B8/Ch8: THE TASTE OF POWER

Jean-Marc catches Matthew & Hope

A night that felt like forever. 

A dawn that inched closer and still-- seemed distant. 

Matthew and his sister Hope continued on their secret path into the walls and passages of Cyfrinach Castle hoping their visions would finally lead to Evie and Gabriel. But they were not alone.

As the Winterborn siblings quietly traversed these secret inner walls spaces that were narrow enough for them to walk through, a silent person walked behind them hiding in the shadows at every turn. 

Then a new door finally appeared towards the end of this long path.

"We'll have to go in." Matthew whispered. "We've already walked so far, we have to start making our way upwards. The private rooms."

Hope nodded. 

The follower knew better than them, and quickly made their way through yet another secret passage known only to someone who walked these passages on a regular basis, and when Matthew and Hope exited the passes and into the empty room back inside the main castle, they found themselves facing the child vampire Jean Marc. The follower.

Hope gasped in surprising at seeing such a young person standing in the center of the room that looked like an art gallery with even more paintings of past members of the vampire cult. She observed the young man, the child, his peach tone skin and healthy appearance. He smirked at her but still had a cold look to in his eyes.

"Hello." Matthew said, quietly closing the secret passage door. “Who might you be?”

"And how did you get in here?" Hope added noting she never saw someone come into the room and could tell Jean-Marc was out of breath as if he ran into the room. 

"I live here. You don't." Jean Marc replied.

Matthew glanced at Hope, his expression saying this was going to be harder than it looked. 

"We're looking for someone. A friend of ours. Perhaps you can tell us where she and her young son are. Her name is---" Matthew began before Jean Marc interrupted.

"I know who you're looking for. And she's looking for her child too. Everybody seems so lost." The young man said. "It's funny. I'm the only one who knows where he's going and what he's doing."

"We'd love to find them both. They're in a lot of danger here." Hope replied searching Jean Marc face to get a sense of what he was. She couldn't tell if he was a spirit or one of the creatures that lived in the castle.

"They are in danger." Jean Marc replied nonchalantly. "But you don't think you'll be able to save them, do you?"

"We have to." Matthew answered. "We're their only hope."

"I saw what you two did back in the foyer. I saw how the fire listened to you or ... or you listened to the fire. You did something, was it magic? Are you witches?" Jean Marc wondered.

"No, not witches. We're -- we belong to a people that share a connection to the world, to nature, to the elements. They speak to us. We speak to them. They help us find cures to illness, answers to our prayers. Gifts only our kind have." Hope explained.

"I have gifts too." Jean Marc replied proudly.

"Is that so? Like what?" 

"Well, I'm 14 yet I'm not. I've live much longer than what I look and it's funny because no one can tell. At least the pretend not to tell."

Hope and Matthew looked at each other confused. "What do you mean?" Hope asked.

"I was created this way, like the others yet I was given a gift. Not everyone knows. Dominique says that if anyone were to know how special she made me they'd be jealous and they'd kill me. She was able to make me able to grow older. Like a real person. Every ten of your years, I grow a year old."

"140." Hope said. "You're 140 years old?" 

"In your years, yes. And I can walk in light, that is the true gift." Jean Marc.

"We're Hope and Matthew." Matthew introduced. "Who are you?"

Jean Marc hesitated. The chaos of the day after Sinead's death made more stand-offish than usual. He wasn't even sure why he was talking to the strangers who had infiltrated their home but something about them told him they were kind and wouldn't hurt him. Like Evie. There was the problem, however, of how he was now aiding their entry into the castle without alerting anyone else. He was torn, tell on them and have them killed or befriend them and risk whatever the fall out of that would be.

"Jean Marc." He answered.

"Jean Marc, can you take us to Evie? And Gabriel?" Matthew asked.

"No one will ever let you leave this place; do you understand that? No matter how far I get you or how close I get you to Evie, they'll find you and you'll all be killed. She's done the unthinkable and -- they want her dead." The child vampire explained.

"What has she done?" Hope asked pensively. 

"She's a murderer."

Matthew swallowed hard. He couldn't believe it. Not Evie. Evie would never hurt someone, kill them, intentionally. It wasn't in her nature, it wasn't in her DNA. Jean Marc must be mistaken.

"She did. At least I think she did." The child replied. "A woman who lives here fell from Evangeline's window and died. A stake, an iron rod from a fence, went straight through her heart." 

"It sounds like an accident to me." Matthew replied.

Jean Marc giggled, "They'll never ever believe that, not if you paid them to." 

"So then you know the danger. If we don't get to Evie quickly, the others will and they'll kill her and possible Gabriel. We can't let that happen, Jean Marc. We have to help." Hope said.

Jean Marc thought about it for a second and looked around the large gallery room with it's golden framed paintings and it's red painted walls. The storm continued to rage outside, cracking the sky with white hot lightening but the room remained relatively quiet thanks to the flanking towers that surrounded it.

The child vampire then looked up and the painting and wondered how many of these men and women would have taken the risk he was being resented by? How many of them would have helped save the child and his mother from certain death. He turned and saw a fire placed that was not lit. The black soot stained the walls like a thick black curtain. The boy went over and knelt down. He grabbed a box of matches and lit a fire and breathed on to it letting the flames flicker hotter and hotter up against his skin. He looked into the fire and remembered what he saw Hope and Matthew do in the foyer.

"I'll tell you where they are -- for a price." The child said.

Matthew and Hope once again shot each other looks. "And what is that?" Matthew asked.

"Show me the trick you did with the fire, and I'll take you to Gabriel. He's closer to where we are now."

"The trick with the fire? Show you?" Hope questioned. 

"Yes, show me what you see when you strengthen the fire so that I can see too and then I'll take you to Gabriel." 

Matthew wasn't sure he could summon it on his own. Hope was the stronger of the two, she was the one who could summon and then pass it to someone else it would have to be her. But Matthew didn't want to open her up to any sabotage or trickery from the smallest vampire in the court. And yet, she stepped up and agreed. 

She began to hum her song. Matthew aided her by harmonizing with her the same song. The flames of the fire grew stronger and hotter. The began to lift from the heart heating the room like an oven. Jean Marc became transfixed by the heat. It started to choke, two hands of hell grabbing on to his thin neck and squeezing. It was a sensation Hope was already used to, it was disturbing and uncomfortable but short lived. 

Then Jean Marc opened his eyes and saw the castle as if it were made of ice: transparent, invisible. He saw the others asleep in their crypts, this time not noticing someone was watching since it was one of their own, Jean Marc, doing the gazing. He saw everything all at once like it was projected onto a screen in front of him yet it was all in his mind fueled the by the light of the power flames that Hope's mind conjured to show her. 

Jean Marc felt as if he were floating above his own body in the gallery room. He could see himself, Hope and Matthew. He could see the inner walls and then, to his shock, he saw Kildare approaching. Closer and closer the hitman came to entering the gallery room and discovering the three.

Jean Marc shook off Hope's control, and the flames grew small and back into the hearth.

"What is it?" Matthew said, as Hope unlatched herself telepathically, almost at a dizzying speed.

"COME!" Jean Marc said quickly. "You're not safe. COME!"

Jean Marc quickly rushed to the other side of the room where there was yet another secret passage. He slid it open and stepped aside waiting for the Winterborns.

"He wants us to follow." Matthew whispered.

"Do we trust him?" She asked, not knowing Kildare the man who tried to kill them not too long ago, was steps away from entering through the first secret passage they had just exited.

"I don't think we have a choice." Matthew answered.

The two quickly rushed over and went with Jean Marc who securely replaced the wall, then they disappeared back into the passages. 

Kildare entered the Gallery room and saw the fire lit. But there was no one around. 

****

Sebastian enters the Count’s layer 

The door to Alexandre's darkly lit room slowly opened. Arameed, still seated at the side of the dying count, quickly got up not expecting a visitor so late in the night and so close to dawn.

Dominique entered in her veiled shapely form of black lace and chiffon. But she wasn't alone. 

"What is the meaning of this?" Arameed asked, surprised to see Sebastian with her. “How dare you bring in this man unannounced into this sacred room.”

"Calm yourself old man.” She growled. “There has been a disturbance, Arameed. We need to move things quicker than we expected." She said lifting her veil.

"What? What disturbance?" 

Sebastian cleared his throat. "A death." 

"One of the other's has been killed and I think we need to get things the way you said, on the balcony." She reminded him.

Arameed moved over to where Dominique was and pulled her away from Sebastian and to a quiet corner of the large room. 

"We never spoke of having him here when we did this. Your ascension is yours and yours alone, it should not have anyone else here to witness it." Arameed said, his suspicious eye on Sebastian never lifting.

"Sebastian is to be mine." She answered. "Evangeline has no more power over his heart now that she's done what she's done."

"What has she done?" The mystic questioned.

"It seems Sinead made a stupid mistake and went to see our prisoner. They clearly did not get alone; Sinead was thrown from a window and impaled on one of the iron rods of the garden gate." 

"Sinead is dead?" Arameed repeated in shock.

"Evangeline is on the run. But she wont last. Evan won't let her leave here alive." 

As the two spoke quietly, Sebastian moved slowly over to the vampire Alexandre who was lying in his bed like an ancient stone figure with skin ashen and almost transparent. His body thin and emaciated slowly fading with the night. In contrast Sebastian, the tall, strong, healthy young man stared down at the creature dying in front of him not knowing his own son Gabriel was the key to turning it all around.

Sebastian wanted to cry, seeing the creature practically lifeless from some disease that he could not pinpoint. Was it a sickness? Old age? He wondered if years and years from now would this be his own future. Was he standing in front of a mirror watching his own fate come true?

"He's very ill." Dominique said suddenly from behind.

"From what?" Sebastian asked. 

"Time." Dominique replied with a brow arched.

He turned to her, confused, and saw her standing with the golden sickle in her hand. The same sickle that was supposed to be used for Gabriel, but she was about to turn the tables and take matters into her own hands. Life, as everyone knew it, would change in just moments.

What should have been a ceremony of the mixling's lifeforce going into Count Alexandre and giving him every lasting life was now a ceremony of the end of his life and the true beginning of the reign of The Countess Doshall of Cyfrinach. 

She would inherit it all. The land. The minions.

Most of all: The power. 

Sebastian was watched as she went over to the other side so that now she and Sebastian were at the old vampire's left and right. Arameed at the foot of the bed with a small book in his hands. 

"What is happening?" Sebastian asked innocently. 

"The time has come." Arameed answered as a thunderclap shook the glass in the windows. 

"I don't understand."

Arameed turned to his side where there was a large dressing table with several drawers along it's side. Sebastian noted the intricate carvings along the dresser's feet. Animal feet that did not match. The front feet were carved like lion feet while that back were clawlike but not an animal here could recognize. 

Arameed removed the golden sickle from it's sheath and handed it to Dominique who replaced the veil over her face. She got closer to Alexandre and lifted the sickled slightly so it was now hanging over her father's body. A single shimmer of light slid across the sharp blade as Dominique took a deep breath that lifted her vail as she exhaled. 

Sebastian, on the other side of the bed, watched with his eyes wide open unable to blink and unable to pull his face away from what he could tell was about to happen. His mind kept questioning his logic, he kept saying over and over in his mind that what that blade was doing so close to the dying vampire's flesh was not about to happen.

Arameed began reading from a book he kept in a pouch around his waist in a language Sebastian did not understand. The mystic's arm was stretched over Alexandre's feet and legs and Dominique began to repeat the words in the strange language. To Sebastian it went on like this for hours but was only minutes.  

The rain on the window was unyielding. It beat on the glass like fists pounding on the front gate. The wind howled like wolves begging for a bite. Sebastian, his heart beating slow, his skin cold and clammy watched as Dominique lowered the sickle on to her father's bare neck and without a second thought.... she sliced. 

The sickle blade cut the gray flesh like it was butter releasing a sound from Alexandre that seemed to come from an animal trapped in a vice. Inhuman. Then a gasp for air, as if the sound had been sucked up into a vortex and all that could be heard was a chocking on black blood that poured onto his chest and cascaded from his would to the sheets pooling in dark stains like oil in sand. 

A similar sound, quieter though, came from Dominique. Her veil sucked up closed to her mouth as observed what she had done. She grabbed her throat and fell backwards onto a chair that was close by.  She gasped, chocked, sweated. She tossed and turned in the chair. A tightening gripped her throat as if a noose had tightened around her neck and she were hanging on for dear life. 

Arameed went to her, his hand over her forehead and chanting still, this time in a language Sebastian understood. 

"For the time has come to pass the deathly torch to another. Give unto your whole body this generous gift slowly seeping into your soul Let the river of blackness guide you forth from hence and into the next generation and into the next. You shall lead. You shall devour. You shall empower. Let ye herein be witness to the new life of the new countess. Long may she live for us. Long may we live for her." 

Sebastian stepped back too, shock all over his face. Alexandre's body became more and more sunken in as if imploding. He flicked his eyes open. Gray. Vacant. His body, withered, his limbs gnarled like the branches of a dead tree, began to decay and turn slowly into ash. The old count knew then his time was up. With one last look at his so called daughter, he spoke in a whisper that echoed into the night

"This end is not the end." Alexandre said in a whispery voice.

When the last of trace of what he was disappeared into the pile of ash that was his body, Dominique regained her breath. 

"Long live the Countess Doshall." Arameed said again. 

Sebastian, heart slowed to an almost stop. His eyes were transfixed on the new Countess as the title and power were now in her hands. And also, the deathly curse that had taken away Alexandre to what he was while in that bed. As she'd inherited his powers, she'd also inherited the need for the mixling's lifeforce to live on. But with her youth still rather intact, she had time and so did Gabriel.

She stood up from the chair. Week, though, from the powerful transition she had just undergone. Arameed bowed in her presence. Sebastian was too shocked too speak. Too revolted in the idea that she took her father's life unknowing that she had to, to gain his power and position. And in a way in her doing this she'd given Gabriel slightly longer to live. 

"Bow in the presence of the countess, our new leader." Arameed said.

In a trans, Sebastian stood there, frozen. 

"I SAID BOW!" Aremeed's voice growled. 

Dominique stood silent. 

Sebastian genuflected to the new Countess, he was almost robotic in his movements. 

The new countess, now head of the Saints of Goodwick slowly made her way to Sebastian's side of the room. When their eyes met she lifted her veil. Sebastian thought he'd see a different face, something more evil, but no -- she was the same. She stared at him, he was locked in her eyes. He could sense her power like a perfume in the air, thick and lingering. 

She grabbed his hands. "Marry us Arameed." She said without moving her eyes from Sebastian.

Arameed seemed shocked at her request, but when she finally turned back to him, she asked again her voice more stern. 

Arameed sighed, this was not part of his place but he complied. 

Sebastian and Dominique joined hands. The candles in the room that were no lit snapped into flame. The wind suddenly stopped. The rain too. And in minutes, it was all done.

"We are now together too." She whispered to her new husband,

"We are now together." He repeated in her total control.

Suddenly, two golden rings came around their ringers like liquid and became solid. 

Locking in their marriage. 

"And when the time comes," Dominique spoke agian, "you will hand me the mixling." She ordered. 

"When the time comes, I will hand you the mixling." He repeated. 

She inched closer and kissed him long on the lips, slipping her tongue in his mouth. He felt compelled to do the same. An erotic moment they shared as she slipped her hands into his pants to feel him. He winced with her grip, and when she removed her hand, a sleek film covered the palm of her hand... and she licked it off tasting him. 

Her eyes, beguiled by his face, lingered long as his did on her. She took his hand and led him to a different room. It was smaller lit with the simple glow of candles that were everywhere. They flickered in the dark casting a shadow over the bed that Dominique now sat on. She removed the veil from her head and face completely, her long dark hair cascading along her shoulders. He began to unbutton his trousers. She helped.

He began to undress her too. Slowly. Then, skin to skin, they lay back. She felt every inch of his cool body on top of her. He felt hers too, as he nibbled on the small curves of her neck and shoulder as one of his hands made its way down her thigh and hers scratching down his back her slipped between her knees. 

They made love there, in the candlelight. In the rejuvenated storm. Solidifying their twisted new marriage and ushering in a new generation of leadership within the vampire court. 

**** 

Evie & Roman find Gabriel’s room 

As the dark wedding was consummated in the apartments of the Doshalls, Evie and Roman slipped through darker corridors and into rooms where little Gabriel had been hidden. Evie could smell the scent of her little boy, it was fresh linens and honey. A baby smell that lingered in every mother's heart.

The rooms for Gabriel were large. The main room was lit with light of a fireplace. A small sofa and chair sitting area looked as if it had never been used. A hallway that led to his bedroom had a small table with a candle lit. 

Roman motioned for Evie to follow him, she did but somewhere between the living room and the bedroom of this area Evie got in front of Roman eager to find her sweet little boy.

As they entered the bedroom the moon covered by storm clouds had cast a blue gloom over it and Evie could tell Gabriel was gone. 

"He's not here." She whispered to herself. "He's not here Roman!" 

"There must be some mistake, I know this is where Sebastian brough him when he took him from your rooms. There's been no other place."

"There must be, he's not here and nothing of his is here either." Evie replied, her voice frantic. 

"Its going to be alright, it'll be sunup soon and we'll have more time and space to find him." Roman explained.

"We don't have that much time. His life is in danger and now that they believe I killed Sinead they may not waste time hurting him. Roman, this is my child, I can't sit back and wait for the sun to rise." Evie replied.

"You're right. We'll find him. We'll have to make our way closer to where Dominique is. If Gabriel is anywhere, he's closer to her." 

"You won't find him there." A voice said form the shadows. 

Evie and Roman jumped, startled by the tiny voice. Roman stepped in front of Evie putting his arm out in front of her. 

"Who's there?" Roman asked.

Evie pushed Roman's arm down and walked out in front of her cousin. "I know that voice." She said. 

Jean Marc walked out darkness, yet again slipping through into the room where Gabriel was through a secret passage. 

"What are you doing here?" She asked the young vampire.

"I have a secret." The 14 year old boy said. "And I think you may want to hear it." 

"Jean Marc we don't have time to play games, you know what has happened. I need to know where Sebastian has taken Gabriel." Evie said appealing to the young one.

"Sebastian hasn't taken Gabriel. He's not with his father." 

"How do you know this?" Roman asked.

"Because I took him." 

Evie and Roman shot each other looks. 

"Jean Marc, we need to know where he is. His life is in danger. Did you take him away to hurt him?" Roman asked.

"NO!" The boy shouted back. "I would never hurt him. I took him so that he would not be hurt. He's with friends who wanted to protect him. I've kept them all safe." He said. 

"Do you remember when we talked about your mother and how you wished you had been with her instead of being here? With Dominique? The way she wanted to act as if she were your mother but then -- she didn't." Evie asked him.

Jean Marc nodded. 

"Well, I am Gabriel's mother. And I am here to be with him. If you keep him from me and place him with people that may hurt him, you are doing to him what Dominique did to you. Please, help us Jean Marc. You could be the one person that saves us all from something very, very evil." Evie said, appealing the young vampire's heart.

Jean Marc stood and stared blankly at Evie as his mind remembered his own history:

***PARIS 1779***

Jean Marc remembers 

A young Jean Marc walked the streets of Paris. His little bare feet pitter-patter along the wet city cobble stone street. He is searching for food, his mother, sick in her bed unable to work. His father gone. He is the only person left of his family that can venture out — at six years old.

As he makes his way down Rue Villmonte, Jean-Marc sees other helpless children digging in garbage hoping to find a morsel of bread, old vegetables —something, anything, that they can eat to quell the snarling feeling in their tiny tummies. Jean Marc too feels the hunger pains in his own little belly, but he needs more than just for himself. His mother is dying. She need food to heal. 

As he struggles amid the tangle of arms and legs of the other orphans in the slop of the city, a hand yanks little Jean-Marc out of the garbage. It's a beautiful woman dressed in the most glamorous of dresses the child has ever seen. Her hair tucked under a powdered wig with two tight curls peeking over her ears. Her skin is whiter and cleaner than anything Jean-Marc has ever seen.

Her lips are blood red and she seems to glow. In perfect French she ask if he is hungry. 

Jean Marc is too shy and embarrassed by his dirty appearance to look her in the eye and reply so he stares down at his mud caked feed and see his little toes curl, he answers with a whimper "Oui, madame. J'ai faim. Ma mère aussi."

"Your mother is out of pain. She will no longer need you to help her." The woman replied in English. 

The boy did not understand her. She could tell so she repeated in French.

The little boy's lip began to tremble. His eyes watered so much that a tear overflowed and dropped down his little cheek. 

The beautiful woman wiped away the little wet stain and told him she'd protect him now. She'd give him what he needed. She'd give him so much life that he'd never ask for anything again. She'd be like a mother. 

"Ma mère? Où est-elle?" the child asked.

The woman stood up from her position at eye level with the boy and reached for his hand. 

“Vien.” She replied.

“Ma mère? Où est-elle?" He repeated as he grabbed the woman’s hand. 

"Ici." She answered in French. Here is your mother.

But his life with his supposed new mother did not come without a cost. 

The woman was Dominique Doshall. She took him away from Paris, bit him and with his youthful blood kept herself young all these ears. She gave him new life, indeed, but turned him into what she was, just as Alexandre had done to her. And like what Alexandre had done to Dominique, giving her this life where she'd age slowly in time but not like the rest of the world. 

And if they’d play their cards right, found a mixling along the way, they could all live forever. 

And there was one more thing. Dominique possessed the special ability to grant her victims the ability to walk in the light, so in turn for his obedience, his childlike essence that made her feel maternal, his care for her when she’d eventually need it, Dominique gave her supposed heir and adopted son Jean-Marc the ability to age slowly in his own body. Noy like mortals, and not like other vampires frozen in time, this is a gift given only to special creatures from a powerful few leader. Most importantly, he has the chance to see daylight like anyone else. 

These gifts bestowed on Jean-Marc have him cling to Dominique who sees him only as a way to keep herself alive. And its worked all these years.

***PRESENT DAY***

Jean Marc thought about his life, and how difficult it had been losing his real parents and Dominique’s eventual firing of him. He suddenly recalled his loneliness at the hands of Dominique careless ways and how she never lived up to the title of mother like he had hoped. 

He recalled how he found a ruby necklace once in Dominique’s possessions, one that belonged to his real mother — it was Jean Marc’s sign that Dominique had killed his real mother and taken him for herself. He didn't want this life for Gabriel too. He didn't want what happened to his own real mother happen to Evie. 

"I will take you to Gabriel and the others." Jean Marc said. 

"The others?" Roman asked.

"Friends. But you cannot ever leave this place with them unless you do one thing." The boy asked.

"Anything." Evie said.

Roman grabbed her arm knowing the vampire's of the court were masters of manipulation and agreeing to something on their terms so quickly was foolish.

"Anything -- depending on hurting someone else or... worse." Roman amended.

"I won't ask you to hurt anyone." Jean Marc replied. "I don't want anyone else hurt." 

"Then what is it?" Evie asked.

"I ask that when you all leave, you take me with you. I want to be free of this place too." He asked.

"Can you?" She wondered. "The sun, it would kill you."

Roman shook his head and smiled "No, he can walk in light." 

Evie was shocked to hear it. She never knew of it's possibility knowing Sebastian could not. 

"Then we'll take you, yes." She agreed.

"Come." Jean Marc said, grabbing Evie's hand, as she grabbed Roman's and the three entered the secret passage in the walls of Gabriel's old room. 

****

Arameed calls a meeting of the Saints 

With the change in leadership, Arameed called a late meeting within the walls of Cyfrinach. The creatures who were bound for their sleep before the sun appeared on the horizon, were summoned to the main ballroom where they found Arameed standing on the small stage instead of whom they believed it would: the revitalized Alexandre. 

"I've summoned you all here with good news." Arameed said over murmurs of the crowd.

"Has the mortal woman been caught, the one that killed Sinead?" A female shouted.

"YES! Has she been taken care of?" A man added.

"No, no, Kildare still searches the grounds for her yet. She will not leave here alive, this an assure the court." Arameed added.

Evan, Sinead's brother made his way through the court that had assembled, many of them had already turned into their crypts after the shocking death of Sinead. He was angry. He was seething with disgust with the lack of urgency to find and kill his sister's alleged murderer. 

"Then why call us here at all? You said you had good news and yet my sister's murderess remains free and alive. The only good news I want to hear is that you have her head on a plate!!”

The crowd roared with agreement.

“Calm! I plead calmness!” Arameed shouted. 

“And where is our leader? Dominique won't even show her face and clearly the count remains on his death bed -- the mixling still alive as well. So what is it, old Arameed, what have you to tell us that is good if not what we want to hear?" 

"I know you're angry Evan, but your hope for the quick death of Evangeline will have to wait because we have a new leader. There has been an ascension within our walls. The Count is dead! Long Live the Countess!" 

The group assembled gasped in shock. They had not expected such a turn. Alexandre's demise was supposed to happen only if the mixling's life force did not work, and with his death they all were to die, having Dominique succeed her father only a patch on the problem. Yes, they had many years now to live but eventually Dominique too would have to deal with her aging lifeforce, and Gabriel was still key. 

"What is the meaning of this? How is she now to lead us? Did she take the lifeforce from the mixling? Are we safe?" A woman asked.

"Tell us!" a male said.

"SPEAK!" Another male demanded. 

Arameed lifted his arms up trying to calm the eager group of vampires. They were worried that they'd once again have to go through the trials and tribulations of living night to night hoping that when the time came for Dominique turn at the end of her reign that she would finally get to use the power of the mixing. This was a society that although functioning on a monarchal form, wanted only to live with one person leading them forever -- the change of their head was a nascence because the curse of the leader dying their 400th birthday only prolonged the danger of them all dying.

Specifically, because Dominique had no heir. Unless she chose someone to take over as Alexandre chose her, then the entire court's demise would be delayed as it was now. This was not what they wanted, delays were not the road they preferred to go down. They wanted ever-lasting-life.

"WE WANT THE MIXLINGS BLOOD!!!!!!!!" A male vampire shouted, the rest of court shouting in agreement. The child's blood inside their leader was the only way they'd live forever. 

"You must be patient." Arameed said. "The countess' succession to Alexadre's throne has bought us time, much more time and I guarantee that this world is not over for us. She has every intention to continue where we are and who we are. But she has made her decision to rule in her father's name to and give us more time. This is a brave choice; we should be rejoicing!" 

"Where is she?" Evan asked, his eyes dark with anger. "I want to see her --now." 

"In her marital bed." Arameed said to once again the chock of the crowd.

"What marital bed? Whom has she married?" Evan asked.

"The American: Sebastian Lord." 

The crowd gasped. An outsider. 

"This is outrageous!!" Evan shouted. "Look what is happening to us! Look what she has done, she has taken this court and used it's powers for her own good meanwhile the rest of us wait until she decided when it's a good time to take from the mixling to save the rest of us. This marriage is heresy! This marriage to an outside her pure heresy!!!" 

"HOW DARE YOU!" Arameed shot back. "You stand here and speak of our leader this way knowing the punishment? You see yourself as some kind of soldier of our kind but you've done nothing but make things worse. Shut your mouth before The Countess hears and shuts it for you." 

"But Sinead's death, it must not go unpunished. She was one of us. Does the countess want this to be judged the way we all know it should be? The mortal woman must die for this crime." A vampire shouted. 

"THE MORTAL WOMAN MUST DIE!!" cheered the crowd.

"And she will!!!" Arameed shouted over the vampires. "She will. But now that we've been given more time, thanks to our Countess' bravery in take over for the late Count Alexandre and entering into a marriage of much privilege she has forged a new path. This is what we must celebrate." Arameed shouted.

"Privilege? Only she comes from an area of privilege. My sister is dead. Her body now a vacant vessel that once held such a bright star. I will never forgive what has happened here and the abuse of our fellowship. Dominique needs to address us. She needs to address me!" Evan shouted angrily, spit spewing from his mouth.

The clock in the main hall with it's large face chimed 3 in the morning. The sun was two hours way. 

"Tomorrow." Arameed said. "She'll come to you tomorrow Evan, this I promise you." 

But there were already too many broken promises. Evan was not going to entertain any more pathetic attempts by Arameed or Dominique to quell his anger over his sister's alleged murder. He wanted justice and revenge and he would get it. He would get it before the day came and for this man, a man that had seen so much of his life and afterlife taken from him by allowing this vampire queen to take it from him and give him a lackluster existence through failed plans and broken promises was ready to take things into his own hands.

Arameed came over to Evan who grabbed a goblet that had a small trace of blood that had congealed. He stuck his finger inside and broke the dried bits and drank whatever would seep into his mouth. 

"You should calm yourself." Arameed whispered to him as he went to leave. "And you shall address her now as The Countess, Your Grace, or Ma'am. The name Dominique shall never leave your togue again." 

Evan snarled at the old mystic as he watched him slowly limp away with his robes dragging along the black and white tiled floor of the ballroom.

"Just you wait, old Arameed, just you wait." Evan said to himself in a low voice. 

The day would come soon but Evan's anger would not reset to peace. He would not let this go. He would not allow the sense of betrayal he felt deep in his body vanish just because Dominique was now the head of the court. He felt she had turned her back on the court in favor of her own interests. She was safe now married to the man that was the father of the prophesized mixling. She was safe now in a high place of esteem while the rest of them had to wait again for another long 300 years. 300 more years of uncertainty, 300 more years of wishing for the one child to finally come. 

Evan knew she was squandering this moment and that she was using it to link herself to Sebastian, a man that could easily be manipulated in his own naivety of the world they lived in. 

Yes, the day would come but not for another 2 hours, and in the next 2 hours Evan would make sure not a soul left Castle Cyfrinach alive. 

B8/Ch7: THE LONGEST NIGHT

Dominique & her bath of blood 

The night lingered creeping closer into the midnight hour. The moon above Goodwick gripped on to the night sky like a pendant pinned to a black wool cloak shimmering under a thin veil of clouds. Inside Cyfrinach, the chaos of Sinead's sudden death had yet to filter into the Doshall's upper apartments in the west wing. 

A maid from the village walked from a washroom with wall-to-wall white tiled floor. In that room there was a well that held dark crimson liquid that she would lap up with a ladle into a large pail and then carry into a side private corridor that led into Dominique's apartment. 

Dominique lay in a porcelain tub, pristine and white but there was no water. 

The maid came in and poured the pail into the tub where Dominique lay -- it was a bath of blood.

She washed her naked body, all over skin red like the liquid velvet. She became a wash of the most violent of ruby that glistened sickly in a way that made the made almost vomit every time the vampire heiress caressed her hands over her naked skin with the blood. 

Dominique looked up towards her maid, she made eye contact with her in a way that seemed to almost tease the poor, exhausted woman. She knew how vial it was but enjoyed the grotesque way it made the maid sick.

The blood was one of the most powerful elixirs for a being like Dominique. It seeped into Dominique's skin rejuvenating her. Revitalizing her for a long night ahead. Only the sickle shaped moon to finally kill the mixling and use his sacred blood to revive Alexandre would she then return her own body to a new youthful glow. 

After her bath of blood and washing off in ice cold water, Dominique dressed in a silk robe and tinkered with a giant ruby necklace. She covered her face with her customary lace vail and made her way to visit her father. His health was failing and the worry in Dominique's heart that he would not make the night of sickle moon felt real and frightening. 

She walked into his room, Arameed, the family mystic, greeted her by standing and bowing his head. She passed him and sat across the bed from Arameed and watched her father's breath fading slowly. 

But Alexandre woke. He could smell the blood that had been all over Dominique's skin. It was a scent that made him lick his lips. He could tell she was freshly washed and reached for her hand. 

"Father?" She said, standing over him. 

His eyes opened, small yellow circles empty with life but filled to the brim with rage and cravings. He opened his mouth and whispered to her in a low growl of a voice that sank into her skin like the blood in the bath,

"Bring me the one that will revive me whole." He said.

"Soon." She whispered back. His eyes narrowed, the anger with the waiting palpable. He then reached his withered hand up to her and grabbed her arm, his long yellow nails digging in her hand hoping some blood would seep out of for his own pleasure. The pain only temporary, he pulled his hand back and sucked on his nails hoping for a taste. 

Dominique grimaced with disgust but as he lay his arm down again on the bed she saw the burn from the sunlight that occurred when Evie visited him. 

"What's happened here?" Dominque asked.

Arameed's brow raised. "I saw it too. No maid has knowledge of it." 

"And you? Can you find how it happened in a vision of yours? How was my father exposed to sunlight? When?" 

Arameed's furrowed his raised brow he felt a tone of blame in her voice, he did not like her accusatory action "I know nothing of it either, Dominique. But you've brought strangers into this house. Strangers who are curious and reckless with our ways. Something to this end was bound to happen. I'm surprised it was not worse." 

"You know why they're here." Dominque said annoyed with Arameed's lack of worry for how this happened. She kissed his hand. "And what good is a sorcerer if he can't tell me what's been done behind my back." She scoffed.

"How goes the mixing?" Alexandre weak voice asked, surprising the other two. 

"Father don't speak." Dominique hushed. Standing now to face him. "We're waiting the sickle moon, it's only nights away. And as soon as it's here, we'll bring you the mixing. He's well. He's a boy of just 3 years and healthy. His life force is strong." 

"I smell the life in you." The old vampire said.

She smirked realizing what he meant, her bath of blood.

"Father, how did this happen?" She asked, touching his burn.

Alexandre winced in pain with her touch of his blistering withered hand. He pulled it up to hold it himself and tried to remember. There was a woman he said, a woman who came to see him. A servant perhaps? He wasn't sure. She woke him and his instinct was to attack as it was not time for him. The servant woman, or whoever she was, screamed and fell. Then vanished.

"A woman? He has no servant woman." Dominique noted.

"Perhaps one of yours?" Aremeed questioned with a clever switch of blame.

"He was alone?" Dominique asked, knowing Arameed should have been with him - again switch back blame to him.

"Dominique, I am as old as your father. I try my best to be here when I can, but I need to rest myself. Without my own rest I can be no use to you." Arameed defended.

She scoffed again at him "There's always an answer, isnt there old Arameed?" She shot back. 

Arameed quickly reached down under the soft chair he sat on and showed her what he was good for. A shiny golden sickle shaped knife with a handle that had grooves for a tight grip for the user. 

"For the ceremony of the mixling." Arameed said handing Dominique. "I've readied it."

"Its shines." She said, her eyes sparkling under her vail at the weapon to use on Gabriel. "Look father, we have the arm. Its finally here for us. The night is coming and when it's finally here --you'll be free." 

Arameed motioned to speak with Dominique to speak with her so that Alexandre could not hear. She obliged and walked over to a balcony with French doors. She placed her hand on the doorhandle, but Arameed stopped her from going out. 

"Is the father of the mixling well?" 

Dominique sighed "He's new to our way. I know that he is eager to please us and wants to belong but for now he knows not of his child's gift for us. I don't want to scare him away. If I were to be truthful with him, he would surly leave. I cannot have that." She said.

"He must be told that his child’s life will be sacrificed for the sake of us all."

Dominique arched an eyebrow and took in a deep sigh. She was lethal but hated the idea of speaking out loud the act of infanticide. She chose to work in more clandestine ways, using others to do her dirty work kept her hands clean yet the job done. Despite her closeness to murder and death she found it all vulgar, but nothing took that feeling away like the taste of power. 

"Why?" She asked aloofly, still hoping to keep her found obsession with Sebastian far away from his truthful reason for being at Cyfrinach in the first place.

Arameed scoffed in frustration, Dominique continued: "If I tell him his child’s life’s end means for ours to continue— he'll leave Arameed. We need Gabriel. No Sebastian, no Gabriel. My father's life is fading away. Look at him. Look at the bones in his body slowly withering into nothing, into dust. Without the mixling we all die, do you understand? My father's life is our life." 

Finally the moment Arameed had been waiting for. He saw no future in Alexandre's continued rule, he saw no need for the creature who was bedridden for all these years and such a slave to the dark. He knew there was no way forward with the man who'd already lived his 350 years. Arameed could only see a future for the Court of the Saints of Goodwick with regime change. With that, he could live long too, and there was only one way to go about the change. 

Sway Dominique to this idea. 

He grabbed Dominique by the wrist and tightened his grip. She tried to pull away but he looked her dead in the eyes, those dark eyes beneath the vail.

"There is another way for life." Arameed reminded her. Dominique knew what he was speaking of quite instantly and reached for the door handle to exit onto the balcony. 

The wind blew her vail off her face exposing her white perfect skin. Arameed's beard too lifted with the wind's cold kiss. She closed the French doors behind her and looked at Arameed with stern eyes. 

"I don't want him to hear you speak of the ‘alternatives’." She scolded.

"You are the alternative. If the mixling’s life force is reserved for you then Alexandre should parish. The Court is yours for as long as you want it. You become the leader. You would reign supreme." Arameed explained. 

"That is not what I want. I want my father to live and reign the way he has for centuries. That is what I want." She replied.

Arameed though knew different. He knew she admired Alexandre but he also knew a truth that Dominique kept close to her vest about their supposed close family tie. It was a truth that fueled her craving for power that would only come with Alexandre’s death. It was a craving almost as strong as the one for human blood. 

Arameed, for his part, dared to dangle this reminder of how close to ultimate power Dominique was just as his eyes looked towards the golden sickle blade in her hand. He wondered how his days could be numbered if it were to get out that he tempted her with this idea. 

To reach this peak of power and regain his life to rule for another 3 centuries, Dominique would have to slit the throat of a 3-year-old mixling child and feed the blood to her father.

 Or…she could take Gabriel’s life for herself and let Alexandre fall. 

"There is no safety in this world that will guarantee what will come next, if I were you, I'd let the last of this man's life fade away and seize Cyfrinach and all the fruits of what comes with it." 

"Such ideas! And yet, I can’t help but wonder what’s in it for you old Arameed?” She asked narrowing her eyes in his mystical direction.” 

“I only want what’s best for you.” He answered.

"What's best for me is always what's best for you!" She laughed. "How dare you pretend like it won’t benefit you to have me around longer!” Dominique shouted at him, the wind blowing in her dark robes around. "My father's life is our life, I keep saying that to you."

"And I tell you it is not so. You can rule for just as many centuries with the mixling's lifeforce as your father would. In fact, a change of the guard may do this court good. Time comes and takes away the leaves of the tree that weigh it down. It's time for new leaves here at Cyfrinach, Domonique." 

"What you speak is treasonous and betrayal. You want me to let him die and take over, if we were discovered, it means certain death. For you and me.”  

"Betrayal of who? Of you? You cannot betray yourself, Dominique, you would betray no one. You would only do what kings and queens have done for decades and centuries before you, they've succeeded their predecessors and sat upon a throne to finally make the world in their own eyes." The mistic vampire explained.

"I -- I don't know what to do. You’re confusing me. Since Sebastian and Gabriel’s arrival we only spoke of healing Alexandre and you’ve suddenly changed ideas.” She said staring at her the sickle knife in her hand, her reflection in the shiny blade missing. 

"I see he is wasting away. He is no match for time, and the writing is on the wall. Fate has come and given you this opportunity on a silver platter." Arameed said, pointing to the knife. "Take it. Let it be -- let it pass to you." 

"And if I do this, if my father does die, what exactly will happen to me?" She asked. 

Arameed's brow lifted and slightly smirked noticing her sudden switch in tone to his idea. "The entire court will be yours to rule over. This place, the castle and village will be yours. You'll be like a queen in her own realm. And you'll live for 300 more years -- plenty of time to find another mixling to keep you the way you are. Young. Viable. Powerful." 

"This mixling will not do that?" Dominique asked, Arameed shook his head. 

"No, another will come, especially with handsome Sebastian at your disposal to use to woo a potential new mother down the line.” Arameed said. 

“Have Sebastian father another child?” She asked. 

Arameed smiled “When you finally begin to age years from now, and Sebastian is under your ultimate control you can have him create a new mixing after Gabriel is gone. It’s a never ending cycle Alexandre was foolish enough not to use — on you. When he could.” 

A shiver went up Dominique’s ice cold spine finally seeing where Arameed’s mind went connecting the sick dots of her one history with Alexandre. Arameed’s idea to lock her possible reign in place having Sebastian father children with other mortal women to make mixling’s whenever she needed.

Arameed continued "This ceremony must still happen, with Gabriel before all else. But the blood shall be for you -- for your life -- for your coronation. Dominique: The Countess Doshall." 

The title sounded almost too perfect for her. Her father's title. Something that she never thought would be for her but there it was at her fingertips. Dominique looked into the glass of the French doors and saw her sleeping father, his face gaunt and sunken in around the bones. His eyes almost tiny pinpoint of blackness and his lips dry and craving human touch, human blood, human flesh. 

"It's time for the countess." She said in a low whisper seemingly ready to decide to let her father finally die. 

Arameed smiled from ear to ear and repeated her words "Its time for the countess." 

As the two looked into the room from the privacy of Alexandre's balcony, Kildare entered the room. His face was panicked. His eyes wide. He was sweating from running from the other side of the castle to meet Dominique.

Dominique could see his expression clearly through the glass and instantly knew something was wrong. She quickly replaced her veil and made her way back into the bedroom and took Kildare into the hallway away from her father. 

"What is it?" She asked one of her most trusted village goons.

He didn't know what to say, he didn't know how to say it. He stammered. He sweated. He shook his head as the glimmer of the sickle knife in her hands flashed in his eyes.

She slapped him softly across the face to get him to focus. "Speak man!" She exclaimed.

His breathing picked up pace. He couldn't catch his breath and finally just said "Sinead is dead." 

"WHAT?" Dominique gasped.

"She was pushed out of a window, and she fell to her death on the gates beside the courtyard.

"What window? Where in the courtyard?" Dominique asked mentally mapping out the castle in her head to figure out where this happened.

"The Eastern lot." Kildare said.

"Eastern? The only windows there are the ones where the mixling's mother is being held. She was pushed from Evangeline's window?" Dominique asked connecting the dots.

Kildare nodded confirming.

Dominique’s eyes turned black. Her fangs lengthened, her heart beat raced. She became deeply enraged. Her hand gripped the sickle knife tightly. 

"Why the devil was she in that room?!! Why did she go in there? Where is Evangeline?" Dominique raged.

"We don't know why she went there and --- the woman is gone." Kildare said.

Dominique turned and stabbed the sickle shaped knife into the wall, furious at what had happened. She couldn't believe that she was just in the middle of a conversation that would change her life for ever only to come to realization there was chaos happening only feet below her in another part of the castle. She felt like a mother unable to control her children, and now one of them one was dead. 

Her jaw tightened and she only mouthed one sentence, a sentence that would finally get to the bottom of the chaos all around her and the source of who she believed might be responsible for it all. 

"Bring me Roman Ashby, bring me him now." 

****

Evie searches for Gabriel 

The halls of the castle were dim, glowing with angry orange light from torches that clung to iron grapples nailed to the ancient stone walls. Evie slithered about the castle, hiding in doorways, cloaking herself in long dark drapes as several servants of the vampire cult scavenged the grounds and many rooms of the castle for the escaped supposed murderess. 

Evie knew she had to find Gabriel and escape. They were after her for Sinead's death, not knowing it was an accident. The entire reason didn't even matter anymore -- the Saint's of Goodwick had convened in one of the major halls of the castle and decided to stay put allowing the villagers who worked to find Evie and bring her to them for punishment. 

They searched high and low, every crevice they could, every room, every nook and cranny but Evie was always one step ahead. 

As she quietly made her way through the treacherous pathways searching for her son, a storm exploded in the air outside. Twisting and churning the clouds into a frenzy and dropped rain like buckets of water onto the village. 

Evie shivered, she had on no shoes and only the silky black dress with chiffon sheer sleeves she came in. She Slid in and out of rooms hiding under furniture and in closets all the while searching for Gabriel. 

As she went room to room she felt the heaviness of eyes on her. She was being followed. She picked up her pace, faster down a hall as the person continued behind her picking up their pace. 

Had she been discovered? 

Evie's heart raced. Was it Sebastian? Had he found her?

She reached for a door that led into a small private library that was on the fourth floor in the west wing of the castle, just before she could sneak in, the person caught up to her, grabbed her on the shoulder her and turned her around. 

Evie instinctually turned and punched the person in the face then she fell to the floor expecting some kind of retribution. But when she felt nothing, she opened her eyes to see the person she hit was rubbing his sore jaw with his hand smiling at her.

"Well, I guess I don't need to teach you how to do that!" 

**

Evan & Sebastian in the ballroom 

As the villagers searched for Evie, the vampire court met in the ball room. They were horrified that someone could have done this to Sinead, under their very room. How could anyone have allowed Evie to get so close and have the ability and strength to push one of their own out of a window. 

"We should have never let her in." One vampire said.

"Agreed, the minute she stepped into Cyfrinach, we should have gutted her. She's of no use to us." Another vampire said.

Sebastian gulped. He would never accept that Evie did any of this on purpose. She was not capable of murder, but he knew that when push came to shove, she would do anything to get to her child. Perhaps, Sinead did the pushing and Evie did the shoving -- resulting in a fall out of a window.

Many of the other courtiers surrounded the devastated Evan who paced a small area of the ballroom. They wanted to contain his anger, they knew that time was ticking away to day light, they could not allow him to leave the protection of the ballroom and be caught in the light. 

"I want her dead. I WANT THE MORTAL DEAD!!!" Evan shouted.

"She didn't do this. I swear she didn't." Sebastian told Evan.

"How can you say that? She killed my sister in cold blood after everything we've done to protect you and her child, we offered you all family and life-ever-after and she killed one of us! Sinead wanted nothing more than to befriend her." Evan said, lying. He knew Sinead's true intentions. Her visit to Evie's room was only part reconnaissance trip - she did want to hurt Evie and ever expected the end result. 

"You don't know her." Sebastian said stepping up to Evan. "I do, she would never, ever do something like this." He growled.

Evan slowly walked the few steps to Sebastian. He stared at him with a deathly look in his eye. He could tell there would be nothing anyone could say to Sebastian that would make him believe that Evie was responsible for the death. 

"You are turning you back on your own kind." Evan hissed, his fangs suddenly drawing out. His eyes blackening. "You don't deserve us." 

Then Evan lunged at Sebastian mouth agape ready to bite.

**

Evie looked up and in the shadowy hallway of Cyfrinach Castle she saw the face of her cousin Roman Ashby.

Evie leaped up and hugged him, happy to see a friendly face.

"We need to get you out of here, they think you've killed Sinead Sheernan." He said.

"No! No!! I didn't. She was in my room and she was talking about ... I don't know, it all happened so quickly. But we fought. And I fell to the floor. When she went for me she tripped and fell through the window." Evie recalled.

"They would never believe that. It's too dangerous for you here we have to get you out and get you to your friends." Roman said.

"What? My friends?"

Roman smiled. "There is news that there are strangers in the village asking about the castle. They're asking about you and Gabriel." Roman replied. "They're names are Matthew and Hope." 

Evie's eyes lit up, Matthew had come for her. He had found a way to get to her and save her even after everything she had put him through and breaking off their engagement for a second time. She couldn't believe he had come all this way, miraculously and found where she and Gabriel were being held.

"How? How could they have found us?" She wondered. "We have to find Gabriel and then get out. I don't want Matthew hurt, knowing him he's trying to figure out a way to get into the Cyfrinach and I don't want anyone to hurt him." Evie explained.

"Evie, there may not be time for Gabriel. I-- I don't know how we can get to him without being caught by the servants, we still have 5 hours until daylight but even then, the villagers might already have his room locked off." Roman explained.

Evie grabbed his hand and squeezed tightly, "I am not leaving here without Gabriel, Roman. My son's life is on the line, and I cannot leave him here with Sebastian." 

Roman knew a mother would never leave her child, it was obviously too much too ask of her. He agreed and grabbed tightened his grip on her hand. "We have to be very careful and very fast." 

"Very careful, and very fast." Evie repeated. 

"Quickly!" Roman said, as he slid a panel of the wall open revealing a secret passage that led into the depth of the castle's insides. The narrow passage was secret to many, except for those close to the Doshalls. These were passages ways that were meant to make secret escapes should the villager's revolt in an attempted coup.

Evie prayed she'd find Gabriel, escape, and find Matthew to save them all from the hell that was Goodwick, Scotland. 

**

Back in the ballroom tensions escalated between Evan and Sebastian. 

A lightning strike lit up the large ballroom windows as Evan lunged at Sebastian.

The two men roared and ravaged each other like two male lions fighting for their pride. The other courtiers hiss with their own mouths showing vangs hoping for bloodshed.

The blame was on Sebastian for bringing Evie, Sebastian bravely defended his former wife and mother of his child despite that only evidence showing that quite possibly Evie did kill Sinead. 

The vampire men continued to battle, ripping at each other, nicking at each other's skin but never allowing either one to firming plant their mouth on the other's neck allowing a fatal bite. 

Then, as the fight overturned chairs and table, Dominique entered the back of the room slamming the doors behind her. The entire court turned to the noise seeing the veiled figure standing tall with her arms carefully folded over her stomach. 

"His woman killed Sinead!!!" Evan shouted, spit flying from his anger mouth.

Dominique slowly walked over to the exhausted men, she put her hand up in Evan's way stopping him from saying anything further, his black blood quickly boiling over at her choice to silence him.

"The way forward is not to kill each other." She only said, her veiled eyes never leaving the handsome Sebastian's gaze.

"She didn't do this." Sebastian said softly as his fangs retracted.

"He's lying. He doesn't know what happened in that room." Evan replied, he too returning to his handsome humanlike visage. 

"And neither do you." Dominique responded turning to Evan coldly. "This very well could have been all a mistake, we all know how reckless Sinead could be." 

Evan's eyes narrowed. 

"You've made a very, very grave mistake in allowing her to stay here. If we had removed the mortal long ago, we wouldn't have had to deal with the death of my sister, no matter how you spin this, Sinead's death is on Sebastian and Evangeline. I will not change my mind."

"I made a mistake?" Dominique asked confused at Evan's brave words against her. "I don't make mistakes Evan Sheernan. Sebastian has brought us the only thing in this world that can keep us alive and safe for centuries to come. Do you think that is a mistake?" 

Evan sighed irritated with the continued story of the mixling prophecy. The courtiers murmured amongst themselves as rain fell outside in drops of rain as thick as green grapes. 

"You say this, and yet we've seen nothing of the child's power." Evan replied as he turned to the other's watching "Have we?!" 

The other vampires murmured again, they had not seen anything. 

"He's only a child. I don't understand what my son can do for us at such a young age. He's done nothing to anyone, and -- and -- putting so much pressure on him won't do any good." Sebastian replied failing to gain the other's favor. 

Dominique smiled at Sebastian sensing his tender heart for his son "He's very much a powerful being, Sebastian. No matter his age." She then turned back to Evan "But there are laws and rules that we follow. We don't attack one another. We don't kill one another. And we follow the laws set by my father's father and his father's father and his after that. They all are awaiting the mixling's arrival and they all died awaiting him too. But that ends here." 

"What about Evie? The mother of this mixling has killed one of us." Evan said. "My sister died for nothing." 

"I should have never brought us here. It was a mistake." Sebastian said.

The others fell silent as Dominique grabbed Sebastian's hand kissed it.

"No, this is where you belong and this is where you will stay. With me." She said. "You've come to a place where you are loved and where you can live out the rest of your life amongst those that are like you Sebastian. You have to see that a world that doesn't understand what you need will always be against you. Here, we are not against you no matter what ..." She paused and turned to Evan "some may think or say."

"Evie doesn't belong here. She needs to go back home to her own family. It would be better for her." Sebastian said.

"Perhaps." Dominique replied. "But since we cannot find her, we cannot help her and all I want to do is help her." 

"Help her????" Evan shouted. "You are going to help a murderer! Where is this coming from? Where is your loyalty to us, the ones that have been by your side for as long as we can remember. The ones you created!" 

"EVIE IS NOT A MURDERER!" Sibastian shouted going again towards Evan, but Dominique held him back. 

"If I find her, I'll destroy her, I will rip her throat out with my bare hands I promise you this." Evan said. "My sister deserved better."

"If you think of laying a hand on her I'll -- " Sebastian begin before a thunderclap came at the same time as Dominique shouted: "ENOUGH!" 

"We have no time to bicker here. We are three hours from sunrise and if we continue to keep this pace of anger and blame none of us will be alive. Evangeline is gone -- we'll find her and we'll ask her to tell us her side of the story. No one will hurt her." 

Evan scoffed in shock at Dominique's decision.

"Thank you." Sebastian said softly. 

Without saying anything else Evan stormed out of the ballroom. He had had enough of Dominique siding with a stranger to their court. A man she barely knew and was only keeping close contact with because of his son's powerful link to her own father's life. The doors of the ballroom blew open and Evan was gone into the shadowy corridor. 

"Sinead, like many foolish moths, stood too close to the flame. Her flame of life snuffed out. It is what it is." Dominique told the other's still standing in the ballroom. "Let that be a lesson to you all. Don't be the moth." 

"Evie is a kind person. She's given me a son and she's taken care of him through many tumultuous times in our lives. She would never hurt anyone unless she were to be threatened herself. I know this for a fact. She just isn't that type of person." Sebastian said.

"Do you love her?" Dominique asked.

"I supposed I do. She is the mother of my child." 

"Does she love you back?" She asked.

Sebastian paused, rain continued to pour outside dripping down into the ballroom through the stone walls. The other vampires scattered about the room, now, allowing for quiet moments between them as they awaited instruction from Dominique. 

He did not know how to answer if Evie loved him. It was enough for Dominique.

"You see? Perhaps there are things about her that have finally made sense. You and the mother of your child have gone through a world of events that have finally taken it's course. And life goes on. At least for you. But---only if your child saves you. And us." She said.

"But how? How can Gabriel help us that way?" Sebastian wondered.

Dominique smirked and turned to the others "I want you all to go back to your apartments. Prepare for sunrise and prepare for rest. Sinead is gone! That is a fact, and that is the past. Tomorrow night we rise again and I promise you, it will be a better night for us all. I will bring you all good news."

The crowed began to disburse, eager to rest and wake the next night to see what news their Defacto leader would have. Dominique then turned to Sebastian and whispered in his ear. 

"Come, I want you to meet someone. I want you to meet my father, Count Alexadre Doshall. I think it's time."

"Is he well enough?" Sebastian asked.

She smiled and leaned on him as they walked together out of the ballroom. 

"For what we have planned, he's well enough." She answered, with Arameed's voice in her head telling her to take power from her father. Perhaps the next step in that motion was now coming.

****

Matthew & Hope enter Cyfrinach 

As the castle's resident's began to wind down and the servants continued to search for Evie, Matthew and Hope slowly made their way up the windowing staircase from the servants’ entrance into the first layer of what they were sure was going to be frightening encounter.

A small door opened into a large foyer in the center of the castle. It was dark. Humid. The rain outside had made the foyer chocked with moisture as the air within the stonewalls became trapped and stuck to everything it touched.

Hope pointed to the paintings on the large walls. Faces she never knew, and yet the energy she could feel that she did know them. Faces of men, dark souls that once ruled the halls of Cyfrinach Castle and the people of this small Scottish sea village. 

Matthew pointed to hallway that led deeper into the castle. 

Hope followed.

They slowly walked into a dimly lit area from the main foyer. It was slightly brighter than the last room thanks to the fireplace burning in front of them. 

"Where should we go?" Hope whispered.

"In there." Matthew pointed. "We have to keep going room to room to find some way up. We have to get to where the private rooms are." 

"What about a cell? Or a dungeon?" Hope asked.

"Sebastian would never let them keep her in something like that. Not after the trials we just suffered through. Sebastian is a lot of things, but he isn't cruel, not when it comes to Evie."

Hope smiled at her brother, his kindness even for a man he disliked shined through. He could find the humanity in someone even in the most darknets places like Cyfrinach. 

"You give him a lot of credit." She said. 

"He loves her." Matthew replied. 

"You love her." Hope said.

"I love her more. Come." Matthew answered.

As the rain continued to pour outside, Hope decided they needed extra help getting to Evie. The castle was far too large and too dangerous to simply wonder around aimlessly. She took a breath and stood firm in the center of this room with the fireplace and closed her eyes. Seeing that she did not readily follow him, Matthew turned back and saw his sister with her arms stretched out wide with her palms up.

She was humming a song again. The same song, a song he could hum too. 

The fire in the fireplace burned hotter. It became larger without additional lumber going into it. Hope's energy seemed to feed the fire; the fire seemed to give her strength too. The light from the flames became so bright and hot Matthew had to turn away.

In her mind, the flames lit the castle as bright as day. She could see inside the upper layers, and she saw the rooms where the creatures slept. She saw them going into their crypts and sleeping awaiting night fall again.

They could sense Hope too, they twitched in their crypts feeling watched, feeling seen but not knowing where these eyes were. 

Then as Hope continued to search for Evie through her mind, she saw two people quickly making their way in the passages within the walls of the castle. It was woman and a man, and she knew instinctively it was Evie, but the man she did not know, Roman.

Hope followed them. Her eyes invisible yet the creatures knew. She continued to follow, they were fast hurrying along the secret passages. 

"Hope," Matthew whispered as the power of the flames continued to hear the room "What do you see?" 

"They're in the walls." Hope said back. "They're in the walls."

"They? Is she With Gabriel?" 

Hope shook her head but kept her eyes closed. "I don't see a child."

"Sebastian then?" Matthew asked.

Hope shook her head again.

"Come, we have to go. We can't waste time." Matthew added. Hope agreed. 

"This way." She said, telepathically following the direction Evie and the man she did not know were going in. 

"Wait, where are we going?" Matthew asked.

"They're going this way." As she grabbed her brother to take him in the right direction she realized he needed to do this himself. To once again reconnect to the gifts he'd inherited from his people.

"Try." she added.

"Try?"

"Close your eyes and feel the heat of the fire in the heart. Let it warm you, let it heal the cold from inside your heart and let it guide you like a lighthouse in the direction of what you seek. Go on, try." She said.

Matthew closed his eyes and thought of Evie. He thought of her running for her life trying to get away from something while searching for freedom within the terrifying walls of the castle. He could feel his heart beat faster but he did not see anything. The light of the fire dimmed again without Hope's powerful lure. She encouraged him to try again.

"Go deeper into your mind, you know you can do this. Feel the fire, Matthew, feel it's light and let it guide you." 

Matthew nodded and thought of the fire again as a guide, it lit his mind. The fire burning hot in the heart again, this time with Matthew's power. He could see what Hope did. The layers of the castle, almost as if he were flying inside of it seeing through the antient stone walls. He was frightened by the crypts and the creatures that writhed around their coffins knowing he was watching but not knowing hot to get to him. He continued on his way through Cyfrinach and then -- there she was, the woman he loved and would risk his life for running though secret passage after secret passage with an unknown man. 

"I see them." Matthew said. 

"Lead the way." Hope replied proudly.

And the siblings quickly made their way into the halls that would lead them on the chase to find Evie. 

They were not alone. A shadowy figure saw them enter; the figure saw them use their powers to connect to the flames to light their way to find Evie. The shadowy figure, small in stature followed on their quest.

B8/Ch6: THE FALL OF TROY

Sebastian & Evie on the balcony 

On the night Evie believed she and Gabriel had been held captive for three-weeks at Cyfrinach Castle, she stood on the forbidden balcony of her room that faced the village. She was too far up for anyone who walked the streets in the village to see her or even hear her screams. 

The sea raged before here on the horizon, and she looked downward into the dark empty cervices of the castle below and saw no way of climbing down.

As she did this, the room of her door unlocked. She turned back to see Sebastian entering. 

He looked paler. Thinner even. He was dressed in a dark red suit with a tie tightly wound around his long beck with a pearl pin attached at the center. Despite her anger towards him, he looked handsome, albeit, colder and more distant.

She entered back into her room and stepped down the two tiny steps form the balcony and took the tray of dinner he brought her. She saw her own reflection in the tin dome that covered her food but did not see his. It was a reminder of who-- and what he was. 

"How's Gabriel?" She asked, with hope in her voice.

"He asks about you." Sebastian admitted softly.

"Then why don't you let me see him? He clearly needs me, Sebastian." 

"Evie, I can't let that happen, and you know why." He replied. "We don't have faith in you; you might do something to take him away from here." 

"We?" She asked in a tone of outrage. "Since when are you, a we?"

"The court." He clarified referring to the vampire clan he’d become a part of.

"I don’t accept that Sebastian. I demand you send me OUR son, you said yourself—he’s asking for me.” She demanded. 

Sebastian refused. 

“How can you be so cold to me?” She asked. “After everything we've been through, this is how you are treating me? Keeping Gabriel from me is probably the cruelest thing you've done to me in a very, very long time Sebastian. I don't know if I will ever find a way to forgive this." 

"In time, you'll understand that this is the best place for us. I keep telling you this, and Dominique thinks that it'll be soon. Gabriel is -- he's needed here. They treat us like royalty. Gabriel is like their crowned prince. You should see!" Sebastian said, sounding completely indoctrinated. 

Evie backed away from him. The man she once loved and made a child with had once again changed into something different than she knew. She had met this handsome boyish man that she fell in love, he turned into a tragic almost horrifying figure but through a long terrible process he'd sort of came back to her once again with his attempts to prove to her his humanity remained. 

But this betrayal, of kidnapping them to Scotland and separating mother and child was something even she never expected from Sebastian. This was a new Sebastian that felt alien. 

"I want you to step back from all of this Sebastian and really listen to yourself and hear what you are asking of me. You are asking the mother of your child to sit idle around this empty dark room while you keep her from her child. While there’s some strange plan for him and some Count that neither of us have heard of. When will you open your eyes to this? When will you see the dangers here?? When it's too late? When I'm dead? When Gabriel is dead?" Evie shouted.

"How can you think that? Why would you think that?" Sebastian asked stupidly.

Evie only shook her head. "It doesn't take someone like Mary or Charlotte or even Jacqueline to see the future here Sebastian: There isn't one. Not for me. Not for Gabriel. You've brought us to the end of our lives and it's only a matter of time until it happens. And then what will you do?" 

Sebastian's eyes narrowed. He didn't believe Evie's fears. He didn't care what she thought, he knew in his heard his decision to come to Cyfrinach was a good one, that the Doshalls would protect them and make them happy there. He would follow the rules and do as Dominique instructed because it was better for them. This was where they belonged.

"You'll never see me as more than some monster that walks the night. That's where this is." Sebastian said softy and with a tinge of sadness.

Evie walked over to him; their eyes met. Coldness there and nothing more. She searched his face for the love he once had, frozen like ice. He searched hers too, even colder. They were two icebergs floating atop of a slush-like sea but only one would survive the coming warmth of whatever hell the Dominque Doshall had planned. 

Evie did not directly answer Sebastian's question. "Promise me you'll keep Gabriel away from Dominique, Sebastian. Make me this promise and I think I can find the human in you again." 

"She won't hurt him."

"DAMN IT SEBASTIAN! Listen to me, she is dangerous! She wants to do something to him!" Evie shouted.

"Why do you keep saying that? Why do you keep thinking she's going to hurt you or our child? She has never ever once said anything to me that would suggest this." 

"You're in denial and I can't help you. I cannot. I cannot show you what she is going to do because I don't know!" Evie said.

"Then? If you don't know then you're making things up!" Sebastian shouted. 

"No, no, I can't tell you how I know, but I do. I know something is happening. They know Gabriel is part you and part me." Evie said unable to say the word vampire in the moment.

"Of course he is!" Sebastian replied.

"No...he was born of you after you became this... they know that. They seek it. The need it and that hold something important and special to them and I don't see it ending well. I don't how you can't see it!" She shouted back. 

"You're jealous. You're lying and you're jealous!" Sebastian shouted. "You're making things about  Dominique so that I turn on her and take us out of here. You're LYING!" 

Evie slapped him across the face. 

"How dare you." She said, seething with anger. 

A single tear feel down his cheek. Evie reached to wipe it. He grabbed her hand and held it there for a second. They stared into each other's eyes seeing two completely different people now, no longer the lovelorn paramours from 4 years earlier. They were now a tattered reminder of what happens when darkness falls on the heart. Sebastian slowly lowered her hand and turned from her going towards her room's door. She followed. Her dark dress swishing passed the furniture like a flower petal folding into itself. 

He said nothing. No reply. No angry eyes or fangs. 

He locked the door. 

Evie banged on it begging to be released but he stood there, on the other side, another tear falling knowing that this would be the last time he saw her. He'd someone else to bring her dinner. 

It was over. Evie sobbed. Sebastian said nothing. And like the fall of the legendary Troy their relationship fell into ruins before their very eyes 

****

Sinead & Evan in the Courtyard 

Downstairs outside under a cloud-covered moon, an interior courtyard was lit with long tall iron lamp posts around the perimeter. A set of two gravel paths that intersected with a giant fountain in the center of it sprayed water from a siren's chest as if her heart were weeping. Triangular patches of grass crowned with large bushes and small pomegranate trees added extra shadow to an already cloaked garden. 

Sitting on one of the benches the Sheernan twins watched as others from the Court walked about the night watching the fluttering bats go from courtyard tree to courtyard tree. 

"Don't you wonder what he's really about? He seems so mysterious. He intrigues me." Sinead said of Sebastian Lord, as if he were a new fashion item to be bought and worn. 

"He's quite odd, if you ask me." her brother Evan replied.

"Why?"

"He's too quiet. Never trust a person who doesn't say what they want when they want and how they want. Something about him, I just don't trust. Besides all of that Dominique warned you to stay away from him." He said.

Sinead scoffed and swatted as his shoulder playfully. "Oh, she's a bit full of herself. She can't hog all the new blood around here can she?" 

"Sinea...." Evan said, seeing his sister stepping too far off the ledge. 

"We don't know him that well yet, and I think I can change that."

Evan turned to face his sister. The lamp light from the closest lamp glowed on his caramel skin making him look even more handsome as the shadows of the flickering flame danced on his face. 

"I want you to listen to me, do not get too involved here. The American is directly linked to something much greater than us and I want no trouble from the Doshalls. Maybe wait until the Sickle moon has passed and the mixing has done healing Alexandre for you to then go after --- him." Evan pleaded.

"And where would that put us?" She said. "Still on the outside." 

"What are you talking about?" Evan wondered.

"Evan, this is our chance, don't you see?" She said slightly frustrated with her brother's lack of ambition.  "Sebastian is Dominque's new favorite. Its almost as if we've all vanished and the only one here with her is Sebastian. He's the father of the mixing too. If I can just get into his good graces, then I know for a fact I can get into a better standing with the Doshalls. This is good news for the two of us! We'll be closer to the Alexandre than anyone one else once he finally gets back on his feet once the prophecy of the mixling is done." 

"Keep your voice down. We don't even know when they'll take the mixling's life to save the count. Nothing has happened yet, nothing. We all know it needs to be on a particular night when the moon is in crescent form. We wait." He replied in a whisper. "Besides, what if Sebastian rejects you?" Evan added. "Are you prepared for that?" 

She rolled her eyes, those big brown eyes that reflected almost everything in it's gaze. She pouted ats him with the irritation of a child and once again pushed him teasingly. 

"He wont." she replied confidently in her own whispery tone.

"But what if he does?" Evan pushed.

"O ye of little faith. Men aren't fickle when it comes to flirtation and desire. Not even a vampire as cold as you." Sinead said. 

Evan knew what it was like to be one of Dominique's favorites. He was once one too, before he became part of the court. She adored him, so it seemed and made him the creature he was so that she would n ever lose him. Over time she bored of him and now narrowly acknowledged his existence. This was something that weighed on Evan. She never even looked at him, spoke to him. Touched him. 

Often times, Evan would drift into slumber dreaming of the nights they'd make love, passionately somewhere outdoors under the stars. They'd fulfill each other's most desired fantasies and then, like the extinguishing of a candle -- Dominique lost interest. No rhyme or reason. 

She just moved on. It broke Evan's cold heart and he never let this go.

As the twins discussed Sinead's eager and somewhat dangerous reach into the power struggle at Cyfrinach, Sebatian walked into the courtyard fresh from his argument with Evie far up into the tower. 

Sinead got up quickly and walked over to him, Evan followed.

Sebastian stared into the stone face of the siren in the fountain. He noted in his mind how her face looked as if she were in pain as water flowed out of a hole in her chest above her breast, but the pain oddly seemed more like heartbreak, given that the water came from the area of the siren's heart. He could almost hear the siren's call, a melancholy song of loss and desperation. It echoed in his mind swirling with her image that harmonized with the pitter patter of the falling water into the fountain. 

The stone creature sat on a rock, her hands extended with more water pouring out from one, the other hand crossed over her naked breasts. Sebastian drifted off into a fantasy that the siren was Evie, lovelorn and lost. She cried for her lover, he imagined, Sebastian teared up for the sad siren. 

All this imaginary backstory clouded the American's vampire's mind as the twins fought for his attention right at his side finally breaking through to him when Sinead tugged at his sleeve.

"OH!" Sebastian said finally noticing them. "I'm sorry. I was lost in thought." 

"I was asking you how you and the mixing were getting along here." Sinead said.

"Fine." Sebatian replied curtly. "Why do you call Gabriel the mixing and not by his name?" he wondered. 

Evan turned to Sinead worried that his twin sister offended a man that was practically the closest thing to a god they'd seen. The father of the mixing, the one living being whose life force would be responsible for everyone else's survival in the court was not to be offend. 

"Its not meant to upset you Sebastian, not in the slightest. It's --- well, he's very special to us here. We're just very happy to finally see his face." She explained.

"Evie isn't happy here." Sebastian confessed.

"The child's mother?" Evan asked, Sebastian nodded.

"She feels I've chosen the court over our family and she feels that perhaps we are in danger here." 

"She should not speak of us in that matter, in fact I believe you made a mistake bringing her here in the first place. You should end her." Evan replied to Sebastian's shock.

"End her!?" Sebastian shouted.

"My brother can be a bit medieval in his thoughts; Sebastian please forgive him.” Sinead said slapping her fan on Evan’s arm and rolling her eyes. “Evie must be lonely. Imagine her position. Imagine coming to such a strange place and living amongst us. It can’t be easy, you've been one of us for longer and understand the life of the shadows. She hasn't had that kind of experience." Sinead added.

"I just want her to see what I see, I want her to see how this place can give our family an opportunity to thrive. In Welshport we’d have to live as hermits, hiding ourselves away — practically shamed into the dark. But here there would be none of that." Sebastian explained.

Sinead pouted patronizingly “Yes. Yes. Poor Sebastian.” 

She could see that although Sebastian did an abhorrent thing like kidnap his whole family to Scotland, he did it out of blind love. He still loved Evie and Dominique had not gotten to him —yet, as they all knew was in the long plan.

"Make her one of us." Evan said suddenly breaking the beat of silence. 

"NO!" Sinead replied, realizing quickly that if Evie was a vampire she'd lose all chance of having the powerful Sebastian for herself. And she could do without any more competition. "He can't do that."

"Why not? Dominique did it to me?" Evan revealed.

"Sinead is right, I could never do anything like that to Evie." Sebastian replied as the fountain continued to trickle out water from the siren's hand and heart.

"No, you couldn't. Listen, why don't I go up and talk to her, I can help her see what a wonderful opportunity this for her child. Sometimes speaking with a woman may be a better way for her to see clearly." Sinead said.

"Sinead, you know you're not supposed to interfere this way." Evan said, his eyes now more serious in shape and body language stiff. She was about to insert herself in the place of Dominique without permission. This was a massive faux pas. 

Sinead did not listen.

"Trust me, a little girl talk would do her some good." Sinead said, her hand extending out to Sebastian for the key to Evie's room.

"I don't know, I just brought her dinner. She may be getting ready to sleep." Sebastian replied.

Sinead's eyes lifted towards a long stretch of wall that made up the east-wing of the castle and towards a set of towers that made up the apartments where Evie was being held. There was a small window that looked towards the sea, it was one that belonged to Evie's room, on the opposite side of the balcony. 

A light flickered.

"She's awake, see?" Sinead said, again reaching her hand for the key.

Sebastian followed her eyes, he took a breath and reached into his coat and pulled out the key Dominique had given him to Evie's room.

"Don't upset her any further." Sebastian said.

Sinead smirked "I wouldn't dare."

As his twin sister rushed off to meet with Evie for the first time, Evan knew she had nothing good planned. She was the ambitious side of his brawn, but she didn't always think through her schemes. He watched his sister quickly reenter the castle and disappear into the dark hall. He turned back to Sebastian who continued to look up at Evie's window.

"I hope you know what you're doing." Evan said.

"Why, do you think she'll upset Evie even further?" Sebastian asked innocently.

Evan's eyes narrowed, "No, fool. I mean I hope you know what you’re doing here. At this place. With Dominique. Do you know what they want from you?" 

"Dominique is giving us a safe place to be with people like me. We'll be protected here." Sebastian said.

"Dominuque said that you, did she?" Evan asked as Sebastian's nodding head cofirmed. "She's the one who made me. We were lovers. Years ago. I worked for her and her father and had no idea what they were. I was --- a fool, just like you. I fell in love. We would make love nightly and it was the most powerful thing I had ever felt in my whole life. I became intoxicated with her. Everything about her was like a the finest things in life. The best wine was like kissing her. The best food was like tasting her skin. The best clothes was like feeling her on my body. Until she bit me and took my blood."

"Why would she do that?" Sebastian said.

"She needed it."

"Needed?" 

"We all need it Sebastian." Evan reminded. "The difference is She wanted me to be around more, and here I am. She did not kill me because she wanted me. But -- from a far."

"You two are no longer together?" Sebastian asked.

Evan shook his head and looked Sebastian dead in his eyes and said: "She's found better toys now." 

****

The path to Cyfrinach Castle 

At the mouth of a small river that led into the sea just below the back cliffside mounted with Cyfrinach Castle, a women dressed in thick black wool from head to toe, and a shawl that covered her hair pushed open an iron gate that conveniently had no lock. 

She turned back to face Matthew and Hope, revealing her face to be Sister Anna. She held the gate open with a worried look on her face. 

"Follow this path up the back side of the cliff. It'll take you to door that leads into a lower chamber inside the castle. There you'll find a staircase that'll take you up inside to the main hall." Anna said, her experience with this entrance left a mystery. 

A gush of wind blew across their faces. Hope looked down a slope of green grass that had become so dark in the night that each blade looked like black waves floating above sea level. She turned to her brother Matthew who was determined to find Evie with the protection of his natural powers. 

"You should stay behind with Anna." He told her.

"You aren't well with the gift yet. I can't allow you into that vampire's nest alone." Hope replied.

"You're trembling." He told her. "They'll smell your fear."

"Aren't you afraid?" She asked. 

But before he could answer Anna spoke. 

"If you do not feel the ache of terror, you should both stay. Not feeling this will only lead you to their darkness. They fear nothing and hold it against those who do. The good in us knows fear. We know love and hatred. We have to always keep these things alive in us, otherwise, we are no better than the creatures they've become. Hard like stone. Empty like a desert. Hungry like the wolf." Anna said.

Matthew agreed. 

Hope blinked hard. The nun's words were heavy like the sky above their heads filled with clouds about to drop rain.

 "Of course," Matthew added "I am fearful, but mainly for Evie and Gabriel. I can't imagine what they're going through in there."

"I won't let you go alone." Hope continued.

He grabbed her hand and smiled, "It's very dangerous." He said. "I need you to stay safe."

"No. No. I came this far. I won't let you go alone. I can help." She said, reinforcing her promise.

"Then, there's no time to lose." Anna said. "Please, be careful. And God be with you."

The nun did the sign of the cross over both Winterborn siblings as the slowly walked passed her and through the gate up the winding dirt path along the cliff that looked like a crooked spine crawling up a green monster's back. The wind was forceful; Hope's long black hair blew across her face blinding her.

She yelped as her foot twisted on a rock causing her to begin to fall, Matthew grabbed gold of her and lifted her up before she hit the ground.

"Are you alright? There's still time for you to go back." He said, looking back towards the gate seeing Anna was still there, just a black blur of a woman but still there.

Hope nodded, signaling she was fine and wrapped her long hair around her hand and held it close keeping it out of her face. 

The continued up the long path that seemed to turn slowly making a wide you shape. The air almost thinning as they climbed, but it was an illusion brought on by their anxiety. The heaviness in their souls made the walk worse, as they silently wondered what they'd find in the dark evil castle.

After a half an hour of walking they came to the door Anna spoke of. It was large, wood craved of creatures flying in a sky. Hope touched the door and closed her eyes. She could see through the walls and it was just as Anna had told them. The staircase that led up to the main chamber. The darkened walls and hallways. It was all there; no lie was told.

Matthew then lit a match he had in his satchel that he brought just in case they needed to see in dark places. He put it up against the door to see the caved creatures were bats with human faces. Grotesque. Strange. Otherworldly. 

A chill went down his spine and Hope blew out his match.

"Never mind it. We know what we're gong to find." She said, her voice suddenly stoic and ready.

Matthew nodded and grabbed on to the doorknob. "Ill go first, just hold my other hand." 

Matthew pulled on the door, and the siblings entered the guts of Cyfrinach Castle. 

****

Evie & the shocking death of a vampire  

Upstairs, in the locked room Evie was bound to, a single candle burned in the window that faced east over the courtyard. It shined it's light in the frosted glass of the large window as Evie slept in the bed under the domineering painting of Dominque Doshall. 

The entire time Evie had been at Cyfrinach, she had never slept in the bed -- only on it. She refused to make herself comfortable. She refused to make this prison her home and feel the warmth of the bed while she slept. She wanted to hate this place every second she was there awake or asleep. No amount of softness and luxury would feel as good as freedom would.

As she lie there on her side, back away from the door, they soft clicking sound of the rooms key began to twist the interwoven pins and chambers unlatching the lock.

The door pushed open slowly, and Sinead entered with the light of the exterior corridor casting her in silhouette.

Sinead slipped the key into her dress pocket and clasped her hands almost like an inverted prayer stance. She carefully walked around the bed, her eyes gazing up and the darkened painting of Dominique and finally came to face Evie sleeping.

The young vampire woman bend over so that her face could see Evie better in the shadowy room. She narrowed her eyes realizing how beautiful she was, how kind she looked. Sinead had foolishly hoped to find some grotesque version woman in the bed, someone she could easily find a reason to dislike and even hate. But there was nothing.

Evie's seeming innocence clouded Sinead's motive for being in the room but she knew that allowing Evie's power to remain in Sebastian's conscious for a moment longer would do more harm than good to the plight of the entire Court of Saints at Cyfrinach.  

Evie had to be delt with to free Sebastian to finally be who he was meant to be. The father of the mixing that would save them all and with good convincing and practiced conversion Sinead's lover. This would rise Sinead to the much higher position within the court, closer to Alexandre, closer to Dominique. Should she be the lover, the wife even, of the father of the prayed for Mixing -- her world would change.

Evie being there, alive, hampered all of that. 

Sinead's eyes blackened. Her heart stopped and her face sunk in. Her fangs extended passed her perfect lips and a soft hiss came from her mouth like a black cat protecting it's prey. 

She closed in on Evie, ready to bite take her blood and leave her to die in the bed she'd never slept in.

When she was only inches away, Evie woke up and screamed. She jumped up and pushed Sinead aside and ran over to the other wide of the room where it was darker. She grabbed a candle stick and held it out.

"Who the hell are you?" Evie growled, using words and voice she'd almost never did.

Sinead's vampire form made her look older, but still there was a twinge of youth in her that Evie noticed. Then the vampire's face softened and she returned to her more natural youthful self, but her eyes remained black as the night sky. 

"You don't have to fight me, Evangeline." Sinead said as she walked closer. "My bite is worse than my bark." She giggled knowing she'd reversed the saying.

"Get out." Evie replied, standing strong across the room as Sinead approached. 

"Do you know what you've gotten yourself into?" Sinead asked cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"Being in love with one of us. Having a child with one of us. You've gotten yourself into a very dramatic situation, and I truly don't know how you've survived this long." Sinead replied.

"Sebastian." Evie whispered to herself. "How do you know him? Where is he?" 

"He's with friends, new friends. We're going to make him so, so famous. The fruit of his body will take us to new heights of power and things here and in so many other places like this will never be the same -- thanks to Sebastian." Sinead explained. "And Gabriel." She added to Evie's clear horror.

"If you've laid a finger on my child, I swear to God I will rearrange that face with every blow of this candle stick. Where is Gabriel, you tell me right now where he is." Evie demanded.

"Tsk, tsk! Such troubling, violent tendencies for a woman of this age. You should practice breathing techniques. I've learned some from a man in India before I came here. I loved him. I also killed him but I loved him." Sinead said, now circling Evie like a shark in water casing it's prey.

"Who are you?" Evie asked again. "I want to know who you are, right now and how you got in here." 

Evie continued to follow Sinead as she paced the room with the candle stick still firmly pointed outward at Sinead, not knowing how she'd even use it but resolute that Sinead would not leave unscathed should she attack her. 

"With this." Sinead said holding out the key. "He let me come see you." 

"Sebastian gave you the key? Why? What you want of me." Evie asked.

Then, Sinead finally stopped. Center in the room facing Evie head on.

She said nothing her eyes black, her fangs returned and her face sunk again into the withered face of a vampire. In seconds She lunged at Evie with her mouth open reaching for Evie's head to turn it and bite down on the white flesh somewhere near where Sebastian had bitten but had taken none of her blood. This bite, one from Sinead was meant to be lethal. 

Evie screamed and dropped the candlestick and reached for Sinead's shoulders and held the creature back. The swatted at each other. A fist from Sinead swung and hit Evie in the neck, Evie swung back and missed Sinead who was much more agile while Evie had only been awake for seconds.

They pulled at each other's hair, the tore at each other's clothes rounding the bed, falling to the floor, scratching and screaming, with attempt after attempt to bite down on the trapped Evie always failing. 

Evie finally slapped the vampire landing square Sinead's right cheek infuriating her. She swung back and hit Evie. Evie swung again, this time with her left handing hitting Sinead's right cheek. Evie's ring, a single cluster of diamonds that Sebastian had given her years ago as a surprise gift scratched the vampire drawing blood -- black blood. Sinead screamed and got up from the ground, Evie too.

The imagine of this black liquid, oil like and shining that seeped out of Sinead's beautiful face frightened Evie and she backed away towards the window with the single burning candle. Evie reached for the handle and pulled it out in front of her illuminating Sinead's scratched face.

She could see her clearly now. She was a wonderfully beautiful woman in her normal form, but frightening with fangs that peeked out from under her top lips, so pink and pouty. If not for her murderous nature Evie felt like Sinead could have been an old schoolmate of hers back in London, a girl with similar milk-chocolate like skin and eyes wide like a doe. 

"This will never do." Sinead said. She put her hand over her cut and suddenly the cut began to heal from the inside out. The black blood vanished, and she looked as if nothing had happened.

"GET OUT!" Evie shouted, the candle burning bright in her hand.

"Not until I get what I came for." Sinead said.

"WHAT? What do you want?" A frantic disheveled Evie asked.

Sinead's eyes, black and empty looked like space without stars, her mouth wet with the thirst of a hungry wolf sparkled with the glimmer of the light of the candle.

"I want...." Sinead began before she paused and stepped closer. "Your life." 

In a split second after she spoke Sinead lunged at Evie, Evie screamed and instinctively jumped to the side falling to the floor. The rush of Evie's fall extinguished the candle leaving them both in darkness.

Sinead tripped on the hem of her dress, fell into the small table that held the candle, lost her footing and crashed through the glass of the widow falling out of it 200 feet down towards the courtyard.

Evie got up from the floor and rushed over to the window and looked down seeing Sinead's tiny lifeless body twisted and tangled in a blur. She gasped and pulled away horrified of what had just happened. Then she realized the noise would have gotten attention from her captors. She quickly hid.

Out in the courtyard, the horrified residents along with Sebastian and Evan rushed to where the person had fallen, believing it had been Evie falling to her to her death from her window.

They group waded through brush and trees and came upon an iron fence with large iron rods topped with sharp spear-like guards. The person had been impaled on an iron rod straight through the heart, almost exactly where the siren in the fountain had water flowing from. A woman in the group screamed when she saw the iron rod of the gate had gone through, not Evie as they suspected, but one of their own: Sinead Sheernan. 

"She... she killed her." Evan said, holding back angry tears as his sister's dead body bleed before him. "Evie killed my sister!!!!" 

"My god." Sebastian said almost at the exact same time in a whisper.

"SINEAD! SINEAD!!!" A woman said at Sinead's side. "SINEAD WAKE UP!"

There was black blood everywhere.

Evan, in a huff and paced back and forth unable to reconcile in his battered mind how it could have happened. How Sinead could have allowed it to and how Evie even had the strength. He turned from Sinead's twisted and impaled corpse, recoiling at his dead twin. "I'll rip her throat out." 

Evan then departed the courtyard and headed for Evie's room, Sebastian's quickly caught on.

"NO!" He shouted at Evan, following him quickly.

The two vampires, Sebastian and Evan with one more man rushed to Evie's room and when they finally got there the door was wide open and Evie was gone.

Sebastian looked down and saw the fallen candle. It had spilled white wax on the rug. It was still warm. The bed was made. The food was not eaten. It was as if a ghost had pushed Sinead out.

"I will find her, and I will kill her with my own bare hands." Evan said.

"Stop, you must stop this!" Sebastian shouted holding Evan back. "Sinead must have done something. Evie would never do this; she would never kill anyone. Look around, there are things thrown about, there was a struggle. This must of been a fight. Yes, that has to be it, Evie and Sinead fought for some reason and she fell. I say this to you with all sincerity, Evan, Evie is not capable of murder." 

"Accident? ACCIDENT? Sinead fell to her death, my twin sister is at the bottom of this tower with an iron rod through her body! ACCIDENT YOU SAY!?" Evan shouted, grabbing Sebastian by the lapel of his back jacket.

"We have to find Roman before this gets to the Doshalls." The other male vampire said. "He'll know what to do."

Sebastian and Evan knew protocol; nothing got to the Doshalls unless it went through Roman. But Evan was incessant that they find Evie and kill her. He wanted nothing more than her body as destroyed as his twin sister's was.

"No, No. I want her dead. Look what she's done!" Evan growled, his eyes black as night staring into Sebastian's face even though he had not said a word.

But the court at Cyfrinach had rules, those who betrayed them found themselves in a pile of ash. Evan knew this.

"Listen to me," The other male vampire said grabbing Evab's arms and attempting to pull them off of Sebastian, "Evangeline is missing, we cannot stand here and let the late hours go until the sun comes. We must tell Roman; he must find her and then the Doshalls will decide what to do. You know this is how thing are done. COME!" the male vampire ordered.

Finally, and reluctantly, Evan removed his hands from Sebastian's coat and the three went off to warm Roman of what had just happened while Evie, cleverly hid under the bed.

She got up, slowly made her way to the open door and looked back at her prison. 

Sebastian and Evan had to find Roman to stop her, but not if she found Roman first.

To survive the rest of the night, she could not fail in finding her cousin before anyone else.