Alternatives

A/N: Did you know that my spell check doesn’t notice when I forget to capitalize Veronica or John? I just looked at my chapters again and found this out. I also found that when I made the abbreviations, I frequently got dyslectic on the order. I can go back and fix the old chapters, but someone probably should have told me I missed so many typos.

Also, to the kind reader(s) who gave 3 votes of +++++, thank you very much for the complement, however I can’t tell witch chapter(s) you liked if you don’t tell me in a review or even better, witch chapter(s) you thought could be better. Since I still have no beta, readers are my only way of knowing how I’m doing as a writer and where I could stand to improve. Don’t be shy, tell me what you think.

Oh, and the band ‘Smash Mouth’ as well as their song ‘All Star’ are not my property and make me no money.


Vlad was not a happy camper. Though having a weeks pay for staying in bed was nothing to turn ones nose up at, the first ever say that he could remember in a hospital was not his ideal of fun. The cleanliness was fine, since Ronnie was a bit of a neat freak, but when Ronnie scrubbed the walls, the room smelled like vanilla or something equally pleasant, not the noxious antiseptic they used here. And if one more of the hospital staff walked up to his bed just to sneer at him and walk away, the bedside table was going to be flying at their head, flower vase and all.

The worst part of it was that it wasn’t even his fault he was in there to begin with. The senior Hunter said to take the book, so he took the book. He was a newbie, he had an excuse, but she had been doing this for years and should have known better. And if he hadn’t taken the book, the whole team would not have gotten caught in a shockwave of dark magic and the whole team would not have needed their dark magic saturation reduced and the whole team wouldn’t be stuck here for the treatment.

The ladies were on the other side of the hospital in a Victorian attempt to prevent indecent fraternization, leaving Ivan as his only company once again. He had just gotten used to company outside his brother too. So when the slender man with the board straight and fine black hair to his waist and pink eyes came in with John from Records, it was quite a relief.

“Witch of you gentlemen would be Vlad Angelus?” the unfamiliar man asked.

“I am. Who are you and why do you ask?” he responded, half expecting another round of ‘Sneer and Leave’.

“Sebastian Campbell, Potions Tech from the Tech Department. I was assigned to brew the potions for the magic cleansing, and to do so I need to have some ideal of what caused the saturation in the first place to make them effective, so I’ve looked over the preliminary findings of the case and came up with some questions your crew should know about. You are the S.R. for the case, correct?”

The man had been polite and straight forward so far, so the table and flowers were staying put. And even better, he seemed to have an opportunity to work on the case in spite of the whole cleansing thing. “That’s right I took the pictures and bagged the items we brought back. What would you like to know?”

“Well, the write up you gave in the file said that the front garden as well as the grass was dead and fuzzy with mold. Do you mean ALL the grass or just some of it? You also don’t mention any wards on the old family wizard home. Did you just forget to record those? No harm if you did, it happens all the time but it really should be in the file.”

“No, I mean all the grass and any other plant visible from the front of the house were good and thoroughly dead and molding in spots, turning to ooze in others, and just dried out in others. There were no wards that I could find, but the whole property seemed to absorb light. I’m not even sure how well the shots will come out because of the lighting issues that made. I didn’t think that really mattered though, I mean, maybe the initial ritual blast just knocked the wards down.”

“No, it doesn’t work like that, not with the old family homes. The warding would be built for that sort of thing because of the roses.”

“What exactly dose a delicate and fragrant flower have to do with warding?”

“Everything” John said “If you’re part of an old wizard family. Roses are both hypersensitive to dark magic and used heavily in dark rituals. Grass though, takes years to show ill effects to it, so dead grass means both that the wards have been down for years and that the home was used intensively for dark spell work of some kind, as dose the light absorption.”

“Ok, I’m officially confused” Ivan interjected. “A house that has been without wards for years and also been used for dark magic for years should have attracted Ministry attention and should have already had surveillance on it. We had a good hour to work, and they didn’t even show up till after it exploded. And if roses don’t take well to dark magic, why would they be grown around a house it was used in when they could just get them from a florist?”

“Flower shops tend to have delicate hybrids that get a lot of pesticides and somewhat toxic fertilizers, making them magically useless. Roses from organic food stores or apothecaries are fine for low level potions, like you give to young students of the art, but otherwise useless also.” Sebastian said with a frown “For advanced potions and ritual work, the specific part of the rose with the right blossom color must be harvested directly from the bush at exactly the right hour of the day under exactly the right moon phase to be effective. And in spite of the dark magic sensitivity, roses are used heavily in dark rituals, in fact more so then light rituals.”

John added “Because of the importance of fresh roses in potions and rites, the old families tend to pride themselves on the quality of the family rose garden and are known to go to great lengths to ensure both a variety of blossom colors and healthy bushes. We have a copy of the Malfoy Book of Shadows from the turn of the century that includes the Lady Malfoy at the time writing ‘To keep the roses from wilting like high born ladies in this dreadful August heat, I quench my bushes late morning, noon, tea time, and super time with freshly made chilled tea with lemon and sugar.’”

“Malfoy? Weren’t they kind of notorious for dark magic?” Vlad asked, remembering the name.

Sebastian smirked. “Oh, they still are, but they do have one of the most stunning rose gardens in England. I live next door so if I ask nicely they let me have cuttings from their more exotic varieties, and the Lady Malfoy still serves them tea in the worst summer heat. The acid in the tea and lemon juice dose wonders for keeping them blooming longer and increasing the number of flowers.”

“It gets better” John added. “As late as the 1700’s, the family garden had to be warded against angry neighbors. They would salt your roses and then report you for practicing dark spells to try and get you arrested. Since then having visibly healthy roses was a standard to reduce accusations. Often this was done by serious warding and really didn’t prove anything, but the Aurors did have to work harder to get actual proof. Because of this, it’s down right abnormal that there were no roses and no warding on the house you were at.”

The enlightening discussion was interrupted by Veronica bouncing in dragging two men behind her, one by a tacky gold chain and the other by a chunk of his blindingly red hair. Her hair war rather disheveled and there were off colored spots and missing chunks on her pale blue dress and the red head looked even worse for ware. And even more interesting, as she sang ‘All Star’ by ‘Smash Mouth’ at double time, Sebastian’s right eye began twitching, as did his fingers, like a man trying not to kill someone.

Hoping to defuse the situation Ivan said “Ronnie, what’s going on?”

She lit up and launched into the explanation “‘Bastian got me a partner and I thought I wouldn’t get to play ‘Beaker Go BOOM’ with him anymore and then I washed his mouth cause it was dirty and then I picked up the papers to see the cases and I had a vision and then I did get to play ‘Beaker Go BOOM’ and I got the bad guy cause the bad guy was really bad at ‘Beaker Go BOOM’ but I’m really good at that game and now I’m here cause he got sick and he’ll die before we can question him.” she spewed rapidly.

“Oh, well that’s good, I think.” There was nothing Ivan could do to help the criminal, but he may yet give relief to the poor man who had been partnered with her without his copy of ‘The Care and Feeding of Your Ronnie’ “Well, you washed him and you walked him, but did you feed your partner today?”

Veronica hung her head in shame. “Oopsie. I forgot that part.”

“Well why don’t you fix that now. After such a full day, I’m sure he’d love some nice warm homemade brownies. And you make the best brownies.” Ivan encouraged.

Veronica brightened immediately. “That’s because I make them with love and extra chocolate. One pan of fresh baked victory brownies coming up.” and she bolted out the door.

“Great” the man with the ugly jewelry said “That’ll keep her busy for, what, 15 minutes? How long dose a crummy box mix brownie take?”

Vlad was not having his favorite baker badmouthed on his watch though. “Crummy? Well ok they do tend to be soft, but I’ll have you know she makes excellent brownies FROM SCRATCH and will be busy for a few hours.”

Ivan felt the need to back up his sibling. “Hey Vlad, you remember that batch she made with the white chocolate marbled in.” he said with a hungry grin.

“Do you mean the ones she drenched in vanilla schnapps and served flambé? How could I forget? And there was the batch with 6 different types of nuts and the orange frosting.” Vlad looked as if he was talking about sex rather than confection.

Sebastian had finally calmed enough to speak “How did you do that? You just asked her to do something and she did it and nothing blew up. How do I do that?” he asked in shock.

“Well, you’ll need a copy of ‘The Care and Feeding of Your Ronnie’ to start with. And keep her hands busy at all times. Things blow up less often if she’s focused on something.” Ivan told him seriously.

Sebastian looked at him like he was stupid and offered sarcastically “Of course. I forgot to read the care manual all this time. How silly of me.”