Chapter Eighteen
Stefan rushes around his imposing mahogany desk and stands over Andreas, looking down at his unconscious uncle with a devious smile as he kicks the prone body solidly on the leg. "What did you give him?" he asks Nurse Christy, who lays the emptied syringe on top of the desk and stands back.
"A high-powered sedative and muscle paralyzer. It won’t kill him if that’s what you’re wondering."
Stefan reaches over and places his hands on Nurse Christy’s waist, pulling her closer to him. He leans his face close to hers and slowly runs his eyes over her features. "This is excellent," he murmurs with lips barely an inch from hers. Nurse Christy looks slightly uneasy until Stefan whispers, "All is forgiven," and brushes his lips lightly over her cupid’s bow mouth.
Stefan abruptly steps away and says, "Let’s carry him upstairs. We can use a cart to transport him to the fifth floor." Stefan’s eyes turn cold. "Those iron chains have his name on them."
~*~*~*~
Luke continues to stare with mouth hanging open as he watches Stefan and Nurse Christy drag Andreas over to the hand truck, drape his lifeless body across it and wheel him out of Stefan’s study. He moves away from the window and sits with his back leaning against the brown painted clapboards of Wyndemere. Luke runs a hand over his fluffed hair and says to himself, "Damn. That was wicked." He shakes his head in disbelief. Those Cassadines. Will nothing stop their internal intrigues? So now Andreas is or WAS The Cassadine? What did they do to him? Luke rubs a hand across his neck. Man, that must have hurt. That needle was four inches long.
He turns to warn the dynamic trio that they are all in danger, but says, "What?" in disbelief when he sees nothing but a bush and an empty peanut wrapper littering the ground next to it. "Lucky, Lucky," he whispers loudly as a creepy feeling curls around his heart. He shivers involuntarily and says, "Gotta get off of Spook Island and find my kid."
~*~*~*~
"Come on peanut breath," Todd yells as he grabs Lucky’s arm and tugs, trying to force him to keep pace.
"No!" Lucky insists as he digs in his heels. "I want to wait for my dad. He’ll have a plan to capture Andreas. We’ve gotta nab the goon before he hurts anyone else or kills me!"
"Luke always thinks he knows everything. His plans aren’t foolproof," Todd scoffs as he stops and glares at Lucky.
"How do you know?" Lucky asks suspiciously. "You talk like you’ve worked with my dad before."
Todd shrugs. "We’ve met. End of story. Now let’s go, Junior. Todd looks around fearfully. They are deep in the thick, shadowed woods of Wyndemere, and who knows what monster monkeys might be lurking nearby. After what he’s experienced the last few days, Todd wouldn’t put it past the Cassadines to have something unspeakable skulking and slithering in the woods, lying in wait for trespassers.
"WEEHOOOOOO!!!"
Both Todd and Lucky shut up quickly at the spooky sound permeating the dark woods. Lucky’s head whirls around with his disguise wig flinging its blond hair in every direction as he tries to locate the source of the screech. It sounds eerily like a mad woman or a pitiful child crying, and a shiver slides up their spines.
"Todd?" Lucky’s voice quivers. "Have you ever seen that…that Blair Witch Project movie?"
Todd snorts and rolls his eyes. "Don’t remind me. I lived with that Blair witch for a couple of years." Todd turns around in a confused circle. "By the way, where IS Blair?" he whispers. "She was in front of me a second ago. Blair? Blair." Todd looks at Lucky with a panic-stricken face. "She’s disappeared."
"WEEHOOOOWEEEEE!!"
No more words are exchanged. Both Todd and Lucky take off running in the menacing woods with no flashlight to illuminate their way. Curses are emitted frequently as one or the other trips on rocks and twigs and bats away hanging branches in a mad dash for the edge of the woods and the perceived relative safety beyond. Lucky’s foot steps into a deep hole, and he falls to the ground, flat on his stomach. "Oooof!" he cries out. Todd stops to see what the ruckus is behind him. He casually swaggers over to the downed Lucky and snatches the wig from his head.
"That’s mine," says Todd. "You never should have worn the long wig. You’re a sissy. Long hair is for villains like me." Todd places the wig on top of his head and grins with a self-satisfied look on his face. He lightly touches his right cheek with his fingers. "Now if I could just get my scar back, I’d be set. It’s hard work looking evil."
Lucky struggles to his feet. "Gimme that!" he yells with his hand extended. "It’s mine!"
Todd effortlessly places his hand on Lucky’s forehead, preventing the kid from reaching him with one of the many punches that Lucky attempts to swing. Lucky flails his arms around futilely before he gets really mad and grabs Todd’s arm, biting him on the wrist.
"OOOOWWW!!" Todd screams. "You’re a psycho! A cannibal wannabe. What’s your problem? You’re seventeen. You can’t grow hair? I have the wig now. Get over it."
"You’re just a big baby," Lucky declares as he marches past Todd.
"Am not," Todd replies petulantly as he follows behind Lucky.
"Are, too," answers Lucky over his shoulder.
"Am not times infinity," declares Todd as he makes a horn sign with his index and middle fingers directly behind Lucky’s head.
Lucky reaches behind his head and smacks at Todd’s hand. "Stop that!" he growls.
A bobbing flashlight approaches the two, and they stand exposed in the beam it casts. Blair makes a disgusted sound. "I should leave you two out here for the bogeyman," she sneers. "If you want a ride in my car, get going and stop that fighting. I could hear you all the way outside of the woods. Some spies you two would be."
Todd and Lucky both make rude gestures with their hands at Blair’s back as they trudge behind her.
Blair swings around menacingly with her genuine QVC snakeskin purse held at fighting position.
"Peace," says Todd with a boyish grin as he walks up to Blair and makes a smooch motion at her cheek with his pursed lips. He wraps his arm around his ex-wife, and they walk ahead of a grumbling Lucky.
"I should have stayed with my dad," Lucky says. "Port Charles and Llanview don’t mix."
~*~*~*~
Luke cups his mouth again to make the signal.
"WEEEEHOOOOOO!!"
"Doggone it, cowboy," he mutters. "Don’t you remember our secret signal?"
~*~*~*~
"Rap, rap, rap." A pale face glows outside of the passenger’s window of the black Mercedes the dynamic trio is sitting in.
"Who’s that?" Lucky shouts as he jumps in his seat.
"It’s Spencer," Todd says with a disgusted look as he shakes his head and gestures toward the window with his thumb.
Blair rolls down the window.
"Open the back door. I’m going with you," Luke says.
Blair clicks the lock open, and Luke hops in next to Lucky. "Cowboy," he sighs. "Do you need a refresher course on Spencer secret signals? The way you and pea brain were carrying on in those woods, you’d think that Godzilla or the Frankenstein monster were chasing you." Luke cups his hand near his mouth. "WEEHOOOO!!"
Todd startles in the front seat and nervously strokes the strands of his dark blond wig.
"I’ll do better next time," Lucky says.
"Where are you all headed?" Luke asks.
"We’re going to the newspaper," Todd answers. "Big major story going down. We need it to be hot off the presses."
Lucky’s eyes pool with tears. "Dad," he says sadly. "Have you heard about Nikolas? He’s dead, dad. My brother is dead." Lucky sniffs loudly and wipes furiously at his eyes.
"I know, Cowboy," Luke says reassuringly. He pats Lucky on the knee. "That’s why I want to bring you home. Your mother needs you. She’s been weeping nonstop since she found out. She needs to see that her other son is fit and hardy."
Lucky pleads,"Who could have killed him, Dad?" He looks down at his hands, his heart full of sorrow and regret for the brother that he’d spent most of the time fighting with. Now it is too late to make amends, to start anew. He’ll never know his brother.
"I don’t know for sure," Luke says as he shakes his head. His eyes take on a dangerous glint. "But it stinks most foul of all things Cassadine. If you impatient types had stuck around long enough, I could have told you what I saw at Wyndemere. Andreas was trying to kill Stefan. He had a real good chokehold on the Bat, but a strange woman crept up behind him and shot Andreas full of some drug with an awfully sharp looking hypodermic. Brought the goon crashing to the floor immediately." Luke winces and rubs his neck as he recalls the scene. "Something wicked is going down, and I aim to find out exactly what it is."
~*~*~*~
"Hello? Lucky?!"
"Laura, no. It’s Stefan Cassadine." Stefan sits back in his executive chair, twirling his gold medallion as he cradles the phone against his ear.
"Oh," says Laura. "Are you calling about Nikolas?" Laura reaches for her 37th tissue of the hour and blows her nose hard, honking into the phone.
Stefan holds the phone away from his ear with a sick expression on his face.
"I know you are as distressed as I concerning our son," Stefan says mournfully as he fully steps into his role of grieving uncle. His voice takes on a manipulative tone. "I have made funeral arrangements for tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, in the Holyoke cemetery near the harbor."
Laura grows cautious, and she frowns. "Stefan?" she asks. "Why will the funeral be held so…so soon after the death? You’re not going to plan any type of showing or wake? Nikolas is my son and your nephew," her voice shakes. "I want the best for him, and his family needs to see him, to tell him goodbye. Why aren’t you allowing me to participate in these plans? I don’t understand," she begins wailing.
Stefan shifts in his chair and tries a different tact. What did I ever see in this woman? he wonders. "Laura," he begins. "There are certain family and religious traditions that must be adhered to. Nikolas must be buried within two days. There is no alternative. And, regretfully…" Stefan pauses dramatically, sighing as if heartbroken. "…it is not possible to view the body in its current state. The car crash, you see, it was very disfiguring."
Laura gulps audibly and gasps, "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" in a short staccato of pain and anguish.
Stefan rolls his eyes and toys with his pen and pencil set, tapping first the pen, then the pencil on the hard surface of his desktop. He waits a suitable amount of time to allow Laura to gain her composure. "Shall I have the limousine come pick you up tomorrow morning?" he asks respectfully.
Laura takes in a long, shaky breath. "No, no," she says. "Luke, Lucky and I will go together. I just…wish…there were more that I could do. This has all been so sudden and devastating."
"Yes, it has," Stefan agrees soothingly. "I am so sorry for our mutual loss." Stefan pauses for effect. "I’ll meet you at the cemetery tomorrow." He hangs up the phone and shakes his head.
Stefan glances over at Nurse Christy, who is seated in a leather chair across from his desk. "And how is your newest patient doing?" he asks.
Nurse Christy smiles a smile that never quite reaches her lovely eyes. "I believe Mr. Andropolis is tied up at the moment." She holds her hand to the side of her face in mock surprise. "And he keeps on insisting that he is The Cassadine."
Stefan nods sagely. "Yes. It’s a shame no one will ever hear him speak again. That’s quite a fantasy he believes."
~*~*~*~
Stavros lurks in the General Hospital parking garage waiting for his Laura. He hides behind the thick, concrete column labeled A12 and bides his time. Many persons come and go from the garage, but they are either men or brunettes. Stavros repeatedly scans the garage for a glimpse of Laura’s long, flowing, blond locks. He winces in pain as he grips the self-induced injury to his forearm. The white fabric covering the wound is now dirty and bloodstained, but the pain only makes him more determined to abduct his wife. Nikolas needs his mother, he thinks desperately. She must come to him. Tonight, I will find her. After twenty years, she will be mine again. His long, black-gray hair whips against his face as he repeated cranes his neck to search for Laura.
During a three-hour period, Stavros almost makes two mistakes. After initially stalking and kidnapping Carly earlier in a case of mistaken identity, he tries to be more careful. Stavros rubs his eyes tiredly and wishes for eyeglasses. His distance vision has deteriorated markedly during his long imprisonment, and the moving persons are mere blurs to him, distinguishable as male or female by only slightness in physique or a curve of a hip. The first near miss is an older blond woman. His first clue should have been the short hair, but her light step and walk fool him. He slinks behind a car with beady eyes peering at her when she approaches, but he soon sees that she is an older woman with a nametag that reads "Audrey." The second mistake occurs with none other than Laura’s sister, Amy. When she opens the red, red lips of her mouth and begins speaking to her companion in a nonstop whiny voice, he immediately recognizes his sister-in-law and hastily retreats while thanking the gods for sparing him the terror of her company. He holds his hands to his ears, imagining the torture. He shudders with the memories of the vain, silly woman.
After three hours, his patience and guile finally pay off. The woman approaches a car very near to his hiding place. She is petite with long blond hair – a match according to Stavros’ twenty-year old memory of his wife. Unfortunately for him, he fails to account for the possible changes over that time period due to his wife’s aging physique and hair dye choices.
Perfect, thinks Stavros, grimacing as he flexes his strong hands in anticipation. The woman fumbles with her keys as she stands beside a blue Ford Explorer. He yearns to have Laura in his arms once more, whether by love or violence.
Stavros’ hand rapidly covers the woman’s mouth as he yanks her arm behind her back and twists. "Laura," he whispers into her ear, his breath making wisps of her hair fly onto her flushed, trembling cheek. “êáéñüò åßíáé ! (it’s about time)” he yells fiercely, harshly turning her around to face him. Stavros’ face drops in extreme disappointment. “Ýíáò áêüìç (yet another),” he mutters sadly. The woman takes advantage of Stavros’ emotional distraction and uses her kung fu techniques to simultaneously ram her hand up his nose and kick his legs out from under him. Stavros cries out and crawls away from the vicious woman as she shrieks shrilly, her high voice bouncing off of the hard concrete surfaces and newly assaulting an already downed man.
Felicia Scorpio-Jones leaps into her Ford Explorer and immediately locks all the doors. She starts the vehicle and backs up abruptly, flooring the accelerator and burning rubber out of the parking garage.
A defeated Stavros slowly staggers to his feet with one hand holding onto his broken, now bloody nose. His eyes darken, and he stomps out of the garage.
~*~*~*~
Sonny sits alone in the master bedroom, rocking in the corner chair and staring with tears in his eyes at the unoccupied king-sized bed. The satin sheets still bear the curved imprint of his missing wife. Sonny rubs his hands over his tired eyes. His men have been unable to find Carly. He’d call the PCPD for help, but it hasn’t yet been 24 hours, and the incompetent police would probably ignore a mobster with domestic problems. Not that they’d ever solved a case anyway. Maybe he’ll call later.
Sonny rocks again, thinking of how much his wife means to him. He places his hand over his chest. His heart aches without her. She is his life, the only goodness and sanity in his life. The rest is rotten, all mixed up in illegalities and poor relations with bozos like Joseph Sorel. He hops up from the chair, suddenly restless, and walks over to the window, his fingers parting the wood miniblinds and stares out at the lights of a city that has seemingly swallowed up his wife and hidden her away from him forever.
~*~*~*~
Carly collects all potential weapons in the cold, concrete room that has become her prison and stores them near the entrance to the mausoleum. So far she has gathered two metal candlesticks and the purple altar cloth that had covered Nikolas. She stands by the door, waiting for "him" to return, the man that she has finally figured out is Nikolas’ father. She frowns as she looks over at her prone companion, his ability to think and reason seemingly gone from him. She’d spent over an hour trying to talk to him about his father and why he would kidnap them. Nikolas didn’t seem to have any answers to those questions. He mentioned the word escape several times, but Carly didn’t know if he were referring to himself or to the tall, menacing Greek. Nikolas did have several nasty bruises on his head, so his lack of responsiveness did make sense – maybe. Finally, Carly had decided to give up on him and save herself. If this man were Nikolas’ father, surely he wouldn’t hurt his son – would he?
Carly rubs her arms briskly and stamps her freezing bare feet. The concrete walls seem to absorb all of the night’s cold dampness and spit it back out at the inhabitants of the mausoleum without discriminating between the dead as well as the living. She’s growing weary of her monotonous captivity as well as the stress of waiting for Stavros to return. She knows that she’ll only have one chance to escape, and she’d better make it good. As she blinks her eyes rapidly, trying to stay awake, a rustling noise outside of the mausoleum catches her fervent attention, and she draws the purple altar cloth closer to her tense body. She also holds a candlestick in both hands.
The door to the mausoleum creaks open, and Carly shrinks back closer to the wall to avoid detection. As soon as she sees the head full of long black and gray hair and the foot taking a step into the structure, she quickly flings the heavy cloth over his head and takes him by surprise, raising the candlesticks high to bring them crashing down on top of his head. Stavros grunts, and his face meets the concrete floor, but Carly straddles him as she screams at the top of her lungs. Over and over she brings the metal sticks down on his head, which fortunately for the long-term health of his skull, is covered by the cloth.
"Stop! No! Father!" Nikolas’ frantic voice rings through the mausoleum as he races toward Carly.
Startled, Carly stops hitting the unconscious man and looks into Nikolas’ terrified eyes. A bead of sweat drips down the side of her red face from her extreme exertion, and her eyes soften when she sees Nikolas’ agony. She drops the candlesticks to the floor with a plinking sound and holds out her hand to the young man. "Come on, let’s go," she insists. "Come with me."
Nikolas looks from Carly to his father with a stunned expression plastered to his rigid face. "No," he says. "Father. Father?" Nikolas removes the purple cloth from Stavros’ head to reveal the bloody mess of several nasty lacerations cut into his scalp from the edges of the candlesticks.
When Stavros groans lightly and moves a leg, Carly opts for survival and leaves Nikolas to tend to his father. She squeezes through the open door and runs as fast as her bare feet will take her across the wet, dewy grass of the graveyard. She begins shrieking and screaming as she runs, out of a combination of relief, anger and fear. Her loud, strident voiced echoes through the dark night with an intensity that reaches nearly a mile away.
~*~*~*~
Carly is breathing hard as she runs through the streets of Port Charles. She’s been running nonstop for nearly a mile. When she arrives at the bar district, she reaches into her bra to retrieve the mad money that she always carries for safety. Satisfied with her roll of bills, she whistles loudly and hails one of the cabs that are always waiting for people too inebriated to drive. When the cabby motions to her, she opens the door and pours herself into the back seat with a sigh of relief. The cabby asks her for her destination, and she answers without hesitation. "Twenty-four Royal Street," Carly says firmly. I’ve got to reach Luke and tell him that a madman is after his wife.
~*~*~*~
Felicia drives over the speed limit all the way to the PCPD headquarters. She doesn’t care if she’s pulled over by a cop. This is an emergency. Her arms and hands still shake as she grips the steering wheel tightly and recalls her near abduction.
Finally, she whips her vehicle into a parking space in front of the building and runs for the front door. She frantically runs through the hallways of the police department, her heels making a loud clacking sound, until she reaches her husband’s office.
"Mac! Mac!" she cries.
Mac emerges from his office, filled with concern as he regards his wife’s emotional state.
"Felicia?" he asks carefully. "Honey, what’s wrong? Are you all righr?"
"Oh, Mac," sobs Felicia as she jettisons herself into her husband’s strong arms and clings to him for dear life. "It was horrible. Some crazy man tried to kidnap me in the GH garage. It happened a few minutes ago. He grabbed me, and whispered. "Laura" into my ear and then yelled at me in some foreign language. He was tall and tan, kind of good-looking actually, with this…this long, shaggy black and gray hair. I used my kung fu self-defense techniques on him, and they worked. I got away and drove straight here." Felicia’s eyes widen, and she pants with emotion and stress as she holds a protective hand over her heart.
Mac turns serious and calls for Taggert. "We have a report of an attempted abduction in the GH parking garage. Get right over there and see if you can find any evidence or witnesses to the actual attack or a strange man loitering in the area." Mac’s mind races as he holds his wife close to his heart. Corinthos just reported that his wife is missing. Carly has long, blond hair as well. I wonder if there’s a connection?
~*~*~*~
Elizabeth moans as she begins waking up from her chloroformed sleep. She twitches until her eyes suddenly open to the sight of inky blackness. Her heart races with fear and confusion as she tries to see the outline of anything, any object to orient her. She whimpers in pain as she feels the tight cords that bind her wrists together behind her back. They must be cutting into her skin because she feels a moist liquid surrounding the cord and some more liquid trickling down her stiff arm with a slight iron smell permeating the air around her. She’s been lying on her side for who knows how long and is miserably stiff as her muscles have tightened. "Hello?" she calls out weakly. No one answers. Fear takes over her mind, and she wrestles her body into a sitting position. "Ow!" she cries as her muscles protest the new position. Okay, at least I’m alive. I have to think of how I’m going to survive this.
~*~*~*~
Sorel stares contemptuously at the large-framed mob flunky standing before him. Guido’s mouth is slightly parted in a dumb expression that indicates his efforts at trying to understand his boss.
"I’m going to call Corinthos and insist on a meeting to exchange his friend, Elizabeth Webber, for a ransom. Now, we’re not interested in the money. Understand? This is a ploy to lure Sonny into making himself publicly vulnerable. When you get the chance, you shoot him." Sorel nods encouragingly.
Guido continues to look confused, his thick caveman brows knitting together. "So why are you asking for money if you don’t want it?" he asks.
"It’s a premise, a ruse," Sorel explains. Damn, those words – he can’t understand them. Oh, give me a smart goon, please. "We want Corinthos to come to the docks so that we can kill him. The girl will bring him there because he cares about her. He wants to save her. Our price is the ransom, the money. Otherwise, why would we kidnap the girl? Right?"
"But you want to kill him. Why would he want to come then? If we’re going to do that?"
Sorel’s face shakes with rage and frustration, the redness of his complexion indicating his high blood pressure. "You don’t have to understand you nincompoop!" he thunders. "Just kill Sonny when he reaches for the money. Got it?" When Guido nods, but continues to look confused, Sorel sneers, "Do you even know your ABC’s or did you not make it that far in school?"
Guido’s face brightens. "Yeah," he says excitedly. "ABCDEFG," he sings loudly.
Have QVC genuine snakeskin purse, will whack a...
That pesky paternity - again!
Stefan makes nasty