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| Gregory finds his witch, Eliza Goode |
The moon seemed to shift in it's celestial place among the clouds that swirled in the sky on an odd sweltering autumn night. The warm air that was uncharacteristic of this time of the hear seemed to waft up and out of a place of molten and brimstone. The warmth seeped under the door of the single cabin on the small island Eliza Goode resided on.
Eliza read over the pages of a book in her small cabin on the island named after her by the people of Welshport. It had been this way for close to 30 years as Eliza had sought solitude here to raise her daughter Mary. As Eliza's eyes glazed over while she read she felt the growing black fog of something come into her heart and her mind.
Then she heard a sinister chuckle.
She turned to behind her sensing a presence.
"It's you! I know it's you!" She said out loud hearing the chuckle of the one called Caspian Casador, THE HUNTER. "What do you want????" She screamed.
Then, like a moving scene from a picture-show, Eliza's mind was flooded with memories as she sat back in her chair and remembered.
**Boston, Massachusetts 1852**
Eliza's life was not ever easy. She came to these small islands off of Maine's coastline many, many years ago. She had sought this place after a traumatizing incident in her life in 1852 in her first home on the outskirts Boston.
In those days in Boston,, she fell in love and married a mortal man, Caleb Goode, a farmer. He was kind. Smart. Gentle. She forced herself to hide her newly gained powers, and refrained from meeting with her coven: The Sisters of Highgrove. Even when they came to her door, she shunned them away. Her life, Eliza wished, was now to be lived as one of the mortals of Boston like so many around her.
Then, when Mary was not yet a year old, Caleb became ill. He was bedridden. Sick. Dying even. Eliza and Mary's world was crumbling and no doctor in the village they lived in outside of Boston could help. One day, when Caleb was on the brink of death, a local priest who had been told of the situation at the Goode family home came to visit. He knocked on the door. But there was no answer. Fearing death had come before he could give poor Caleb Goode his lists rights, the priest entered into the Goode family home and was shocked to see Eliza performing a spell over the sick man to finally heal him.
Eliza had no choice. She wanted her husband to live and had called on The Highgrove sisters who came to help her despite Eliza's earlier reluctance to use their powers as they all had promised to.
When the priest entered, he saw Eliza and 4 of her coven sisters surrounding the bedridden Caleb. They were draped in black cloaks. Singing a song in a language the priest did not understand. The room was dark, with bones of several animals tied with string hung on the walls. The bones were meant to symbolize the ancestors to give their energies over to the sick Celeb.
The 5 witches that called themselves The Sisters of Highgrove, sang and hummed their song. They pricked their fingers and added small drips of their own blood into an iron cup filled with an unknown elixir and gave it to Caleb to drink.
The terrified and disgusted priest ran off without the women noticing him watching and told the town outside of Boston what he had seen.
Then, it happened. The town revolted against the women. Came into the Goode family home and arrested them all.
They witches were burned, but one was set free. Eliza. She was shown pity because of the innocent baby Mary. Eliza was given a chance to raise her daughter, but outside their village, outside their world.
Eliza escaped to Maine. Caleb did not survive.
The man who was in charge of these terrible murders by flame of The Sisters of Highgrove was a young village constable named Gregory Reigns. He had wanted to rid the world of these sorceresses, including Eliza. But the local government recoiled at the idea of hurting a mother and her young child. And for many many years the small town elders attempted to silence Gregory as they saw him as an embarrassment and a hack.
Time passed and Reigns obsession never let up. He demanded the village Elders tell him where they hid Eliza. So, to get Reigns out of their lives they sent him to Maine when word spread around the small communities in upper New England that the island of Welshport needed to replace Christian Evans who was losing favor with his own local leaders.
**Present day, Goode Island 1912**
Now, Reigns was on the threshold of finding his long exiled nemesis. He, along with over 60 people from Welshport had disembarked their small boats they had used to come over in the middle of the misty night to catch the witch Eliza.
In her small cabin the fire place fluttered. It started to warm her too much. She came out of her trans of memories to feel the scold on her skin from the overwhelming fire place. It seemed odd to her. She went over to the fire to extinguish it for a while but then, just before she tossed sand over the hot coals the fire extinguished itself and all the candles in her room lit on their own without Eliza even striking a match.
"What the devil?" Eliza said to herself. She thought again, The Hunter was taunting her.
She dusted off her hands, and went over to the kitchen where the candles there had also been lit from out of now here.
It was a sign.
An omen. From Him.
"Tell me...what is happening?" She spoke out loud expecting the dark spirit she conjured that shot Jacob and Christian for her to reply, and he did.
"Retrebuito Temporis." A voice, the Hunter's, said in Latin
Eliza's heart raced, she went quickly to the front room again to lock the door but just before she reached for the latch someone knocked.
she gasped.
"Who's there!!?"
"OPEN THE DOOR!" a man's voice called.
"WHO'S THERE!?!?!" Eliza shouted back, her hands shaking, her stomach in knots.
"OPEN THE DOOR WITCH!!" The man's voice said.
Eliza's mind went back to 1852---the same knock on her door. The same voice calling her a witch. She remembered hiding baby Mary in a small blanket under her bed and asked her coven sisters to stay quiet.
Now she was alone. She had no one to hide. No one had ever bothered her before. What was different? What had changed that now someone wanted to come to her and call her a witch?
Then Eliza recalled her conversation with Rebecca Lord and she knew that there may have been a connection. Rebecca was surly, Eliza thought, behind this.
Eliza slowly made her way to the door. Carefully stepping one foot in front of the other as the knocking from the outside continued to slam against her cabin door. Then, she opened the door, just a crack.
"What do you want?" She asked.
"COME OUT!" Reigns said standing back from the door with the mob of people holding their torches in the night as the fog began to move around them like smoke from a fire.
"COME OUT!" A man shouted.
"OUT WITH YOU WITCH!" Another voice said.
"What is this? What do you want?" Eliza asked again through the small crack in the open door.
"You've been accused of witchcraft and of murder. We want to take you to justice, Eliza. It's time that you face what you have done. Now." Reigns said.
Eliza recognized the voice. It had aged since her time in the area of Boston but it was the same voice. The same accuser. The same attacker that the priest had called to her home so many years ago. She opened the door fully and was shocked to see how many people from the larger island had come and there standing in front of them all with a shot gun slung around his shoulder was Gregory Reigns.
"Gregory." She said softly to herself. "You don't want to do this. Whatever you have told these people, this good god fearing people is not true. You must tell them that, please. This is now what you want it to be." Eliza said.
"MURDERER!!!" Someone shouted.
"KILLER!!" Another person shouted as the crowd began to become slightly unruly.
Reigns walked forward. Eliza took a step back. She gulped.
"We've been here before, you and I. But the last time you got away. You got away because we were generous with you and allowed you to live and raise your child. But now she's gone too. Perhaps you shouldn't have killed her like you've killed Evans and tried to kill Jacob Lord. But it doesnt matter. We'll finally make sure you pay." Reigns said as the shadows of the night blocked the view of his face.
"You do not want to do this. I promise you this is all a mistake." Eliza said unsure of how he knew she did kill Christian and shoot Jacob.
"In this life, there are no mistakes. But there is justice. Come with me." Reigns said as he lunged for Eliza's arm and gripped it tightly.
She screamed and tried to peels his fingers back from gripping her arm. They tussled a bit and then, she held her breath. Her face began to turn red, her heart began to pump faster and faster and faster until her entire body lit like fire and burned Reigns' hand to the touch. The pain was so much that he let go.
"You see!! SHE IS A WITCH!!!" One person screamed and the back.
"GET HER!!" a woman's voice said.
Then, the mob from Welshport rushed the small cabin and pushed Gregory Reigns out of the way as he nursed his burned hand. Eliza tried to fight them off on her own but of course she was no match for a mob of people all tried to beat her and take her down. In the scuffle with the mob, Eliza was knocked to the floor where she lost consciousness.
Reigns smiled at the sight of the mob carrying off the woman who had evaded his capture for almost 40 years and had destroyed his credibility in Massachusetts. He was pleased with this turn of events. This capture, this final moment of justice for a woman who he believed was pure evil was finally going to give him back his good name.
The ravenous Mob tied Eliza up up. Her wrists where bound behind her.
"Please! PLEASE!!!" Eliza begged.
Her ankles then were tied together. A rope tied around her neck just in case. They took her from her home and plopped her on a small boat as the rest of the mob began to filter on to their own boats .... and then they left Goode Island to give her the justice they thought she deserved on Welshport. As Eliza turned to see her small house getting smaller and smaller in the distance she saw the evil grinning face of Caspian Casador, benighted in the darkness of the night. But his grin was visible and evil.
He was saw this coming. Then his voice came to her mind "You should have never trusted these humans."
She suddenly knew her punishment.
Death by fire.
****
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| The Lord family meets |
In a blindingly sunny morning inside the breakfast room at Tirymor where Charlotte, Celeste sat with Nikolas and Evie at a large oak table that sat 18, Jacob entered on his crutches with a newspaper tucked under his arm.
He slowly made his way passed the curtsying maids and butlers that bowed their heads as he passed and plopped a newspaper face up on Evie's breakfast plate.
The headline of THE WELSHPORT GLOBE read:
LORD FAMILY HEIR SUCCUMBS TO
ILLNESS CAUGHT WHILE KIDNAPPED.
"And what the hell is this?" Jacob asked as he moved away from Evie and sat at the head of the breakfast table. "Where's my nephew’s body?" He added.
Evie looked at Nik who wasn't sure what she was going to say.
"Jacob, things with Sebastian were... were... fraught with uncertainty. He was different. Dangerous. He wasn't who I married. Sebastian's new life as this thing, this creature, had become violent and he attempted to kill me and my brother and even Alice Winterborn." Evie explained.
"Who the hell is Alice Winterborn?" Jacob asked crudely.
"She's the young woman I've been seeing and Evie's friend from Windcliff." Nikolas explained.
“A friend from the insane asylum??” Jacob gasped, Evie rolled her eyes.
Celeste got up from her seat next to Charlotte and grabbed the paper to read the headline.
"This says he caught a sickness?" She said confused.
Evie looked at Nikolas again, they both had no idea how they would explain Evie stabbing a stake through the monster's heart. A man she loved but feared, a man that had turned into something so vicious that she saw no other way but to save him from not only hurting himself but hurting anyone else in her family.
"It was his affliction. It took over, he became overwhelmed but it and it killed him" Evie said glossing over the truth, that it was she who staked him in the chest to save Nikolas from Sebastian's clutches.
Jacob raised an eyebrow "Overwhelmed." He repeated as if to let it all set in.
"The story I placed in the paper was just a ruse meant to throw off the truth of what really happened to Sebastian." She said with tears in her eyes just as Rebecca walked in. "I had to cover for what he became and we all know what he became. We all know it. His violence turned more and more severe until the other night when he attempted to take Nikolas' life in front of my very eyes."
"My grandson is dead?" Rebecca asked in shock as the rest of the family turned to look at her, fresh from her stint over night in jail due to Jacob's false accusation of the crime against him.
"MOTHER!" Jacob shouted, shocked to see his mother freed from jail.
"Surprised to see me? Thought I'd be rotting in that jail cell did you?" She sad to Jacob who was frozen in surprise.
"Well I," Jacob began before being hushed by his mother.
"I'll deal with you in time." She replied, with a sense of sadness in her voice as if everything she loved was crumbling around her. "Evangeline, what's happened to my grandson?"
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Evie said in a soft voice. "His affliction. The thirst for human bloo...." Evie couldn't bring herself to say it out loud. "It took it's toll, it changed him." Evie explained.
"Tell me how it happened." Rebecca said as everyone in the room looked on waiting with bated breath for the truth.
"It had to be done Rebecca." Evie said asserting herself and using Rebecca's first name in conversation with her for the first time. "There was nothing more we could do for him. He was not the same person who I loved, that Sebastian died the day I married him. This creature he turned into was out of control, he, he... he wanted to kill, he wanted to devour human life. He wanted to hurt me, he wanted to hurt my brother and if I hadn't intervened, perhaps Sebastian would have succeed in killing Nikolas." Evie continued with tears in her eyes as she remembered staking the monster she loved straight through the heart and watched him turn to dust before her vary eyes.
Rebecca reached into a pouch in her skit and latched on to one of two rosaries and squeezed them searching for some sort of divine comfort after Evie spoke.
"I didn't get to say goodbye." Charlotte said as Celeste turned to her and held her close.
"My son." Sabrina said sadly in Charlotte's mind
"It hurts my heart that we could not save him. He was the light of this family, the future." Rebecca said as Evie touched her tiny baby bump when the word future came up. "Perhaps we could have done more but the truth is, the devil was in him thanks to the curse placed on his young body. That curse is being dealt with now, my Sebastian will be avenged in time." Rebecca added referring to Eliza's fate with Reigns.
"What do you mean by that?" Nik wondered. "How will it be dealt with?"
Georgina's eyes got larger knowing it was her own mother Eliza who changed Sebastian into the monster they all saw, only to keep him alive, even if it was as a vampire thirsting for blood.
"Never mind that." Rebecca replied to him. "Honestly, I was excepting this unfortunate end. I knew the creature that showed up with you the night you returned with him wouldn't survive. That kind ungodly creature never lasts long." Rebecca said sadly.
Georgina worried for her mother Eliza.
"I wish I could have saved him. Made him more human, considering..." Evie said pausing again before she revealed her own pregnancy before she was ready to.
"Before what?" Curious Jacob asked.
"Before....before it all went down hill for him." Evie covered.
"I wish I had the chance to …" Rebecca paused. "He deserved better than just a death so quick and a rush to relieve us of his affliction. He deserved so much more, so much more." Rebecca said emotionally.
"I did all I could when he came back, I truly did." Evie replied as Jacob rolled his yes.
"And the silly story in the paper? Was this something you concocted?" Rebecca asked as she sat down.
"To keep the story intact of how he returned from his first return from the grave, yes. His secret needed to be kept safe not just for him memory but for all of us." Evie explained.
Rebecca stared at her grand-daughter in law and saw how broken hearted she was about the entire thing. Celeste sniffled too and went back over to Charlotte who was crying silently for her cousin. Rebecca cleared her throat unfolded a napkin and placed it on her lap and then poured herself coffee.
"I just wish you had warned us, that's all." Rebecca said stoically. "But thank you Evangeline for keeping his secret for him. I can't imagine how terrible it was to see him go like that. Tell me, how did he die?" Rebecca asked holding her emotions back.
"Well I don't think it matters now, does it? He's gone, We can move on---again." Jacob added.
"Of course it matters! He's our family!!" Rebecca shouted.
"Mother, we need to move on. The longer we dwell on whatever that was who died, because in my eyes that monster was NOT my nephew. We need to move on, carry on. Get our lives back on track. The real Sebastian would want that." Jacob said.
"Yes, move on, you'd like that wouldn't you? Or perhaps you'd like accuse one of us once again of your attempted murder." Rebecca said finally ready to take her son to task for accusing her of attempted murder.
"Mother, I swear to you that I saw a woman, I'm sorry that I named you. Perhaps it was the medication I was on that I just confused you in that moment, but it worked out in the end, didn't it? You're back!" Jacob answered as Rebecca stared daggers at him.
"I could have gone to prison forever, Jacob. For nothing. Nothing at all. You know nothing of how to keep this family safe, not like Evie who had to do something terrible to keep Sebastian's truth secret from the outside world. You'd rather see one of us go to prison than protect us." Rebecca said.
As the discussion continued, Nik turned the page and saw the even more scandalous headline of the day and his eyes grew larger just as Georgina walked in and sat down on the other side of Charlotte.
"How could you have confused her for Eliza Goode, Jacob?" Nik said, showing the headline of Eliza's arrest.
"What did you say?" Georgina asked.
"Eliza was arrested last night on Goode Island for the murder of Christian Evans and Jacob's attempted murder." Nik said passing Georgina's the paper.
Jacob looked confused.
Georgina looked panicked and the headline of her mother Eliza and worried what would happen to her now that she was off Goode Island. It was a direct conflict with the pact she had made to stay on the island so that her powers would work. She took a glance at the glass next to her and saw her face of disguise still staring back--- so far Eliza's spell on her to use Georgina's body was in tact.
But for how long?
"Why would they arrest her?" Georgina asked.
"It says her someone came forward and saw they saw her here and that she did it. When they arrested her she did not deny it." Nik replied after reading the article.
"Jacob is this true? Was she the one that did this to you?" Celeste asked.
Jacob shrugged, not caring about the truth especially when it had to deal with Eliza Goode, his ex's mother.
"Daddy, no? Did Gramma do this? Really?" Charlotte asked devastated by more horrible news.
"My darling if the police believe this, than there must be evidence. I'm sorry." Jacob said coldly.
Rebecca didn't say a word, being the person that came forward and gave Reigns a witch he so wanted for so many years. She only sipper from her coffee and ate the fruit a maid placed on her breakfast plate and continued to stay to herself.
"I don't believe it." Georgina said, knowing that it was true but wanted to her mother safe.
"Why? Why can't you believe it Georgina?" Jacob asked suspiciously, still not knowing Mary was inside the body of the Georgina.
"I just---when I met her, and she helped me after I was attacked she was kind and did not have the aura of a person who would commit such a crime. That's all." Georgina said attempting to cover her tracks.
"Well there is a lot you don't know about Eliza Goode." Rebecca finally said. "She has much to pay for and if this new crime is true, which I have no reason to doubt it is, she will finally pay for something." Rebecca added without explaining the past events that made her hate Eliza so much.
"How long have you known her?" Nik asked Rebecca seeing through her veiled words.
"Know her?" She asked him.
"You seem to know her well, or at least have had some sort of connection to her." Nik added.
Rebecca smiled but said nothing to her new house-guest and continued on her breakfast. He looked at his sister Evie who shook her head, a message to Nik to let it go.
"Well! As if we didn't have an already filled to the gills morning of news and death and arrest, I have news of my own." Jacob said as he smiled over to Celeste who's eyes grew large with anxiety.
"Jacob, I...:" Celeste said before he interrupted.
"Celeste and I will announce publicly in very short order that we are to be married. And the part that is to be kept within these walls is that she is carrying my child." Jacob announced
As most of the table pretended to be shocked when they all already knew of the baby with the exception of Rebecca.
"With Child? YOUR Child??? Celeste?!? Is this true?" Rebecca exclaimed turning to her.
Celeste nodded.
Rebecca put down her fork and stood up from the table.
"I need to have a moment to myself to let this all sink in, not to mention to mourn my grandson one more time. Celeste, I don't know what you are thinking and I cannot believe what my ears have just heard. All I can say, is that..." Rebecca paused unsure of how to finish her sentence but the disappointment and pure disgust with her son for bedding one of the people on their pay role was obvious across her face. It reminded her of the time Albert had an affair, with Cristina: Celeste's mother. She had caught them one night in bed when she had come back early from a trip to New York with. That was the last time Cristina had ever set foot in the mansion. It was also the night Cristina and Albert conceived Johnathon DeViana.
"What about Filipe?" Evie asked.
"He now knows and, we've decided to separate for good. This child deserves parents who are together as one. I want that." Celeste said stoically.
"You're happy with that decision?" Evie asked again
"It doesn't matter now." Rebecca answered for her soon to be daughter in law. "She's made the decision happy or not with it. Now... all of you listen, and listen good. This is my house. I run it. I fund it. I control it. Nothing goes into the papers without my knowledge, is that clear? Nothing more about my poor Sebastian, nothing more about this marriage, nothing more about anything this family has to offer to the world shall leave these walls unless I have approved it." Rebecca said like an Army general.
"Mother, please..." Jacob began.
"Jacob, that is my wish— no—that is my order. All of you, here in this room, will obey it or leave." Rebecca said frustrated with the leaky way the family had handled so many things in the last few days threatening the already scandal-ridden family.
They all agreed and Rebecca left in a huff but not before taking hold of Charlotte's hand and leaving with the young woman.
The two, Rebecca and Charlotte, then entered the small private chapel. They both knelt and Rebecca handed Charlotte a small golden rosary.
"Pray my dear. Pray. For your cousin's soul. For Celeste's future, and for your baby brother or sister's birth. Pray now." She said as the young girl closed her eyes and they two prayed.
Back in the breakfast room, Evie and Celeste hugged. "Everything is going to be ok." Evie said.
"For you too." Celeste replied.
"I hope so." Evie replied.
"When are you due?" Nik asked.
"In just over a month." Celeste answered.
"Oh! No, Im sorry, I meant my sister. When are you due Evie?" Nik replied as Jacob turned to Nik unsure of what he mean.
"What did you ask?" Jacob asked.
"My sister is pregnant too. They'll be two new Lord babies in the mansion soon. Isn't it wonderful?" Nik said.
Jacob's fury that Sebastian's child would now live on through him angered him so much he broke the glass in his hand causing a stream of blood to spew from the palm of his hand. Georgina yelped at the sight of the blood. A maid rushed over and handed Jacob a pristine white cloth to cover the wound.
Evie and Jacob locked eyes. Celeste held Evie's hand tightly. They stared deep into each other's faces like to wild animals who had crossed into each other's territories and were about to come to blows.
"Yes." Jacob replied coldly. "Wonderful."
****
 |
| Eliza’s hands bound in rope |
Above the Constable's office, in a small private apartment where the drapes were slightly drawing only allowing the smallest amount of day light in, Reigns sat in a chair and stared at the unconscious Eliza who was tied to a chair. He was happy with what he did, he was pleased in fact so happy a smile began to crack across his sun kissed face.
Finally, he had found the last witch of the coven he had searched for for so many years after he left Boston. It was almost as if coming to Welshport in disgrace like he did was meant to be. It was all meant to be! He could feel it in his bones.
Suddenly, as Reigns watched her slowly breathing, Eliza began to come to. He got up from his chair, the creaking of the wooden floor as he pressed down with his steps woke her and he removed the rope from around her mouth.
"You've been out for a while. Why haven't you used your powers yet? I've been expecting to be turned into a frog or some sort of insect by now." Reigns joked.
"You're making a huge mistake Gregory." Eliza said, her voiced weakened from the fight with the mob on Goode Island.
"Am I? How am I making a mistake witch? Tell me?" he said taunting her.
"What I am has nothing to do with what you are. I have done nothing to hurt or damage you and yet you persecute me like this. Keeping me here, off the island I call home with cause a ripple effect of damage that I will not be able to correct. You must send me back. I am begging you." Eliza said softly.
"That is where you are wrong, witch! Your very existence bothers me. You do not belong on this planet and should not be here or on Goode Island or anything of that nature. You only deserve to perish into the ashes as I intend for you." He explained.
She narrowed her eyes in disgust.
"And a trail?" She asked. "Where is my trial?"
Gregory laughed and went back over to the chair across from her. He shook his head and removed his hun from the holster on his hip.
"This isn't the 1600s, we're not in Salem. None of that matters now. None of the old ways of dealing with abominations and devilish people like you work. I deal with you now. Not the law. I do." He said crudely.
"But you are the law." She offered, to his shrug. "Gregory, I am begging you. This is not what you want on your record as the constable of this village. They don't understand me but you, you could understand me and let me be without any problems. I promise you! Put me back in my place on Goode Island and you will never ever see or hear from me, there is nothing I want from you or this island other than my own peace. Please send me back." She begged.
"Are you trying to bribe me? You haven't offered me anything in that bribe. You're not as good as Rebecca was." He said.
"She gave my name, I knew it." Eliza replied.
"She told me the truth about what was the source of this island's evil and thank god for that. Now I know who killed the former constable and who tried to kill Jacob. Not to mention all of the dark magic and death you and your coven caused in Boston." Reigns answered.
"Reigns...." Eliza began before her eyes started to roll to the back of her head. Her powers were now starting strain her. She was feeling the backlash from the powerful force that gave her her powers now pull them back after she broke the pact of leaving Goode Island going directly against her promise.
She started to sweat. She started to convulse in her chair tied in the ropes.
Reigns stood up, confused to see what was happening to his captive.
She began to foam at the mouth and her eyes were blinking at rapid speed.
In her private bedroom in Tyrimor, the REAL Mary Goode was sleeping. Her body started to sweat and shake. She began to get sick in her bed. She got up from the bed, trembling, shaking uncontrollably.
"What is this." She said to herself as she trembled in the mirror.
Then, in front of her eyes, the shadows of her room, Mary's disguise as Georgina started to fade. Her face, he REAL face, started to slowly morph back. Mary's body shook still and she fell, fainting at the foot of the mirror.
The moment Eliza set foot on Welshport Island, forced so by the mob and Reigns, breaking her pact with the dark force that gave her her powers to never leave Goode Island; the spell over the two women's swapped bodies broke forever.
**
Back in Reigns home he checked Eliza's vitals. He did not want her to die this way. He untied her, she picked her up and moved her to a sofa. Then when he wasn't looking she opened her eyes and screamed a sound that rocked his whole building. Her hair lifted in an invisible wind. Her screamed reached out of her throat, like an arm of sound and went over to and the powerful serge of energy from her scream went around his throat and began to choke him.
He was fighting this power from Eliza who was now angry and furious. Her powers swirling around her in electrical sparks that began to lift her from the ground. She lifted her arm and shot a power beam of light into Gregory who flew backwards into his wall. Eliza then came back down to the floor and walked over to Reigns. His body looked limp. She was exhausted. She could not muster any more energy if she stayed on Welshport.
She had to get back to Goode Island. She turned to leave the apartment but it in a split second Reigns got up from the floor, lunged at Eliza and tackled her to the ground.
Her in weakened state he tied her up again.
"Tricky old witch!" He said, bleeding from the lip. "You'll not escape this time." He growled as he dragged her wriggling body into a dark room inside his apartment where he would soon make sure she paid for all her so called crimes.
At Tirymor, Mary got up sick from her bed and went over to a mirror and screamed into the night at the face that looked back at her.
Her original face. He true face.
Then, she fainted on the floor knocking her head on the corner of a small table in her room.
****
 |
| Johnathon DeViana |
On a quiet street in Dover, Delaware, a letter carrier had left a small white and yellow envelope from Celeste DeViana at the door with the owner of the house, a man named Johnathon.
Johnathon was Celeste's brother.
He walked back into the small living room in his clean dark suit with purple ascot that had specks of yellow and lavender flowers on it. He was of medium height and had the lightest brown eyes that seemed to brighten in summer and darker in the winter. A trait everyone always talked about being his most beautiful.
He placed on leg up on the white bricked fireplace and slit open the letter from his sister, whom he hadn't spoken in almost a year.
"Who was it John?" his wife said from another room.
"It was the postman. He dropped a letter off from my sister." He answered.
As he read the letter he was surprised by what she wrote. A baby was coming. A baby and it wasn't that of her long time partner Filipe Braga. This was out of the ordinary for his sister who, even though was not married, had always been devoted to Filipe since they were teenagers.
"What does she say?" The woman said from the other room, not coming into the bight white living room where Johnathon stood.
"She's having a baby. She's having Jacob Lord's baby!" He said as the woman gasped in shock from the other room loud enough that Johnathon could hear it.
Johnathon sat down on the sofa and his arms fell at his sides limp with shock. The letter folded neatly into the crevasse between the sofa and his thy just as the woman entered the room.
"What does she want you to do?" She asked.
Johnathon looked up at his wife and shook his head. "I'm not really sure, she didn't request anything only that she wanted me to know before news got to me. She does say however, she hopes that I come to Welshport soon."
"Soon?" The woman asked. "Should we go now? That seems like a very veiled request. Perhaps she needs your help."
"But why? She's becoming the mother of the child of one of the richest men in all of New England. Why would she want me to be there to help?" Johnathon wondered.
"Johnny, she could have just sent you a birth announcement and not a personal hand written letter. It seems to me that she is reaching out without really asking for it. We should go there. Having a baby is a big moment in a woman's life, she needs her family close. And besides, if Jacob is the father then that means something has happened to Filipe. She's going to need you." Johnathon's wife explained.
He nodded agreeing with her. He got up and kissed her lips. Thankful that she was so understanding.
"We'll leave in the morning." He said. "They are trains that go up to Maine every morning. I used to go see my mother when she was alive all the time, those trips schedules still exist, we'll do that." He said as he smiled at his wife who smirked silently.
The two, not knowing they were about to set foot in a hornet's nest of danger the moment they stepped foot on Welshport Island.
****
 |
| Asha & Andrew discuss their project |
On the outskirts of Welshport Village were a group of small farms. One of these farms had a small singular house that was rented out to a woman who had come over from the mainland and rented it out. It was Asha Hoffman, Dr. Andrew Kim's former assistant nurse from Windcliff Sanitarium.
She pushed open one of the bedroom doors in her small rented out farm cottage. There was only darkness in the room with the exception of two lanterns that had been set on either side of a vat of liquid that had the sleeping Christian Evans inside with a preservative type of liquid all over his body.
She had saved him death. He was breathing, his face the only thing visible from the surface of the liquid.
"What is... what is this Asha?" Kim asked.
"Its for you." She said coldly. "I saved him for you, so that you can complete what you wanted. Isn't Christian what you wanted to use to kill Jacob? Jacob is not dead... you can now try again. This is what you wanted, I know it is!" Asha said, her voice sounding manic and frantic.
"But how? How did you do this? They hospital said he was dead. that the shooter killed him and severely injured Jacob. How did they get it wrong?" He asked stepping over to Christian's body and giving him a slight examination from his view point.
"Its a long and complicated story. I was able to take hold of his body before they determined the cause of death, he was still alive when he got to the hospital. I used my nursing credentials and forged papers saying he died then gave him a sedative so he'd sleep long enough for me to take his body from the morgue." She explained.
"Asha!! THAT IS WREKCLESS! You could have been caught, his family must be worried about him. We have to give him back to his family." Kim replied.
"But this is your last chance to get what you wanted, this is it, and I'm giving it to you. No one is looking for him, his family doesn't even know he's here. I promise you, this is the way you wanted it and I've made is so that he's here, and at your disposal, doctor. We can mold him, mold him to something even more diabolical than before. This man, laying here, can change your life and finally give you the justice you deserve.
Dr. Kim stood back and stared at her, she was dead serious. She had planned it all out for him. He had never expected her to do this for him, in fact when they worked together at Windcliff he often felt that she was disappointed in the way he treated his patience, especially when Christian came to the hospital.
Dr. Kim stood back and put his hand over his mouth. He was deep in thought. Could he really start this whole process in mind-molding the half dead Christian Evans into something even more monstrous than he was before. Could the DNA from the cannible still be viable to use and make him much more of a man eater.
Asha was standing there waiting...she looked at Kim hoping for an answer soon. They didn't have much time as Christian's bodily organs needed to begin the tissue thereby with the DNA from the source subject as soon as possible to keep him alive and be able to revive him fully.
"I need an answer." Asha said.
"I don't know, I just don't know if I can do this again!" Kim replied turning from Christian's body.
"Then, we'll have to end it all." She replied as she removed a syringe from a small box near the vat where Christian was laying. She pulled back the plunger and filled the glass with air and proceeded to find one of Christian's veins to fill it with a bubble of air that would slowly make its way through his blood and kill him once it entered his heart.
A slow, agonizing death but it was the only way, she thought, to trick Kim.
"NO! Stop! What are you doing?" He exclaimed.
"Ending the project. We have to let him go if you don't want to use him." She said conning him.
Kim shook his head. He couldn't do it, he couldn't let her dispose of Christian like this. He was going to try one more time.
"Ok! Ok! Lets begin the process again. But it has to be now and it has to be under my rules." Andrew replied.
"Very well Dr. Kim." She said smiling as she went over to a larger box that had been filled with two large slabs of ice. In between the slabs was the vials of DNA from the source subject that they would inject again into Christian that would give him a mind that would be easy to mold and brainwash. The DNA in his system from the cannibal once treated by Dr. Kim at Windcliff, would multiply and make Christian a human monster hungry for the flesh of anyone Dr. Kim set his mind to.
"Doctor." Nurse Hoffman said, handing Kim the first vial of the DNA.
"Let's begin." He said.
As Dr. Kim injected the first round of DNA transfer into Christian's revived body, Asha stood back and realized the trap was set for her own game of revenge. She too had a story, a story of a broken family, a lost childhood and one man was responsible for it all. Asha Hoffman had long worked to gain access to the things she had gained while working for Kim at Windcliff, when he left and was removed as Chief of Staff there for the escape of Evie and Alice among other indiscretions, Asha's own plans went on ice.
But then the idea to use Christian came to her mind and she knew it was meant to be. It was all coming together so easily. She felt the cooling sensation of satisfaction rush over her whole body. She was so close to finally getting what she wanted.
Pure Revenge.
