A/N Well I updated again quickly, just for you, my one reviewer:-) Had to up the rating already because Beej has a mouth on him. I don't own any of this, remember? But I do own the candy corn I'm currently shoveling in my mouth, so there!

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Chapter 2:

I think I stopped breathing, when the veil was pushed back from my face and his mouth came down over mine. There was that flicker for a moment of a younger man, a memory of what he'd been perhaps, and the taste of his lips on mine wasn't so unpleasant as I'd steeled myself for.

The kiss changed something. At first it was just the soft contact of skin on skin, but then I lost all placement of that and I felt such strength that I had never know pulse through me. The headiness of it swept me off my feet and it was only belatedly that I realized, one of his arms was around my waist, keeping me upright. It was as though I saw things differently now. Saw it as possibilities instead of realities, and part of me knew where those doors led, or where they could lead if I wanted them to.

And Betelgeuse was grinning fiendishly. "Always could knock a girl off her feet," He told the minister who looked no more interested in the goings on than he ever had, disappearing with a crack like a nut breaking open.

My hands were resting on his arms, blinking through the sensations to try to find balance. I search his face for a moment, wondering if he knows what binds us. If he is suddenly aware as I am, or perhaps this is what it's like to be a ghost. Perhaps he had this all along. And perhaps there was a fine print I should have read pertaining to marriages between the dead and the living. Will my death truly part us or have I signed away my eternal soul to him? So many things I should have considered, and I'm reminded again of why I didn't have time to consider them.

"We have to go back," I remind him, as I catch my breath, "There's…something. I could feel the storm about to break before…"

"I think you broke it babes," He told me, almost apologetically, "You got their attention when you summoned me." He looks proud of the fact, and impressed with his own importance. But what catches my interest is when he said "their". I'd always assumed it was just one malevolent force, but now the realization hits me like fingers climbing up my bare arms.

"Hey!" The fingers abruptly pause, but he whines regardless.

"Just enjoying some of that nuptial bliss," He leered at me, "We did just get hitched, babe, and I've got a little itch, y'know? Been about three thousand years since I had something…living."

I swat his hands away, feeling the shiver of ice down my spine. God, what did I just do?

"I kept my end of the bargain-" I begin, only to get cut off.

"Yeah," He agreed, raising his gaze from where it was fixed on my cleavage to give me a slow evil smirk, "About that. You wanna get technical about it, I held up my end too, seein as y'still owed me from the last time." He snapped his hand up and it was holding a tally that blinked with red lights that read: B-Man 2, Babes 1.

I try to break free of his grip, and stumble back a few steps, tripping over the ridiculous train and listening to him chuckle. I look up and he's in front of me again, arms folded across his chest expectantly.

"Just askin for a little consummation here, babe. Then all your troubles'll be a thing a th'past."

I shoot him a look that's past hate, past anger to utter loathing. My eyes squeeze shut as I feel him approaching, no doubt in my mind he'll take what he thinks he's owed. I concentrate on home, pull at that new shared power of his, demand upon it…

I hear his howl of rage as an echo and find the power to open my eyes again. I'm here. Home. And the stillness has returned, but I can feel that it's a false stillness. That there is something very close, waiting for me to make a move. A crack and Betelgeuse is there with me again, looking pretty ticked off.

"How in the fuck did you do that?" He demands. Seems he didn't know. Maybe there was some fine print he missed reading as well. I shake my head and straighten up, and my ridiculous wedding gown is gone, replaced by everyday clothes again, and I can see him seething, steam coming out of his ears. "My POWERS," He snarled out, eyes alight with fury, "You're using MY POWERS."

"You were the one so anxious to get married," I remind him, feeling a little amused despite myself. Feeling as though we were on equal playing grounds for the first time. "What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine." I'm not a hundred percent sure that's how it works, but it makes sense and it seemed to rile him up even more.

He opens his mouth to respond in some nasty retort when the kitchen door bursts open and the coldest wind I've ever felt is barraging my skin with needles. I didn't expect him to step in on my behalf, but perhaps he's just protecting his interests as he moves between the onslaught and myself, arms reaching around me and snarling in my ear. "Push back at it, you stupid cow."

I wonder if he is weaker for my use of his powers.

I concentrate. Try to blot out the whole world. Try to blot out the tremble of his corporeal form as he holds me and is straining himself. All of this is new to me. This feeling of being able to protect myself with a strain of thought, with the force of my own will. The fleeting thought that what we are doing now is magic. That maybe all my time spent in school would have been put to better use if I had been seriously studying the occult. What would the kids at school have said to know that I was a real witch now?

The freezing wind is only the symptom. The problem is the thing standing just inside the door. I cannot see it, but I know it's there. I can hear it as it slides over the tile, a wet slopping sound, to move closer to us and Betelgeuse tightens his grip on me.

"GET RID OF IT." I know he's throwing everything he has and he needs me to do the same.

I hear my own sob echo across the vastness of the kitchen floor as I bury in tighter to my ghostly husband and I draw on his strength to save us. Another wet slop closer and I scream and push, push push with everything that I have and it's a white-hot glow between us and the thing, and it squeals. Possibly the most horrible sound I've ever borne witness too. So much worse than the cry of a stuck pig. And the slopping is burning, I can hear it sizzle, and the door falls shut in it's wake, the simple clatter that seems out of place in the silence that follows the draw of power.

It's Betelgeuse that I'm looking for comfort with now, and the idea of that is just ludicrous. My face buried against his chest, hands clamped tight on the lapels of his jacket until my knuckles are white. My shoulders shake with terrified sobs, and I have never been so afraid, because I know without any shadow of doubt that, that thing, would have eaten me. Would have licked up every last drop of me and that even in afterlife I would never have escaped it.

He's uncharacteristically quiet and I find it unnerving, casting a shy glance up at his face as I slowly start to release my grip. He looks...angry.

"This is just fucking terrific," He starts to pace when I've let him go, my hand on the counter for support now and feeling faint at the expenditure.

When I don't answer him, he casts me a dark gaze, fingers twitching in a fashion that leads me to believe he's considering putting them around my neck. Marriage isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Still, he keeps his distance, for which I am very grateful. Pondering in a serious manner to which I can tell he has supreme distaste for. Violence is all fine and good when it isn't inconveniencing him. And as tempted, as he might be to end my life, he doesn't know that it will fix his predicament. And even if it did, he'd be back under the force of the curse, and returned to where he'd started. No, he needed me. It would keep me safe from his wrath for the moment.

"What was that?" I finally choke out, surprised at the rasp of my own voice.

"An Amalgam. You've got some real serious shit going on here babe, and it's not a great time for me to be going halfsies with you on my powers." He snapped as though it was my doing that created this mess. As though I could give them back.

He fidgets with the ring on his left hand that I hadn't noticed before. It matches mine in shape and color, and I must assume he had it on him before our ceremony. Maybe not. Who knew how this magic worked or how deeply we were bonded. I could see him thinking about it. He wanted my physical affections, that much was clear, but he was weighing his options. How much trouble I was turning out to be.

He reached down to adjust himself as he looked me over, licking his lips with a long serpentine tongue. "I'd love to hang out and see how virginal the little woman is, but there's only so much trouble I go to for pussy, and you're pushing it babe."

My face screws up in disgust that I have no desire to hide from him. He probably likes it, gets off on it, and I have no want to give him that, but he is just such a cretinous….

"Fine." I agree, I should be able to handle this on my own now, with his powers at my command. At least I hope. "Have a nice afterlife."

"Oh no no no," He argues, "You're going to go and get yourself killed and then I'll have had to tolerate all this for NOTHING." He sneered. "Nah ah, Babes…that won't work for me." He mused for a moment as though trying to come up with a better plan and then snapped his fingers with a grin. A grin that is very rapidly towering over me. I let out a squeak of surprise, looking all around, but he's had much more practice at this than I have and I don't know exactly how to undo what he's done.

His mammoth fingers descend on me and I'm lifted up to eye level, and I must say that up close and magnified his visage is only all the more horrible. Flecks of bugs between his teeth, and the rotting flesh at the edges of his face, half covered in mold and enlarged enough for me to make out every pore.

"Now, this is how I like my little women," He told me with a cackle and suddenly I'm thrust into the damp smelly front pocket of his shirt and all I can do is hang on for the ride and try not to be sick.