COME UNDONE
by
PiperMerlyn
Chapter 30
The Chapters
30 October 2003
Orlando, Florida
1:23 pm
Donovan MacFairlaigne sat back in his desk chair. With one hand, he twirled a pen between his fingers, with his other hand, he moved the computer’s mouse to move the cursor across the screen. He hated it when he was distracted. It usually meant he couldn’t focus on work and it usually meant he tended to play computer games until they gave him a headache.
As if to make his head ache worse, the telephone rang. He paused the game and picked up the phone. “Hello?....Catherine, I thought you said you had plans for your birthday. If you—“ Donovan broke off as she continued speaking. “What do you mean, you think something’s wrong?..You mean the witch who grabbed Casi last year?...Damn it, he—“
Donovan tossed the pen on the desk and stood up. “Yes, I know that....yes, I understand why he did it, but damn it—“ He sighed. “Catherine....Me? What on earth could I possibly do?....Not that I know of. Good God, Catherine, what could I do? I’m not some globe-trotting—“
Donovan paced to the window and shook his head. “I wish I could, Catherine, but I don’t see how....I think you’ve mistaken me for our dear sister---Oh God...Yes, damn it, it finally registered. What the hell was Whitfield thinking bringing her there?...I am calm,” muttered Donovan, through clenched teeth.
“Not from where I’m standing,” came an amused voice from the doorway.
Donovan turned to see Brittani standing there, a smirk on her face. He pointed a finger at her, then turned back to the phone. “Look, Catherine, I’m not sure why you called me....I can’t....damn it, you just called to worry the hell out of me, right?....” Donovan paused in his pacing and frowned at the computer. “Catherine, it’s not that easy....” He walked over to the desk and sank down in his chair. “It’s just not that easy. Not now....I—“
Sensing that something was wrong, Brittani walked in and closed the door. She walked over to his desk and touched his shoulder. “Donovan, what’s wrong?”
Donovan sighed. “My head agrees, my heart doesn’t....All right, Catherine...Good bye.” He hung up and sighed again. “Catherine said Ethan headed for Romania this morning.”
“Ethan? Romania?” Brittani frowned. “Isn’t that where Chad took Casi?”
“Yes. Catherine said something about Ethan talking to Casi but not making sense, looking for a mutual acquaintence of theirs, ravens roosting in the belfrey. She said after he left, she realized he must be talking about Joe. She thinks Joe’s in serious trouble.”
“Oh no.” Brittani sat down on the corner of his desk. “Does that mean that Casi might be in trouble?”
“God, don’t even think that. Although, I don’t see how if they’re both in the same city they haven’t run into each other.” Donovan shook his head. “I honestly wish Catherine hadn’t called me.”
“You don’t mean that, honey. You’d go stir crazy worrying if you even felt a hint of danger for Casi.”
Donovan sighed. “All right, yes, I know.”
Brittani smiled gently. “Is Cat calling Marc, or are you?”
Donovan studied his wife’s expression and heaved another sigh. “You know me too well.” He reached for the phone but before he had the handset in hand, the telephone rang. He picked it up. “Hello.....Well, speak of the devil....Why are you calling?....Me? Half-cocked? Why suddenly is everyone confusing me with Casi. She’s the one who goes off half-cocked...”
Donovan went pale. “Oh God, that’s exactly what she’ll do.....Don’t tell me to calm down, Marcus, you should know your sister by now.....Is that supposed to make feel any better?.....Oh shit, Marcus, keep your philosophy for your music and your fans.” Donovan hung up with a little more force than necessary.
Brittani cleared her throat. “That....went...not so well.”
“Marcus was telling me that since Ethan is over there and Joe, that Casi will be just fine. Not to worry, not to jump to conclusions and go off half-cocked.” Donovan grunted. “As if I’ve ever gone off half-cocked.”
“Not for want of trying.”
“Brittani, you’re sure as hell not helping.”
Brittani tried not to smile and failed. “They know you too well, Donovan. Deal with it.”
“You know me too well, too.”
Brittani moved from the corner of the desk to his lap. “Yes, I do. And I suggest you do calm down. Catherine told you something else, too, didn’t she.”
“You’re getting psychic, wife.”
“It’s just a hunch.”
“She told me to pray. She said that was all we could do.”
Brittani’s smile faded slightly. “I think she’s right.”
Donovan touched her hair with a light hand and swallowed hard. “The sad thing is,” he said hoarsely. “Is I think she’s right too. Which means I can’t do anything this time.”
“Donovan...”
He shook his head and pulled her close. “Don’t, Brittani. Please. Just don’t say a word.”
*****
30 October 2003
Bucaresti, Romania
12:40 pm
Joe raised his head and took a deep breath. “Casi, you need to go.”
“Come with me.”
“And what would Chad say?”
Casi didn’t care at that moment what the man would say. She felt her face flame and she looked away. She should have listened to her conscience. “Joe—“
“I have a job to do, Casi. And so do you.” He stepped away from her. “You’d better go.”
Casi frowned. “I want to help.”
“Stop stringing Whitfield along.”
Casi blushed again, out of shame. “I’m sorry.”
Joe shook his head. “Donovan, your mother, all your family thinks Whitfield is the better choice.”
Casi thought of something and chuckled somewhat sadly. “Not Marcus.”
“What?”
“He wanted a double wedding. Cat and Ethan and you and me.”
Joe stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I wanted to kill him and lost the chance.”
“Lost the...” Joe shook his head again. “I don’t follow.”
“I played a game of basketball with Donovan. If he won, I could kill Marc.”
Joe managed a laugh. “Let me guess, you won?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed harder. “God, Case, your family—“
“You will be joining that family soon enough.”
“Uh-oh.” Joe looked thoughtful for a moment, then winked at her. “Can I have the ring back?”
Casi smiled and shook her head. “You can’t weasel out of it that easy, buster.”
“Oh well. Will I witness any more Prank Wars?”
“It’s a normal activity in the MacFairlaigne household.” Almost as if they were magnets, they came together again. Casi wrapped her arms around his neck, careful not to bump the puncture wounds. Suddenly, she frowned. “Joe, did you pull off the scabs.”
“I stopped doing that when I was ten,” said Joe drily.
“The wounds....Joe, they look fresh.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” But he moved one hand to touch his neck.
Casi grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bathroom and shoved him toward the mirror. “Look.”
Joe glanced in the mirror, then at Casi. “Case, I just took a hot shower.”
“Look.”
Joe sighed and looked. The wounds were a raw pink, the rims red, with a tiny red streak shooting downward. Joe took a deep breath. “Case—“
She spun him around to face her. “Mind games.”
Joe stared at her. “You’re saying Lilith Raven is behind this.”
Casi took his face in her hands. “Yes.”
Joe went ice-cold, remembering what had happened last year, what had happened five months ago—even all those years ago, when it first started. “I should never have gone,” he muttered.
Puzzled, Casi studied him for a moment. “Where?”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “It was Halloween—let’s see I was fifteen, so it must have been 1990. It was tradition to check out P’town’s most famous haunted house.”
Casi narrowed her eyes. “Collinswood?”
“Yes. Jody, me and Jon had decided it was time to put the ghost rumors to rest.” Joe heaved a sigh. “Never found any ghosts. But I found her.”
“Lilith Raven?” Casi sounded shocked.
“I didn’t know who she was then. All I saw was this girl with long black hair, dressed in a long black Morticia Addams dress, standing inside a star shape with black candles—“
“A pentagram.”
“I remember all of a sudden,” continued Joe absently, “a storm came up, lightning, wind blowing through that tower room. Never did snuff the candles out though. Then she turned and looked at me and her eyes....” Joe shook his head. “They were clear.”
“What happened?”
“Well, my first thought was that she was a ghost. So I went to get Jon and Jody. But she was gone when we got back. “Joe shrugged. “Jon dispelled the ghost theory real quick. The star outline was still there but smeared. So were the candles. She’d done the outline in salt and the candles were broken in half.”
Casi took a deep breath. “Salt is for protection. And breaking the candles broke whatever spell she’d conjured.”
Joe gave her a long look as if dying to ask how she could know that. Instead, he said, “Four years passed, never thought about it again. Until Hong Kong. But it wasn’t until four months later that I found out the truth. That the girl in the tower, Dr. Ravenscraft and my secret admirer were one and the same.”
Casi flashed back to what he’d said last year and she shuddered. “What happened then?”
Joe sighed. “When we finally met face to face again, I told her I was already taken. Boy, talk about going ballistic.”
“Taken?”
Joe touched her chin, raised her face to meet his eyes. “I was taken with you in that instant you saved my neck—“ He grinned ruefully. “Literally.”
“I fell in love with you that night. When you were stargazing with your eyes closed.”
Joe’s grin widened. “Like I said, we’re certifiable.” Then he kissed her. He turned serious when he raised his head. “You have to go, Casi. You have to tell Chad.”
Casi frowned. “Joe—“ God knew she didn’t want to talk to Chad. Not about this.
“Casi.”
“Okay, I’m going already.” Casi turned to go, remembered the coffee jar and turned back around. When she did, her foot crunched on something. “What the--?”
“What?”
She bent down to pick up what looked like a broken incisor. But then she saw the top half was made to snap onto a real tooth while the bottom half was hollow and the needle-sharp point had a pin-head-sized hole. “Here’s your vampire.”
Joe blinked. “What?”
“Caps.” She showed him the hole. “It’s the latest thing right now at Halloween and for vampire wanna-bes. I think this is how they injected you.”
“Injected? You think--?”
“Ailsa died of a drug overdose. The loss of blood hastened her death.”
Joe felt cold, noticed the windows were open and wished for the hot dryness of the heater. Instead, he walked stiffly over to the basket of clothes and pulled out something to wear, then he went into the bathroom. Casi looked at the fake tooth in her hand, then went into the kitchen to look for a container. Finding a plastic sandwich bag, she dropped the tooth in and picked up the coffee jar. “Joe?”
He came out in faded jeans and a raggedy sweater. “Casi, go back to Provincetown.” He didn’t add that at this precise moment, he’d love to go with her.
“I’m not leaving Romania without you.”
“Please, Casi, it’s not safe—“ He noticed the items in her hands. “What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
Joe sighed. “Casi, what am I going to do with you?”
“Love me, live for me. That’s all I ask.” She started for the door, then glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, and call me a cab.”
Joe just groaned....and called a cab for her.
*****
He was restless today. The confines of his chamber were wearing on him and if weren’t for the time of day, he’d not stay here to stare at the four walls. He paced the perimeter of the room, then forced himself to sit down. He didn’t stay seated long, and was pacing again in a matter of minutes. It was times like these that really bothered him because of his limitations.
He sat down behind his desk and his eyes rested on the one anachronism in the wood-paneled room. Dark red velvet curtains hung at the windows, blocking out all light. Old gas-light lamps were the only illumination in the room. The four-poster bed’s hand-carved posts were satiny from centuries of use. Only the gray monitor sitting on the old desk looked out of place in the room.
He reached for the keyboard, then pulled back. He was in no mood to lose himself for hours surfing the ‘net. Dorian Thayer sat back in his old desk chair and sighed. Confined to his chamber until darkness came normally didn’t bother him much because usually he slept the hours away but recent events kept him restless, unable to sleep.
It had started a week ago exactly. He’d returned to Bucaresti on a whim. Seeing the manor occupied had shocked him. Of course several centuries ago, he’d sold it to someone but for years the manor was empty, barren. But he’d been startled to discover the occupant of the manor claimed to be Dorian Thayer. That alone didn’t much bother him.
The odds of someone else having the same name in all these centuries wasn’t astronomical. After all his father had had other family. There were probably several descendants floating around this planet. But what had upset him was the resemblance. The man could have stepped out of one of the many portraits that still lined the walls of the estate.
Then he heard the rumors. That this Dorian Thayer walked in sunlight and yet spread rumors of vampirism. The last straw had been the poor housekeeper. Dorian swallowed hard as he remembered what had happened. Normally, he had his own methods of nourishment but she’d seemed so tempting, sprawled across the square, seemingly asleep.
Even to him, her skin had seemed cold but he’d blamed it on the skimpy attire and the half-open coat. For an entire day and half the night he was ill afterwards as the chemicals and drugs that killed her coursed through his own system. Even now, he didn’t feel well. He’d thought her blood was tainted and feared it would kill him until he’d realized the affects weren’t from tainted blood but drugs.
So he prowled the night, searching for his doppleganger, searching for the truth. It was how he’d found her last night. Thinking of her made him ache for his one true love. He shuddered as he remembered attacking the creature in it’s lair, stabbing it through the heart with a piece of a wooden cross long since broken. The wood had scorched his palms but he’d made certain the creature would walk the night no more.
But that had been centuries ago. Sitting here in this room out of time, he could easily forget so much time had passed outside these walls. He ran a hand along the edge of the desk. He was glad this house had withstood the test of time. He’d bought it over a century ago and kept it restored for whenever he would need it. Now since he could no longer stay at the manor, he was glad he had this place to stay.
Dorian pushed himself to his feet and walked over to an oil painting hanging on one wall. Soon after he’d changed, he’d stolen this from her parents’ home, not caring that he’d broken the law. It had hung here all this time, a silent reminder of love lost. Her long auburn hair was upswept, a large hat full of lace and silk atop the shining hair. The dress was high-necked, the lace trim, brushing against her jawline. Her gold eyes held a hint of laughter though her lips weren’t smiling. Dorian blessed the painter every time he looked at the portrait for capturing Aubrey in all her splendor.
He reached out to touch the painted face and for a brief moment, saw someone else. The hair was shorter but she was so much like Aubrey, defiant and beautiful. He shuddered and remembered what else he’d seen that night. Something was going on in this beautiful city, something dark and sinister and he felt compelled to find out what it was before it was too late for all of them. In a sudden blur of motion, he spun around and stalked back to the desk. Perhaps he wouldn’t waste hours away, searching the Internet. Perhaps that’s exactly what he needed to do to learn who Cassandra MacFairlaigne was.
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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.