vault doors were opened. Everyone was watching Betty Jo."

"Where's Collins and Betty Jo?" Leroy asked, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. "She okay?"

"She'd better be," Ian growled.

"Hey, I'm on your side. Well, hers for sure," Leroy clarified.

"He's like a brother to us," Billie Jo clarified, passing around ice bags.  From the kitchen came the sound of activity.  "I called mama.  She's making coffee.  Anyone want a drink to wash down their Advil?" she asked, pulling a bottle from her pocket.

Ian was too busy glaring at Jonah to notice. "I told you this was a bad idea."

Bobbie Jo put a glass in Ian's hand and pointed to a chair.  "Fight later."

"Yeah," Billie Jo said, putting one in Jonah's hand.  "Or I'll sic mama on both of ya'll."

Jonah consumed air by the liter and turned to take a seat.  "So what's the plan Broome?"

"He'll realize the artifacts are gone any minute now I'd guess. He'll be contacting us," Ian replied confidently.

"And Betty Jo?" Leroy asked with a worried frown. "He's not going to take it out on her?"

"If he wants to live he better not."  The way Ian said it made Leroy shiver.

Collins helped Betty Jo from the car and into a ski lodge in the Pennsylvania mountains just over the Maryland state line.

Betty Jo, watching the sign welcoming her to Pennsylvania go by had raised an eye brow and said,  "Interstate transportation of a kidnap victim and a federal officer to boot.  You do like life in the fast lane."

Collins had ignored her, just as he seemed utterly indifferent to her now.  He led her to a bedroom and locked the door behind her.  Then he settled in to wait for his men to join him while the chauffeur made sandwiches and coffee.  "Take her some food," he said, pulling out the keys to the handcuffs and tossing them over.  "Watch her eat, watch her pee and then cuff her again, this time to the bed," he said, barely looking up from the book he was reading.  He didn't put it down again until the three guards arrived, just as the sun was setting, the sound of tires crunching packed snow his signal.

He accepted the package, frowned and waved them to the kitchen.  He put it on the coffee table and poured himself a drink, looking at it.  It was just a plain brown box with a lid.  Then he tossed it on the fire and headed for the room Betty Jo was in.  He found her dozing on the bed, propped up by the pillows.  He grabbed one of her ankles and gave it a jerk,  an unmistakable demand for attention.  "Where are they?" he asked pleasantly, remaining at the foot of the bed.

"Where are what?" she asked.

"The objects of power, my dear.  Please, don't play coy.  It doesn't become you nearly as much as the dumb southern belle does."

"I don't know," she said her eyes never leaving his face, her voice calm.  "I haven't a clue, in fact."

Collins frowned and moved to the side of the bed, sitting down next to her, his hand lifting a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers.  "No clue at all?" he asked.

She shook her head.  "None.  I thought you had them in the vault, hence the search warrant," she said.

Collins slid his hand behind her head, letting her hair spill through his fingers as he grasped the back of her neck.  He smiled pleasantly as he exerted pressure, a slow compression of his fingers and his thumb both headed towards each other, letting the sensation build in increments from pressure to pain to agony.  "Where are they my dear?" he asked again as she arched back, a scream strangling in her throat.

She shook her head, unable to speak.

Collins shook his head and moved his hand to her jaw, grabbing it with the same fingers and thumb, the compressing force transferred the joints and lips, breaking open the split on her lip.  "Try again, beautiful."

She shook her head again, her face awash in tears, the pain measured by the choking she couldn't control and the foam of the saliva dripping out of her mouth onto his hand.  When he relaxed his grip again she closed her eyes for a moment and then looked at him again. "I don't know," she enunciated clearly.

He studied her dispassionately for a moment.  "Then who took them?"

Betty Jo blinked.  "I don't know," she said.

"You don't know much of anything do you sweetheart?" he said .  "Where was your boyfriend while we were playing cops and robbers in the bank?"

She caught her breath, a small involuntary gasp and then shook her head.  "I don't know."

Collins cocked his head sideways, a smile lifting the corners of his lips, cold and hard like the hand that lifted and back-slapped her across the mouth.  "I don't like liars, darling."  He stood and looked around the room but there was no purse, no cellphone in sight.  He looked back at her, his eyes stopping on hers.  "What's his phone number, my sweet?"

Betty Jo didn't say a word.

He leaned in closer, his breath, scotch scented and warm played across her skin like a lover, raising goosebumps.  "Don't make me ask again," he said softly, his thumb grazing her lips and wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth.  He looked at the blood, red and growing tacky and then licked it off his thumb.  "I don't mind blood, but I'm not like most people."

She panted, desperate for air as his eyes held hers.  When he backhanded her again it slammed her head into the head board.  He brought her up by the hair as her head lolled to the side.  "The number," he breathed in her ear, his lips feathering the words over the sensitive skin, the fingers of his other hand on her throat, then dipping lower into her cleavage, molding a breast that heaved into his hand with her breathing to fit his palm.

She shuddered at the touch, swallowed down sour panic and salty blood, a mix that made her stomach roil, and whispered the number.

It was full dark in DC when Ian's cell phone rang.

Ian let it ring three times before he answered it. He was pale and his lips were bloodless. His eyes were hard and just looking at him you knew he was barely hanging on to a deep and abiding anger.  "Yes." His voice revealed none of it, coming out calm and even.

"Blakesley, Collins here."

"You seem to have misplaced something, dear fellow," Ian said quietly. "If you expect to get them back, and live to tell the tale, you'd best be very careful how you treat your guest."

"Of course," Collins said.  "She's had a nice dinner and is resting now.  A bit lonely perhaps, all by herself in that bedroom, but she's resilient.  As soon as she's back in your care she'll be fine I'm sure."

"I'm quite certain of that. The question is whether I allow you to live after this."

"Tsk, tsk, old man.  You're assuming I want the artifacts so badly I have no other interests.  It might be amusing, as I'm sure you can imagine, to simply keep her.  She's such a lovely woman.  And she must be highly unique to have held your interest for so long," Collins said.  "So I'm sure I'd find her worth my time as well."

"Ah, well, if you don't want the artifacts back then, I guess we've nothing to negotiate."

"You know Blakesley, I think you're right.  Do take care," Collins said and broke the connection.

"He's claiming he doesn't want the artifacts. We're going to have to go in after her," Ian hissed. He closed his eyes and called up power. Magic swirled through the room, making the hair on the back of Leroy's neck stand up. Coop looked around, not really attuned to this sort of thing but aware something was going on. Lis and Leroy produced weapons. Billie and Bobbie did too.

Collins put the cellphone in his pocket and looked at Betty Jo, a smile on his face.  "My dear, your boyfriend is at this moment tracing you magically.  I am going to have to bid you a reluctant farewell.  Do give him my best regards."  He bent and pressed a slow, intimate kiss to her lips, his tongue tracing them while his thumb forced them open.  He held her head steady, in no hurry, exploring her mouth.  "He does have good taste," Collins said when he was through. "I do wish we had more time to get to know each other better.  But there's always tomorrow."  Then he winked out.

It was only seconds later that Ian, Jonah, Lis, Leroy, Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo winked in. It was a matter of seconds and Collins people were subdued. Ian, the muscles in his jaw working, looked down at what had been done to Betty Jo. He took a deep breath and asked, "Are you all right, otherwise?" as he sat down on the bed next to her and magicked off the cuffs that had held her to the bed.

She nodded, her eyes locked on his. He gathered her into his arms and just held her for a moment. "I suspect Collins has the artifacts already," he sighed.

"He said to give you his regards," she said, forming the words carefully, her forehead leaning against his.

"I'm sure he did," he said as Jonah came to stand in the doorway.  Ian turned to him then and said, "Take her home, keep her safe. I'm going after Collins."

"Leroy and Lis will.  I'm coming with you."  When Ian moved to speak Jonah said, his voice implacable, "She's my daughter, Cecil."

"So go and take care of her," Ian replied, his voice cold.

Jonah shook his head and called Leroy.  "We're going after Collins," he said.  "Take her home to her mama and stay with them until we get back."

"But," Leroy said, then closed his mouth with a snap. He walked over to Betty Jo. "Come on, honey, let's get you home. Your mama is really worried."

Betty Jo nodded and took his hand, her eyes on Ian and her father.  She started to say something and then changed her mind.  She was still looking at both of them as Leroy winked them out of there.

"I'm killing him," Ian said bluntly. "You can watch."

"We'll see," Jonah said.  "We have to catch him first."  Then he began drawing power to himself, and the wind outside grew loud against the windows.  In a moment he said, "I've got the artifacts.  You ready?"

Ian nodded and the two men winked out, to reappear near a hotel in downtown Baltimore. It was rainy and cold, just a tiny bit too warm for snow. The hotel was rather seedy, in a part of town that had been left behind and was perhaps better forgotten. The hotel sign cast a reddish glow on the wet pavement in front of the main entrance to the tiny lobby.

Ian's head swung around as did Jonah's. Both of them were questing for a slightly better read on just where Collins was.  Jonah started walking, his pace fast but not running down towards the bottom of the street and the towering coal piles that blocked the freighters behind them, waiting to take the ore overseas.  On everything there was a patina of black dust, defiantly resistant to the efforts of the weather to wash away it since the first time coal was dumped here.  It was ground into the asphalt and glittering in the rain, floating on the tops of the puddles.  When he reached the coal yard he stopped for a second and then opened a door in the chain link fence in front of him and kept moving towards the docks, his face set, impervious to the freezing rain misting his hair and dripping onto his shoulders.  Ahead of him, almost hidden by the  freighters around and the dim shadows of the coal piles was a ocean going yacht, lit up and taking on fuel and bouncing with the slight wake stirred up by the wind.  The knocking of the hull against the piling sounded in counterpoint to the multi-toned slap of the water hitting fiberglass and wood.

Ian had winked out earlier. Jonah wasn't the least bit surprised. They both knew where the artifacts were and where Collins must be too. There was no sign of any guard on the gangplank. It stretched up to the main deck of the yacht, openly inviting. Jonah took it, easily climbing it, without making much of a sound, or at least not enough to be heard over the slap of the water and the creak of wet rope stretched against the cleats that held the yacht in place.

Music, a thin trail of it, came from the forward wheelhouse, the only part of the boat that looked inhabited. The other portholes were dark, the lighting of the decks playing against the black and empty looking portholes.  Jonah moved easily with the motion of the boat, setting a warding illusion around the whole of it as he went, protecting what ever happened on board from the incredulous eyes of passers-by and effectively preventing anyone from boarding or disembarking.

He slowed slightly as he neared the wheelhouse, his senses projected outward, scenting like a blue tick hound for the trail of his quarry.  There was no one on the upper deck but the hatch that lead to the state rooms below was open, the gangway clear and his power told him that the artifacts were below.

Jonah sensed Broome then, a slightly darker silhouette against the black and rainy night sky. He was on the other side of the wheelhouse from Jonah. He appeared to be uninterested in the artifacts as his attention was entirely on the wheelhouse. The music died then and there was only the sound of water slapping against the pilings and the protest of the boat as it creaked against the movement of the water . A metallic click shattered the relative silence however and Jonah turned to find a shotgun aimed at his gut.

He smiled, predatory and unmoved.  The hunger he felt for violence grew to a palpable force that stirred the air around him.  His eyes stared straight into the seaman's who held the gun as he brought the toe of his boot up straight into the man's groin.  The sudden shock of pain closed off the air to the seaman's vocal chords, stopping any sound beyond a ludicrous sort of grunt as he instinctively dropped the gun and doubled over, his hands clutching himself.  Jonah caught the gun before it hit the deck and used the butt end of it under the man's chin jerking his head up and then again on the side of his skull, effectively ending any contribution the seaman might have hoped to make to the proceedings.  Jonah eased him onto the deck and lowered the gun silently over the side.  Then he entered the wheelhouse, drawing the hunger inward and sending his senses outward again in its place.

Ian meanwhile had zapped himself to the opposite side of the wheelhouse where he could get a view of the interior. It was empty, despite the lights having been left on. He signalled to Jonah and crept back toward the ladders that led down into the living quarters of the yacht.  No sound came from below, except the usual groaning of a yacht as it shifted to meet the inexorable demands of the water. Ian zapped himself down the stairs, rather than risk making a noise to alert anyone he was coming. Not that he expected that Collins wasn't waiting for him. Still, better not to give Collins a warning about just where he was. He reached out with his senses and located the artifacts. Rear stateroom. Probably in a safe.  Jonah was behind him, navigating the carpeted steps once Ian was done.

Collins sat in the rear stateroom in an armchair by the portholes.  He'd left the room dark, dropping the curtains over the view to the outside and settled in to wait, as static as the still life on the opposite wall.  Ian's probing for the artifacts rippled through the room, the exploration as plain to him as the power contained in the bowl he held in his lap.  He smiled, a twisted mocking salute to the delicacy of the probe, a smile that warmed with the slow coursing flow of adrenalin it triggered.

Ian sensed the power that Collins held on his lap. He had no trouble knowing what it was, what it was intended to do, and recognizing that it might just succeed if Collins invoked the spirits of the bowl. Still, the magician was determined to risk it, to reach Collins and kill him regardless if it took his own life. He could live with that, so long as he knew Collins was dead. With that thought in mind, he moved.

Jonah, behind him still, moved with him, a deeper shadow in blackness.

Collins tracked the careful opening of the door with his eyes as much as with the change in the motion of the air and the surge of adrenalin through his veins.  Ian filled the doorway and then emptied it revealing Jonah behind him.  "How nice, you've brought a companion," he said, his teeth flashing white and the bowl crackling with energy.

"Not by choice. But he resented  your treatment of his daughter, so it was only fair to allow him some say in this," Ian replied quietly, coming to a stop and regarding Collins dispassionately.

"I have to admit I wasn't all that pleased with it myself.  She's as stubborn as you are.  I imagine that's part of the attraction," Collins said.

"She gets it from her mama," Jonah said.

Collins nodded.  "And her Daddy too if my memories of you are correct Jeremy."

"They are."

"So what is all this in aid of, Collins. You know there is nowhere you can hide. You knew when you touched Ms DuBois there was no hope of walking this backward. Are you tired of living?" Ian asked.

"Why it's in aid of nothing, old man," Collins said.  He smiled and the lights came on.  "Much better.  We really don't need all that Gothic atmosphere."  He stroked the bowl in his lap, bringing it alive again.  "So much fuss over such simple things.  A bowl, a piece of paper, a woman...it makes you wonder, doesn't it?" he asked and sent the bowl flying high in an arcing trajectory that left an ion stream of power in its wake.  In the instant it reached its apex it came apart releasing the demon that it had caged while the light bulbs exploded with the release of raw power into the air.

Jonah left Collins to Ian, focusing instead on the demon, fighting to master the power that was flooding the room, to keep it from not just the demon but Collins.  He  chose as his weapon the blankets on the bunk, transforming them into energy grids, each thread a rope he used to attach the power to the blanket and containing the whole within the reconstructed shards of the demon bowl.  With each point of power he contained, he compressed back into the bowl a portion of the demon, who was howling in rage at the interference.  It was like trying to untangle silly string blindfolded, his only guide the burning sensation of the energy he was fighting to hold along the lengths of his fingers.

Ian didn't spare Jonah even a glance, his entire attention and his power focused on Collins. Collins, with hardly the slightest of motions, rose from his chair and hovered above it. He struggled to zap out of there, but Ian had him locked in a time vortex of power that locked him where he was. "I'm not letting you just get away this time," Ian hissed. and with a hand movement an electrically brilliant bolt of energy coursed straight at Collin's head.

The power disrupted the balancing act Jonah was trying to employ to contain the demon within the bowl. There was  a brilliant explosion of power and then stillness.

Collins seized on the freed energy, bursting free of the hold and using it to explode the bolt as he zapped away, the backlash catching him and the other two.

Jonah and Ian both got caught in the backwash of the spells, both going down and losing consciousness.  It was Leroy who zapped in seconds later, grabbed a bit of both of them and zapped them back to the Refuge. He hoped the Healers weren't gonna start demanding a raise any time soon. He didn't even have a job yet.

Betty Jo waited until the healers left and then took a seat next to the bed where Ian lay, still unconscious.  In a room next door, she knew, were her sisters and her mother, watching her father just as she was watching Ian.  She moved the chair closer so she could reach his hand and relaxed, letting him sleep.

Ian woke a few hours later, considerably singed but whole. His eyes met Betty Jo's where she sat beside him. "Is your father all right?  You look much better."

"He's fine," she said, smiling.  "How are you?"

"My self-confidence is shot but otherwise I'm fine. Well, other than a headache."

"Well he may have gotten away but it wasn't unscathed and the artifacts were still there, in the safe.  Want some aspirin?"

He shook his head no, keeping a firm grip on her hand. "Are you all right? He didn't.. He didn't do more than knock you around a bit?"

"No, he didn't," she said, will power the force that steadied her voice.

"Betty Jo," he whispered, examining her eyes, willing her to tell him the truth.

"He didn't, he just...he used it...as a threat and he wanted to," she said finally as pale as he was.  "He said when he left that there's always tomorrow."

He closed his eyes for a moment then when they opened they were softer. "It's always the threat against women, isn't it..." His voice trailed away and it wasn't a question. Then after a bit, "A threat or the reality. Jesus.."

She leaned down to him, brushing his lips with hers.  "It didn't happen.  It's over.  Everyone's fine."

"No thanks to me. Your father, we've been at odds in the past. I should have trusted him more."

"Crap, Ian.  Don't even go there.  And for sure don't tell daddy that, he'll be impossible."

He smiled. "No? You don't want us to kiss and make up?"

She laughed.  "That's up to you two.  His ego, though, needs no help."

"Nor does mine," he admitted. "I had no idea who your father was."

"He promised mama as close to a normal life as possible so there's no reason you would have.  Does it matter?" she asked.

"No. Not really. But it could make it harder for you, and I regret that."

"How will it make it harder for me?"

"I don't see Jeremy seeing eye to eye with me on much, and I expect he'll have a thing or two to say to you about me. I'd rather you weren't in the middle."