Chapter Forty-Four

SpongeBob SquarePants let out aninane giggle as the cartoon sea sponge made some equally inane remark about Krabby Patties. Jacken turned his wrist where it rested on his wife's shoulder and checked his watch. Five minutes into the show and he felt like his brains were melting out of his ears.

"We don't have to keep watching this," he told her. "I can call Raln and tell him to un-fuck the programming."

"It's mind-numbing." Toni shifted closer. She was cuddled up next to him on their living room couch, her legs curled under her. "I kind of need that right now."

"Might I suggest football, then?" He peered down at his wife as she squirmed again, and frowned. "Do you need more pain meds?"

"Actually, yes." She straightened off him. "Would you mind getting them?"

"Of course not." He hopped up, grabbed the bottle of Motrin from the kitchen, then headed back into the living room. "You should've asked Dr. Jess for Vicodin or Percocet."

"It's just some bruises."

Bruises that looked a helluva lot worse the day after receiving them from Spike Boy. May the fucker rot in Purgatory. Jacken crouched down in front of his wife, and shook three pills out of the bottle into his palm. He twisted his mouth at her. "You know, you never used to look like this before you started hanging out with Varcolac." And now twice in less than a month.

"True." She gave him one of those warm, wifely smiles that turned his soft spot into absolute goo. "At least I'm not bored."

He set a hand on her knee. "Never again," he said quietly. "You have my solemn vow on that, Toni."

"I know." She moved some strands of hair off his brow with her fingertips. "I feel safe with you, Jacken, don't worry."

"Good." He hadn't earned that, yet, he knew, but he would.

"What are you going to do about Murk?"

He braced his forearms on his thighs. "Well, your dear old dad made a good point. Skull is pretty damned useless to us. No sense torturing him for information he doesn't have, which leaves us stuck with either detaining him in one of our jail cells for the rest of his life or outright killing him."

"No." Toni sat up straight. "I don't want you to hurt him, Jacken."

He exhaled a rough breath. "Yeah, I know."

"Can you …? I want you to let him go."

He gently placed the pills in her hand. "Toni, I realize you're weirded-out about him right now, but he's our enemy –"

"He's my half-brother." She rested her head on the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. "Look, you're right; my mind is blown from discovering I have I-don't-know-how-many half-siblings, and I know I'm making an emotional decision with this." She looked up, leaned forward, and touched his jaw. "I just can't deal with the thought of those options you mentioned, no matter how much of a bad guy he is."

He hooked one side of his mouth into his cheek. "Releasing him might come back to bite us in the ass," he pointed out.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm being stupid."

"No." Fact was, he didn't want Skull to remain in ??ran?, either. Jail cell or not, the man tainted the surroundings. Plus, Toni had touched his face. "You're the boss."

She slanted a look at him. "Not when I'm on this couch."

He laughed deep in his chest. Yeah, she'd actually been doing a great job of separating out "wife" from "leader" with him. He took her hand and pressed his thumb over the pills he'd put in her palm. "Remember when you gave me those Ibuprofen tablets at Garwald's?"

"How could I forget?" Her eyes sparkled at him. "It was the first time I saw you smile."

"It may have been exactly then," he gently closed her hand around the pills, "that I fell in love with you."

She cocked a brow at him. "It wasn't during the letter opener incident?"

He chuckled. "Maybe a little then, too." He kissed her closed fist. "Two against the world, Mrs. Brun. You and I. For always and forever."

"Ah." She bent forward and brushed her mouth over his, the best kiss she could manage with her split lip. "I like the sound of that."

* * *

Raymond lounged back in thecushioned deck chair on the terrace of his new Fairbanks Ranch mansion, his legs crossed, his palm cupping a snifter of Louis Royer Old Grande Champagne cognac. It was a luxurious libation, costing him nearly five hundred dollars a bottle, but he was in an unbearable mood at discovering it was going to be such a considerable chore getting Toni back. He bloody well needed the palliative.

Sipping his cognac, he watched the sun make steady progress toward the horizon. Behind him inside the house, servants moved briskly about unpacking boxes, and then a presence arrived at his back, one he recognized.

"The prodigal son returns," Raymond said dryly.

Murk moved to the other cushioned chair and sat.

"How did you find me?" Raymond asked, watching the orange ball of the sun sink into a gauzy nest of clouds.

"I borrowed a cell phone and called Pandra's secret line." Murk held up his casted arm. "I'm going to need another ring."

Ah, yes, he'd just dash off and do that straight away. "I can't imagine you escaped the Varcolac's lair."

"The cockheads just let me go." Murk shrugged. "Must've been something you said."

After only one day, too. Those blood-consuming beings showed some aptitude for appreciating logic, then. "Any weaknesses to report?"

"No." Murk kneaded his brow wearily. "They kept me shut away in a prison cell the whole time."

Jorgé, the Parthen butler, appeared on the terrace. "May I get anything for you, Master Murk?"

"Jesus suffering fuck, a beer would be bostin for this sodding headache."

"Yes, sir."

Murk dropped his hand and looked at Raymond. "There's something you need to know."

Raymond drifted the snifter back and forth under his nose, enjoying the rich smell of the cognac. "My breath is bated, son."

Murk allowed a dramatic pause to develop, which was rather cheeky of him. "Toni's the one who took our immortality rings off."

Raymond turned his head toward his son, a stillness enveloping his body.

"She's acquired her enchantment power," Murk added unnecessarily. Because, what else?

The piece of information he didn't have, however, was by what means. "How, pray tell, was she able to do that?"

Murk slouched deeper into the chair. "I haven't got a baldy notion."

Raymond turned back to the sunset and took a long sip of his drink. The sky was streaked a beautiful, brilliant tangerine. "That's something," he murmured, "I most assuredly need to discover."

Jorgé moved like a ghost onto the terrace, setting a jar of beer and a small dish of peanuts at Murk's elbow. He disappeared just as unobtrusively.

Murk picked up the beer and took a gulp. "What are you going to do?"

"Reacquire her, of course." Raymond gestured negligently. "Kill every last Varcolac, if need be. No more hospitable pellets."

"So we're at war with them?"

Raymond set down his snifter and folded his hands in his lap. "Yes, son, we're most definitely at war."