Who: Miriam and Caius (and npc’d Anthony) When: middayish, Sunday, Jan 21st Where: the D’Onofrio house Status: Complete
The phone call from Nic Castell had been unexpected and disturbing on a Sunday morning. Nic asked after his father’s health and shared his suspicions that those people who’d been injured in the fog were making the people around them sick. Not purposefully, necessarily, but it had happened to his girlfriend. Caius told him that his dad had been out of work sick for a couple of days, and he’d seemed tired and worn down even before that. He hadn’t been connecting it to what had happened to his mother, naturally, Caius just thought Anthony was coming down with something. It didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unheard of.
After talking to Nic though ... he wasn’t so sure. Caius hadn’t been talking to Sera much lately, but he remembered her saying something about being tired the last time they’d spoken. With Reagan at Belladonna and nothing much to do in the house alone, Caius’s worry grew and grew until he decided to check on Anthony himself around noon. Most of his worry around the fog injury had been centered on his mother, he hadn’t thought it would affect his dad in any way. But if it was, he had to do something about it. Nic said his girlfriend wasn’t even conscious anymore. Anthony was surely stronger than some weird chick Nic was dating, but still. He pulled his coat on and hurried to the car.
Anthony’s vehicle was there when Caius arrived at the house, but that wasn’t much of a relief. Caius walked up to the front door and rang the bell before he started to let himself in with his key. “Mom? Dad?” he called once he was inside. “It’s me.”
The moment the names appeared in her brain Miriam began to freak out. These were people she knew. People she’d socialized with, made small talk with, or would have smiled at on the street. Only one of them was an unknown to her, but it had taken little work to find out who Neil was - the librarian. The cheerleader, the personal trainer, and the witch— those three she knew, though it was Nic that worried her the most. She’d had drinks with Vivian Castell just last night, had seen her son at the party, yet hadn’t known he was planning her demise. And Jules Cooper lived just around the corner.
Miriam had skipped out on the gym that morning, she couldn’t risk running into Carson, and had instead opted to make her home a fortress. Curtains were pulled, doors were shut and locked, and weapons were kept within reach. When Miriam heard someone at the front door, she grabbed the butcher knife off the kitchen counter and slowly crept towards the front door. When she saw it was Caius, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god it’s you,” she said, then hurried over to grab Caius’s arm with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife and drag him towards the living room. “Come in. I need you to help me setup fresh wards.”
Caius’s eyes widened in alarm when he saw the knife in his mother’s hand as she approached him. He didn’t get the sense that he’d caught her cooking, she was holding it more defensively. “Mom?” he murmured when she started to pull at him, going along more out of surprise than compliance. “What’s wrong with the wards?” He glanced around as they entered the living room, half expecting to see his dad there somewhere, but Anthony wasn’t there. Caius noticed that it was dimmer than it usually was and saw all the windows were curtained, which was odd for the middle of the day. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“They’re not strong enough,” Miriam said, setting down the knife when they made it to the living room. She didn’t need to defend herself against Caius, so there was no need to carry it with her, but she wanted it close, just in case. Miriam didn’t need a knife to kill someone, but she didn’t know what she was up against and sometimes it was good to have a weapon. “I want it so another witch can’t even come on the property. Or even specific people. Can you do that? Maybe just restrict it to our blood,” she explained hurriedly. “Your father’s in bed. He’s not feeling well and he’s being difficult.”
Nic had warned him about the effect he thought these people might be having on those around him, but not about any heightened paranoia, so Caius was completely confused by his mother’s demeanor. She’d never been a person who got visibly frazzled, but he thought that word was close to how she looked and sounded now. She was obviously scared of something ... other witches? “They feel in place to me ... what’s going on? I can’t -- I can’t keep specific people out without something of theirs, why? Who are you trying to keep away?” he asked, his thick brows drawn together with concern. He noted what she said about Anthony, but at that second Caius was more worried about Miriam freaking out.
“Well, I can’t feel them, can I?” Miriam snapped, more annoyed than ever that she didn’t have the kind of powers that her husband and son did. She had her own, and they could be deadly, but they weren’t as versatile. She could fight back, if necessary, but she couldn’t completely keep people away. “We need to get something of theirs then. Nic Castell, Jules Cooper, Carson Durand, and Neil Wainscott. They’re going to come for me, but I’ll be ready.” So long as they didn’t come in guns blazing, it should be easy enough to take them out. It was Nic she was worried about. Witches could do all sorts of things that she couldn’t and that made him even more dangerous.
Nowadays it was so rare for his mother to snap at him that Caius was taken aback. Not that she’d been the type of mother to do that very often anyway, but he was an adult now, so it felt even more off. He’d been hearing about all these mood swings from various people in regard to this fog bullshit, but he had yet to see it for himself. Miriam was highly agitated, and Caius frowned as she began naming people, starting with Nic. Caius got a weird discomfort in his stomach from knowing he’d just talked to the man earlier that day, like he’d been disloyal without knowing it somehow, but that didn’t make sense. Nic was on their side, he’d been trying to warn Caius about what was going on. He vaguely knew of the Coopers, didn’t know a Durand at all, but Neil Wainscott rang a bell. The librarian? So strange. “Mom, nobody’s coming for you,” he told her, trying to sound soothing without being patronizing. “Nic is a longtime friend, he would never try to harm you. For one, he’s not that stupid, you’re well-protected ...” Caius glanced around, thinking again of his father. He had to see him before he left, but Miriam’s paranoia seemed more pressing at the moment.
“No, I’m not,” Miriam said, emphasizing each word. “Your father won’t get his lazy ass out of bed. I’m out numbered and over powered. I don’t know what Nic’s capable of and the rest of them could be anything. Neil might even be like me, for all I know.” She’d done her homework. Neil had gone missing as a child. If Vex was right about anything, then it was possible that Neil was some kind of psychic. She didn’t want to believe that lunatic, but he wasn’t the threat at the moment and she couldn’t take her chances. “They will kill me if I don’t stop them. I know.” She couldn’t explain it, but it was clear as day to her. She wouldn’t have said she had a vision, but the names had come into her head like some kind of psychic message, warning her of the danger to come. Maybe it would have been better to go on the offense and seek each of them out, but didn’t really know what she was up against. If she could turn her house into a fortress, then she should be safe there, but only if her husband or son helped her.
There were a lot of words to describe Anthony D’Onofrio, but ‘lazy’ definitely wasn’t one of them. He especially never expected to hear it out of his mother’s mouth. Caius’s thoughts were tripping over themselves trying to keep up with what Miriam was saying, which wasn’t a mental state he was used to at all. She thought Nic wanted to kill her? Along with the others he’d barely ever heard of? Caius just gaped at her for a second, his brow furrowed in confusion. She was obviously not thinking clearly, and he wondered vaguely if this affliction had gone to her head or something. Caius held up his hands to her in a gesture meant to soothe -- but when had he ever been good at soothing? “Okay, slow down. None of that makes sense, Mom. I’m going to go talk to Dad, okay? Just ... I’ll try to figure out what’s going on.” He started to back up a step or two, hoping Anthony was okay enough to tell him what the hell was happening.
Miriam stared at Caius, her agitation evident in her stature. Now wasn’t the time to slow down. There were people out to get her and the two most powerful witches she knew could do nothing but try to appease her with words, rather than actions. “Sure, go see him, see if I care,” she said, lips pressed in tight. “Your father doesn’t know everything. He’s gifted, but he’s not a god.” She’d reached her limit with her husband the night before, when he’d failed to do as she asked. For all he could do magically, he couldn’t believe what she was telling him, yet she was sure that if he’d received the same sort of message then he’d have done it before dawn.
She was pissed, Caius could plainly see that, but what else could he do? He’d come here out of concern for his father, on Nic’s warning that the people hurt in the fog were having a bad effect on them, and his mother was one of those people. Something was really wrong here, and Anthony’s absence was making him even more uneasy. “I know that,” he told Miriam for the moment. “But if he didn’t redo the wards, I want to know why. And I’ll be right back, I promise.” It was partly true, but mostly meant to placate her. Caius didn’t think there was anything wrong with the wards, but her focus on four specific people was worrying, especially since one of them was Nic Castell. Caius turned and left the room, hurrying through the house to the stairs to head for the master bedroom. There was a bad feeling in his stomach about all of this, and it said things would get worse before they got better.
Miriam waited a minute, then anxiously followed after Caius, unable to leave the situation alone. She’d given up on getting her husband out of bed hours ago, but didn’t like the idea of him talking to Caius without her present. She didn’t think they would conspire against her, but she also didn’t want to give them the chance. The bedroom was dark with all the curtains pulled, but Miriam proceeded to turn on all the lights, as if that would coax her husband out of bed. She’d already tried this, but figured Caius needed to see it for himself. “I told you, he’s tired. He won’t get up. I think he’s come down with something.” Normally she would have been worried, but today she was just annoyed.
Caius didn’t want her in the room, but he couldn’t very well kick his mother out of her own bedroom, could he? As she’d said, Anthony was still in bed -- completely out of character for him at this time of morning -- covers piled around him. Caius thought he saw his eyes open briefly when they came in the room, but they didn’t stay that way. He shot his mother an aggravated look when she started turning on lights. Her tone definitely wasn’t very caring, and that bothered him. It was also out of character. Caius crouched at the side of the bed and peered at his father’s face, reaching out both with a hand and his magic to try and assess what was going on. Anthony didn’t have a fever, he felt cold, if anything. The magic that had always been so strong in him felt weak and dim, along with the rest of him. Nic had said the injured were making the people around them sick, but this felt even beyond that. Anthony was diminished, and that made Caius profoundly uncomfortable. There was also something else, some strange alien feeling lurking in what he was feeling, something he couldn’t place. If the proximity to Miriam was what was causing it, he had to do something about it. “There’s definitely something wrong with him,” he murmured, his expression worried. Caius stood up and looked grimly at his mother. “Mom ... I’ll do the wards for you. But I think I need to take Dad out of here.”
“Take him where?” Miriam frowned. “He’s just sleeping.” It was unusual, yes, but nothing else had seemed wrong with him. She’d taken his temperature, done her best to make him comfortable, and had even kept him company when all he wanted to do was sit around. In all the time she’d known him, he’d never needed to go to the doctor, not when all his problems could be solved with magic, but that was the only logical place she could think Caius might want to take him. For a moment Miriam was worried, but then she remembered the wards and the danger she was in and nodded. “That’s probably for the best. If he’s not able to protect me, then he shouldn’t be here when they come. If you find out what he’s got, let me know. I wouldn’t want Sera or I to catch it.” She’d barely seen her daughter lately, but she assumed that was just her being a teenager, keeping to her herself and doing her own thing.
There was something kind of cold-blooded about her logic, which was even more concerning to Caius. He and Anthony were supposed to be the cruelly pragmatic ones, Miriam had always been warmer than both of them put together. Anthony wasn’t just sleeping, and Caius got the feeling that both of them knew it. It just didn’t matter much to Miriam at the moment. Or she was even benefitting from it, considering what Nic had told him. Caius was just glad that she wasn’t going to fight him about it. “I’ll let you know, yes,” he told her, giving her an odd searching look for a second. Then Caius blinked and focused on his old man again. “Okay, um ... let me get him out and into the car first, okay? Then I’ll do the wards, it’ll be easier with his magic out of the way.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Caius thought it sounded plausible enough. He just wanted to separate them as quickly as possible. Turning back to Anthony, Caius leaned over him and gave his shoulder a little shake. “Dad,” he said, trying to rouse him a bit. “Hey it’s me ... come on, let’s get you up ...”
A large part of what made Miriam the warm and caring woman that she was was her role as a wife and mother: her love for her family. When those were forced to take a backseat to self-preservation, another side of her came out, one that was common in her household, if not from her. She assessed the situation and determined that Caius had no reason to lie to her, so she needn’t hold her husband hostage in exchange for him buffing up the wards. With a flick of her wrist, the covers flew back and the only reason she didn’t pull Anthony to his feet herself was that she might possibly break his back in the process. It wouldn’t kill him, but he didn’t seem to be in good enough shape to heal himself should it happen. “Come on. Get up,” she said, moving to help Caius pull him to a sitting position. “You’re making us worry. Caius is going to take you to the doctor.” He hadn’t directly said so, but it seemed like a good assumption to make.
The flying covers gave Caius a little start -- he still wasn’t used to the idea that his mother was telekinetic. For a second he considered having her help him get Anthony downstairs, but in her current state of mind he wasn’t sure that wouldn’t make things worse. Anthony was only semi-conscious as they sat him up, mumbling some nonsense here and there and looking petulant that they were moving him around. Caius definitely wasn’t going to take him to the doctor, he was pretty certain a doctor couldn’t do shit for him, but if Miriam wanted to believe that, then he wasn’t going to correct her. Part of him wanted to push her away so he could handle his father on his own, but he didn’t want to alarm her and escalate anything, so he just tried to work quickly to get Anthony’s slippers on and get him to his feet. His great and powerful father could barely shuffle along, and Caius felt conflicted as he ducked under Anthony’s arm to walk him down the hall and then down the steps. They had to work together to get a coat on him, but finally Caius was tucking him into the passenger side of his running car. “I’ll take care of this, Dad,” he muttered as he buckled Anthony in. “Don’t worry.” Caius felt a tiny bit better as he shut the car door and then turned to go back into the house.
Miriam followed them as far as the front door, but then refused to go any further. At what point did the wards end? She didn’t know and it was infuriating. There were so many things she didn’t understand when it came to magic and she felt it keenly now, when her own abilities just weren’t up to scratch. She could take someone out if she knew they were there, but she couldn’t keep them away. To say she envied her husband and son would be an understatement. She didn’t know what was truly wrong with Anthony, but she knew Caius would fix it. They could solve any problem, it seemed, but neither understood the danger she was in. Miriam crossed her arms, waiting anxiously for Caius to return. “Don’t forget,” she called out, suddenly certain he would drive off and leave her. It wasn’t like Caius, but she knew Anthony could talk him into it. He could talk his son into anything.
Anthony wasn’t talking much in general, and Caius didn’t want to leave his mother in distress. He still didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with, and he didn’t want her to go off the deep end and hurt someone or herself. He knew his sister wasn’t home, and given her current delusions it sounded like Miriam would stay inside, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cause harm. “I couldn’t forget about you,” he assured her with a faint smile as he stepped back in the house. He wouldn’t leave Anthony alone for long, but Caius couldn’t leave without doing something for her. “Let me just go into Dad’s cabinets for some supplies, okay? I know a spell that’ll keep people who mean you harm away from you. I just need some of your hair or blood. Just a little.” Caius gently touched her arm as he moved past her into the house. “And I’ll strengthen what Dad’s already got up.” He didn’t think she was actually in danger, especially not from Nic Castell, but hopefully this would make her feel better.
Miriam relaxed a little when Caius returned, taking it as a sign that he believed her. Even if he was just pandering to her, she needed it at the moment, sure beyond reason that what she was feeling was real, even if she didn’t have any proof. She cast a look back at her husband, dismayed that he was leaving her, but believing it was for the best in his current state. She couldn’t help him right now; she had other things to deal with. “Hair is easier,” she answered, shifting her attention back to Caius. Normally she wouldn’t like messing with her hair, but giving anyone her blood seemed like messy business that would then require her to be healed or to bandage herself up. Grabbing a pair of scissors was simple and she snipped just a bit from the end of an under layer, fairly certain no one would notice. “Will that work?”
Caius took the hair from her, pinched between two fingers, and he nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be in Dad’s office, okay? I’ll let you know when I’m done.” He turned to head that way, hoping she wouldn’t follow like she had when he’d gone up to the master bedroom. Caius could obviously do magic with an audience, but he didn’t need any of that manic energy in the room. He would do his best to do as she asked, even if it seemed completely useless and stupid to him. Whatever helped placate her and kept her away from the rest of the family. He would have to figure out what was going on with Sera too, but for now protecting his dad from whatever was going on was his biggest concern.
He needn’t worry about her following him into Anthony’s office. It was the one room of the house that she often felt unwelcome in, even if she was permitted inside. It was Anthony’s and so much of what he had in there was off-limits, often locked even if she wanted to get into it. As curious as she might be, it didn’t feel right to follow him inside. “Of course,” Miriam said, calming a bit with the knowledge that he was going to help her. It might not make a difference, she couldn’t hold up there forever, but she felt like defense was the first action she needed to take. “I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re through. Thank you.” It didn’t matter if he believed her or not, so long as he helped. He’d see the truth eventually, whether he liked it or not.