Requiem (7)   For the angels who inhabit this town, although their shape constantly changes, each night we leave some cold potatoes and a bowl of milk on the windowsill. Usually they inhabit heaven where, by the way, no tears are allowed. This hadn't gone well. In fact, he couldn't imagine how it might have gone worse. Scratch that. She could be standing in front of him with a razor to her wrist, a gun to her head, a fistful of pills spilling from her palm to slide down her throat in an easy swallow - testing every instinct he had; every skill he'd learned in those mandatory medical emergency courses the department required him to take. She could be backing toward the window, the bathroom door, the drawer in her desk that carried one final means of escape. She could be killing herself right before his eyes and, yes, that would be worse. Instead she'd settled on simply killing him. He tried to pass the box of tissue to her but she wouldn't take it from his hand. She made him drop it at the edge of the bed and forced him, with an accusatory sniff, to pull his three steps back. And it occurred to him then, quite suddenly, that somewhere in the midst of this miserable confrontation he'd lost his right to console her; she'd revoked his license to heal. He was a criminal now, a common thief - her legitimate enemy, her foe. And because he loved her as much as he did, as hard as he did, he fell hostage to the pain of that transition. I'm your hero, Maxie, don't you remember? I'm your knight, your giant, your ace in the hole. For God's sake, I'm your dad. Though he yearns to, he won't say this aloud. She'd just use it as ammunition. "He had family, Maxie. People who loved him. We have to think of them." "The way they thought of him?" she disclaimed, her words still wet from the tears she'd shed for the last ten minutes. She coughed to clear her throat and the voice that emerged bristled with accusation. "They didn't even bother to come for the funeral. There were three of us there, Mac. Three! And not one of us was related to him. Do you remember Mrs. Quartermaine's funeral? How many people showed up for that? Robin came all the way from France!" "Lila Quartermaine was a pillar of the community. She lived here for years, long before you were born. It's not the same," he declared, trying to ignore the thorny recognition that he'd gone from Dad to Mac. "Okay, okay," challenged his daughter, her vulnerable face growing sterner; obstinate in dispute. "Nikolas Cassadine's memorial service. He wasn't even dead. The church was full and he wasn't even dead!" "Nobody knew that, Maxie," he contended, brushing the comparison aside. "And besides, Nikolas wasn't running from the law. Zander was." A faint warning bell sounded in his head. This was dangerous ground for them; this was where things got slippery. He softened his approach and tried his best to offer the facts in a sympathetic light. "Zander burned a lot of bridges in those last few weeks. You know he did. C'mon, Maxie. He was holed up in the basement of the Port Charles Hotel with a bullet in his leg and no one to help him but you." "And his dad. His dad was there, too. His dad who's dead, by the way." With this she collapsed behind another wall of tears and he into another well of helplessness. It was a solitary grief. That was the problem. He could see it as clearly as the bears on her bed, the posters on her wall, the ridiculous mobile of glittered balls that was destined to take out an eye. Damn that kid for going down alone, for alienating every friend he had; any friend who might have shared this loss; who might have helped to comfort his wounded child. Instead he'd left her this bone-crushing legacy of utter isolation - unaccountably abandoned in her grief; alone in her defense of a life and a death that were very nearly indefensible. And the harder she tried to be loyal to that loss, the lonelier she became. It was Maxie Against The World now, even if it wasn't, even if this had never been the case. It was what she saw. It was what she believed. Wait. Hold on. There were three people at that funeral, right? Three. That's what she said. "I didn't know you went to his funeral," he confessed, thinking if he could just get a name, if there were just one person he could call - someone to come and relieve this grief, to help lift the burden he could not - she might have a shot at closure. "That must have been pretty hard." "Funeral, yeah," she accorded on a single, shuddering breath. "He went straight from the hearse to his grave. No church. No service. I had to beg Father Coates to come and say a prayer. Can you call that a funeral? Probably not." Jesus. Where was I? That's right, that's right. The hospital. "Wait a minute. Where was Ric?" Because there was protocol for this. The family and friends of anyone killed by the police received special consideration when it came to processing and funeral arrangements. It was a courtesy extended as a matter of course by every member of his department; a small recompense for the unfortunate necessity of taking a human life. Community Relations should have been called, burial assistance rendered, counseling offered if there was a need. Someone dropped the ball. "Ric Lansing? You've got to be kidding." It was the first smile she'd gifted him today, and he wasn't sure he liked it. "He was way too busy comforting Emily, looking high and low for the brand new love of her life. You can't curry favor from the dead, Dad. Only the living. And Mr. Lansing knows that." The air left his lungs in a troubled whoosh, in part for the massive screw-up but most for the hardened cynicism he found in her voice. He cared for it just about as much as he cared for that jaded smile. "Well, I'm sorry, honey. Ric should have helped with the service. It's part of his job." "Doesn't matter," she whispered softly, stacking crushed tissues in a pile at her side. "It's not like we could afford it, even me and Gia combined. We were lucky Mrs. Roscoe bought a coffin for him or else he'd be buried in a wooden box and I just...I can't even think about that." His head shot up abruptly. "Hang on. Faith Roscoe was involved in this? You talked to Faith Roscoe?" "She said no man she'd taken to bed was going to rest on less than silk," his daughter mused, as if she hadn't heard him. "I think she felt a little guilty. I'm not sure for what. She kept insisting he was too smart to be dead. That it was stupid of him to be dead. Like he'd let her down or something. I don't know." His jaw tensed, his hands balling into fists at his thighs. He knew it was wrong - he knew it was wrong - but there comes a time when what you know can't stand against the force of what you feel. And as his shock flared into outrage, he could tell this was one of those times. "That's not news I want to hear. I'm not happy about this, Maxie," he cautioned, his tone hinting at his fury. "Nope," she replied lightly, glancing up at his reddening face. "There's not much here to be happy about, that's for sure." He saw the chance she was giving him deep inside those eyes; the tentative request she was making that he calm himself and recover her trust. Don't disappoint me, Dad, it said. Not like this, not like all the rest. And he tried, God knew, he tried. He tried to press them down, these appalling visions of a psychopathic Faith with her guns and her goons and her gift for the grift. He tried to push it back, this slideshow presentation relentlessly unfolding in his head - Faith in handcuffs, Faith in prison blues, interrogated Faith, unrepentant Faith, Faith who poisoned, Faith with blood on her shoes - but his memory's cartridge kept turning in an unstoppable variety of views. And when he thought about his baby, his grief-torn child, standing at a grave beside her, close enough to touch, to hear her inappropriate hypersexual truths, that's when he blew. He was a father, after all, and he was completely convinced this was exactly what any good father would do. "That's it. The boxes go," he pronounced with a potent paternal power. "Dad," she wailed in a voice so stricken by this betrayal it threatened to trounce his will. "End of discussion," he seethed, commanding himself to go deaf to her words; an act made all the more difficult by the miserable look in her eyes. He forced himself to turn his back and stalk to the door. "I'll make the arrangements tomorrow. It's time to put this in the past." Outside the room he met another set of eyes, mystical eyes; the tragic eyes owned by his wife...ex-wife...the woman in his life who kept forgetting this was true. Helpless. Pitiful. Modestly accused. What was she trying to convey? Forget it. He'd only be confused. "She will come down to dinner, Felicia. I don't care what you have to do." Maximillian is not a woman's name. It wasn't, was it? No. No, she was sure about that. She thought she was sure. Yes, she was sure. She was positively, almost positively certain. It couldn't be, could it? Well, it could she supposed, although what kind of mother would saddle her daughter with a name like Maximillian? Pure social sabotage. It was...it was absolutely unthinkable. So why was she standing here thinking about it? Damn, there goes the grip; the thrust of purpose she'd been forced to impose to make it from the car to the door. Mad luck this. Such a twisted kind of luck to find he'd taken this particular house, this specific cottage in the woods. Her baby had been here, her blessed joy, her tiny bundle of bliss - cooing in the arms of a boy who'd been shot right where she was standing. Oh my God, she started in a fluster, scanning the porch board at her feet. Is that blood? She toed it with her shoe. A leaf. A leaf. Only a leaf and breathe. Good grief, there was a witness here. What's your name? What's your name? And don't even try to tell me it's Maximillian. "Alexis Davis," she announced, happily surprised to find a tone of voice that was every inch of it business. "Attorney for the Cassadine Estate. I've come to speak with Maximillian Cassadine. Is he here?" The woman whose name could not be Maximillian was staring at her with a narrowed eye. That's right, show's over. Move along, lady. Let's get this introduction in gear. It's not like they couldn't both hear the sound of a television on inside, the pronounced click of a VCR, the whirr of a rewind, the distinct repetition of voices. Unless she could do this telekinetically, it was clear someone else was at home. "Maxim, you have a visitor." The woman stepped back from the door, her gaze still locked on this intruder. I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. She smiled smugly at the watchdog, tempted to stick out her tongue, but instead slipped past like the adult she was and strode confidently into the house. She spotted him immediately - well, the back of his head on the couch anyway - and waited at the top of the three small steps for an invitation down into the room. He obviously needed a minute. Because he obviously hadn't been expecting her. Which obviously gave her the edge. Which she tried not to look too proud about. Which was hard to do because he was a Cassadine, and catching a Cassadine off-guard like this was worth a bit of visible conceit. Okay, maybe more than a bit. A pert little tug brought her suit coat straight; a brush of her fingers the lint from her skirt. Perfectly perfect perfection, she thought, as her eyes rose up to check on him again because, really, this was verging on rude. Would you look at that? I remember that jacket. A white pin-stripe I adored. Beautiful line. Beautiful me. What am I doing on television? And with the touch of a button he gave her a voice. "...Yes, Luke..." "...You are the defendant's sister?..." "...Yes..." "...Is it fair to say that you loved him?..." "...Very much..." "...You're a liar! You loved me when it was convenient for you..." The tape paused on the scorned expression of a captive Stefan Cassadine as her host finally rose from his seat. "I'll bet it's quite convenient to love him now. That was you, wasn't it? Alexis? Natasha? Which do you prefer?" he inquired, waving her down to his side. "Would you like some tea? I have tea and questions. One question in particular. Come. Come, join me." "Where...?" she stammered, frozen in place. "Where did you get that?" He seemed puzzled by the question and bent to the table to retrieve the cardboard case. "Captain Jack's Video," he read from the label, then spun the cover to show her its face. "Cassadine Takedown. Misleading title. It suggests a violence that never appears. There were six of them left," he informed her, tossing the sleeve into a small brown box he lifted for her to see. "I bought them all. A dollar ninety-nine apiece. Quite the bargain for a genuine slice of Cassadine family history, don't you think?" Was he being sarcastic? She couldn't tell. "Those...those are illegal." "I'm afraid you'll have to take that up with the distributor. I did purchase them. I have a receipt. Ms. Davis," he enjoined, "or should I call you Mrs. Lansing? Please. Please," he encouraged, approaching to escort her down the stairs. "My curiosity is driving me insane." She ignored the hand he extended and blindly took the steps, her gaze unwilling or unable to leave the image of her brother's face. A hard day for them both. Wrong. It had all gone wrong in the end. She drifted to the sofa and gripped its arm, engulfed by the memory, and found herself annoyed by the voice of this stranger who refused to stop talking. "For instance, this fellow here," he directed, rewinding the tape a number of frames. "This would be...?" "Zander," she acknowledged in a whisper, her head tilting to the side. "I...I'd forgotten he was there." "Ah," he replied brightly. "Mr. Conflict Of Interest. Okay." "Excuse me?" she retorted, breaking away as the tape went skipping forward. "What did you call him?" "It was my understanding you couldn't represent him in the last weeks of his life. Not and retain your position as attorney to the Cassadine Prince. A terribly awkward situation all the way around. And here," he announced, calling her attention back to the screen. "This is the great Luke Spencer. A friend of yours, they say." "Who?" she challenged sharply, never one for games and distinctly unamused by his. "Who is 'they'? If you have a question I suggest you simply ask it. I can assure you I don't need a visual aid." "Perhaps not, Ms. Davis, but I do." His voice had grown soft and serious, his eyes hard as stone, and for the first time she noted that she needed no proof this man was a legitimate Cassadine. So familiar yet not. A breath away; a seed betrayed, the fruit of a neighboring branch on her illustrious family tree. Arrogance. Elegance. Intelligence. Greed. All of it was there to be detected. All of it was there to be seen. "Not as prosaic a business for you as I imagined it would be," he continued in a solemn tone. "Please accept my apologies. I will, of course, move on to the question whose answer I desire most. Once resolved, you may ask me anything you wish. Does this meet with your satisfaction?" "Depends on the question," she allowed, her suspicion on full alert. "I won't force you to answer it, Natasha. No one is holding you hostage. You may leave now, if you like." "Ask your question," she snapped, ready to reserve her right to withhold any information she chose. Two could play this game, and it wasn't as if she hadn't studied at the feet of the master. His lips pursed as he nodded, already rewinding the tape to its start. Once the recorder jolted to a halt, he set the machine on Play and muted the sound so it unwound before them in silence. "I'm missing the substance of the threat, you see," he remarked, cocking his head toward the screen and indicating she should do the same. "Clearly you're all being held against your will, but as the tape omits the start of these proceedings there's no way to know how he keeps you there. Here, you can tell. The camera is fixed. Our view is static. I had hope when the boy arrived and was given the job to shoot the scene. While his pretension made the angles slightly erratic, he did provide a better scope of the room. Still, I'm missing it." "Missing what? I don't understand the question." "Well...," he responded, a bit perplexed, "I simply don't see it. Why you're all just sitting there like discontented sheep. Oh, you advance a few protests, it's true. But what keeps you down in the chair? What draws you up like puppets on a string? Where was his control? Did he have a gunman in the wings? Were there explosives on the premises? Was he holding some invisible hostage? How did he manage to acquire such easy acquiescence? There must be a force in play here that completely eludes me." "We were locked in that room," she explained, finding his inquiry slightly perverse but innocuous enough to respond to. "And Luke was on a roll. You don't know the man. I do. He was going to go through with this whether we agreed to it or not." "You were locked in the room," he echoed, his expression suddenly occluding, as if a shadow had stolen its way across the features of his face. "All right. Let's forget for a moment that there are one, two, three, four...five of you there," he said, clicking them off from a group shot of the scene. "All relatively young and in apparent good health. Let's also forget our fledgling filmmaker has managed to find his way in. And I will give you, as well, the ringmaster's charismatic sway. This still does not explain why the relatives of Stefan Cassadine - his closest family members in the world - permitted this debacle to be televised for all the town to see. Certainly you knew of his manifest investment in appearances; his profound respect for the prestige of the Cassadine name; the reputation he so resolutely labored to uphold? How could this be any less than hell for him? The sheer disgrace of this ridicule. The scathing shame of his sins being put on universal display. Shouldn't someone have taken that camera and smashed it to the floor? Give your clown his moment, if you must, but to allow the public to witness this? What could you possibly, possibly have been thinking?" "He deserved it," she proclaimed, remembering his crimes, remembering his lack of contrition. "Did he? Did he?" She thought she saw a fiery spark flicker like a mote in his eye, but it was doused before she could be sure. "Well, that would be another question and I promised only one." "Listen...," she began, her anger rising. "No. No. We're done," he declared, shutting off the tape and television in firm confirmation. "I'm sure there are answers you would like from me. We'll move on to that, shall we?" Just then a cell phone sounded on the farthest cushion of the couch. He bent to recover it, motioned for a minute and took the call. "Hello? What? Max? Wait...wait, I can't understand you..." His head rose as he pressed the receiver to his chest. "I'm afraid I'll have to take this. If you leave your card you have my word I will call and set up a meeting. I apologize, but this appears to be a matter of the utmost importance." He gestured to the woman emerging from the kitchen and swept his finger toward the closed front door, which she crossed to and promptly opened. Having lost her choice in the matter, Alexis fished through her briefcase for a card and remounted the stairs. Placing her number in the watchdog's palm, she asserted bluntly, "If he doesn't call you will let him know that I'll be back?" Maximillian's snapping fingers drew them both around again and they watched as he bent to his box to withdraw a copy of that illegal tape, tossing it end-over-end through the air into the open hand of his housemate. The woman pressed it firmly into Alexis' grip and ushered her out the door. "I can't...I can't believe you did this..." "Max, I want you to take your time. I'm not going anywhere. Just take your time and tell me what's happened." He cast a worried glance across the room and shook his head in confusion. "I trusted you! I told you they were mine! I thought you understood." Her words came garbled through tears so fierce they threatened to end all hope of a decipherable conversation. "I don't understand, Max. Tell me what you mean. What are we talking about?" "Zander's things! You told my father you wanted them back...how...how could you do that?" "Max. Max, listen. I don't know what's going on here but I can assure you I never approached Dr. Jones. I never asked him for anything." An odd silence ensued. He thought she'd broken the connection until a sniffle sounded at the end of the line. "Tony Jones is my uncle. Mac Scorpio is my dad." He slumped against the couch, his fingers raking furrows through his hair. Damn. Damn and damn. "I had no idea. I'm sorry. I'm so sincerely sorry. What would you like me to do? Should I call him?" "No! No, don't do that. He's made up his mind. Nothing's going to change it now." A deep sigh. He closed his eyes. "I'll do whatever you like, Max. I'm leaving this in your hands. You're in charge. Tell me how you want to handle this and, I promise you, that is how it will be done." He will never survive this, she thought, as she made her way back through the kitchen door. Oh, he will say she is grieving; he will insist she is the only one. But there were two here now. Two. And who would bother, even in an idle, sentimental moment, to offer an apology to him? Requiem (8)   They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease, Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine, They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine, Mourning the old glad days before they knew What evil things the heart of man could dream, and Dreaming do. "I thought you had a class this morning." "It's not important," she whispered in his ear, her arms diving over the chairback to snake along the muscles of his chest. "Just a lecture. Someone's making me a tape." "Can you become a doctor by tape these days?" he inquired softly, clamping the hand that threatened to slip beneath the buckle of his belt. "I don't want you neglecting your studies. You lost too much momentum when I was in jail." "Working to get you out," she professed in a neat double-entendre as her fingers fell to fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. "No. No, we're not doing this today." He took her other wrist and unwrapped her arms, passing them back over his head. "I feel guilty enough. Please go to class, become a doctor, turn rich as Croesus and keep me well." "Ah, I see," she sang knowingly. "You're dreaming of a future as a kept man." "Yes I am." And with that he plunged back into the market; leaning over the desk to peer at his computer, noting the current price of his stock and factoring the hedge against the margin call. He had very little left to liquidate. The Estate's portfolio, once three inches thick, had grown so laughably small. Just a meager list of frantic scribblings. Ludicrous. Abysmal. Soon enough what he'd told the government would be nothing less than fact. And then, well, she wasn't going to like it when Wyndemere was lost to property taxes and that magnificent Arabian wedding gift of hers was taken from his stall. He didn't have the heart to explain it to her; he was convinced she wouldn't understand. She'd just paint it up in pastel colors like the rest of the losses in his life. That, or offer him a loan his pride would never permit him to take. He couldn't keep losing. He wouldn't keep losing. Fate, the bitch that she'd been of late, definitely owed him a win. "I suppose I prefer the classroom to feeling this...extraneous," she pronounced, tempting him again to offer an affection that might serve to argue the point. When it didn't arrive she sighed. "And you'll be at this all day, I suppose?" "Actually no," he responded, still staring at the screen. "Alexis should be here any minute. She met with our Cassadine last night and I want to hear her impressions." "Oh!" his wife cried excitedly. "I want to hear that, too!" "I'll make you a tape," he allowed, his mirth betrayed by half a smile she wasn't close enough to see. "It's not the same." "No, it isn't, is it?" He took the shove she gave him and broke into a grin, catching her shirt by the collar to pull her down for one quick kiss. "You're not extraneous," he assured her. "Just distracting. Now go!" "Yes, Mr. Cassadine. I'm leaving, Mr. Cassadine. You don't have to tell me twice." She rounded the desk and backed to the door, blowing him a string of kisses. "I love you, Mr. Cassadine," she said, turning just in time to avoid colliding head-on with his aunt. "Alexis! Hello. He's all yours." And she bounced blithely from view. "She's certainly chipper in the mornings. I'd pay to know how she manages that." "She gets a full night's sleep, Alexis. Something the Cassadines might like to try." He closed the site on his computer and levered himself from the chair. "Mrs. Landsbury's taken the day. Can I offer you a drink?" "Nikolas, it's ten AM..." "In my experience when people start quoting the time their answer is no." He drew a glass forward on the bar, poured his vodka and added a splash from the carafe of orange juice to honor the early hour. "You saw him, then?" he confirmed, nodding his head toward the long gold sofa in suggestion that they sit. "Tell me." She glanced from the glass he carried to his eye and waived further comment, choosing instead to sink to the couch in weary resignation. "Lucky was right, he's taken the cottage. There's a woman with him. I have no idea what position she holds. Housekeeper? Assistant? Lover? She could be his pet assassin, for all I know." "How did he introduce her?" "He didn't," she remarked wryly, shifting as he took his seat by her side. "We skipped the introductions and went straight to film critique. Nikolas, are you aware there are videotapes of Stefan's mock-trial being sold in stores as we speak? Just out there on the market, for anyone to buy?" "It doesn't surprise me. Luke's always been a profiteer, although I heard somewhere that he planned to sell them on the internet. I'm assuming he had one?" "Maximillian? Yes. Yes, he was running it. This doesn't bother you? I mean, apart from the fact that it's illegal...I know I didn't sign a release, did you?...there's the question of propriety. The man is dead. Whether he was purposely pushed, accidentally tossed or intentionally jumped over that cliff, you can't ignore the fact that Luke was with him when it happened. And here you've got a tape of the both of them doing their nasty little war dance a week before he died. I just...I think we owe him more than that. The man should be allowed to rest in peace. I don't care what he put us through, no one deserves to have their worst moments sold and endlessly replayed by any Tom, Dick or Maximillian after they've been lowered into the ground. Don't you agree?" Nikolas sighed heavily, unwilling to be dragged into a fruitless debate. "Honestly, Alexis, I don't care. What concerns me is the point the man was trying to make. He shows you the tape and...what? What's his angle? What did he want?" "Well, he wanted to know why," she shot back irritably, her features creased in agitation. "He wanted to know why we allowed that farce to be broadcast in the first place. I told him we didn't have a choice in the matter but you know what, Nikolas? We did. So I didn't have a leg to stand on. Add to this my complete and utter ignorance that there existed a tape to begin with, a tape that was being sold and had been sold right under our noses, and I looked like pretty much of a fool. And I don't like looking like a fool." "What I want to know, Alexis," he contended, summoning the last vestige of his patience, "is who this Maximillian Cassadine is. Forget the tape. The tape is meaningless. What else did he have to say?" "Nothing," she countered defensively. "He got a call. I don't know from whom. He said 'Max', but that's his name and probably the result of a bad connection. He asked me to leave and I left. He's supposed to get in touch with me to set up a meeting, and I hope he calls today. I'd like to pass him the paperwork on Stefan's death. See if I can forestall this hearing. Which is tomorrow, by the way. Do you want to come?" "Where? To the meeting or the hearing?" "Either. Or both?" "Unless you need me there..." he offered, noting the press of her lips and the negative shake of her head, "...then no. Those are scenarios he's put into play. I'll meet him on neutral ground if I have to, but I'd prefer a circumstance I can control. I'd like to avoid it altogether, but I don't get the feeling he's going away. Not without what he came for, whatever that turns out to be. And the longer we wait to find out, the weaker our position becomes." His wife, who had lingered in the hallway by the door, was at this moment overcome by a brilliant idea. Or perhaps it was her grandmother's brilliant idea, should she think to give credit where credit was due. It was certainly the tack Lila Quartermaine would take, although the method of its implementation might be something she would reprove. Yet eagerness, she'd known, was a fault one had to forgive in the young. And remember, she'd suggest in her careful voice, they never fail to pay for it. Sadly, this was true. She'd been found and she knew it. Found in the way someone will always find you with a question; that question like a compass tracking down its pole, tracking down the destination of its answer. And answers she had, it couldn't be denied. Dozens of them. Hundreds. One for every year of every life she'd lived. And how many lives were those? There once was a man who knew, a man who'd made it his business to know. But he was gone now, gone to the Gate. Gone to linger at the great front gate of Heaven, waiting to be read the list of his crimes. He'd taken that answer with him, to be sure. That answer and a part of her heart and a part of her reason to be living as well. He was a greedy man, for all that. Splendidly avaricious when it came to the acquisition of love. She kept her eye on St. Michael, though she knew she was being watched. Still as stone in the pew of the chapel, she kept her eye on the face of this angel who guarded over her family. The patron saint of princes in battle, and when were they not? Stavros had embraced him with a warrior's thirst. Stefan, the more reticent of the sons, had sidled in from the side; gauging the value of the veneration of an endless cycle of war. In the end, though, he'd come around. In the end he'd come to recognize that all of it was war, whether one clutched a weapon or not. St. Michael understood. St. Michael, gilded gold and carved into the nave of the Cassadine chapel, had always understood. In some ways, she thought, he was more of a father than Mikkos had ever been. Steady. Stoic. Silent and strong. Watch over him now, blessed Michael. Embrace his soul and grant him peace. Amen. "I didn't sit until I came to this country," she remarked in a whisper that slipped down the aisle to the shadow breathing in the vault before the chapel's arching door. "Our Eastern churches had no benches, no pews. We stood, penitents that we were, and worshiped on the balls of our feet." "Petersburg has such a church, Mother. He will take you there. You have only to ask." Mother. The old honorific bestowed on women whom, it was assumed, had aged into wisdom. Fair enough. "We had a screen. A Festive Tier with an icon for every Feast Day. There," she directed, lifting her finger toward the empty space beside the altar. "We had Feodor's Virgin, and Hodegetria's, and Boguloskaya's, and that of the Tichvine set into the walls, there and there. And a traveler's icon, an enameled reverence of Christ's Transfiguration belonging to Tsar Nicholas II, rested in that apse from the day we arrived." All were absent now, of course. Sold by the girl to maintain the Estate. Or was it simply to pay the lawyers? "It is still a serviceable chapel, but once it was quite fine." "And the priest still comes, does he? Receives your confession? Tosses his bread?" As if I were a bird, his flock of one. "Less and less," she conceded, restraining her judgment of a master who had married out of the faith, who had lost all interest in this. "But it is not my soul you are concerned with. Come, ask your question." Stealth was to be expected, it was a prerequisite for those admitted into the Cassadine fold, and so she was not at all alarmed when the voice that had echoed through this sacred chamber sounded within inches of her ear. "Is he dead?" The directness, however, was surprising. She must keep him on his toes. "What does he call you?" "Djinn, Mother. He calls me Djinn. Ifrit when he is angry, but it means the same thing." The fabric of her clothing could be heard sliding into the pew behind as she settled to the bargain. Answers, the right ones at least, were rarely given free. "And what does it mean?" "A spirit of the ancient Arabian desert, created long ago from smokeless fire. Restless. Resistant. Difficult to control. In the right hand Djinn will give you treasures beyond your wildest imaginings - yet you will pay for them eventually, each and every one." A breath was expelled on the thrust of this truth before she set it to the side. "It is not my name. Just a choice he made." And all the more informative for it. "You are close to him, then?" "There is no one closer," she declared, her tone betraying an impatience with the testing nature of these questions. "And so when the possibility arises that his father is not buried in that grave, you will admit it brings a problem. Were I to tell him this it would give him hope. As close as we are, I would not plant a seed that would harvest only pain. Of pain, he has more than his share." A somber silence descended as both women wrestled with their loyalties; the younger to the damaged heart of her companion, the older to the familial duty on which she'd rested the circumference of her life. Time developed a thickness; the atmosphere developed a weight. And the dark, variegated light shining through the stained glass windows slowly marched its sacramental shapes like soldiers across the floor. "He was brought to Wyndemere by stretcher in the dead of a cold spring night," she recalled, disregarding this stranger's need to be instantly appeased. "His father had removed him from the hospital after only two days. Three planes, a train and a van they took, thinking to obscure a trail. And he suffered for it, that child. Suffered in body and in mind." That a thoughtful man could be so thoughtless. Could one chastise a ghost? Would it know? Would it care? "Maxim bore the danger inside him, you see, and was convinced it hadn't come to an end. A conviction his father reinforced at every opportunity. It was a mercy he was rarely awake to hear it, to witness its shadow in the master's eye." So much love to be put to such destructive purpose. Her gaze fell to her hands, empty and bereft in the hollow of her lap. "He thought I was Helena at first. Thought he'd been defeated after all. As if the Dowager would sit at his bedside, content to stitch a pattern 'til the break of dawn!" The chide she brought to the words was filled with more warmth than she'd intended and she paused to retrieve a less expressive tone. Once she had it she continued on. "I was given six hours to mend what I might but managed, through sheer insolence, to extend that stay six days. He was at his wit's end with me, but it did serve to amuse the boy. He saw that, I think. Saw what was recovered, what his son was finally casting off." "He speaks of his time in the tunnels with fondness. He said he found a friend." She stiffened on the comment, unwelcome as it was. She'd never given way to sentiment before and was unlikely to start now. Her voice grew clipped, her reminiscence ending. "They left for Europe. I didn't see him again. But I kept that secret. First for the father, then for the son. It is a duty, do you understand? I keep the secrets of every Cassadine, even from the Cassadines themselves. Such trust is unassailable. Such confidence, absolute. You'd be a fool to think I'd let loose the mouse solely on the grounds that the cat has finally come a-hunting." "Then I will tell him his father lives," she proclaimed, deftly plucking the emotional string. "If he does not...? Well, then it will be you to whom I send him for this pitifully dutiful excuse. I have not asked where he lies, Mother, simply if he does. A modest measure of the truth would do. I have yet to put my hand to this business," she allowed on the edge of a predatory hush. "If and when I do, you may be certain all your mice will go running." There was something terribly satisfying in the knowledge he had a champion like this. The deep crease of her brow began to ease, the tightness of her jaw melt away. Even Helena, even Helena, might find a force to contend with here. "I grieve," she said, and nothing more, because nothing else was required.     Requiem (9)   We wish only to bury our dead. Shorn Of all but name, our indelible origin, For indeed our pride once boasted empires, Kings and nation builders. Seers... "Is this like a test?" "You want it to be a test, Fellocetti? Then consider it a test." The rookie wrestled with that idea, his expression twisting to a troubled knot as his mind tried to run the distance between the order and its intent. "You want me to follow your daughter..." "Maxie." "Maxie," the kid echoed, nodding at the name but still lost to the plan and spelling it out in confirmation. "Take an unmarked car from the pool and follow her from your house to the woods." "Not all the way to the woods," Mac repeated, for the third and what he hoped would be the final time. "To the intersection at the bottom of the hill. She goes up, you wait, she comes down. Test over. Return to the station and report." "Does she know I'll be following her?" he asked, unable to let the details sit. "Is she going to give me a grade or something?" "Let's put it this way, Tommy. She sees you and you fail. Trotsky's still looking for a body down in the property room, you know. It's not a bad job, just remember to bring a book." "Okay! Okay!" he exclaimed, slamming a lid on the questions. "When do I leave?" Mac made a pretense of looking at his watch and counting down the seconds. A finger rose to hover in the air, jacking up the suspense. His wrist flicked. "Now." The rookie launched from his office like a runner off the blocks. Maybe the bit with the watch was a mistake. Last thing he needed was a speeding ticket or the inconvenience of an accident report. But it was better if the kid arrived while she was still in the process of packing up. Get a good look at her face, at the car, and he'd be less likely to lose her in the rush. Tailing a suspect on the streets was never as easy as it sounded. You take whatever edge the circumstance presents. Not that I'm tailing my daughter, though. Just making sure she gets where she has to go. Like a worn rock wall on the seaward side of an ancient feudal fortress, he crumbled beneath the onslaught. Felicia he might have been able to repel, but when Maxie found her voice and added her earnest logic to the argument, the old grey ghost was toast. His daughter was nineteen. Nineteen? Nineteen, they repeated over and over again, pounding her age - which had to be a lie - like a cudgel against his head. This was her decision. They were her boxes. It was her choice in the end. My house, though. My garage. My Maxie, when you come right down to it. Which it did. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, and she was his, damn it. His. And suddenly this look passes over their faces, that look all independent women get, like he'd shrunk into the form of some pathetically flightless, flustered little bird poised atop the world's endangered species list. Everything that happened after that was couched as a favor they were doing him. Yes, she would relinquish the boxes, but at a time and place of her choosing. Yes, Zander's things would be leaving "his" house (in mild voices dripping with patience and not a small hint of sarcasm). Yes, she'd be making the arrangements herself. No need for him to worry about that. No need for him to worry about anything, in fact. They were bowing to his wishes, were they not? Big Daddy Mac. King of the Hearth and Household. Lord of All He Surveyed. The air had grown so thick with condescension he'd been forced to leave the table at the last, lumbering away to hunt down what he hoped was a full bottle of antacid. He fell into the chair behind his desk and dragged himself back to the job, pushing the thought of the concessions he'd made to the furthest corner of his mind. He trusted his daughter. He did. She'd keep her word. She would. And it's not like I'm tailing her, no. Just making sure she winds up getting where it is she has to go. Alexis checked her watch because, for once, she had time to check her watch. Time - that restriction of a socialized existence no one bothers to tell you is as precious as gold. Sprint through your life and all they say is: Stop. Slow down. Enjoy. Embrace. The world is all around you. She'd had a caustic laugh for that. A quip loaded up in the pistol of her wit. And who do you think keeps the world running? That would be people like me. If she took her "time", she assured them, it would definitely be at some later date, on a day when she didn't have a choice. She still couldn't get over the fact that no one let her in on the secret. No one thought to warn her that Time could (and would) disappear. Sure, when your daughter's terminally ill, when you're giving birth in the snow, when you're stuck in an elevator and the building's on fire, the specter of death would do it. But nobody thought to pass on the proof that Life could do it too. Baby-husband-breakfast-baby-work-lunch-work-errands-work-baby-husband-dinner-baby-work-baby-husband-work-sleep-baby-sleep-baby...on and on. Invisible minutes. Absent hours. Abducted days and weeks and months. Time was gone. She had no time. The only time she got to see Time anymore was in stolen moments like this, when she could manage to look at her watch. "Are we keeping you from something, Ms. Davis?" And here we go, back on the clock. "No, Your Honor. Once again, barring a criminal investigation, Mr. Cassadine prefers that the grave of his uncle remain undisturbed. We are willing to share the findings of the coroner and supply a copy of the death certificate purely as a gesture of goodwill, but as you know we are in no way obliged to disinter a beloved family member simply to prove he is, in fact, dead. Such action would inflict an undue amount of emotional distress on those who cared for the deceased and who have, for many months now, been struggling through their grief." "Their answer is no, Mr. Langston," said the judge, his head swinging to the plaintiff's table as if this were a badminton tournament, and not a very good one at that. "Far be it from me to impugn the word of my distinguished colleague, whom it behooves me to point out is the sister of the deceased and, as such, a member of the very family she so skillfully labors to protect," relayed Langston, padding his verbiage with as much bravado as a civil court could bear. "But it has come to our attention there exists the possibility the corpse in question wasn't buried in that grave at all. That Stefan Cassadine does not rest beneath a headstone at Memorial Glen, and perhaps never did." The judge snorted at this last-ditch effort at contention, his attention shifting back in full expectation of the spike. Game, set and match. "How about it, Ms. Davis?" he advanced. "Tell the man his body is down there and give us all a shot at lunch." Responses flew through her brain at the speed of illegal light. To the best of my knowledge...no, that wouldn't work. It was a lie and she was an officer of the court. As a matter of public record...too transparent. If you couldn't see through that one you were blind. Witnesses will attest...to what? There weren't any witnesses. There couldn't be. Everybody thinks so? That's what they tell me? The last time I looked? Invisible seconds ticked away. "Ms. Davis?" the judge intoned querulously, not particularly pleased. "Your Honor," she rallied, mustering every ounce of acumen she owned. "At this time I would like to request a continuance. As you may or may not know, the deceased chose to stage his death once before and we have every reason to believe Mr. Langston's is merely the first of a string of challenges the court will hear on this score. It is our desire to put the issue to rest once and for all. Rather than accept my word on the matter, allow me time to confer with my client and attempt to present a more tangible proof." "Your word is good enough for me, Ms. Davis," the judge replied solicitously. "How about you, Mr. Langston? Will you accept her word?" "I will," proclaimed the opposing attorney, canary feathers peeking from the corner of his mouth. "No, no," she insisted. "I think we can do better than that. And I'd appreciate the opportunity to try." "Objections, Mr. Langston?" "None, Your Honor. We're more than willing to give Ms. Davis whatever time she needs." "Continuance granted," announced the judge, slamming his gavel hard to its plate. "Court adjourned." She couldn't look them in the eye - not the judge or Langston or anyone who'd witnessed such an awkward display of legal footwork. Instead she bent to occupy herself with capping her pens, sorting her papers and stuffing her files back into their case; all of this accompanied by an interior monologue so ripe with profanity it chased away every calmer thought she might, on a better day, have entertained. The principals had gone by the time she turned to push through the gate and exit the room. Head still down, she didn't see him and was startled when his hand took hold of her arm, sweeping her into a shadowed corner and spinning her into his embrace. "Nice save," he murmured, fencing with her nose, his eyes sparkling in amusement. "Let me guess. Nikolas confessed." She beat her head against his shoulder in response and he tugged her closer, whispered in her ear, "God save us from clients who share." And she loved him again. Loved him still. Not so much because he understood but because, somehow, in a way she was completely at a loss to comprehend, he had managed to find the time. "You have the number, then? Good. When Ms. Davis returns from court please tell her I'm at her disposal." Maxim flipped the cell phone shut and wondered how long it would take her to call. Or if she'd call at all. Her prince now had some decisions to make, hopefully better than the one he'd made to admit to his aunt, on the brace of what was undoubtedly an oblivious moment, that her brother's grave was empty. A longer shot than most, and Djinn took it to the wire, but the result was good. The ball was still in play. Footsteps sounded on the stairs outside and he crossed to the door, opening it with a welcoming smile. "Max, hello! Here, let me take that." She recoiled from his extending hands, clutching the carton even tighter to her chest, and he could see she was on the verge of tears. He stepped back instantly, permitting her the widest berth possible. "Come," he urged in a softer voice. "Come in and put that down." She eyed him with trepidation, and the inside of the cottage with dread, but caught a breath and launched a foot stubbornly over the threshold. "Where would you like them?" she asked, then coughed to clear a closing throat. "I have four. This one, and three in the car." "The question is where would you like them, and I don't think we have to decide that now." He stepped down into the living room and motioned for her to join him. "Why don't you bring it over to the couch and set it down where you can see it? I'd like you to sit with me. I have a formal apology to make." "That's not...that's not necessary," she dismissed, her focus observably distracted, her gaze flitting over every inch of the home from door to floor to ceiling. Her expression betrayed the shift into a kind of reverential wonder, as if she'd entered the realm of a frequently re-occurring dream. "His last moments were spent in this room, did you know that? He was begging her to love him again. Asking for one last chance." Maxim approached her with caution as she slowly spun in place, edging forward to relieve her of the box as she plunged into that imagined past. "How do you know? Were you here?" "No," she responded, releasing her burden to wander the perimeter of the room. "Some of it was in the Herald and the rest was in the police report." She turned back to him with a small shame that vanished at the sight of the carton in his hands. He set it on the table with appropriate care and she resumed her pilgrim's tour. "They were too busy looking for Nikolas to pay any attention to me. The station was almost empty. It wasn't hard to find." He could envision this with ease. Her wrenching grief. Her need to know. The thousand unanswered questions. As if any one of them might be explained to the heart's satisfaction. "His family was informed he had a gun. Is this true?" "It's not what you think. First of all, it wasn't unusual for Zander to have a gun. He worked for some pretty dangerous people. He worked in a world where people wanted him to be armed, okay? And then, at the end...well, it's like little kids and their woobies," she imparted in a small, thoughtful voice, "...their blankets, you know? He'd tell you he needed it for protection, but the truth is he believed it was the only thing that kept him alive. He'd always have to find it, touch it, check to make sure it was there. It was the last thing he did at night, and the very first in the morning. Even when he had a fever, knowing he still had the gun was all that kept him calm. Where most people see it as a weapon, he saw it as some kind of magic shield. If he didn't hold onto it really tight he was convinced he was going to die. So you let him keep it," she shrugged, trailing a hand along the length of the mantel that jutted out over the hearth. "Everyone who understood what it meant to him let him keep it. Once you understood, you weren't afraid." "Do you think Emily was afraid?" he inquired softly. "Afraid he'd mess up her life, yeah," she said without a moment's hesitation. "Maybe a part of her was afraid for him, but afraid of him? Not a chance. He didn't even pull the gun until the police arrived. He never threatened her with it, never held it to her head. She told him to put it down, but he couldn't. He just had to have it in his hand, you see? He just had to know it was there. And then...and then they went out on the porch and the policemen shot him dead. When it was over they came back into the house and there was his gun, right there," she insisted, directing his attention to a corner of the floor. "He'd left his magic shield behind," Maxim observed on a troubled sigh. She was nodding now, great jerking bobs of her head, her tears falling in such profusion they spattered her blouse like drops of rain. His own tears crept up like fire - for her, for the story, for the shame of it all; for his father, for his mother, for the man with this name. And in two quick strides he had her in his arms, her head tucked tight into the crook of his shoulder, one hand stroking a back that spasmed in cruelly wracking sobs. "I'm sorry, Max. I'm so sorry," he offered in a tone laced with anguish. Her hands came around him then, clutching at his shirt, grabbing at muscle, grasping for kindness, a heart, a soul, something, anything to fill this yawning cavity of pain. Empty. They were both empty now; abandoned like houses on the edge of a field, forsaken by civilization. The world had moved beyond, the way the world always will, and left them to contend with the loss of life itself; of living, breathing human beings who had filled them up with love. Who filled them up not only with anger and conflict and endless aggravation, but laughter and warmth and affection and tranquility as well. All of that was gone; they were gone, never to return again. And almost every hour of almost every day he could feel the wind whistling through the vacancy of this existence. He knew she felt the same. She worked to catch the air to speak, her breath hitched in fits and starts. "Does...does it...does it ever end?" The scathing sorrow? The profound sense of loss? The loop of imaginative memory that replays the moment of death in your head again and again and again? "Not until you start screaming," he said, more to himself than the girl he held. His wrist came up to erase a tear that had balanced on the rise of his cheek. "I feel like screaming all the time," she acknowledged with a self-depreciating laugh. "But my family would think I was insane." She stiffened in his arms then, abruptly aware of where she was, of what she'd unconsciously done. "You must think I've lost my mind." Two of us, Max. That makes two of us. He surrendered to her need to pull away and braced himself for this additional loss. "Not at all. Not at all." "It's just that...," she struggled to explain, taking a step apart. Her hands sank into her coat pockets, pulling out keys, lip balm, a hair band and, finally, the crumpled pack of tissues. She stuffed the non-essentials back. "It's just that I haven't been here since he died, you know? Walking up those steps with his things, giving them up like this...it's all kind of hard." She gently blew her nose and began to blot the mascara from her cheek. "You're not giving them up," he pronounced, and her head lifted at the strength of his tone. "You're just storing them in a different place. That was part of my formal apology. The one you wouldn't allow me to make?" He waved her toward the carton on the table and she followed in curiosity, watching as his hands took hold of the lid and lifted it off to the side. "May I?" he asked respectfully, indicating a desire to examine the box's contents. She nodded and he withdrew the large blue book that lay across the top. "The Best Resorts in Mexico. I have no idea what this means. Was he going to Mexico? Had he been to Mexico? Was he simply doing research for someone else? Or perhaps this belonged to a friend?" "No, it was his. He bought it when Emily was in the hospital and he was trying to get her mind off her illness. It was right before they got married." "See? There was no way for me to know, or for his family to know for that matter. You have those answers. You can put the meaning to what he owned, to what he left behind. Without that, it's all just so much superfluous..." he floundered here, struggling for the word. "...stuff?" "Stuff," he confirmed with the bounce of a finger in the air. "So you want me to tell you the stories? I could do that," she responded earnestly, perceiving the worth of the exercise and the manner in which it honored Zander's life. "Your assistance would be invaluable. But what could I give you in return? I thought about this for a very long time," he admitted in a voice both measured and grave. "Here is my offer. If you agree to tell me what everything means, then I will agree to take one box and one box only of the four. We'll choose those items together with an eye to what his family would most appreciate, and the rest will be yours. Does this sound like an acceptable exchange?" "Yes." She didn't need convincing; the grateful smile was wonderfully wide...until it faltered and fell away. "But my dad'll say no. He doesn't want these things in his house anymore." Maxim exhaled a stream of air, his features clouding. "Well, that is a problem. If it were me, I'd move them to a storage facility and pay the nominal fee until I got an apartment of my own. But that's still a sort of scheme, isn't it? Your father seems like a very forthright man. I couldn't possibly advise you to operate outside the letter of his law." "Exactly how much does that nominal fee come to? Do you know?" The laugh was out before he could stop it, joined shortly by a giggle of her own. The grief seemed to vanish for a moment; his sorrow removing to hover beyond this spontaneous second of mirth. When the knock sounded he found he couldn't move, wouldn't move, to break the shell surrounding this fragile slice of salvation. She gestured to take the task herself and he nodded, following her much happier face as she skirted the table to open the door. "Hello. My name is Emily Qu...Maxie, what are you doing here?" And his great friend Max - who, if she hadn't done so before, certainly won his heart with this - announced in a strident, remonstrative tone the single word "No!", and promptly shut the door.     Poetic Attributions (The Introductory Lines): Chapter 7 - from the poem Locked Doors, by the poet Anne Sexton. Chapter 8 - from the poem Panthea, by the poet Oscar Wilde Chapter 9 - from the poem Funeral Service, Soweto, by the poet Wole Soyinka.