A/N: You're reading a story with Caspian as the main character. Does there really need to be a warning?

Basically, I wanted to answer the question—how did Caspian end up in a Romanian insane asylum?

Nobody knows how many people he killed. They found parts in his basement, in his garden, in his freezer…


Just outside Bucharest, Romania

The house sat at the bottom of the hill. It was the rare sort of dugout house, what mama called a bordei. It was sunk into the hill. The exposed walls were built out of whitewashed mud bricks, and the roof was thatched. It was L-shaped with a backend that had a thick weathered brown wood door that opened into a small garden filled with eggplants, potatoes, and sweet peppers. The front end swooped up from the dugout with double rugged wooden doors. A small wire snaking from the dirt road showed that the house probably had electricity.

Ioana told Felicia that according to legend, there were actually two floors in the house–the upper floor that somewhat jutted out and a hand-dug basement.

After all, how could a moroi have a house without a basement?

Oh, the adults laughed at that. The strange man with the mohawk and the dragon tattoo was just the local weirdo who was quiet and kept to himself. He wasn't a reanimated corpse that rose from the dead to suck the life from the living.

Felicia rolled her eyes at that. It was blindingly obvious that Evan Caspari was an undead moroi who drank blood and kidnapped children.

She played with her best friends Ioana and Aurelia in Ioana's grandmother's backyard. The backyard was somewhat close to Caspari's house, about 20 metres away. However, it was still far enough away that Caspari probably couldn't smell them. At least, that's what Ioana said.

At first, they played thieves and cops, with Aurelia and Felicia as the thieves and Ioana as the cop. Naturally enough, Aurelia was caught almost immediately.

"Bang, you're dead," Ioana said gleefully, making finger guns as Aurelia collapsed dramatically. Felicia hid her giggle. She was hiding under a barrel next to the tool shed. A small hole in the barrel allowed her to observe.

Aurelia was like Felicia's kitten Theodor, who seemed to think a milk jug would sufficiently hide him. Aurelia was hiding behind a tree, which was too thin. Felicia, on the other hand, never got caught. She picked places she knew the cop in the game would never find her. That's why there was a three-minute hide time for her. Otherwise, the game would last forever.

She was about to get out of the barrel to go to a new hiding spot when Marcel popped into the backyard over the fence. "Hey, kids."

Marcel was Felicia's 15-year-old brother. He liked to call Felicia and her friends "kids," even though he was just five years older than them. Felicia supposed he thought it made him sound like a man instead of a teenage boy.

He looked disgruntled, not even playing around with the football in his hands, but holding it like a brick.

"What's the matter, Marcel," Felicia asked, walking out beside the shed.

"Ah, nothing, just ran into that cranky old man Vasile," he said with a dismissive wave.

Horațiu Vasile, truth be told, wasn't actually old. At least, that's what mama told her. He was probably in his fifties but was so bad-tempered it just prematurely aged him. He especially hated children, always yelling at her for running across his lawn (it was the quickest way to get to Ioana's grandmother's house). He seemed to only live for working on his car. He was also weird; he could twist himself into strange shapes in trying to reach under his car. Once she saw his hand and fingers go backward at all the wrong angles. Papa said it was because he was double-jointed. Whatever he was, he was absolutely the worst.

Ioana chuckled, "Did he shout at you for having your shirt untucked."

And loud. Vasile had a very loud voice.

"No, he seemed mad I dirtied the presence of his car when my football hit one of his tires," Marcel rolled his eyes. "It's a car. It's not made of freaking glass."

"Well, part of it is glass," Aurelia pointed out.

"He said the ball hit the tire, not the windshield," Ioana said impatiently. "Come on, Aurelia."

Aurelia shrank back.

"Felicia, mama wants you home by sundown," Marcel said. It was obvious he was only saying it because of mama's instructions. Otherwise, he would probably be hanging out with that Rodica girl.

"But mama said I could stay with Ioana tonight," Felicia complained.

"She did," Ioana whined.

"Yeah, while, with that kid Mihail going missing, I think she just gets worried now," Marcel said unsympathetically. It's not like their mama's irrational fears impacted him. He was a teenager, after all.

"Caspari probably ate him," Ioana argued. "And granny keeps garlic in her garden; that should keep him away."

"For the love of," Marcel groaned. "Girls, Caspari is not a moroi! He's just a weird guy who's anti-social. I see him sometimes at the local grocer buying bread and out-of-season vegetables. He's just crabby."

"Ah, but never meat," Aurelia piped up, ducking her head when he looked at her.

Felicia nodded firmly, folding her arms, not amused by Marcel's uncharacteristic skepticism. He used to tell stories of strigoi (like his chemistry teacher, never seen outdoors), pricolici (their aunt's new beau), and of course, moroi like Caspari. He was becoming unbearably boring as a teenager.

Felicia hoped she wouldn't be that lame when she got older.

"Yeah, he's probably a vegetarian," Marcel began, but the three girls laughed.

"Of course not. He wouldn't waste money buying meat when he has human meat to eat," Ioana said sagely.

"Exactly," Aurelia agreed.

"Whatever," Marcel rolled his eyes. "Something happened to Mihail, so mama's a bit freaked, so be home by sundown, okay Felicia."

"Oh, come on, I am safer here with the garlic," Felicia argued. Mama's garden didn't have garlic despite Felicia's logical arguments that they should have some to keep the moroi out.

"Kids come on, Caspari is not a moroi," Marcel repeated. Oh dear, her big brother got that stern 'I'm right, and I'm going to continue to think I'm right regardless of the facts' face. Felicia knew right then there wasn't any point in arguing further with him, but her best friends didn't know that.

"Then why are the veggies in his garden covered in blood," Ioana countered. Aurelia nodded vigorously.

"It's not blood. It's due to a high amount of rust in the soil because he doesn't clean his gardening tools," Marcel said, in what he probably thought was a sensible explanation, but it wasn't because Caspari was a moroi. A moroi would know better than to use rusty tools. "Same thing happened to Nicu's uncle."

Nicu was Marcel's best friend, who Felicia felt had an annoying voice and that Marcel was better off being best friends with someone else. Maybe one of those girls he keeps hanging out with, like Rodica. Whenever Nicu talked, she felt like covering her ears. Girls made better best friends anyhow, Felicia would know, she had two best friends, and they were both girls.

"Come on, Marcel, this is stupid," Ioana pleaded. "Felicia just got back from visiting her grandfather. Can't she stay the night as we planned?"

Nobody mentioned that Ioana's grandmother liked to play poker in the late afternoon and wouldn't be there. Nobody needed to know that. The three of them had planned to watch a movie that none of their parents would let them watch—Nightmare on Elm Street. Aurelia's cool older sister got it on VHS when she visited Britain a few months ago and agreed to lend it to them. The film was in English, but the girls knew a bit of English, enough to pick up the gist. Whatever they didn't know, they could make up. Some of the best fun with foreign films, especially foreign horror films, was making up stories about what they couldn't understand.

"I really wanted to wa—play with her," Aurelia said softly. Play, yes, sure, Aurelia, they were going to play.

"No can-do," Marcel said and then looked at Felicia. "I'm sorry little sis."

Then Ioana got a bright idea. "Okay, well, then leave that football behind."

"No, I borrowed it from Rodica I have to give it back," Marcel backed up a bit, holding the football protectively in his hands.

"We aren't going to lose it. Come on, Marcel," Felicia begged, reaching forward. If she couldn't stay the night, then she at least wanted to have some serious fun. And she never got to play football at home because Papa didn't like girls playing it.

Despite all his teenage cool and so-called maturity, she knew Marcel would feel bad about disappointing her. She knew if she pleaded with her eyes big and her lips trembling, he would cave. She put a little wobble in her lips and held her eyes open, so they teared up just a bit to make her eyes shiny.

Got him.

"Okay fine," Marcel threw the football at them, and the three girls pumped their fists in glee. "But…don't lose it. I borrowed it from Rodica."

"Fine, fine, we won't," Felicia said absently as she kicked the ball to Aurelia. Aurelia nimbly kicked it back over to Ioana.

"I'm serious," Marcel said with a frown. "Remember what happened last month when…."

"You keep bringing that up. Stop it," Felicia put her hands on her hips with a glare. "I said I was sorry. It was an accident. Drop it."

Marcel hesitated a moment, clearly not wanting to leave the ball behind but also feeling responsible for delivering (and enforcing) the bad news. He then seemed to get over his misgivings and left. He was probably going to see Rodica.

"This sucks," Ioana said, kicking the dirt. "I wanted to see the movie with you."

Felicia had the best understanding of English of the three of them.

"Well, we could watch it now," Aurelia suggested.

"You can't watch a horror movie when it's light out," Ioana said, scandalized. "That goes against tradition."

"We can play ball at least," Aurelia said, clearly trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The three girls kicked the ball around for a while, but that soon grew boring.

"Let's see," Felicia said, holding the ball in her hands, "who can kick the ball the farthest."

"Me, obviously," Ioana said promptly.

"No, no, it's me," Felicia disagreed. "I am much stronger than you."

"I think," Aurelia said carefully, always the peacemaker, "that you're both about even."

"Contest," Ioana stated.

"Contest," Felicia said firmly.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Aurelia muttered.

"You always do," Ioana smirked. "Whereas I have an awesome feeling about this."

"Yea!" Felicia pumped her fist.

The two lined up, and Ioana went first, kicking the ball, which went quite a ways, about 2/3 the distance of the backyard. Aurelia ran to kick the ball back. Felicia lined up and got ready to kick—her ball landed almost at the end of the backyard.

She looked at Ioana and smugly said to Aurelia, "about even are we."

"Well, like my aunt always says, those who go second," Aurelia started to say, but Ioana cut her off.

"I was going easy on you, Felicia. Come and see that I can kick it much further than that. I can kick it so hard I will dislodge the stones in the wall," Ioana boasted.

"As if," Felicia taunted.

Ioana smoothed her shorts, pulled her blond hair into a tighter ponytail, and then kicked the football as hard as she could with a mighty yell.

Felicia was right. Ioana didn't dislodge the stones.

Instead, the ball went sailing right over the fence.

Over the fence and onto Caspari's property.