Finally, after four long months I'm back again! I'm so sorry for the long wait. I promise the next update won't take nearly as long. Thanks for the reviews and story alerts. XD

Chapter twenty-eight: How are we going to get in there?

Graveyard, San Francisco

"Your shelters were on graveyards?," Anna asked incredulously.

"Of course not!," Jesse replied while the two of them were sneaking around on a tiny cemetery behind an old church in one of the poorer parts of San Francisco. On their way there they had seen the latest news on one of the large holoscreens that hung all over the city. Apparently the queen intended to give a big press conference this evening. "They were under the graveyards."

That stopped Anna dead in her tracks. "Under the graveyards?," she echoed. "Why would anyone live below dead people – or on the same level for that matter?"

"Because to your enemies, you're just as invisible.," Jesse explained while he grabbed Anna's wrist and pulled her towards a small mausoleum to their left. "Graveyards are a perfect hiding place for many supernatural creatures. Ghouls, ghosts, vampires, demons, sometimes even zombies... these places are practically busting with supernatural energy! It's too much to detect anything specific."

Anna understood. "You were hiding in the mass."

"Exactly."

They had reached the mausoleum. By the looks of it, the thing was at least 50 years old. Like in the most parts of San Francisco, the magical war had left its marks here, too. The mausoleum was, like many of the tombstones around, black with scorch marks and partly destroyed. Grass, moss and ranks grew everywhere. The iron lattice hang partly out of its ankles. Jesse pulled it carefully open and gestured for his wife to get in. Taking a deep breath – and reminding herself that she was doing this for Nicky – the woman banned the disgusted expression from her face and stepped into the small room. Her husband took a moment to reassure himself that no one had seen them and slipped also into the mausoleum.

On the left were several slabs with epitaphs. "And now what?," Anna asked, trying to stay calm. "Do we have to..." She gestured toward the slabs hiding the coffins in the wall. "...crawl through one of them?"

Jesse actually laughed. "You've seen too many movies." He then went to the end of the room and... disappeared!

"Jesse?" Anna stepped slowly to the spot where she'd last seen her husband. Then she realized that there was a small gap between the left wall and the next one. From the entrance, it was impossible to see. Carefully she pressed herself through the gap and saw Jesse standing in a tiny passage way between the backside of the tombstone wall and the outer wall. In his hands he held an old flashlight and stood with his back to a pair of stairs that reached into the ground.

The twins bedroom

"Well, that has been an interesting lunch.," Alex deadpanned once Lara and Chris had brought them back to their room and left them to themselves. As Lara had explained to them she and Chris would be busy preparing a press conference where she planned to inform the whole magical community of the return of the twins. The whole affair was supposed to take place this evening. 'And tomorrow we will throw a big homecoming party for the two of you to reintegrate you in society.,' she had chirped. 'Won't that be fantastic?' Alex grimaced at the thought. He had never been a party animal. "Wonder how dinner will go?," he muttered.

Nicky rubbed his full belly. "Hopefully they won't serve 5 meals again."

His brother shook his head in amusement. "How can one person eat so much?"

"Hey, I'm still a growing boy! Besides, it has spared me the joy of having to watch our two love birds!"

"True." Their aunt had actually had the nerve to feed Chris and seal nearly every bite with a kiss. Alex shuttered at the memory. He himself had only managed to choke a few bites down. He had simply been too excited to concentrate on his food. His thought had gone into overdrive after Lara's story about the seeing pool – and slowly a plan had started to form in his head.

"So, seems like we've found a way to find dad." Nicky, who had obviously listened to his brother's thoughts, stated.

"Yeah, now we just have to figure out how to get out of here."

Chris old apartment

Benji was getting worse. During the last hours he had developed a fever and was tossing and turning constantly in his comatose sleep.

Wyatt sat beside him on the couch. Though he knew it was probably useless, he kept cooling Benji's forehead with a wet wash cloth. Bianca's power sucking virus sure was effective. Chris had suffered through the same thing. Because of him. Because he had ordered it. Wyatt tried to suppress the guilt he was feeling.

"How is he?"

The blond witch half turned around to find Bianca lingering in the doorway. After Wyatt had lifted his brother up and carried him over to his bedroom he and the phoenix witch had agreed that she stayed with him while Wyatt took care of his brother-in-law. Bianca seemed to be calm, but the moist glint in her eyes betrayed her emotions. Wyatt had never liked her much and he liked the fact that she was dating his little brother even less. Chris was too good for her. Nevertheless he had to admit that she truly loved him. He didn't know whether to be glad about it or annoyed.

"Getting worse.," he answered honestly. "What about Chris?"

Judging by her darkening expression, he half wished he hadn't asked.

"I'm not getting a reaction out of him. If it wasn't for his breathing one could think that he`s ..." She couldn't finish the sentence as her throat suddenly went dry.

They both spend the next few minutes in silence.

Finally, Wyatt couldn't take it any longer. He tossed the wash cloth back into the water bowl on the nearby table and marched over to the front door.

"Where are you going?," Bianca asked surprised as she followed him.

"I'm going to search for Jesse and Anna."

As he turned to open the door she gripped his forearm. "You don't know where they went. You have no powers. If I'm letting you go now, you'll get killed." Not that it would have bothered her.

He ripped his arm out of her grip. "I know what I'm doing!," he snarled.

She grabbed his arm again. "You'll stay here!"

He was practically in her face. "Are you giving me orders now?"

They stared at each for a few moments before she slowly backed off. "Chris is going to kill me for this."

"Chris is too weak to even move his eyelids.," Wyatt deadpanned. Seeing her look he added calmer. "Look, I have a pretty good idea where they are headed. I'm going to bring them back and see if I can get us some help. You stay here and watch our two patients. I'm afraid that the dead assassin won't be the last head hunter coming after us." And with that he was out of the door.

Resistance stronghold

"So, how are we going to get in there?," Anna asked as she and her husband mused over old city maps and construction sketches of the queen's manor.

"Won't be easy.," Jesse replied slowly. "The whole building probably has magical shields to prevent anyone from getting in. So we either have to come from underground or..."

"Underground?" Anna stared at him questionably.

"As powerful as magical shields are, usually they only reach to the ground."

"I see. And the second option?"

Jesse shrugged. "Would be to open a portal into the manor."

"But how are we going to do that without magical powers? Besides, won't the shields prevent any portal within their grasp from opening?"

"The magical part won't be the problem. We just need someone who does have powers, but we don't need to have the powers ourselves."

Anna bit her lip. "Maybe we should have asked that Bianca to come with us."

Jesse shot her an annoyed look. "We don't need her. We can use a potion and put a few drops of witch blood in it. That should do the trick."

"Do you know how to make such a potion? Besides, where do you wanna get witch blood from?"

"That's why I wanted to come here. When the resistance broke apart they luckily had enough common sense to leave the shelters intact. After all, you never know when the time comes that you may need them again. The ingredients and a spell book should still be here."

Anna looked adoringly at her husband. "And here I thought you were an inactive member of the resistance!"

Jesse blushed. "I was – but that doesn't mean I didn't pick up as much as I could from my brothers and sisters in arms."

She came over and gave him a long kiss. "My hero," she whispered in awe.

He blushed even more. "We should start with the potion.," he mumbled and carefully entangled himself from her.

She reluctantly let go off him. "Do you really think we'll get him back?"

He smiled at her. "I do. Fate's on our side.," he spoke with conviction.

"What gives you that idea?"

His smile broadened. "The press conference. It will be an ideal diversion. It will give us the time to get the kids and they will have to lower the security to let the press in."

"Lara seems to be very sure of herself."

"She has the twins, she has Chris and she has Wyatt. She's got everything she wanted and the head hunters are out searching for us. She thinks she can't lose."

Anna gave him a grim smile. "Well, I'll be damned if we won't teach her otherwise!"

Streets of San Francisco

"All about our Queens latest proclamation tonight on our special report live at the royal manor at 8 p.m. ..."

Wyatt had made sure to stay carefully hidden in the shadows while he watched the news on the holoscreen. So, Lara was intending to give a large press conference tonight at her manor. It was the perfect opportunity to get to his boys – and into a trap!

Resistance stronghold

"You got the potions ready, honey?"

Jesse held up several potions, beaming at his wife. "Yeah, if we use the sewage system to get under the manor, this one will teleport us directly through the ground into the cellar. Then we'll use the lock pick to open the old laundry shaft. That way, we should be able to make it to the second floor without getting into the view of the security cameras and probes or setting off the magic detectors."

"So far, so good."

"Then we'll have to be quick. The bedrooms are on the fourth floor. We have to get there and find them as fast as possible. Once we got them, we'll have to reach the first open window we can find and get on the roof. There we can use this potion to teleport us out of the manor."

Anna was nervous. "What about the demon guards? They will try to stop us."

Jesse pressed a few vials into her hand. "These are some of the most powerful vanquishing potions we had at the resistance. I found them in the safe together with the spell book."

"But Lara doesn't have only demon guards, does she? There are also human ones. What about them?"

Jesse hesitated for a few seconds before he gave her a gun. "You know how to handle this thing, don't you? When we first met you tried to shoot me." He flashed her a brief smile at the memory, then looked long and hard at her. "We gotta do what we have to do to get our son back."

Anna eyed the gun in her hand for a long moment, then took a deep breath and looked deadly calm at her husband. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

The twins bedroom

"You know, I've thought."

Nicky shot his brother a look. That was the understatement of the year! They had spent the last few hours racking their brains over a possibility to get out this place. Their aunt and uncle had appeared briefly with a trolley full of sandwiches, cakes and other titbits, informing them that the press conference would start soon and they therefore regrettably didn't have time for a decent family dinner.

Alex ignored him and went on. "I gotta go and help dad get out of this mental labyrinth, first. I mean even if we manage to get out of here and find him he'll still be useless to us if we don't get him to wake up."

"You have a point.," Nicky mused. Suddenly they heard a loud bang in the hallway.

"What the heck...," Alex started as the door busted open and in rushed a dirty and dishevelled looking Jesse and Anna.

"Mum? Dad?" Nicky gaped open mouthed at his adoptive parents "What are you..."

"We don't have time for explanations! We need to get you and your brother out of here, now!," Jesse interrupted while he grabbed Nicky's arm and started to tuck him out of the room. At the same time Anna had taken hold of Alex hand and pulled him along.

As fast as they could without breaking into a run, the four of them sneaked out into the hallway.