What He Owes Me – Rose Long

Ever since she had given birth to her first child, her abilities to organize and keep up with her things were destroyed. Rose was sure that it had something to do with the fact that when you had 18 Pounds of baby in you and when you had trouble picking yourself up off of the toilet when you used the bathroom, you really didn't give a damn were you had put your crap. This was such the case. She hadn't seen this box in a little over three decades. But she remembered it like yesterday. The Huntsman had given it to her when she was a month pregnant with Alyssa and when she could still hide it. When she opened it up, there were almost twenty folders and Rose was hesitating to open them, "I just can't seem to remember why he would give me these things, and I don't think that I want to look at them."

They had waited all day to open it, the kids were sleeping and they were the only ones up. They didn't need to hear this conversation, "Rose, if you don't open these and look at them. I'll have to turn them over to the Dragon Council. The Huntsclan might be all but extinct, but if there's something that you put the Dragons at risk they need to know, unless of course we can look over them together."

"Are you blackmailing me?" Rose asked, turning to glare at her Husband who was sitting next to her on the couch.

Jake shrugged, "Call it a suggestion."

"Fine," Rose said, leaning forward and grasping the edge of the box and bringing it to sit between them.

Pulling the first file out of it, she sighed and opened it up. Then her eyes widened. It was rushing back to her, quickly and as clear as day. If the memory was correct, then all of these folders were filled with sensitive information about the Huntsclan. It clicked in her head. The Huntsman had given it to her in a private meeting. He believed that there was a plot against his life and he needed to guard his assets and then security of the Clan. It was also his insurance policy if she remembered correctly. In one of these folders contained the location of the Rite of the Huntsman. It was a very ancient document that if read would bestow the title of Huntsmaster upon a single person and make it binding until that persons death, "I remember now, h-he gave these things to me incase someone killed him. He thought that there was a plot against his life and if he was killed, he wanted me to go to the location were he hid the rite of the Huntsmaster and take his place. Oh my god, if I'm correct, he also gave me something else-…"

"The Rite of the Huntsmaster? What the hell is that Rose?" Jake asked, snatching the file out of her hand.

Sighing again, she looked back into the box and her fingers danced on the labels, she was looking for a single file, "It's a magical document that binds the power of the Huntsmaster to a single person?"

"Magical?" Jake snorted, looking over the page.

"Oh yes, it was very hypocritical, but that's how it was done," Rose said, tapping a label and pulling out a red dossier.

Lightly wiping off the layer of dust off of the folder that had accumulated in the past thirty years, she opened the file and her suspicions were confirmed, "I'm about to make you really happy Jake."

"Oh," He said, looking over to her and smiling before looking down at the open folder, "And how is that going to happen?"

Rose smirked and pointed to the title page, "I know you like money, but I just stumbled on a shit load of money and a lot of other things that the Huntsman wanted me to have incase I took his place?"

His jaw dropped and he leaned closer to look at the bold letters, "Secret Assets, Bank Accounts and Statistical Data on the Organizational Company, what is that?"

"Well, I'm willing to bet that Paul Sindacco took over the Organizational Company. The Huntsclan had a cover company that would bring it cash to fund the organization. It was a stock brokering firm on Wall Street," Rose said flipping through the pages, "I didn't want it and I pretty sure that the Paul gained control over it after the Huntsman died. But what I'm trying to find are the other things. My 'Uncle' wanted me to have his money and his valuable things when he died. But I left before I could even see it. He said that he had locked all of the money and assets away and the only one that would be able to open it was me. Once he locked it away, even he wouldn't be able to get it. So I'm sure that it's still out there, and hopefully it was put in a vault that was climate controlled. Because other side I'm gonna flip out-…"

He scratched his head in confusion and set the file that he held on the table, he would have to remember to give that to the Dragon Council later. Jake was more concerned by the fact that his wife was saying these things, "How much money and …secret assets are we talking about here?"

"If the number never fluctuated, I would say about 220 Million Dollars in Cash is somewhere in a vault waiting for me to open it," Rose laughed and reached the page that she was looking for, it contained an inventory of the vault the Huntsman had put all of the cash and assets in 30 years ago, "I'm right, it was 220 Million Dollars, the assets are a number of things. There are about 10 Million Dollars worth of Guns and ammunition. His family jewels, the family crests, things that he had stolen in raids against Leprechaun Banks and Leprechauns. There was …wow… three hundred million dollars worth of Federal Bonds. The Huntsman was a Billionaire, just incase your wondering. Gold Bullion, Silver Bullion. All of it totals to about $520 Million Dollars in Cash, $30 Million in Jewelry, $10 Million in Guns and tons of valuable information."

Jake blinked at her once, and then again, and then a wide smile appeared on his face, "Are you saying, that the only person who can gain access to this, is you?"

"Yes," Rose nodded and she looked down the page, it had to be somewhere, the location…she had to find it, "And there it is, Vault 1953, The New York Huntslair, oh my god, I've got to call Jackie…"

"Why do you have to do that?" Jake asked, watching Rose get off of the couch and go to the phone.

Rose turned back and smiled at him, "Because I remember the procedure for the families that controlled the Huntsclan, the Hutchinson's were one of them, their vault is 1954."

"You still haven't told me why you came to my house and pulled me out of bed Mama," Erin complained as she fell into step behind her mother.

It had happened in the middle of the night. Her Mother had walked right into their home, back into her bedroom where she and her husband had slept and pulled her out of bed by her arms. There was something of franticness in her stance alone and Erin was beginning to get very concerned for her mother's well being. What was happening to make her do this? Erin just had to know. She wished that her mother would give her some sort of explanation, "Rose was digging through her closet and she came across some papers that the Huntsman had given her. If you remember correctly that we have a family vault, Rose found it. I had forgotten its location, and I left some things down in it that I need to get out. And you Erin Hutchinson as your father's daughter are the only one who can open it."

"What about Marissa? She's Aunt Laura's Granddaughter and what about you? You're a Hutchinson?" She asked, she didn't understand the technicalities, but her mother sure as hell would.

Nodding, she stopped in the middle of the hallway and scowled at her daughter, "Marissa won't be able to open it because she's not descended from the Male Head of the Family, if your Aunt Laura had been a man, then yes she could have opened it just as much as you can, if Laura were alive today she wouldn't be able to open it. And before you even say Johnny, he could have opened it if his father hadn't been part of the nobility, it's one or the other and he can open the Sindacco Vault not ours. I can't open it because I'm only a Hutchinson by marriage, I could only go in it when your father was alive and after he died I couldn't go in there. You are Erin Hutchinson, Daughter of Nicolas Hutchinson, and the direct male head of the family. You are the only one that can open that with 100 Percent Accuracy."

"That doesn't make any sense Mama," Erin shook her head.

"Believe me, that's how it works," Jackie said, stopping in front of the Long Apartment and knocking on the door, "Just go with it dear, you are the only one that can open it."

Giving one last push to the couch, she and Jake finally cleared the living room of everything that needed to be out of the way. Rose didn't want to travel by foot down to the Huntslair, it would take to long and frankly she was tired. That's why, for the first time in over thirty years, she was going to travel by a Huntstaff. She had mastered the art under her 'Uncle' and all she needed to do was set the coordinates and it would take her to the place she wanted to go. In this case, it was to the most sensitive part of the Huntslair and if it were not for the fact that she destroyed the dampening field around the whole complex twelve years prior, she wouldn't be able to do it.

There was a knocking at the door, Rose gripped the Huntstaff harder and turned to look at it, "Who is it?"

"It's us," Jackie replied through the door.

"Come in," Rose said, sighing and turning back to look at the open folders of the vault inventory. She didn't know why she wanted to do this, correction, she did know why she wanted to do this, but she didn't know how she was going to get away with it, "How much do you want me to bring back dear?"

"As much as you can carry, I'd love to have all that extra cash," Jake said.

Rose smirked, "You realize that after this, I'll have enough jewelry and money that I'll become an honorary Gabor Sister. I'll have lots of rocks."

"I know," Jake smiled and his eyes turned to the mother and daughter duo that walked through their front door, "Sorry to get you guys up so late."

Erin sighed and held up a hand, "Don't worry about it."

"You said you found the Huntsman's Vault?" Jackie asked Rose carefully.

Rose nodded, "Yeah, in fact I think I just became a millionaire. Because everything in that vault was promised to me, Paul wouldn't have been stupid enough to even try and open it. So I'm confident that it'll work."

"And our family vault? What's in it?" Erin said, eyeing her mother.

"The family crests, documents that trace our bloodline back hundreds of years, a few million dollars in cash, family jewels things like that," Jackie said, looking stoically down at the floor, "Some possessions of your father that were put in there, some very old things of mine when I first married your father. Its things like that, I'd want to get out of there."

Erin's ears perked back, "How much money are we talking about?"

"If no one touched it, $25 Million, at least," Jackie shrugged and looked back to Rose, "And I take it you hit the jackpot with what the Huntsman left you."

Rose smirked, "Oh yeah, I don't want to tell you, you'd be jealous-…"

Scowling, Erin walked over to Rose and pried the file out of her hand, opening it up to the page that had been marked, she looked down to the number and scowled heavily, "And what possessed him to leave you everything he had?"

"He wanted me to take his place if there was an attempt made against his life," Rose drawled with a heavy grin, "Of course that's when Paul began hatching his scheme, and he wanted me in his place if Paul ever managed to kill him. He didn't account on that big lug over there knocking me up."

Reaching down, she plucked the Huntstaff out of Rose's hand and twirled it around, "So where are we going that needs teleportation?"

"New York Huntslair, I believe you missed the last tripe we took there, you'll find that it's more uglier then before," Rose snatched the Huntstaff back and looked over to her husband, "You'll have to wait up for us honey."

She had forgotten how that Huntstaff Transporters made you feeling like your body was being ripped apart and reassembled in just minuets. Pressing a button on the side of the shaft, it detracted and they looked around at their surroundings. It certainly was old, leaky and falling apart, but when she turned to face the wall of vaults, they were holding up. The Vault walls themselves were built out of solid bedrock that had taken decades to mine out and inside the vaults were humidifiers and state of the art climate controlled systems that were separate from the main computer and they had a life span of half a century. That was what made Rose sure that the contents of the vault had survived, "The main frame was destroyed the last time we were here, but the Vaults don't need the mainframe, I know they're working."

"What are you going to do?" Jackie asked, eyeing the next vault over.

Rose turned back and looked at the Hutchinson women, "I'm gonna open it."

Walking forward, she dusted the key pad and the access panel off and studied it closely. These ones were different from the standard and high security vaults on the upper levels. These belonged to the ruling families of the Huntsclan and they were each tailored by that individual family. The Huntsman's Vault was opened by four things, retinal scans, a full hand scan, a pass code and a passphrase, "You know he told me how to open all of these."

"I imagine so," Jackie mused, "But here's a secret little girl, it was a closely guarded secret that only I'm alive to know about, I've been in all of them."

Rose turned and smirked at the older woman, "You are truly amazing."

"Eh…you don't live this long without being amazing…" Jackie smiled and motioned Erin to their vault.

That left Rose to deal with the Vault of the Huntsman.

Studying it in great detail, she leaned closer to it and pressed a small red button on the side of the control panel. In a flash, power surged through the unit. A group of digitized zeros appeared on the screen and Rose padded in the code that she committed to memory from that paper and then the panel of numbers flashed green. That was the first step to opening the door.

After twenty minutes of frustrating silence and the slow moving door of the Vault, she stepped back and watched as the vault opened. It was a slow creaking door, but it opened to reveal the wide and expansive interior. When the banks of fluorescent lights switched on with a clang, she spied the horizon of the room at the sight before her. In the very center of the room, stacked nearly to the roof of the Vault, were hundreds of boxes. On the stone walls of the Vault, alcove, after alcove had smaller boxes, but those boxes still numbered in the hundreds, "Jesus Christ there's a lot of crap in here."

Throwing her remaining hesitation in the wind, she walked forward to stand in front of the practical mountain of boxes. Looking back to the entrance of the Vault, she sighed and leaned down to pry the lid off of the first box that she could see. Rose gasped and the lid of the box dropped from her hand. She blinked wildly and covered her mouth. The box was filled to the brim with US Hundred Dollar Bills, on the side of the box, an M was marked and she was sure that it was on every single box there. Reaching in, she grasped the stack of Cash and her mouth dropped comically as she read the label that bound it. $10,000 Dollars for each bound stack. From the number of boxes, and from estimating the number of stacks that were in each box, there had to be about just as much as the paper said was there, $220 Million in cash.

Swallowing the excited lump in her throat, she leaned down and picked the box back up and slid it down onto it, and she knew that this was just the beginning.

Scratching his head, he stumbled out of his bedroom and down the hall, he was practically blind and that's what caused him to trip when he reached the end of the hall. Growling, he rubbed his aching arm and looked down at the object that he had tripped over. It was a box, and next to it, another box and his senses began to return to him, he looked around the entire room and found that boxes now covered most of the apartment. They were stacked all around the walls and on the living room table, were hundreds of smaller boxes and on the very top was a tan envelope, "Oh good Jake, you're finally up."

"And the box of death over there wasn't mean for me," Jake sneered as he picked himself up to his feet.

Rose smiled and walked out of the kitchen, she and the Hutchinson's had been down in that place for five hours. She had managed to get all of the boxes out of there and into close proximity of the Huntstaff Transporter. That Vault was now empty, she had cleared it out. She had given the little Gold and Silver Bullion and the guns that she had found to Erin and Jackie. She didn't need them, because she had about $560 Million Dollars worth of cash, bonds and jewelry in her possession and she didn't need any things else. Getting on his feet, he rubbed his head, "Is this all of the money that you found down there?"

"Yes sir, $220 Million US Dollars," Rose nodded and pointed to the living room table, "There is about $30 Million Dollars worth of Necklaces, Earrings, Bracelets and other fine pieces of jewelry in those boxes, I've already been through them. Diamonds, Sapphires, Emeralds, Rubies, I've decided that I want to keep those here in the house, along with those bonds that I found."

Jake was speechless, but he shook his head out of the stupor and looked over to her, "Bonds?"

"Oh yeah, there are about three hundred Federal Bonds worth $1 Million Dollars each," Rose smiled and put her hands on her hips, "I'll put them in our safe along with those jewels, but our problem is going to simply be this, how in the hell are we going to get this to the bank?"

Over 30 Years after she left the Huntsclan, the Huntsmaster finally gave what he owed Rose and her family.