Chapter Fourteen
Blair glances at the rearview mirror of the black Mercedes and clucks, "Tsk, tsk" to herself. She feels like a soccer mom taking the kids to practice.
Todd and Lucky are as thick as thieves, their heads leaning toward one another as they rapidly type notes back and forth on the portable laptop computer. Todd shakes his head and guffaws loudly and harshly. Lucky smiles and snickers.
Blair pulls the Mercedes into the parking lot of the Port Charles Hotel and steers the car around to the back entrance so they can slip inside undetected. Another black Mercedes heads toward the docks and passes Blair’s automobile.
Stefan’s eyebrows rise at the sight of an identical car. I thought I had the only model in town.
~*~*~*~
Stavros carefully makes his way down the rickety wooden steps that lead to the tunnels intertwined under Wyndemere through miles of soggy pathways. The tunnels travel under the wide Port Charles River and into the bowels of the city. The steps are missing a few planks, and he stumbles a few times, nearly avoiding a nasty fall by grasping his fingers onto the roughly textured earthen brick walls that line the passage.
Stavros adjusts his grip on his son and takes a larger handful of Nikolas’ shirt. He half walks half drags Nikolas down the two flights of stairs while grunting and baring his teeth with effort. Stavros has been locked up for twenty years, and his son is heavier and more muscular than he, but Stavros is determined, a man on a mission. Nothing will divert him from his purpose.
~*~*~*~
Luke stands in front of the chair where he and Laura first heard the stunning words of Nikolas’ tragic death straight from Stefan’s mouth. Luke’s mind races as he holds his wife and reviews the facts as he knows them. Nikolas wasn’t his favorite person, and sure he had a screw loose, but the circumstances of his death are just…odd. That coupled with the fact that mama bat just met her maker, it seems a bit too tidy, too neat for belief.
Laura’s head rests on Luke’s chest, and she has finally stopped sobbing out of sheer exhaustion. Luke debates on what to tell Lucky – he doesn’t want to hurt his progress or cause him unnecessary pain. Luke kisses Laura lightly on top of her head, and she turns her face up to look at him. He strokes her hair and says softly, "We need to tell Lucky, darlin.’ Do you want me to do it or should we go in together?" Luke’s blue eyes gently search his wife’s face.
Laura sighs raggedly and wipes the remaining tears from her cheeks. "Together," she says firmly. "We’ll go in together."
Luke’s guiding hand rests on Laura’s back as they enter Lucky’s hospital room. Both look puzzled at the empty bed, dripping disconnected IV and leftover hospital gown balled up and thrown haphazardly on the floor.
~*~*~*~
Nurse Christy tenses up and lies still on the narrow twin bed in Stavros’ one room prison on the fifth floor of Wyndemere’s west wing. She hears rustling outside the door and the turning of a metal key in the door’s lock.
Stefan Cassadine enters the room, and his mouth hangs open in shock at the sight of a tightly bound and iron chained Nurse Christy. "Where’s is Stavros?" he asks in a voice choked with tension and anger. His face takes on a gray and forbidding look.
Nurse Christy swallows hard several times and sits up on the bed to face her irate employer. The iron chains drag across her chest and pool into her lap with a heavy clinking sound.
"He escaped," she confesses tearfully. "He hurt himself with a piece of the iron bed and was bleeding terribly. See?" she says with a hint of hysteria as she motions to the large, smeared pool of blood collected beside the mangled bedpost. Her eyes grow wide and her lips tremble. "I let him out of the chains. I thought he was dying, and I wanted to help him."
"WHAT?" roars Stefan. "You let him go?" He looks around the room wildly, pats the pocket of his suit, and then dashes out the door as a worrisome thought enters his mind. Stefan races to the door of Nikolas’ room and frantically jabs his metal key at the lock. His hand is shaking so badly that the key scrapes and repeatedly misses the keyhole. Stefan swears as tears build in his eyes. "Nikolas," he says. Finally, the lock turns, and Stefan swings the door open. "NIKOLAS!" he shouts in terror as his eyes register an empty bed.
~*~*~*~
Lucky looks back and forth from Todd to Blair as they walk up the back stairs together to Blair’s hotel room. He can’t hear them talking, but he sees Blair’s mouth moving a mile a minute with an occasional sneer, and Todd’s downtuned mouth mumbling something back at her until he bares his teeth and shouts something at her.
After the three partners in crime enter the hotel room, Lucky touches Todd’s arm. "What’s going on?" he asks as he motions to the laptop that Todd carries under his arm.
Todd quickly types on the keyboard. WE NEED DISGUISES. WE DON’T AGREE ON THEM.
Lucky nods sagely and types. THAT’S MY SPECIALTY. Lucky rapidly types up a list of items to purchase, turns the monitor toward Blair and points.
"I’m not the personal shopping service for Pipsqueak and Pighead Incorporated," she sniffs.
Lucky looks at Todd who shrugs.
"Where’s Starr?" asks Todd in his usual offensive tactic. "Who’s watching her?"
"She’s at Dorian’s," replies Blair with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Simmer down."
"Dorian’s?!" shouts Todd. "You’re leaving our daughter with that psycho? Your aunt has more than one screw loose and rattling around in that devious head of hers."
"Don’t you EVER call anyone in my family a psycho," hisses Blair with a finger pointing right at Todd’s nose.
Todd sniffs and rolls his eyes. "If the straightjacket fits…"
Blair reaches for a pillow on the bed and swings it smack into Todd’s face.
"Hey!" he yells as he reaches for the other pillow. "Not the HEAD!"
Lucky shakes his head and places his hands on his hips. He watches the two adults beat on each other with pillows while the feathers fly in the air, leaving a fluffy white trail on the navy blue arpet.
~*~*~*~
Stavros feels Nikolas’ weight shift heavily, and he looks over to his son in alarm. "ìå ðáñáêïëïõèåßò?” he asks (Are you with me?). Nikolas coughs and replies heavily in English, “I’m here, I’m just so tired and my head hurts. OW!” Nikolas staggers and backs into a slimy brick wall as he holds a hand to his throbbing head.
"How much farther?" asks Stavros gently as his hand cups Nikolas chin and lifts it so that he can see his eyes.
"Probably another half hour’s walk," says Nikolas, wincing in pain.
"Come," replies Stavros. "We must escape. I’ll help you." He grabs Nikolas by the waist and pulls his arm over his broad shoulders. Stavros arm is throbbing and bleeding, but he tries to ignore the pain and uses its intensity to fuel his desire for freedom.
Stavros doesn’t mention it, but he is worried. They’ve been sloshing through a dim water-filled passageway for an hour, and the black water leaves a slimy, stinking trail on their lower legs and feet. It cannot be healthy to be in this stagnant, fetid water. Occasionally, Stavros spots a large, drowned rat puffed up with decay or a live one swimming valiantly against the current created by two men’s movements through the water. And, there are many other things floating in the water that he cannot identify.
~*~*~*~
Stefan returns to Stavros’ room and glares at Nurse Christy. His eyes flash, and he declares with a sneer, "I should let you rot here! It would take you three or four days to die without food or water. A slow, torturous death. Yes, that would suit you – the perfect price for betrayal."
Stefan approaches the bed, and Nurse Christy cringes and backs up to the headboard in a futile attempt to escape the wrath of her employer. She starts shaking and crying as she looks at the murderous eyes of a very angry man.
Stefan reaches into the inner pocket of his suit, and draws out an ancient gold gilded knife with a Cassadine crest imbedded in the precious medal. He swiftly grabs Nurse Christy by the throat and squeezes. He raises the knife to her throat and drags the cold blade across her jugular vein.
She gasps and holds her breath as the blade heads south toward her heart. The point of the blade is pricking the protective bony plate of her chest, and she is sure she will die tonight.
Stefan chuckles evilly and retracts the blade, placing it back in his inner suit pocket.
Nurse Christy lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes as he turns and backs two steps away.
Suddenly, Stefan whips around and lays a ferocious punch to Nurse Christy’s face. She screams in surprise, pain and terror.
Stefan laughs again, bends close to lick the trickle of blood that mars her pretty split lips, and then he captures her mouth with the full force of his anger as her eyes open widely.
Stefan pulls her up by her chains. "Get up," he orders.
Nurse Christy stands with shaking legs.
Stefan reaches into his pocket for his keys, and produces a very small metal key that unlocks the manacles secured to her wrists.
She says, "Aaah," and rubs her raw wrists as they are freed from their restraints.
"Come," he says as he grips her arm tightly and shuts the door of Stavros’ one-time prison. They walk to the elevator and descend to the second floor, where the residence’s private quarters are located. They enter Stefan’s private chambers, and Nurse Christy wonders what will happen next.
Stefan rummages for a minute in his closet and finally selects a full-length gray and blue paisley silk robe. He gestures to her ruined, bloody uniform. "That is destroyed," he says. "This is for you, change," he instructs her, throwing the robe on his ornately carved, king-size bed. Then, he turns and walks out of the room and closes the door behind him.
Nurse Christy looks around his private chambers and reaches for the robe with a shaking hand.
~*~*~*~
Where is my SON?!!" shouts Luke.
A nurse and a security guard look warily at the enraged man.
"My wife has lost one son tonight, and she won’t lose another!" For all of his displayed anger, Luke is terrified Lucky has been kidnapped or killed by Andreas or some other goon. It feels like cowboy keeps slipping through his fingers, and one of these times, he’ll be gone for good, never to return. The recent death of Nikolas shakes Luke to the core at the thought of losing such a young man to death. It happened to Stefan, it could happen to him. Laura is white-faced and dangerously quiet, obviously a victim of extreme emotional shock. Luke walks up to the uniformed security guard and repeated jabs an aggressive index finger into his chest. "You get the PCPD down here NOW!" he grits through his clenched teeth. As if they ever solve a case, Luke thinks worriedly.
~*~*~*~
Blair opens the door to her hotel suite, and stifles a laugh at the sight of Todd and Lucky slumbering on the king size bed. Todd is sprawled on his back with his mouth open, and his comb-over hanging into his face, the loose strands puffing up and down with Todd’s regular breaths. Lucky is curled up on his side, hugging one long king-sized pillow to his middle and looking angelic, no older than eleven or twelve years old. Blair shakes her head as she places her keys carefully on the bureau. Todd is so good with kids, she thinks. She imagines them having a baby boy that grows up into a teenager. That would be Todd and our son. Partners in crime.
Todd and Lucky wake up as Blair moves about the room.
Lucky yawns loudly and stretches. He rises off of the bed, quick to beat Todd to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, Lucky cracks his neck left and right, and all of a sudden experiences a rather loud popping noise in both of his ears. He places his hands to his ears in wonder. He can hear! In fact, he can hear Todd and Blair arguing in the next room, their voices escalating dangerously. Lucky’s eyes narrow. He’ll just keep this knowledge to himself for now. Who knows what he can find out, what secrets Todd is keeping, if he plays it safe and pretends to be deaf.
Lucky exits the bathroom, and sees the materials of disguise scattered over the bed. Todd is holding onto something flesh colored and shouting at Blair. "I have a RE-PU-TA-TION! You’re trying to ruin me. I worry about you, Blair." Todd continues fuming as Blair grabs the flesh-colored latex wig and pulls it roughly over Todd’s head. Lucky stifles a laugh as Blair tapes a thick, black Frito-bandito mustache to Todd’s upper lip.
Curious, Lucky walks over to the bed and picks up a long, dark blond wig and a fake scar. He pulls on the wig, and uses the mirror to expertly apply the curving scar to his left cheek. "Aha," he says with satisfaction and uplifted hands. He turns to face Todd and Blair. "What do you think?"
Todd’s eyes glint dangerously. "You’re ME!" he yells. "Give me that scar! It’s mine, Un-Lucky." Todd lunges toward Lucky. Lucky runs around the side of the bed, then hops up and runs across its surface to escape the wrath of Todd. He barely makes it to the bathroom, locking the door, before Todd can catch and strangle him.
~*~*~*~
Stavros and Nikolas finally reach one of the underground tunnels’ many exits. Nikolas moans as the sharp night air hits his face. "Where are we?" Stavros asks.
Nikolas opens his eyes and frowns, thinking for a minute. "The graveyard," he says. "We’re in the Port Charles Holyoke graveyard near the docks."
The two men venture further into the deserted park-like area. Stavros pauses before a small, white clapboard chapel. "Here," he instructs his son. They cross the threshold and look around. It is a one-room chapel with a small altar at the back of the church.
Nikolas shivers and coughs.
Stavros strides up to the altar and promptly rips off the purple, embroidered altar cloth. He walks back to Nikolas and lays it like a shawl over his ailing son’s shaking shoulders. Stavros looks at the gold, Greek embroidery on the cloth. Alpha and Omega. The purple cloth of royalty. Father and son, the Cassadine empire that will never die.
~*~*~*~
Sonny Corinthos walks cat-like along the docks in the warehouse district. He is a man with purpose, and he knows his destination. He fingers the gun in his coat pocket and pulls it out. Soon, it will be time to use it. One block from his destination, Sonny begins hugging the walls of old brick buildings, glancing around and behaving quite like a cop who is searching diligently for a criminal. His hand tightens around the handle of his personal gun, and his finger is ready on the trigger.
Sonny nears the door he is seeking, and a tall, well-built man strides out into the weak pool of a light cast from a nearby lamppost, attracted to the dangerous noise of footsteps approaching. Sonny never lets up his pace and keeps steadily walking to the door, lifting his gun in response to the man’s draw of his weapon, and shooting the man point blank in the head and chest five times. Without flinching, Sonny steps over the man’s dead body and enters the door. He walks down a dim hallway and opens a door, entering quickly and quietly.
He moves without a sound behind a balding man seated at an oak executive desk. Placing his gun at the man’s temple, he says with a leaden, unemotional voice. "Joseph Sorel. It’s payback time. Eye for an eye," he says gravely as his finger begins squeezing the trigger.
Sonny weighs the odds
Lucky to Todd: "Kiss my &*()^^%"
Liz gets clued in
Is Carly ever safe?