All the Devil's Horses and All the Devil's Men

The call came at his usual hour. The sun cracked over the gulf and was first lighting his room. He called.

In her bed she fumbled for the phone cursing Daryl McInroe, the air he breathed, the bed he slept in, and the hair on his head. Then she took back the pox on his auburn curls grumbled into the phone, "Hello?"

There was no response. She waited two beats and repeated the address. Nothing. She looked at the clock. And felt the first stirrings of misgiving.

It was not Daryl on the phone.

It was not a wrong number.

She pried the phone from her own hand as though fear had set in as rigor mortis. She paced the end of the bed then retreated to the kitchen and coffee. She took a seat with the pot directly in front of her as well as a mug. She was on the dregs of it when Carolina walked in to find her in just that spot.

"Up with the sun this morning, aren't you, sister?"

"Before the sun, sister, and after." She replied in a riddle only herself and her caller could solve.

"You in the clutches of a funk?" Carolina took the pot from the table, rinsed it and started another. Leaning against the counter she studied the bent figure of Miss Eilene Omme. Her head was curved down, her eyes blood shot and shifty, her shoulders rolled over the mug. "Did your mind fall in?"

"Hmm? No, I got a sunrise call, Carolina." Her voice was careful. Too neutral.

"Pack." She deserted the counter and went to do just that.

"Normally, I'd agree with you." She breathed deeply through her nose. "Unfortunately, I can't run very fast with a toddling babe and a boy with red hair. He doesn't want you. He may not even know you're here or that you know. Rat Yankee Bastard's poking around must have stirred up the dust enough to get him looking."

"Sonny wouldn't have—"

"Why? Because he promised?"

"He didn't promise," she hollered her fists and arms taut.

"Whether he intented for this to come back to us or not it has. Now we have to deal with that."

Eilene watched Carolina's face relax. She pressed her lips together. "You really think I'm going to let you run without me?"

"No." Carly felt her shoulders relax. "I really think I'm going to send you and your boys out of the fray while I turn and fight."

Eilene Omme's face was hard.

"You're going to just stand here and let that monster come after you?" Her face said that was exactly what she planned to do. "You are crazy. Well, then I stay too." She planted her feet.

"No," two bulls stared off in the pen, "you are going to take those boys somewhere safe and protect them until I sound the all clear."

"This isn't some hurricane we're hiding from, it's the Goddamned devil."

"Which is why you and the boys are going far, far away, why I'm sending you with them, to protect them, to give you a head start. The devil may not win the war, but every now and again he takes a battle." So solemn, so sure. Like Joan of Arc looking at the stake and hay. Ready to go up in flames.

"What are you doin' wearin' such a defeatist attitude?" Terrified, she had to lighten the mood.

"Not defeatist, precautionary. The worst happens, he may get me. But I protect what is mine. That includes you and Michael and Morgan. I won't have them anywhere near the vile thing, battles won or lost, if there's one ounce of energy left in my body. There's no one I'd trust with those boys' livin' but their mama." Her body hadn't changed. It was almost as if the decision or the doing of it had cowed her.

"Oh, blast and damnation." She could punch a wall.

"What?"

"You've got a Goddamned point."

She could really punch a wall.

So could Miss Eilene Omme. Her whole body edged to pound into the devil himself.

"Well, then we'd best get you all packed up and into that rattling death on wheels." She shoved off from the table.

"It does not rattle."

Together they packed what was necessary for the trip and rid the house of every shred of evidence of the two young boys. By nightfall Eilene had kissed them all, given each a part of herself that could never be seen by the devil that tracked her, and wished them very, very far away and twice as safe.

Daryl was contacted and made a middle man. Carolina would send word to him on location and condition and let Eilene know all was well in ways safe and discreet.

And again Eilene was alone in the little old house with herself and preparations for the coming battle with the devil.

She was lost as to where to go. Her life had really only lead her two places. Florida and Port Charles. There was in both an inescapable presence of water so first she drove west and met up with the mighty Mississippi she trailed it north but as the weather grew colder with each stop for gas she questioned the wisdom of that and began cutting across east. She zigzagged across the open country at random, begging the boys to behave in the back seat. For the most part they did. She was lucky that they, like her, nodded off when tired or cranky to the rhythmic lull of the traveling car.

Thinking and looking at blank road in front of her, Carly's mind reeled. She couldn't just drive aimlessly, mindlessly indefinitely. They needed a place to unwind, she needed an address permanent enough to wait for the all clear. She wanted a way to protect Joan of Arc. A way to know what was going on, a way to know that no one would get near the boys.

"Fuck."

"What Mommy?"

"Nothing Mikey, go back to sleep." She knew where she was headed and what she'd do when she got there.

"Sir, they're gone."

"When?"

"I don't know. I thought the car was in the garage or at the store or… She never drives it. So when I didn't see it, just her. Damnit, I messed up boss."

"How Long?"

"I don't know but she's still puttering around like nothing's wrong, creepy devil woman.

"Jesus, I'm coming."

"Don't."

"What?"

"With all do respect, sir, don't. I mean send someone, yeah, but if they disappeared awhile ago they could be anywhere even on there way your direction. If she shows up in Port Charles…"

No second call came. No other occurrence, or piece of the past to reaffirm that she hadn't over reacted. Beginning to doubt her decision to send them away she tried to keep busy. Stay on her toes, rediscover skills she'd begun letting go long before, and she hid. She hid in the daylight just like he'd taught her years before.

Mostly she hid from Daryl. Without explanation she avoided seeing him alone or speaking to him directly. His expression told her he didn't understand and that his patience and compliance was wearing thin.

When she heard the knock on the back door she froze with her hand on the knife.

She neared the door, looked out the side window for clues but there was only a lankily dark figure. Could have been anyone.

A fist thumped impatiently again on the glass.

"Come on lady," yelled the bumbler Corinthos had sent to watch them.

She yanked open the door, stern faced and knife on display. "Yes, Yankee worm?"

"Hardeehar. Look, I know the Mrs. made out with the boys. Boss knows it too. What nobody knows is where they went. It's getting," his eyes darted around, "desperate."

"What makes you think I know where they are?"

He gave her a look that asked if penguins were black and white waddling things.

"What makes you think I'm going to tell you?"

"Because you're freaky."

"That's rather rude."

"I'm not from the south, I'm from New York, we're rude, man…lady."

She watched him jiggle, his whole body moving with the nervous tic. "I can't help you."

She moved to close the door but he stopped it one handed, stronger than she'd anticipated. "Look, I don't think you're an idiot, crazy, insane, mad as a hatter, evil, but not stupid—"

"Why thank you."

"—and smart enough to understand that the boss wouldn't hurt her—"

"All he's done is hurt her."

"—or those tykes. They're his family. He wants to keep them safe."

"It was to keep them safe that he kicked her out into the street with a bunch of money like some whore," she watched him uncomfortably scratch his head and arch his eyebrows. "Was it to keep her safe that her pushed her away, denied their life and family? To cheat on her, to lie, to order her around, to ignore her, her feelings?" She stepped into his space time and again and watched him back away into the night again.

"Look lady, it's not our marriage. They decide what makes it work and what they can live with."

She watched him in fury as he stood there, one hand in his pocket the other angled out at her, his shoulders hunched to his ears. She took a step back off her back stoop and slammed the door in his face.

She turned to the phone, near panic. With it in her hand, several digits dialed she stopped and hung it back up quickly. She sunk into the counter and rubbed a hand against her heart.

"Oh, God, what a mess," she said in a congested sobbing voice.

As the sun hit the sky he picked up the phone once more and left her shivering for hours after a moment of silence.

Daryl watched her smile at everyone coming down the street. He watched her pour on the southern, gossiping charm right and left, none of the people who talked to her, caught her smile, would suspect that she was scared out of her mind. But Sheriff Daryl McInroe knew better. She used her social skills like a weapon. And he'd formed an understanding and respect for her skill with those. The flash of a knife in her hand, the deft aim of a gun, her sharp words, her blinding smile, her sure hands, they were fatal in her care.

He stood his ground a piece up the street from her. He let the townspeople flow around him, nodding now and then at citizens. He ran his fingers over his hat a time or two at the gracious old ladies. He gave forbidding stares to those youngsters given to trouble. He still noticed when Miss Eilene Omme caught his presence and plotted a path to avoid him. He'd let her run but now it was time to sit and fight as he preferred not to stand when battling this miss.

"Any trouble today ladies?"

"Oh, Sheriff," a happy citizen and Eilene Omme's current cover gushed, "there's hardly ever trouble in our town thanks to you and your deputies."

"Thank you ma'am." He touched his hat for her. "Miss Omme, keeping your nose clean?"

"Oh, sir, you know better than to ask after a lady's secrets."

"I only ask so that I can be sure to have enough deputies on duty."

When her eyes rose to his they were fiery. A vast improvement of their simpering chill.

"What are you implying?" It was a good thing the woman she'd been talking to had gotten the hint and wandered out of the store.

"That you generate trouble and don't bother denying it."

Her lips made an O, she huffed and spun away from him. He put an arm to either side of her and glanced up and down the aisle to make sure they were alone.

"I've had enough of the cold shoulder from you. You've kept me out of this muck from the start and I stood it. I was certain you'd bring me in when it was right. My patience is wearing thin and I'm starting to get the feeling I can't protect you without knowing what I'm protecting you from. So you can either pick the time and place to come clean, and soon, or I'll put you in the one place I know you'll be safe come hell or high water."

"I've never responded well to high-handed gestures of male dominance." And he could tell she wouldn't this time. Her body was cold, rigid stone, shrinking for all it was worth away from him.

"Then don't make me do it." He pushed away because he didn't want to wait. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and keep her safe, keep her his, even though he understood she'd never really been either.

On one side of the door Sonny was slouched at the balcony windows, torturing himself with his past, losing his family and being unable to find them and protect them as he'd promised so many times. On the other side of the door was his family, Carly heading them and staring, torn, at the door.

She'd waited until Max had left on rounds to slip out into the corridor from the stair well. Michael and Morgan, her partners in crime had been silent and stealthy; they were so her children.

"Mommy, what are you waiting for?"

She couldn't take the time to explain that this wasn't her home, she had to knock now, she had to wait to be invited, and then there was the possibility that someone else already had been invited. Invited into her home, her bed, her life to provide a child just as precious and beautiful to Sonny as the ones she'd taken away.

She took a deep breath and knocked. This had to be over before Max returned and he was due back any minute. He couldn't find them loitering the halls.

Sonny didn't turn at the knock, he said, "Send them away, Max," from his usual brooding spot.

Carly heard him and decided to open the door herself. Stealing her heart against what she'd find, putting a hand to Morgan where he was strapped against her, she turned the knob and told Sonny's back, "He can't, he's not here."

Sonny spun, stunned at the voice, its presence as well as its nuances.

"Carly." For a moment he saw only her resigned face then he heard Michael squeal "Daddy" and rush into his arms. He picked the growing boy up and holding him tightly turned them around in celebration.

"I missed you, Daddy," Michael said.

"I missed you too, son," he responded and put him down. He turned back to Carly and saw her and their other son cradled against her in some contraption that looked more prone to spelunking. "I miss all my boys."

Carly cleared her throat. "Yeah, well, uh, Michael and Morgan both missed you." As if on cue their adroit child squirmed and held his arms out toward Sonny, grunting something he took as a wish to be released. He watched her as she fumbled with the contraption and put Morgan in his arms. The much larger bundle stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry at him and laughed.

"Sorry about that. Big brothers teach all kinds of things. Michael why don't you um… take him over there so Daddy and I—"

"Take Morgan upstairs to his room and you guys can play while Mama and I talk, ok?" He reluctantly returned the baby to the floor and watched him toddle off with Michael's hand in his own.

"They're so big."

Carly sniffed, trying to keep things together, "Yeah. Look, Sonny, we don't have long."

"Just stopping through?"

"That kinda depends."

"Where have you been? You shake Tormé, just disappear and not a word. What was I supposed to think? I had everyone looking for you. Maybe Lorenzo'd taken you again. Maybe Ric or the Feds. Maybe…" He sighed.

"That was kinda the point. To get lost. But…um, I can't get lost, I can't do what needs to be done on my own. I…" she had too, "I… I could use some help. Your help, Jason's. I figured we could make a deal."

"A deal. Sounds like you've thought about this."

"Lots of thinking gets done driving aimlessly."

"Sounds like you've come up with a plan."

"I have."

"Carly," he sounded exasperated, "you're plans never work."

"They do so. And anyway, that's not the point. First, you've got to hear the damn thing before you can just decree I can't pull it off."

"Fine, let's hear it."

"Well," she hadn't really meant to tell him the whole thing, "I need. I need to know if you're the one who contacted him…before I can tell you a thing."

"Contacted who?"

"You know who."

"I haven't the slightest, Carly."

"Someone's after her and I need to know you didn't set it in motion. Sonny, if you did… you idiot, he could have killed us all if he weren't such a maniac and had to play with his prey the way a—"

"Carly," he had to scream to interrupt her terrified rambling. She was staring to scare him.

"He's after her, Sonny, and if I don't do something to stop him… He'll win the battle. She's got this stupid thought in her head…like it's time to end it. Like he'll let everything else go if it's done. God, Sonny," her eyes were wide and bright with fear, "this time he'll kill her for real."

He wanted to hold her, stroke away all those Carly thoughts that swirled to inevitable doom and destruction. "Is it possible that you've built this up to be more than it is because you're so scared?"

"Forget it. I should have known better," she said looking at him with pain and disgust before turning to the stairs to retrieve the boys.

"No," he took her arm, "now wait, Carly. I know you. I know how your mind works and worries until being a little late coming home means something terrible."

"This is real Sonny. You know what happened all those years ago now, how can you think I'm just blowing this all out of proportion."

"I don't know as much as you think I do." His eyes were gentle on her but firm and she felt melting in her resolve to leave before he could hurt her more.

"You know enough to know this danger is not my imagination. Why would I go shifting off over the whole damn country in an old car if I had a choice?"

"Ok, so tell me what you need."

"I need a deal."

He closed his eyes, she wouldn't just take his help, selfishly offered to take care of her because he'd die if she was hurt again. "What's the deal?"

"I keep Michael and Morgan in town, a safe house or something, they stay out of sight and you keep us well guarded, you can have as much access to the boys as you want if you send men, real men not the bumbler, to guard her, protect her, and find that maniac before he gets to her."

"You'd trade the boys for her?"

"I'm not trading away my children, they stay with me. They stay safe as you can make them Sonny and you get to see them. They stay with me."

He looked at her stony face, kept his hands in his pockets, fought the urge to wipe it away with them. "Ok, I'll deal. But," he interrupted her when she started to act as though her stipulations were the only ones on the table, "but the boys stay here—"

"I'm not leaving my children Corinthos so just forget it."

"Simmer down now, Corinthos, I'm not taking them from you. You stay here too."

"Not with that tramp, I'm not. I won't share a roof with your little knocked up mistress."

"Well, you'll have to as she's living on the 7th floor. It's a big roof Carly." When she stared silently at him he took it as agreement to the term and progressed. "Next, as my wife and family has returned home, we work on getting passed what…" he looked away and back again, "we try and get past what we did, what I did, the lies I told, the damage we've done. I won't be a family in name only Carly. You taught me what it was, a real family, I can't have less now."

"We can't. What we had is over, dead. Every time you get the urge to resurrect it you can just picture me naked and writhing in Lorenzo Alcazar's arms. That oughta kill the idea pretty darn quick. And while it's my turn to state the obvious, us moving in here won't work. Michael and Morgan need to get outside. They can't if they are in the middle of Port Charles. People will see them. No one can know were here.

"If he's figured out she's alive, and where she is, it's a short jump to figuring out I'm the one who helped her pull it off all these years, that I knew. And my path to Port Charles when I was a kid wasn't very well covered. A name search on the internet and he'll be at your door gunning for me and I won't have the boys caught in that. That was the point of me coming to you. You're the only one I know who's got the resources to pull this off."

"Lorenzo Alcazar." He still had the image she'd given him in his head, was battling down the red edges of his vision.

"If you suspected he was hiding the boys and I you'd go after him. He'd defend. Things would escalate pretty fast. You'd do anything to be with your children. Then there's the danger of them getting caught in that crossfire as well. See, not a moron. I know what I'm doing."

"A famous Carly plan. Ok, I've got a place off Furko Road. That should fit the bill. But were still living as a family. We're gonna fix this Carly. Now I'm gonna get a couple of the boys up here, Leticia, Graciella to pack up, and you are going to help us figure out how to set this up. I'm gonna make some calls then we're gonna tell the boys together. We're a family, Carly, we always will be."

She watched him turn to the phone, the pain and the fear huge inside her, "I don't think we can be."

After another dawn call had her panicked she simply stood at the foot of his bed. She'd never been to this particular spot but on prior experience knew how to gain access. She stood watching the sun rise in the window at the head of the bed. Finally he stirred, felt someone at the foot of his bed and went for his gun. She didn't move, speak, breathe. She watched out the window as his eyes focused, lost their sleepy haze before firing.

"Damnit, woman."

"Don't you take that tone with me."

"I'll take whatever tone I want after a heart attack."

"A heart attack is a miserable excuse for being rude. Why your mother—"

"Enough." He rubbed his face, shoved his wide hand through his hair. "I should have shot you just for scaring me into shitting my pants."

She arched a brow and angled her neck so as to see aforementioned shit.

"It's called hyperbole. It's a figure of speech."

"Not a very nice figure if you ask me. Figures after telling a lie."

"Look who's talking."

"It's becoming quite clear to me why I've never allowed myself into such a position before."

"One where you might be shot?"

"You're very ill tempered first thing in the morning. Might it be that you nearly shoot every woman who wakes you?"

Her meaning dawned and he raised the gun at her again. "There's a first time for everything. Justifiable homicide?"

"The first legal president for male PMS."

He sighed and lowered the gun. "Would you mind turning around? If we're going to continue this I'd like to do it in the kitchen where I can make some coffee."

She didn't move, just looked at him, then a demure smile spread over her face though the gleam in her eyes was more dervish than demure. "Are you shy?"

"Forgive me for trying to preserve your maidenly virtue."

It was the mention of her virtue that wiped the sparkle from her and sent her off into his kitchen and his coffee pot. He'd had no idea. Had never pursued her attentions far enough to suspect.

He did however pursue her to the kitchen. Upon smelling the brewing coffee he contemplated sticking his mouth under the spigot.

"I take it back you're a goddess among womankind." She pulled out a mug and, knowing he liked it black as sin, poured him a tall cup.

"I would also have to be a saint to put up with this morning's greeting."

"Don't remind me about the heart attack, I might still shoot you." He took a long first drag on the ambrosia for his weary body. He sighed and breathed in the steam. Holding the cup against his brow he pretended to be asleep for a moment and muttered, "Spill it."

There was supposed to be an epilogue to finish out this series but I never finished it. If there is any interest in it I could be easily persuaded to polish it up and post it so let me know.