Under a Red Sun

Chapter 4

Raven woke up the next morning to the sun hitting her eyes. She let out a tired groan and lifted her hand to block out the sunlight. She noticed the bracelet on her wrist and sighed. Merlins magic was draining her mana and her energy. Raven turned her head and noticed Jason was sprawled out on the bed in nothing but a pair of briefs. She glared at him as if that would be enough to send him into an abyss. His only response to her glare was to let out a light snore and roll over. His hand grazed her hip and he started mumbling incoherent nonsense. Raven rolled her eyes and crawled out of bed. She flicked her wrist to cover him with the sheet but then remembered that she was deprived of her powers. Raven let out an annoyed sigh and used her hands to cover Jason with the Egyptian cotton sheets.

She made her way across the bedroom into the kitchen, the cold marble floor made her want levitate but without her powers she was forced back into the bedroom for her fuzzy socks. She ruffled through the drawers and found her purple fuzzy socks then went back into the kitchen to make herself some tea. As luck would have it the tea bags she wanted were on the top shelf. Raven pushed herself up onto the countertop, stood on her tippy toes and reached out for the box of hibiscus pomegranate tea. Her fingers grazed the box and pushed it further back on the shelf, Raven let out a frustrated growl and reached out as far as she could, that was when she lost her footing and clung for dear life to the shelf. She had two options in front of her call out to Jason to save her, or fall. Falling sounded good until she heard Jason call out to her from the doorway.

"God damn it Raven, what are you part midget?" Jason reached up and held her by the waist, but instead on bringing her down to the floor he lifted her further up.

"Get everything you're going to need."

Raven grabbed several boxes of tea and one honey jar then motioned for Jason to lower her. He placed her gently on the floor than loomed over her. She was wedged between the counter and Jason.

"You couldn't have grabbed the step stool that was in the closet?"

Raven resisted the urge to blush "I didn't know it was there."

"You're lucky I had to pee, or else you would have fallen and hit you head."

"Don't be so dramatic." Raven said as she turned around to place the tea on a lower shelf.

"And don't so dismissive, by the way a thank you would be nice."

"Thank you, I mean it."

"Good" Jason scratched his chin absently. "I feel like room service. I think there were strawberry crepes on the menu...I have to pee."

Raven rolled her eyes and turned on the stove to heat the tea kettle. She heard something in the other room that made her eyes widen in surprise.

"Close the damn door!"

"We're married, remember, married people do this."

"If you defecate with the door open I'll quit this marriage and the assignment!"

"I'm not that bad! Besides that would totally kill our sizzling sexual tension."

Raven scoffed at that last comment and pulled out some mugs for the tea. She poured her some milk in her mug and left some honey at the bottom, then she added the tea and let it cool for a moment.

"How do you like your tea?"

"two lumps."

Raven set her mug on the countertop just as he walked into the kitchen.

"Are you going to put on clothes." Raven said as she waited for her tea to cool.

"Nope, it helps create sexual tension. You're lucky I didn't sleep in the nude like I usually do." Jason said with his signature grin.

"You're lucky I haven't sent you into another dimension." Raven deadpanned.

Jason grinned as Raven handed him his mug.

"By the way have a look at this." Jason handed Raven a tablet.

"Blueprints?"

"We're going to walk around St. Petersburg and do the regular touristy stuff. Shopping, pictures, food, museums. The museum is the important bit. That is where the weapon was last sighted before it disappeared. We are going to have to take a lot of pictures and scope the place out. No one is going to question nosey tourists." Jason pointed out their path on the map, he suddenly became serious.

"If it's not there then why are we even going." Raven said as she tested the temperature of her tea.

"so I can run the scenario through my head. There are only so many ways you can break in and sneak out undetected. If I know how the thief did it, I might pick up something that the authorities either missed or ignored." Jason was impressing Raven with his professionalism.

"I could track the residual demonic energy." Raven said, hoping that would cut their little farce short, but Jason only pointed at the bracelet in her wrist.

"Scoping out the place would also give me an idea of what we're up against depending on the skill needed to take the weapon."

Raven nodded in agreement and continued to sip her tea while she flipped through the blueprints. There was a knock on the door and Jason got up to let room service in. The strawberry crepes were spread out on the table and Jason left the man a generous tip.

"So we are heading to the Hermitage after breakfast." Raven asked as she cut into her crepe

"Yes and no. The Hermitage is situated in the Winter Palace but the object that we are looking for is in a different part of the palace. I think it's the dagger of Ivan the Terrible."
"Joy of Joys." Raven grumbled.

"Don't worry we'll go to the Hermitage and after looking at some of the paintings I'll sneak away and find out where it was held and how it was stolen."

"fine, when do we leave?"

"As soon as we are done with those crepes."

Raven ate silently while Jason flipped through the tablet and grumbled about the lack of blind spots. After they finished eating Jason went into the shower and Raven picked out her clothes, she picked out a plum colored turtleneck, black skinny jeans and a pair thigh high boots. Raven pulled her hair into a high ponytail and applied some Burt's Bees pomegranate chapped stick on her lips.

That was the extent of her primping. Jason came out of the shower, naked, and strolled casually towards the armoire. Raven gaped for a moment before she shook her head and turned around. He was trying to get a reaction out of her and she wasn't going to give way to his immature game. She kept her eyes fixated on the tablet and as she walked out of the room she heard Jason mimic a song.

"Bom, chica, wow, wow."

The urge to beat him to death with the tablet was becoming overwhelming. Jason continued with his song and she knew he was accompanying the music with some moves. Now the urge to beat him to death with his own limbs was becoming very difficult to ignore. He came out of the room with jeans and a button down flannel shirt worn over a black Hanes tee.

"Did you like the show?"

"If you keep on acting like that I will sacrifice your favorite appendage to a dark lord and make sure that you'll have nothing to show."

"Ouch, Rae you're mean."

"You're an idiot."

Jason laughed pulled her into his chest and kissed her head.

"We have the best marriage." he said while giving her a squeeze

"If you don't let go of me in the next five seconds I will show you exactly how a demon eats."

Jason laughed again and kissed her nose. Raven grabbed him by the arm shifted her weight under him and slammed him into the ground. Jason still hadn't caught his breath when Raven slammed the heel of her boot into his chest and twisted his arm into an uncomfortable position. Jason raised his hand and grabbed her by the ankle, She lost her balance and fell to the ground.

"Good to know that you've been keeping up your hand to hand combat. I don't want a partner that's useless without magic." He said from his position on the ground.

Raven rubbed the back of her head and glared at Jason.

"ass"

"Yes, mine is very nice." He said with a wolfish grin.

Raven groaned at the terrible joke and pushed herself up. "Are you done with your little game."

"For now." he said as he pulled himself up. Raven rose from her position on the ground, completely ignoring the helping hand he offered and went out the door in a huff. Jason followed her out with his camera laughing.

He caught up with her outside of the hotel where she was waiting for a cab. Jason put his arms around her and whispered in her ears, "newly-weds".

Raven shoved him away and kept walking, a few Russian men laughed at the apparent lovers quarrel. The shouted something in Russian to Jason who laughed and responded in kind. He picked Raven up, who shrieked uncharacteristically and kicked at him as he dumped her into a taxi. She tossed her purse at his head with a frustrated growl and slammed the car door in his face. Raven crossed her arms and sat as far away from him as possible in the car. Jason chatted amicably with the driver while Raven pouted and fumed. If she had her power she could have easily dealt with him, and he was taking full advantage of this.

They arrived at the Winter Palace and Raven took a moment to marvel at the beauty of last home of the Romanov dynasty. If she closed her eyes she could feel the tug of the bloodlust and violence that tore the land apart in the early 1900's. If it weren't for the bracelet Merlin gave her she would have trouble with the latent emotions that lingered here. She was pulled from her thoughts when Jason put his hand on her hip and shot her one of his winning smiles.

"Ready Mrs. Todd"

Raven glared at him, "I'm ready to punch that smirk off of your face."

Jason laughed and guided her to the door.

They toured the palace and finally made it to the Hermitage. Jason pretended to take a phone call while Raven went from one painting to the next. She concentrated on the paint strokes and the emotions emitting from the paintings. For the next two hours she lost herself in the hall of French Art, She was marveling at a how Bernini managed to made a block of marble so incredibly lifelike when Jason snuck up behind her put his arms around her and kissed her cheek. She looked back at him with a bored expression.

"Did you take care of your business?"

"Of course"

They made their way through the hall then left. Jason bought them borsht from a street vendor and they walked back to the hotel.

"So what did you find out?" Raven asked as she headed to the kitchen to make herself cup of tea.

"I checked the sign in sheet and the manifest, It seems that the only thing missing is Ivan the Terribles dagger. I was right. He wore it throughout his reign and when he beat his son to death. It was passed on from general to general until the last tsarina gave it as a gift to Rasputin."

"That sounds like something my uncle Beleth would have created." Raven mused as she poured herself a cup.

"Close knit family ties?" Jason asked

"Not particularly, him and father don't get along. Not enough for father to kill him, but enough for them to grumble about each other. Beleth's skill makes him valuable enough to not kill, and he doesn't care for politics, all he wants is to tend to his work." Raven said as she sat next to him and looked over his shoulder at the tablet he was holding.

"Is there a chance that he just took it back?" Jason said as he read through the sign in sheet for the past 5 weeks.

"No, if he had taken it back it would have been after Ivan killed his son or Rasputins death. Since he didn't I would only assume he still wants the dagger to have some influence." Raven's breath tickled his ear and Jason tried to ignore the fact that she was one of the few people he knew that had good breath after eating borsht.

"Right, then it has to be someone on this sign in sheet. I'm going to run these names through a program I borrowed from Batman. By the time the program is finished we'll know what everyone on this list had for breakfast."

"Focus on those with political power or members of crime syndicates." Raven said as she drew away to drink her tea.

They sat together in comfortable silence, Raven read a book she had bought at the airport and Jason searched through pictures and videos of the most powerful people on the list to see if they showed any signs of demonic influence.

Jason stopped halfway through a vid to watch Raven read, she was curled up on the kitchen stool with one knee up to her chest reading from a ridiculously large book. She had braided her hair to the side and changed into a pair of boxers that she probably stole from her house mates. She yawned momentarily and Jason was reminded of a cat he reached out to tuck a loose hair behind her ear. Raven froze and stared at Jason out of the corner of her eye.

"Sexual tension." He said with a grin.

"Castration." She said as she turned her gaze back to her book. Jason chuckled and drew in closer, the corner of Ravens mouth twitched. Jason thought that was a good sign he grabbed her chin and turned her towards him. Any other girl would have leaned forward or back to give him a sign, but Raven was difficult, that's what he liked about her. In the moment he was finally going to go for the kiss the tablet dinged to indicate that the program had results available.

"You should get that." Raven said as she turned away.

Jason sat there for a second absorbing the fact that he was closer than ever at getting anywhere with Raven and a stupid noise stopped him. He got up grumbling about the injustice of technology taking over social interaction. Raven ignored him while he reviewed the names on the list.

"Victor and Ivanna Reznikov, lots of ties to the Bratva, possible Pakhan." He read off the tablet and scrolled through other relevant information.

"I don't know those words." Raven droned

"Bratva means brothers, used to talk about the Russian mob, Pakhan is the Russian version of the Italian godfather. Point is that he is suspected of being the leader of a large faction of the Russian mob. Both he and his wife have a reputation for being ruthless. Despite being borderline sociopaths they seem to have a relatively happy family and marriage. His eldest son, Nikolai is known for being a bit of a womanizer and his eldest daughter, Nadya is more interested in shoes than in the family business. Both of them are harmlessly self absorbed. Their youngest daughter, Mila, is showing promise, she's studying at Oxford, the only problem is that she seems to have a conscience. Same goes for their middle son, D'mitri in high school, hopes to be a doctor and do work with Doctors without Borders. Their youngest son just got a puppy. Pretty happy looking family, if you ignore the mob ties." He gave the tablet to Raven who started to scroll through the family pictures.

"So what's the next step?" Raven said when she came to picture of a boy playing with a puppy.

"Well, how do you feel about an open marriage?" Jason said with a grin

"I really want to beat you with your pancreas."

/)O(/

Finally! I have a laptop to work with and I forced myself to sit down and write. 2 hours a day dedicated to writing or drawing.