Caius D'Onofrio (poweroftheeye) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-06-12 08:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | #group scene, #january 2018, anthony, caius, reagan |
Who: Anthony, Caius and Reagan
When: Around 2am, Thursday morning, January 25
Where: Caius and Reagan’s home, the woods
Status: complete
Anthony had no idea what time it was when he woke up. He didn’t even know the day. All he knew was that it was not yet dawn, and this was not his bed, or his bedroom. The air felt of magic, though not all of it was his. As he opened his eyes, it was like coming out of a very deep, dark dream, none of which he could remember. His body felt sore, but otherwise all right.
It only took Anthony another moment to realize this was Caius’s home. He could sense his son’s magic nearby. The very vague, fuzzy memory of leaving his home in Overlook rose in his mind. Caius taking him outside to the car. Miriam, manic. Exhaling softly, Anthony pushed the blankets off of his body and slid out of bed to walk over to the window. He pushed the curtains aside and saw the streets were still dark. It drove him crazy, not knowing the full explanation as to why he was there. And he hated not knowing what had happened to him.
Running a hand through his hair, Anthony turned away from the window and left the bedroom. The other closed door at the end of the hall was likely Caius and Reagan’s room and perhaps the considerate thing to do would have been to wait until sunrise to wake them, but Anthony rarely cared for consideration if something was affecting him negatively. Which this was. He wanted to know where Miriam was and what had happened.
Padding down the hall, Anthony knocked twice, loudly, and waited, trying to rein in his patience enough not to burst into the room.
Nic’s call had come in around one in the morning and had woken Caius up with a start. He’d hurried into the bathroom and shut the door to take the call where he wouldn’t disturb Reagan ... and that was where he was still sitting an hour later. Caius was on the floor, his knees pulled up with elbows braced against them as he slowly rubbed his eyes over and over again. It had taken a while for what Nic said to sink in. It sounded like madness, portals and werewolves and fires and fog-possessed people. His mother throwing projectiles at people? And then all of them were gone. That girl had sent them somewhere else, presumably wherever the fog had come from. It was a lot to process.
Caius had expected to have more time to do so. He definitely hadn’t expected a knock at the bedroom door, and his body gave a violent start when he heard it. He hurried to get up, grabbing a robe off of the back of the bathroom door to slip into. It could only be Anthony, but already on his feet? Caius glanced at Regan as he crossed the room and saw her stir. “It’s okay, I’ll handle it,” he whispered to her. He opened the bedroom door, a deep frown on his face as he looked at his father standing there, looking more awake and alert than Caius had seen him in a week. “Dad, you’re up,” he murmured, crowding Anthony back a bit so he could step out into the hallway.
Anthony stepped back, his dark brow furrowed as he studied Caius's face. "Why am I here?" He was relieved to see Caius seemed to be alright, though he couldn't quite place why he would have been worried. "Where is your mother?" The last he remembered, Miriam had been moody, acting strangely due to the wound she received during the fog incident. Had it escalated? The lack of memory around the entire thing was irritating him.
Reagan stayed in bed until she heard Caius talk to Anthony, who was apparently up and moving now. That was quite a shock, given he had been barely conscious when Caius brought him home days before. She frowned and sat up in bed, watching the door close quietly behind her husband. She wasn't sure if she was needed or not, but she stayed vigilant anyway, ready to join Caius if Anthony had difficulty with something.
The first question was straightforward enough to answer, the second one ... not so much. Something in Caius’s chest gave an unpleasant tug, and he shook his head a little bit. “Come on, let’s go talk in the kitchen,” he said quietly, gesturing Anthony ahead. “I want to let Reagan sleep.” She was awake, Caius was sure of it, and she would probably end up following them into the kitchen, but Caius hadn’t had a chance to tell her about Nic’s phone call yet, and he kind of wanted to deliver the news to Anthony privately. “You were sick,” he started as they moved down the hallway. Caius looked his father over. “How are you feeling now?”
Had he been more awake, Anthony might have demanded answers then and there. But his brain was working a mile a minute and his magic was rushing through his body, like it had been dormant for days and needed to wake as much as the rest of his body. "I don't remember that," Anthony murmured, walking down the stairs. This was the first time he had been in this house since the development had been completed. The house was still dark, given the late hour - or early hour, he still wasn't sure what time it was, but it was easy enough to find his way. "I'm feeling fine now, Caius. Just confused. Being sick still doesn't explain why I'm here and not home."
He didn’t remember being sick. So Caius was going to have to start at the beginning. He headed for the kitchen, feeling abruptly overwhelmed by all of this. If Nic hadn’t woken him up with bad news, he likely would’ve been handling it perfectly fine, but the idea of his mother in some other place ... gods, he needed something to drink. A hot tea or half a bottle of scotch, he wasn’t sure. Fuck. Caius rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re here because you were being poisoned at home, or drained, or ... I don’t know what to call it. But Mom was making you ill. The effect of whatever injury she sustained in the fog. I brought you here. You didn’t get any worse, but you didn’t get any better either until ... just now, I guess.” Caius figured he might as well speak plainly. He went to the coffee maker to turn it on. He wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, so he might as well.
Anthony knew something had been going on with Miriam, and the rest of the town. That fucking fog. But he had been unable to figure out what it was, which told him it was Something Else. Something strong enough to take him down, and that only served to agitate him further. He thought of Miriam and wondered if she was still at home. If she needed to be subdued or taken care of in some fashion. Confined until they could figure out how to cure this infection. Anthony sat down at the island and ran his hands through his hair again. "So I was ill until... just now. And now I feel fine. Being away from your mother must have helped. But we need to deal with this now so this doesn't happen again."
Making coffee was something to do with his hands, but it didn’t feel like enough. Caius still didn’t know how to feel or what his father’s reaction would be, but he knew none of this was good. Even the relief of having Anthony up and talking and walking around again was overshadowed by knowing why he’d been cured. And he had no doubt what had caused the sudden turnaround, the timing just lined up too well. “It won’t be happening again,” he muttered. “At least not soon.” The spoon with the coffee grounds slipped out of his unsteady fingers and clattered to the countertop. Caius cursed and banged both hands down against the marble, his back to his father as his shoulders hunched and his head dropped. It was always something, wasn’t it? Some kind of mortal danger that consumed at least one of them at all times. “There’s a group of people, Nic Castell included, and they ... did something. Trying to help fix those that were affected. He called me before you woke up. All of the infected -- the ones like Mom -- are gone.”
Anthony was about to ask what Caius meant when his son slammed his fists down on the kitchen counter. He didn't have to question him, because Caius was explaining now that Miriam was gone. Of course he heard Nic Castell's name and everything else, but that was all difficult to compute once Caius said that Anthony's wife was gone. Lowering his hands to the island countertop, Anthony stared at the back of Caius's head. "What exactly do you mean by gone. They left Point Pleasant?" He refused to believe Caius meant gone as in dead. Caius would have been more distraught when he opened his bedroom door if he had just been told his mother had died. "What the hell did Castell say?"
It hadn’t really occurred to Caius yet not to believe Nic’s story. It sounded completely insane, but so did a lot of things they’d been through, even recently. If Caius hadn’t experienced some things first-hand, he wouldn’t have believed them. He turned to face his father. Maybe he ought to be panicking more, rushing around and trying to do something. But if what Nic had told him was true ... there was nothing to do. At least not tonight. Caius knew fuck-all about portals, and he was pretty sure Anthony was in the same boat. “One of Nic’s friends, who’s been having the dreams about all this, remember me telling you? One of them, the girl, has a power that opens up ... doorways, portals I guess, into other worlds. They tried to open one into the place where the fog originally came from, after they’d gathered all the infected together, and things went wrong. They ended up having to close it up, with all of them inside. Including Mom.” He paused and licked his lips. “That happened ... maybe an hour ago, at most. And here you are back on your feet again.”
Anthony said nothing for a while. He simply absorbed Caius’s story, allowing it to settle in his tired mind. He suddenly didn’t know what to focus on first. The fact that some portal opened in Point Pleasant and took his wife away... or that there was a girl in this town who could open doorways into other worlds. Perhaps that meant he had truly recovered from whatever illness he’d been afflicted with. But he could ask about the girl later. Right now he was with his son, whose mother was gone. Assuming Nic Castell’s story was accurate.
Inhaling deep, Anthony closed his eyes and then exhaled before straightening in his seat. “All right. So we have this girl reopen this... doorway. We find your mother and bring her back. If she’s still infected, we’ll deal with it. There has to be some way to heal those people. Some path we hadn’t considered.”
It sounded simple enough, didn’t it? Anthony had a knack for making things sound simple. And as much as Caius immediately wanted to agree that yes, they could do all those things, part of him was doubtful. The part that had listened to Nic describe the fog pouring out of the portal, and bringing those monsters along with it. “He said that was where the creatures had come from that caused so much destruction in the fog,” he said quietly. “They were outnumbered and had to close it when they did ... who knows what’s on the other side ...” His voice got a bit rough with emotion at the end and Caius scrubbed his hands over his face again, attempting to swallow down his emotion. His mother wasn’t completely helpless in their own world, but in some other, monster-filled dimension? It was possible she was already dead. And who knew if they would be able to find her even if they could get the portal open again.
"Of course they were outnumbered. Nic Castell and a girl? Who else was with them? They're not equal to us," Anthony pointed out darkly. If they had been included in the first place, maybe this wouldn't have happened. It was easy enough for Anthony to ignore the fact that he hadn't been able to pinpoint where the fog had come from, or what had infected his wife. He couldn't accept responsibility for any of this, but he sure as hell could place blame. "I can't even begin to wonder what the hell made them think bringing that fog back would be a good idea. But your mother has power of her own. She'll be all right until we're able to bring her back." Perhaps there was a part of him that knew she was lost. Whatever had been on the other side was stronger than he was. It had nearly killed him, if Caius was to be believed. It was possible magic had no impact where she was. Anthony sighed and rubbed his hand over his face before gesturing to the coffee machine. "Is that done yet?"
Reagan had stayed in bed after Caius and Anthony went downstairs. She knew Caius would probably need a few minutes to explain to Anthony what had happened over the past several days, assuming he was coherent enough to understand it. But after tossing and turning for a bit, Reagan slipped out of bed and grabbed her robe to pull on as she headed downstairs herself. She paused outside the kitchen, listening to Caius explain to Anthony what had happened, according to... Nic? Reagan was aware she had missed something, but it didn't sound good. Taking a breath, Reagan stepped into the kitchen, glancing between Anthony and Caius. "Is everything all right?"
In spite of his usual ego, Caius felt like he might not have been much help even if he’d been there. Anthony certainly wouldn't have, given the state he’d been in, but Caius had felt out of his depth even listening to Nic describe what had happened. Maybe he’d been able to pull something off to protect everyone ... but none of them had figured out the infection or how to help any of them, and if things had kept going as they had been, perhaps Caius would’ve ended up as a total orphan. He was turning back to the coffee maker when Reagan arrived, and that question made his throat feel tight again. Caius glanced over at his wife but not for long as he pulled three coffee mugs down and started to pour. “I got a call from Nic,” he murmured. “Something happened tonight, and all of the infected are gone now.”
Anthony was not usually one to run into a situation without thinking it through, and he would no doubt take a step back once he was fully awake and more accepting of the situation. But at the moment it felt like a personal blow that he wasn't powerful enough to fix whatever had happened. He owned this town and he was used to being at the top of the food chain. His reply was interrupted by Reagan's arrival so he remained silent as she crossed the kitchen to help Caius with the coffee.
Her hand brushed against his back lightly and she might have told him to go sit and she could handle the coffee, but Reagan knew he would want the distraction. "I heard a little," she admitted, figuring there were more important things to worry about now than her eavesdropping. "We'll try to do whatever we can to find her." She couldn't say they would find her, only that they could try. Because false promises were painful and she didn't think he would appreciate them in the moment. She thought of the others in town whom she knew were infected. This reached far and wide over the town. How would the other families handle it? Reagan could only speculate, and frankly, Caius was the only one she was truly concerned about right now.
Caius wasn’t shocked to hear that Reagan had listened to them for a minute, he would have too. She always let him take the lead when it came to dealing with his family, especially his father. It was normally something he was fairly good at, but there was something that felt unraveled inside of him at the moment and he was trying not to let it show. He thought of how Nic had told him about those dreams and his concerns about those who’d been injured in the fog, and what had he done about it? Just checked on Miriam and let it go, believed that she was fine. He’d talked to Shayna Mae, too. They’d all had those bad feelings those days, like a magical omen that something bad was coming ... and he’d left it to Nic Castell and a few of his human friends to solve it? And their only solution had been to lock all of those people up in some other dimension? Not only his mother, but Shayna Mae’s brother, Nic’s neighbor, fucking Brianna McCarthy? Who was going to tell James? “Fuck,” Caius hissed as the mug he was pouring into overflowed. He thunked down the coffee pot and reached for a towel. “I have to go out there,” he said stiffly, turning to look at Anthony, then Reagan. “Where it happened. I have to see it.”
Reagan touched Caius's arm and quietly took the towel to clean up the mess on the counter. But she was momentarily distracted by his sudden desire to see where his mother disappeared. Before she could protest, Anthony spoke up. "We'll both go." He wanted to see it too. Wanted to check and feel if there was any lingering magic, or any magic at all. They could possibly find answers that Nic couldn't provide. If nothing else, they would know exactly where this happened, which felt necessary. They weren't going to just go back to bed and shrug this off as if there was nothing they could do.
"I think that's a bad idea," Reagan said, looking between the two men as if they had both lost their minds. "At least going out there right now at this hour. You don't know for sure that something dangerous wasn't left behind. Maybe they closed that world, but what if something got away before they did and is lurking there now? You don't have a plan and you don't know what you're walking into."
“Neither did Mom,” Caius said, and his voice was more raw than he wanted it to be. He didn’t know anything about the place they’d trapped her, but neither did anyone else, and Caius wasn’t afraid of the woods. Even if it had extra monsters in it tonight. He was feeling at full power again, and even if Anthony was only halfway refreshed, they could hold their own. “It just happened, maybe it’s not too late to do something.” He gave Reagan a brief, imploring look, then turned to walk stiffly out of the kitchen. He needed clothes, more than his underwear and robe. Clothes and supplies and some other things that his mind was already busy listing off. He couldn’t do nothing, and he didn’t think Reagan would do nothing either, if it had been her mother transported into some other dangerous dimension.
Reagan set the towel back on the counter and watched him leave the kitchen. She was about to tell Anthony to use his head and stop Caius but Anthony had pushed away from the island and was already following her husband out of the kitchen. Reagan realized there was nothing she could say that would stop them from going. There had been nothing Caius could do in the fog to stop those things from hurting people, and as brutal as it was, she didn't think there would be anything he could do now either. What if he disappeared too? Why was it always something in this cursed town? Reagan rubbed her hands over her face before biting back the urge to scream in frustration. Then she headed for her bedroom, debating whether or not she should call Nic herself to get more information. Nic might not be as powerful as Caius, but he was an extremely capable witch. If he could have stopped what had happened, she knew he would have. But Reagan also knew her husband well enough to know he wouldn't be able to rest until he saw for himself that she was gone.
Reagan found Caius in the bedroom getting dressed. "If you're going, I'm going," she told him, untying her robe to slip it off. "Did Nic tell you where this happened?"
Caius didn’t strictly need much layering, but he was putting a couple of them on anyway, just in case. Anthony didn’t have much better in the way of clothes, and Caius was digging through the closet for sweaters that might fit him -- the pants definitely wouldn’t -- when Reagan came into the bedroom. He wasn’t surprised by her declaration at all, but his first impulse was still to tell her no. Caius knew that wouldn’t work, any more than her own words had worked on him. Besides, the more magic they had with them, the better. They might need her. “It was in a clearing off the road out of town,” he said briskly. “He said there were a bunch of cars left behind, so I don’t think it’ll be hard to find.” Caius realized that there might already be a police presence there, but he dismissed it just as quickly. It didn’t matter, they could deal with the cops. Especially with Anthony present.
Reagan got dressed, resisting the urge to point out that the cars would only give them a general idea. Those woods went on for miles. Who knew how far any of them had walked. For a second she considered suggesting calling her mother to help, but it was bad enough with Anthony there. Throwing her mother into the mix while Anthony was searching for his wife felt like a bad idea. It was probably better to drive Caius and Anthony to where they wanted to go and simply be there to help if something happened. "We just need to be careful about this," she said, though she knew he knew that. But right now he was running on emotion and that could prove to be dangerous for everyone. "There could be more than just... doorways out there, Caius." She was dressing in layers herself even though she could keep herself warm. She just hated this weather. "Is there anything you want me to bring? Anything we might need?"
He wasn’t thinking much about plans of action or how they would find the spot, he just felt like they would. Like there would be a trail of magic to follow or some signs they could pick up on along the way. There were spells he could do to possibly track Miriam down, but he didn’t have anything personal of hers on hand and he didn’t want to waste time going back to Overlook to find something, either. Caius cursed himself for not taking her blood when he’d had the chance, just in case. But maybe Anthony had something ... “Anything for a location spell you can think of, I’m going to take this to Dad and go grab a bag for supplies,” he said brusquely, extra clothes in his hand. Caius was aware of the potential dangers, but talking about them wouldn’t do any good. They would just have to stay alert and aware and on the defensive. Caius wasn’t worried about dangers, only about his mother. He strode out of the room and down the hall to the guest room to give Anthony the extra layers. Caius hadn’t exactly bundled him up before he’d taken him out of his house.
Anthony was aware that he didn't have many clothes there. It must have been bad for Caius not to take the time to pack him a bag, but that was all right. He would rather be alive. Honestly, he could handle the cold, but when Caius showed up at the door with clothes, he instinctively reached out to take them. "A location spell isn't likely to find anything if Castell was correct about a doorway opening." Anthony had overheard Caius tell Reagan to get what was needed for one. They would still try, but Anthony felt it pointless. "But the Obscurities... if there's something there, perhaps they'll be able to see it." If they couldn't, then Anthony felt like no other spell would be successful and Miriam was truly gone.
“We don’t know that, we don’t know anything about these doorways,” Caius pointed out shortly as he handed the extra layers over to his dad. A terrible thought crossed his mind -- getting there via location spell and finding where Miriam was supposed to be and just not being able to see or hear or reach her. Caius didn’t know much about alternate dimensions or whatever the fuck they were dealing with, and he wasn’t going to not try something. The Obscurities were at the top of his mental list, naturally, that was a given. Caius kept moving though, not eager to waste any more time talking about it, and he went into the room he’d claimed for his office-slash-workspace and found a duffel bag to start packing up a few supplies.
Anthony might have reminded him that they knew something of doorways, like the tunnel and who disappeared there without a trace, but Caius was already walking away. It was a familiar thing to witness, all that tightly controlled emotion. No doubt a trait he had inherited from Anthony. He wasn't going to fuck around with location spells. He wanted to know where his wife was, naturally, but he wanted to know more about where she was. That was assuming Castell had been telling Caius the truth. For all they knew, Castell and the others had murdered multiple people tonight and had used the portal as an excuse for their disappearance. After tugging on an extra sweatshirt, Anthony pulled on his shoes and went downstairs to find Reagan in the foyer, buttoning her coat. She had a small bag beside her as well. Their eyes met and Reagan's lips pressed briefly into a thin line.
"Let him do whatever he needs to do," Reagan said quietly, looking down at her coat to finish buttoning it. "Even if you know it won't work, even if you know she's gone. Just let him do it." Her father in law could instigate and antagonize, even with his own family. But she could tell Caius was tightly wound tonight, for good reason, and if Anthony began to argue with him later, it could get explosive and dangerous. Before Anthony could respond, she looked up to see Caius on the stairs. "We're ready. I have what we need for the location spell."
“Good,” Caius said as he descended the steps. He was sure for a second that they’d been talking about him, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out there and taking action. He’d spent too long sitting on the floor and processing, he’d wasted too much time already. It felt good to be doing something, even if in the back of his mind he suspected that something would end up being fruitless. “Thank you,” he told Reagan as he reached the door. “Let’s go.” Caius ushered them both out the door. It was cold out, still being the wee hours of the morning, and while it didn’t bother Caius in the physical sense, he found it annoying, like it was in the way. He was fine with Reagan driving, preferred it even. Caius opted to sit in the back of the car, where he could hold one of the bags on his lap and start to prep things for a quick spell once they got there. His mother was his blood, and Caius could use a sample from himself to try and locate her. He mixed a few pinches of different herbs together into a vial, then cut a tiny bit into his thumb to bleed over it, glancing up at where Reagan was going every few seconds.
Reagan didn't know exactly where she was going, only that it was right outside of town. So that's where she drove. The wind that had been beating against the house earlier had settled but Reagan still had to maneuver around some fallen branches in the streets. She could smell the magic Caius was creating and Reagan glanced up into her rearview mirror every now and then to check on him. Anthony was quiet as they drove and she was thankful for that too. Once they were on the road leading out of Point Pleasant, Reagan clutched the steering wheel, wondering just how far they were going to have to drive before they found what they were looking for. Then she remembered that Caius said Nic mentioned cars on the side of the road. And... after a few miles, the cars came into view. Several of them parked on either side of the road, but all facing the same direction. Reagan recognized Miriam's car almost immediately and she held her breath as she pulled over to park. "Are we going to try and find the clearing Nic mentioned?" she asked Caius. Anthony had already pushed open the door to climb out and was walking briskly towards Miriam's car. "We don't even know which direction to head in."
Caius spotted his mother’s car too and felt himself stiffen and his heart pick up. She’d definitely been here, and she hadn’t left with her own vehicle, so that much was true. Not that he really doubted what Nic had told him, it was just ... different to see evidence of it right in front of him. He tucked the vial of mixed ingredients into his coat pocket and left the rest of the bag as he started to get out of the car too. “We’ll find it,” he told Reagan with confidence. He was willing to bet that there was some resonance left behind that they could track, either magically or with the Obscurities. He followed his father to Miriam’s car, his eyes shifting to full black as he looked it over.
Reagan climbed out of the car, trying to figure out if she recognized any of the other cars. She knew Shayna Mae O'Reilly's brother had been hurt, but she had no idea what he drove. As Anthony and Caius investigated Miriam's car, Reagan checked out a couple of the others. Some had doors open, some were locked. Two had keys in the ignition still. It was unsettling, especially with how quiet it was out here, in the dark. Reagan hurried back across the street toward Caius and Anthony.
"Her purse and keys are still in the car," Anthony said. He knew from a logical standpoint that the car was technically "evidence" now, but he could give a rat's ass about that. He would take it back to town with him. That may look suspicious to the police and he had no doubt that they would come sniffing around to ask him questions, but frankly, Anthony didn't care. They were fooling themselves if they truly believed they held any real authority in Point Pleasant. Turning away from the car, Anthony started for the woods, following his instinct more than anything else. There was light magic on the air, but he had no idea if that had come from Castell or some other source.
Caius noted that one of the McCarthys’ vehicles was there too -- he recognized it from living next door to them for so long, and felt a weird pang in his chest. He and Brianna weren’t best friends or anything, she probably still hated him, but her kids were still young and now their mother was gone. The moment of empathy didn’t last too long though, he was too focused on his own missing family. Caius scanned the woods as Anthony started to walk. Looking through the Obscurities’ eyes, the forest was as bright as daylight to him, and he could see and feel a trail of magic leading deep into the trees. Anthony seemed to sense it too, and Caius glanced around for Reagan before he started to follow. The direction just felt right, too, and he didn’t know if that was coming from his own instincts or the spirits inside of him. He just knew it was right.
Reagan couldn't see as well as Anthony and Caius, but she stayed closed to Caius, carrying the small bag of supplies she brought in case he needed them. If Miriam was still here, a location spell should work. If she wasn't... Reagan exhaled softly, not wanting to think about that just yet. Being out in the woods at this time of night didn't scare her. It was how quiet everything was. No sign of animal life at all. The only sounds came from her increasingly heavy breathing and their footsteps on the ground, occasionally stepping on and breaking fallen twigs. But she could feel the magic as well. It wasn't malevolent or dark. Nic's, perhaps. It seemed to lead them directly to a clearing and it was there Reagan felt fire in the air. It wasn't as strong as Nic's had been, but her own magic tingled with familiarity. Brianna McCarthy, probably. No other witches in town had been affected by all of this. At least none that she knew of. "This is it," Reagan said, though she knew they already knew as much. They would be able to feel the magic too, probably stronger than she could.
The air seemed to shimmer to Caius as they stepped into the clearing, his enhanced vision almost able to see the magic there. He recognized Nic’s watery presence, and got a dimmer sense that Brianna McCarthy had been there too. He already knew that, of course, but it was a different sense of knowing. The other things Caius felt weren’t magic though, but there was something ... slightly rotten, in the air. Much more musty than a forest in winter should have been. The snow looked largely undisturbed, but Caius suspected that was probably Nic’s magic at work as well. As he gazed around he clearing, he started to see something else ... it was like a nebulous line of smoke, shifting into and around itself like gauzy material underwater. It arched overhead from one side of the clearing to the other, fading in and out here and there. Caius walked further into the center of the clearing and turned around to stare up at it. It disappeared against the night sky, but he could see it against the backdrop of the trees, like a smudge on his vision. “I can see where it was,” he murmured.
Reagan saw nothing, but she stayed put, letting the two men examine whatever it was they had spotted. It was a bit unnerving with their eyes as black as the night, but it wasn't the first time she had seen Caius's eyes go dark, and she knew it wouldn't be the last. The Obscurities were powerful beings... entities... demons... whatever the hell they were. Thinking about them now made her insides sting, a lingering effect of when Caius had sent them into her body. There had been fog on the ground then as well. Reagan knew this hadn't been the same kind of mist, but it had certainly been more dangerous. She clutched her bag more tightly against her shoulder, waiting.
Anthony could see what Caius was talking about and frankly, he was fascinated rather than disturbed as he probably should have been. A doorway had been opened right in front of them not too long before they arrived. Who knew where it led to, or where his wife was now. All he knew for certain was she was on the other side. Not even the Obscurities could breach whatever door had been closed. He knew the people who would want to know about this place. They would want to know who had been involved. "She's gone, Caius," Anthony said finally, sparing his son a glance. "You can perform whatever spell you feel you need to. But if she's in there, we can't get to her."
Now that he was there, looking at what he could see of what had happened, Caius knew Anthony was right. His magic couldn’t penetrate whatever barrier had been temporarily breached. Just like he couldn’t talk to the dead, he wouldn’t be able to reach Miriam in there. She was on another plane. Fuck. “There has to be something,” he said haltingly as his intellect warred with his burning desire to do something. They’d been able to fix everything else that had been thrown at them, they couldn’t just give up on this. Couldn’t give up on his mother. “The girl -- Jules Cooper, she’s the one who -- we can get the girl and make her open it back up. And-- and we can get Mom, and then close it again.” If anybody could survive over there, wherever ‘there’ actually was, it was his father and himself. They could go find her, rescue her.
"You're not going in there," Reagan said suddenly, her fingers curling more tightly around the strap of the bag in her hand. "I'm not letting you do that. Do you think they would have closed that doorway with your mother in there if they'd had any other choice? She wasn't herself, Caius. She was killing your dad." Her eyes ticked to Anthony, waiting for him to back her up on this. He was still staring at the space in front of him, his head tilted up as if whatever it was he was seeing spanned the entire sky. Hell, maybe it did. It was intriguing, no doubt, but also terrifying. Who knew what was over there beyond what the fog had brought to them. "And what if making that girl open up another doorway just releases everything they had to trap in there? What if it's worse?" Reagan wished she had a solution, or a suggestion, or something to ease his mind. But she didn't. "What if it closes with you inside of it? We'll think of something else. But what you're suggesting is borderline suicidal."
Caius knew she was right, but he still wanted to scream at her to shut up. This was his fault, he hadn’t acted soon enough, he hadn’t taken it seriously enough. He surely could’ve done something, especially once he knew Anthony was out of commission. Miriam had been saying that Nic Castell and the others were out to get her, and he’d thought she was delusional, but who had locked her away in another fucking dimension? Caius’s hands came up to his temples and he pressed in against them and shut his eyes for a moment to get himself under control before he completely exploded on the people who didn’t deserve it. Nic probably didn’t deserve it either. It was one of those impossible situations and what had he done to help? Fuck all. “Fuck,” he hissed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Caius’s fingers fisted tightly in his dark hair before he let his arms drop to his sides. There had to be something else they could do. He didn’t think opening the portal again was avoidable, if they were going to get Miriam out, but maybe they could think of something where he didn’t have to go in. Caius glared at the ghostly doorway remnant, silently promising it that he would be back. He’d conquered so much, he could conquer this too.
It was instinctual to want to go to Caius and comfort him, but Reagan knew him well enough to know when to stand back and let him work through his emotions. She wasn't trying to discourage him and she didn't want him to give up on his mother. But there was no way she was going to let him risk his life by re-opening that doorway and walking inside of it. It was one thing to deal with curses and magic, it was another to deal with a world they couldn't begin to understand. As it seemed like Caius understood and silently accepted what she had said, Reagan allowed herself to breathe again. She needed to talk to Nic herself, to find out exactly what happened and what he knew.
Anthony began to wander the space, looking for any other signs that there had been people here beyond the lingering remnants of magic. Reopening the door would be something that probably shouldn't be done without the right people and the right equipment. This was so much bigger now than just retrieving his wife. Anthony could feel the excitement seem to thrum beneath his skin. Point Pleasant had always been a beacon for the unknown, but this... this was a game changer. Anthony reached out to touch a nearby tree. It looked as if some of the barked had been charred... lightning, perhaps. Or Brianna's magic. He paused at the sight of some black goo dried against the bark and he touched it lightly. Not sap. Stifling his smile, Anthony stepped back and turned toward his son, his expression calm and slightly resigned. "We know where this space is now," he told Caius. "We know she was here. But there's nothing we can do right now. Not until we get some real answers. Perhaps it might be beneficial to take something from the space... a branch, a twig, dirt... snow. Something that might have residue on it. With the right magic, we may be able to learn more about where she is."
Caius’s wheels were relentlessly turning already -- what if he got the coven together, what if they could put some sort of barrier up in front of the portal that would block anything that didn’t belong in their world, and maybe a summoning spell for Miriam to draw her back ... He refused to indulge the ‘what if she’s already dead’ thoughts that muttered in his brain. He was thinking so hard about possible solutions that it took him an extra moment to process Anthony’s words. He looked around the clearing sort of helplessly. It was good advice but it was difficult for Caius to make that first move to start gathering a few things as samples. He stayed quiet as he trudged around the clearing a bit, then brought a few sticks and rocks back to where Reagan was standing so he could put them in the bag she brought. There was a little bowl in there too and he pulled that out to get some soil. His black eyes focused on her face for a heartbeat. “Sorry to drag you out here in the middle of the night,” he murmured.
Reagan opened the bag to help Caius place the items inside. Anthony's idea was a good one. They had needed Baron's bones to locate her ancestors, so there was a possibility that if anything held remnants of that doorway, they might be able to siphon some more information. She ticked her gaze up to her husband's face. She had seen his fully darkened eyes before, but she still wished she was looking into his own eyes. "You don't have to apologize for that," she told him. "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. But we'll find her, Caius." Whether or not finding her would have a happy ending remained to be seen. "What can I do? Do you want me to find some more twigs?"
Bitter cynicism was swirling inside of him, ready to blot out all of the half-baked plans that were circling each other in his head. Would they find her? Could anyone actually be of use in this situation? Caius intellectually knew the justification, but if Nic Castell had been in front of him right then, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t choke the life out of him. But there was all the guilt too -- if he’d acted sooner, done more, maybe he could’ve saved Miriam from this fate. His mother. How were they going to tell Sera? “Yeah, just ... whatever you can find,” he muttered in answer, tossing a glance over his shoulder. Anthony was over by another section of trees, presumably doing the same sort of gathering. Caius couldn’t focus on him, or Reagan, really. He moved away from her to kneel down ‘inside’ the portal area, and started digging under the snow with the stone bowl to get to the dirt underneath.
Anthony allowed Reagan and Caius to speak, to gather whatever they needed to. He made mental notes of the smaller abnormalities he found among the trees. Leaving his own magical footprint behind, so to speak, so this area could be found later. The cops would no doubt be here in the morning, searching the area. But the PPPD were fairly incompetent and he doubted they would notice the dark substance if they did end up finding this clearing. Given the amount of cars along the road, they would no doubt search the area. They might even call for volunteers. But he knew AIR worked fast. They could be in and out of this place before anyone in town was mobilized to help.
Reagan knew that they could stay warm but she was tempted to just form a circle around where they were working and breathe some heat into it. Especially as she watched Caius kneel down into the snow. She very nearly did, but she was afraid her own magic would somehow mingle with the magic left behind and taint it somehow. So instead she began to gather whatever she could. There wasn't much but as she began to explore the space, Reagan came upon a patch of ground that was covered in something dark. She crouched down to get a better look and then realized what it was. "There's blood here," she said before really thinking it over. It might have been better to take some of the dirt where it had been drying and take it home to determine who it belonged to. But she had to think the odds of it being Miriam's were low.
Caius wasn’t even feeling the cold himself, and he was too preoccupied to think about Reagan’s comfort as a fire witch. He and his father had spent quite a few nights out in even worse temperatures, training. It wasn’t a big deal. He’d gotten a decent little pile of soft dirt in the bowl in his hands when Reagan spoke again, and Caius’s head jerked up in alarm. Nic hadn’t mentioned anyone getting hurt, at least not that he remembered. He got to his feet and hurried over to where Reagan was standing, crouching again next to his wife and hovering his hand over the earth to try and get a sense of who it had come from. Caius immediately recognized that it wasn’t blood that had anything in common with his, so it wasn’t from his mother. But there was magic in it, and after a few seconds he was able to recognize it. “It’s Nic’s,” he said, looking over at Reagan with a furrowed brow. “He didn’t tell me he’d been injured.”
Reagan exhaled when Caius mentioned that it was Nic's. Not that she wanted Nic to be hurt, as they were friends, but given Nic had called Caius to tell him what happened, he was clearly all right. Still, that was a lot of blood. "It clearly didn't affect him too badly," Reagan said. Though she did wonder what had happened and who had done it to him. "I didn't see any other blood..." That didn't mean the others who were now gone hadn't been hurt. Perhaps their blood disappeared with the rest of them. "I guess the others must have put up a fight. I'll call Nic in a few hours to make sure he's all right."
Anthony hadn't found much interest in the blood once he heard it had been Nic Castell's. Instead, he finished doing what was needed, wishing he had brought his phone to send a few urgent messages. Speaking of his phone... "Caius, did you leave my phone at the house?" He had no idea if his son would have thought to take Anthony's phone when he took him from Overlook. It didn't matter either way, as he had Miriam's car and could drive straight home from this place his phone hadn't been taken to Black Cove.
Maybe it ought to be reassuring that it hadn’t been some crazy bloodbath, but only one person’s blood being present somehow made it more eerie. Obviously more had happened than Nic had told him on that phone call, but Caius guessed he couldn’t blame him. He’d gotten to the point. It wasn’t like they were friendly enough to chat away about every detail. Maybe Reagan would learn more when she called him. His attention moved to Anthony at the question, and he nodded a bit. “Yeah, I uh ... didn’t see it,” he said. “Mom was pushing me to re-do the wards on the house.” That, and he’d been worried sick about his dad, but that felt too weird to say, so Caius didn’t. Instead he straightened up and rubbed his hand on his pants, even though he hadn’t actually touched the blood. “She was so sure Nic and the others were out to get her,” Caius muttered sourly, glancing around the clearing again. They’d gotten her, all right. Motherfuckers.
Anthony nodded, ready to get out of these woods and back to his home. He wanted to see if Miriam left anything behind that might clue him in to all of this. If she couldn't, he knew people who could. AIR wasn't something he was ready to bring his son into. Soon, perhaps. Just not yet. "That's all right. I have your mother's car, so I'll take it home and check on things." Anthony turned toward Caius and Reagan again. "Your mother was being controlled by something inhuman, Caius. Look at my condition when you brought me to Black Cove. It seems likely it was spreading over the rest of the town. I don't know what Castell and the others did, but I don't believe their intent was malicious."
Reagan knew Nic well enough to know he wouldn't deliberately hurt Caius's mother unless he had to. She didn't know what had happened, or why they decided to do this, but Nic was still alive and able to explain it to them, so hopefully he would. "Maybe it wasn't your mother who was sure they were out to get her. Maybe it was... whatever had infected her speaking. If anything, Nic might be able to help us. He has answers. Once we have more detail... maybe things will start to come together."
Caius didn’t know what to think at the moment. He wasn’t going to take any action, not until he knew more, but that didn’t stop part of him from loathing Nic Castell and his lackeys at the moment. No matter what the circumstances, they’d taken his mother away, and Caius didn’t know how to deal with that. He was used to the bullshit piling on top of him now, but his mom? She hadn’t deserved any of this, nor was she equipped for it, telekinesis or no. Both his father and his wife were trying to placate and settle him down, he could tell, and he tried to let it sink in because now was not the time to freak out. His mom needed him to work, just like he had at every other huge problem they’d had this year. “Yeah,” he said tightly. “Maybe. Let’s go, there’s nothing more we can do here.” He turned to head back in the direction they’d come from.
Anthony motioned for Reagan to follow Caius, which she did. She felt tired and helpless, but she knew there was nothing they could do. Not tonight, anyway. This was something else Caius would try to solve, something else he would want to fix. And she couldn't blame him for that, but it still worried her. This didn't feel like something that could be solved by magic. That didn't mean they shouldn't try, but she worried about the path he might take. Reagan decided not to think about it too much right then. They would talk to Nic and get some more detailed answers about what happened and go from there. She carried the bag on the crook of her elbow, watching where she was walking so as not to trip and fall. Frankly, she was a bit relieved that Anthony planned to take Miriam's car back home. She might feel less tense with him out of the picture.
Anthony hadn't given up on finding his wife. If they could find a way to re-open that doorway, with or without the girl, then perhaps they would find Miriam. He just wasn't sure what the outcome would be. As they reached the road, he walked over to Caius to place a hand on his son's shoulder, gripping in a tight, but comforting manner. "We'll handle this. We know where she is, and we know who is responsible. We won't give up on her."
Caius was glad nobody tried to talk on the way back to the cars. He was too absorbed in his thoughts, in mulling over possibilities and his anger at all this and that scary hollow feeling in his chest. He’d been quite independent from his mother for a long time, but he’d always loved and felt loyal to her in a different way than he did his father. A warmer way. And now she was gone and it was his fault. He had to rescue her, he had to. He avoided Anthony’s gaze when he spoke to him, his eyes shifting back to normal. He nodded though, his jaw working open and closed a few times with controlled emotion. “No we won’t,” he muttered, giving Anthony's arm a pat. “Sure you’re feeling up to driving home?” The last thing they needed was some relapse of Anthony’s exhaustion and for him to drive into a tree or something. Though Caius knew in his heart that wouldn’t happen. That part of this particular nightmare was over.
"I'll be fine," Anthony assured him, his own eyes flickering back to their normal color. He glanced at Reagan, who was waiting patiently next to their car. "I have a few phone calls to make, people who may be able to tell me what this is. If we can't get any answers out of Nic, we'll find the girl. Don't do anything rash without consulting me first. I don't want to lose you too." That was easier said than done, he knew. Time was important, especially with Miriam over "there", wherever there was. He knew she could already be dead, but he couldn't allow himself to think that way having only just been told what happened to her. "Get Reagan and yourself home safely. I'll be in touch."
Part of Caius wanted to demand to know who those people were, what they might know about this, why hadn’t they been involved sooner -- but he knew that wouldn’t get him anywhere. He wasn’t prepared to absorb the information anyway, not right then. So he just nodded some more and very briefly met Anthony’s gaze. He wasn’t sure if his guilt was easy to read or not, but it didn’t matter. “Goodnight, Dad,” he murmured. Caius turned and walked to Reagan, glancing at the passenger side door. “Do you mind dr-- ... driving again?” he asked quietly, his voice cracking in the middle. He didn’t feel up to it, ready to crack at any second, especially since he always felt less pressure to hide his emotions from Reagan than he did with his father.
Reagan breathed a little easier when Anthony began to walk to Miriam's car. Her gaze met Caius's as he approached and she nodded, reaching up to place her hand against his cool cheek for a moment. "Of course I will." She had planned on driving back anyway, well aware that Caius probably wasn't in the best state of mind at the moment to do much of anything. Reagan opened the passenger side door for him before heading for the driver's side. She wanted to be angry that this shitty stuff continued to happen, but at some point they had to take responsibility for some of it. They were the ones who opted to stay in Point Pleasant, weren't they? Really, Reagan was just exhausted by it all. Climbing into the car, Reagan started the engine and adjusted the heat, just in case Caius was cold. "I'm sorry," she murmured, reaching over to take his hand once they were back on the road.
Caius had gotten into the car and immediately slouched low in the seat, letting his head fall back and turn so he could stare out the window. He probably looked like a moody teenager, but gods, it was all just ... so heavy. He let Reagan take his hand, lightly curling his fingers around hers, but didn’t look at her. “It’s my fault,” he muttered back. “Dad was out of commission and I didn’t know it ... Nic warned me to watch my mother’s behavior and I didn’t really ... she told me they were after her and I didn’t do anything about it ... I could’ve stopped this.” He knew Reagan would deny that, tell him that all of this had been out of his control -- and maybe she was right, but that didn’t stop the guilt from gnawing at his insides. He had no idea what it was like over there, but he’d been in that fog and he could too easily picture Miriam in a freezing, desolate, blinding place full of shadowy monsters. What real chance did she have? Did food and water even exist over there? Could she even breathe the air? How fucked up was it that quick suffocation seemed like a mercy compared to everything else he could imagine?
Reagan thought of Gavin Lucas, asking about his son. She swallowed hard and wondered if he had been out in those woods too, with Miriam. Had they all failed? "You don't know that you could have stopped this," Reagan said, keeping her eyes on the dark road ahead. "You said Shayna Mae's familiar felt something dark in her brother. Something non-magical. This wasn't a worldly thing we could find a magical solution for, Caius. And it escalated so quickly. The entire town was starting to suffer. This wasn't your fault... it was the fog, and whatever came with it. It was so strong it even put your father out of commission. They needed to... open a doorway to fight it. You're powerful, Caius, but you can't put all of this on your shoulders. We'll do everything we can to find her."
It was all what Caius expected her to say, but he still tried to listen. He wasn’t an all-powerful god ... though he now considered himself more powerful than most of the other witches in town, considering his bloodline. Maybe his half-demonic nature would protect him if he did have to cross through that portal ... but who knew. Reagan was right, it hadn’t protected Anthony from whatever Miriam had been doing to him. He felt so conflicted inside about all of this. This fucking town, always taking and taking and taking from them. Caius rubbed his free hand over his face. What were they going to tell Sera? The truth, he assumed, but he so didn’t want to deal with it. Caius knew he would break the news to her more gently than his father would, though, so maybe he ought to be the one. “We’ll do everything we can,” he murmured in agreement, though he didn’t sound like he had much hope for that.
Reagan knew Caius probably didn't believe her. And she didn't have the right words to make any of this better. She didn't think there were words to make this better. All Reagan knew was that she had to help where she could, because there was no way she was going to let Caius enter some other dimension blindly... or at all. They didn't know a thing about that place, or what was there. Maybe Nic would be able to help fill in some of the blanks. Reagan squeezed his hand gently as they drove back towards home. All she could do was hope Caius listened to his father and held back on doing anything rash. Now wasn't the time to bring it up, or tell him what to do. He needed time to process what had happened before they could discuss this rationally. Sighing softly, Reagan brought Caius's hand up to her lips where she pressed a soft kiss against his fingers.
There was nothing anybody could say to make anything better. Caius was still trying to wrap his head around what he knew intellectually, and there would surely be rough days ahead. Unless they came up with some miracle solution, he would have to accept that his mother was gone, and that seemed impossible at the moment. Why did everything keep happening to them? Why hadn’t they all left this fucking place a long time ago? All impossible questions, especially under the heavy blanket of weariness that had settled over him. He rubbed his thumb against Reagan’s hand as she kissed it gently. He didn’t feel like talking anymore. If he couldn’t go grab the Cooper girl to make her open the hole again, he just wanted to go home and crash out. His father was going to make some mysterious calls and get back to him, so his hands felt tied. Caius had the unhappy sinking feeling that this was once again just the start of a storm of bullshit to come.