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| Evie comes face to face with her kidnapper |
Evie, began to wake up from her attack. She blinked her eyes as they slowly opened in a dim and blurry room as her eyes adjusted to the small amount of candle light filtering into them. She tried to move but then saw that her wrists and ankles felt restrained.
She looked over to her right wrist, then her left, and although she still was having trouble seeing, she could easily make out the ropes.
"Hello?" She whispered to herself as she began to scan the room.
It was familiar, and as her brain started to adjust to being in the gloom of her faint, she finally realize where she was.
The bedroom of Lockwood Thicket.
"Hello!" She said again unsure how she go back to the cottage she and Sebastian once shared before he did, in fact it was the place he died, the very place she stabbed him in the heart with a stake.
Then, with one more shout for her kidnapper to make themselves known, the bedroom door slowly creaked open and a shadowy figure stood in the doorway.
"Who are you? WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" the tied up Evie screamed. "What am I doing here?" She added.
Slowly the shadowy figure began to step into the candle lit room revealing himself to be:
SEBASTIAN LORD.
Evie screamed at the man she believed dead. She had seen his body disappear into ash when she staked him in the heart. She saw him gone. She saw his eyes go to black and go vacant. She saw his entire life vanish.
"How are you alive? How can you be alive????" She shouted at him as she tossed and turned to try and get away from her very undead husband.
"Evie, Evie, Evie, shhhh... calm down my love, calm down." He said sitting at the foot of her bed as he patted her leg that became slightly exposed from under her skirt.
"How can you be alive Sebastian? I killed you! I KILLED YOU" She screamed as her breathing became heavy in her chest, her heart pounding like a wild drum deep inside her.
"You've read too many of those novels that you love so much." He chuckled. "Creatures like me cannot be killed with garlic or a cross, see?" He said revealing a golden necklace around his neck and under his shirt with a golden crucifix dangling there.
"But I staked you. I staked you and you turned to dust before my eyes!" She repeated.
"A temporary distraction while my body regenerated." He explained smugly.
"No." Evie told herself, holding her baby bump as if to protect it from it's monstrous father.
"Evie, listen to me, those are old myths and legends, and besides, Eliza's spell is much stronger than old wise tales like that....it made it so only one thing can destroy me, something no human can control."
"I'm dreaming. This is a dream. You're not really here, I'm asleep in my bed at Tirymor and you are just a figment of my imagination." Evie said in a panicked tone.
"No, no no!! No! My love, you're not asleep. This is not a dream. This is real. I'm here, you're here, in our little home together, see?" Sebastian said pinching Evie slightly on the fat of her arm to prove she was in real life.
"I killed you. You tried to kill Nikolas and I killed you." Evie said again, her mind unable to process Sebastian standing in front of her in the flesh.
Sebastian frowned remembering what he had done to her brother, the attack. The blood thirsty attack he had on her. It made him sad, realizing he allowed his dark side to take over. But it was what it was, he had to do what he had to do just like taking Evie in the middle of night.
Sebastian got up and faced the mirror just over a large black mahogany vanity in the corner of the room, and true to his word the myths of vampirism struck again, there standing in all his pale skinned glory was his reflection.
"I feel terrible about that, Evie, I truly do." Sebastian said turning back to his wife tied to the bed just another roll of thunder rolled across the sky like a roaring lion. "But I had to do, and I'd do it again." He added.
Evie's eyes narrowed as his callous words saying he'd attempt to murder her brother Nikolas again if he had the chance. "And I'd stab you again too to protect him. Over and over and over again I'd stab you!" She said her mouth spitting with angry at him.
Sebastian's heart sank and he rushed over to the bedside and got on his knees and kissed her softly on the arm trying to comfort her.
"No, no don't say that, you don't mean that. I know you don't mean that. We've gone through so much together that what you saw me do to Nikolas was just a shocking moment of my own weakness. He was trying to separate us, Evie, can't you see? I was trying to keep us together because we belong together. We always have. Since we were children, we were betrothed and our fates were tied together forever. It's been our destiny to be man and wife." Sebastian said as the thunder once again rolled.
"Sebastian you are not who I was supposed to be with. You've become someone so different--something --so different. You have no …" She paused... "no soul." She finished. "I came to this place to fall in love and I did, but all of that changed once you became this version of yourself. Someone who wants to kill and take from other's. That's not the Sebastian Lord I fell in love with."
"That's not true!! I promise you, it's not." He replied in a conflict with the truth.
"It is! Of course it is! Look what you've done. Look at me! LOOK AT ME!!" She said forcing him to face what he has done to the woman he supposedly loves.
"This was the only way I could get you Evie. You know that if I revealed myself to you you would not have come with me willingly. I had to be stealth and secretive with my actions. And Tomorrow night we'll go away. Together. Forever." He replied.
"Sebastian you cannot do that. You cannot take me." She said causing him to remember the baby was his.
He got up on the bed slowly, smiling sinisterly and put his head on her stomach listening to her heartbeat and felt as if he could also hear the baby's too. He smiled and rubbed his hand over her belly smiling the whole time. She feared him. He was do different. So cold. So dark. So monstrous that she couldn't even bare to look into his horrible eyes any longer.
She turned form him and began to cough. She felt as if she was going to vomit, and cough even more. Sebastian reached over and untied one arm so she could vomit onto the floor, and when she turned back she swung at his face.
He caught her arm and squeezed tightly.
"Tsk tsk tsk..." She said. "I was hoping I could trust you. But I guess we'll still need more time for that." He added as he tied her back to the bed.
"Please Sebastian. You have to let me go, this isn't what you really want to do. We can't live a life of nomads running around." Evie replied.
"That's not true. We can. And we will." He replied.
"But.... it's not what I want anymore. YOU'RE not what I want anymore." She replied hinting about something else, her actual love in her heart and who it belonged to.
He looked at her, his eyes narrowed as his mind began to connect the dots.
"There's someone else isn't there?" He replied.
Evie said nothing. She only stared at him allowing the sound of the rolling storm over Lockwood Thicket to answer for her.
Sebastian's eyes darkened. His skin suddenly turned a strange tone of white, whiter than it normally was. His blood, as cold as it flowed, turned to ice and he became enraged. He ravaged the tops of all the dressers and tables in the room knocking the family pictures, vases and plants to the floor. He ripped at the walls with this thick hands tearing at the paintings and wallpaper then with his iron fist blasting through a wall.
He paused catching his breath like a tiger after chasing it's wild prey of an antelope then losing it in the brush. His frustration and anger shown with every breath.
Then in a sudden jolt of movement, he fell to his knees and screamed a horrible scream in rage. The wolves in the forest that surrounded Lockwood Thicket heard his beaming scream and they howled a terrible howl that made Evie's blood run as cold as Sebastian's.
"You deceiving bitch!!" He snarled. "How can you have betrayed me this way? WHO IS HE? WHO!?"
"I haven't betrayed you Sebastian. You have been the only one." She said.
"You forget Christian." He growled.
"No!” Evie replied forcefully. “Christian and I happened when I thought Mary had killed you. It wasn’t a betrayal." She reminded him.
"If the sun does not kill me this news of a new love for you will.” Sebastian said as his eyes went blank, dark and cold. “I should tear into your throat right now and end this once and for all. You don't deserve life the way you see it." He said in a monstrous voice that frightened Evie.
"You monster!! How can you say something so vial, so disgusting.. to me!!!? The woman you once loved and the mother of…” she stopped herself before revealing her pregnancy.
Sebastian stared at her. “The what?? Finish your thought.”
“I'm carrying your baby Sebastian, end me and you end this baby's life too. Remember that." She finally confessed.
“A child??? Mine? You’re having my child?” Sebastian exclaimed with shock.
“Yes, a child you’ll never ever know. I promise you, that. I will never — NEVER — allow this child near the monster you’ve become.” Evie replied angrily.
"You can try all you want but once this baby is born I will take it from you. You cannot be fit to be it's mother. Not this way, not galivanting around with.... wait.... the man that was here with Nikolas and that Alice Winterborn woman. That man... him? Is it him?" Sebastian said remembering the night of the battle where Nikolas, Alice and Matthew were at Lockwood Thicket.
Evie said nothing, which to Sebastian said everything.
"Ahhh... well then, I see." Sebastian said with a twinge of snark.
"You don't see anything, you only want to believe you see or feel something because of the amount of paranoia running through your cold heart. I was talking about our child, not Matthew Winterborn." Evie said exposing Matthew by name.
"Maaaaatthew....." Sebastian repeated with a snake like hiss in his voice. "What a wonderful name. I should kill him from of you. Let you watch as I rip open his throat and drink his life force until it's drained from his eyes one drop at a time. Would you like me to do that instead?"
"You're disgusting! YOU SEE!? How can I love a thing like you? YOU are not Sebastian, not the one I loved once. Not the man I believed I'd be with forever. Whatever Eliza did to you killed the man I loved, and birthed this stranger in front of me now. I wish I had never come here Sebastian Lord, I wish with ever fiber of my being that I never ever married you." Evie said with tears streaming down her face.
"Those are the words of a woman who's heart is breaking. I promise you, that isnt what I wanted, not in the slightest. But you'll forget him, this Matthew Winterborn, you'll forget he ever existed, that I can promise you." The vampire said as a thunderbolt blasted over head carried with the autumn storm brewing in the sky.
"Don't hurt him." Evie said once again trying to lift her arms up to grab at Sebastian forgetting she was tied to the bed.
Sebastian lifted a brow, his heart wasn't in it to kill someone else again, even if it were the man his wife, had fallen in love with despite the child in her womb. He wanted to end this obsession she had with Matthew, or whatever it was, but to Sebastian the more pressing problem at had was getting Evie out of Welshport and fast.
"Once we're gone, once we're free of the secrets and the prying eyes of my family, Matthew will be just a sad little memory of your past. We'll be together, forever with our little baby. It'll be a dream come true Evangeline, a dream come true." Sebastian said showing her his teeth.
"I won't go. I will NOT go!!!" She said forcefully.
Sebastian got up from her bed and smiled a crude wicked smile happy to see she was still as feisty as he remembered. But her fight was pointless as he saw himself as even more powerful than she could ever even think of.
"You will my love, you will and you'll be happy with me. Our baby will be happy too. I promise you this, your life is about to change and for the better. Tomorrow night, after my energy returns, we'll be gone. Forever." Sebastian said leaning down and kissing his wife on the lips who tried to pull away.
He adjusted his shirt that had become disheveled in his outburst and left the room to rest in a dark quiet side room inside the cottage leaving Evie alone in the candle light with her thoughts.
As she wondered how in the world she would get out of this, she recalled what Sebastian had said to her when he first made himself known. That the staking could did not kill him. Neither would garlic or a cross. All of those things, things that even Sebastian pointed out were figments of fiction, all pretend ways to kill a vampire. That even Eliza's spell protected him from all but one thing.
The Sun.
Evie knew that only Sunlight could kill her monster of an undead husband. Only the sun and the light it shined could burn him away to ashes once and for all ridding her of his cursed existence in her life.
She needed to free herself, and bring this creature into the light to save herself and the baby.
Light, bright and warm, the signal of a new day, the giver of life.... was Evie Jordan-Lord's one and only hope of survival.
****
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| Celeste & Charlotte & new baby Fabían |
The storm above the island of Welshport continued though the night and into the morning. The flashes of lightening lit up the windows in blasts of light that came as quick as the snap of a finger.
Rebecca Lord, walked the red-carpeted halls of her family mansion, a nervous wreck. She had not seen her maid Georgina in almost 2 days. Her room was not used in that time, and now her grand-daughter in-law Evie was missing too.
Evie did not come down for breakfast. Evie did not even send notice with a servant to the breakfast table that she wasn't coming to join then. She was missing too. TWO women missing from the same house within hours of each other. The storm, it's electric currents rushing through the air, had also now brought with it a small mystery of two vanishings within the walls of Tirymor.
In the pocket of her long purple skirt with swirls of black dahlias, Rebecca clutched her rosery beads and prayed in her mind a silent prayer in hopes Georgina and Evie were both save.
Wherever they were.
Then, she entered baby Fabien's nursey where she found Charlotte and new mother Celeste fawning over the new Lord baby.
"Evie is no where to be found, Georgina too. I can't believe they'd leave the house without telling us. Especially Georgina. She has a job to do here, and, well Evie knows better than to dismiss herself from morning breakfast without a word." Rebecca said coming over to see the baby sleeping in his crib oblivious to the wild storm he was born in.
Celeste and Charlotte shot looks at each other again, as they knew Georgina had transformed back into Mary and was hidden, by them, in the turret room. The two cohorts knew that Rebecca would stop at nothing until she figured out where Georgina had gone, something had to be done, so Charlotte spoke out.
"I think she's gone. For good." Charlotte said.
"Who?" Rebecca asked.
"Miss Georgina. I think she's gone for good." Charlotte repeated in a meek voice.
"What are you talking about? How is she gone for good?" Rebecca wondered.
"I saw her leave just last night before the baby was born. With everything that happened last night I forgot to tell you. I forgot everything. She had... a bag with her. She's gone." Charlotte said as Celeste watched for Rebecca's reaction hoping she'd believe her.
"But gone? Why? Why would she just leave without saying anything?" Rebecca asked rhetorically. "And Evie? Was Evie with her?" The matriarch added.
"Evie isn't here?" Celeste asked, knowing Rebecca had already mentioned Evie was gone too but she was trying to draw attention from Georgina's vanishing.
Rebecca looked over at Celeste and tilted her head confused. She was starting to feel as if the two were purposfully stalling time or attempting to muddle what was happening. It was clear by their body language that they were both nervous and had something to hide.
"What going on here? The two of you... what is it? What do you have to tell me?" Rebecca asked.
Celeste looked at 10 year old Charlotte who know felt in over her head covering for the transformed Mary and started to stammer, a clear sign of a lying. Celeste jumped in to save the drowning girl.
"You know what it is, none of us have had any sleep. I surly haven't with our little boy now in the world, I think we're just all in love with him to make sense of why those two ladies would vanish from the house without a word. I can tell you that in private conversations that I also had with Georgina that she was planning on leaving. She wanted to go back home to be with her family. I apologize too, with the fall and the baby being born early I plumb forgot to speak of my conversation with Miss Kent. This is what Charlotte is referring to. She was there when Georgina was telling me this. As for Evie, I don't really know where she is. Its customary for her to take walks into the village in the morning air. I've done it with her many times. Perhaps she left early and didn't want to disturb us from sleep."
Rebecca lifted a brow. These were all plausible answers to this morning mystery of the missing maid and the missing heiress, but still something seemed off. Rebecca was very keen on smoking out the truth from people when she needed to but she truly didn't have the energy on this morning.
Especially when she felt there was something much more twisted at fault for this. The plausibility of Celeste's explanation was fine, for a normal world, but not for this world.
"Humph." Rebecca replied in a frown. "Well then I wish Georgina luck wherever she is, and as for Evie I'll have to talk to her about leaving in such a way."
Charlotte sighed in relief, Celeste smiled nervously as they seemed out of the woods with their lies. But Rebecca, after kissing her new grand-son and playing with him a short while, excused herself to household duties.
"This also means you need to clean your room young lady." Rebecca reminded Charlotte just before leaving the two alone with the baby.
"Do you think she believed us?" Charlotte asked Celeste who watched the door.
Celeste shrugged. "We'll see." She said, while her mind thought about what in the world happened to Evie.
Rushing down the long staircase, Rebecca continued to clutch the rosery beads in her dress pocket. As she flowed passed a group of large checkerboard grilled windows in the foyer she ran into Nikolas Jordan Evie's brother.
"Nikolas, have you seen your sister?" She asked him.
He looked at her with glaring eyes. "What do you mean? No? I assumed she was out this morning." He answered.
"She hasn't been since since the baby was born last night." Rebecca replied.
"What? Are you sure??" Nik asked his voice filled with anxiety.
"No one has seen her. Her room seems untouched as I passed it this morning on my way to Fabien's nursey." Rebecca said.
"Well, there has to be a good explanation, she wouldn't just leave the house without telling us, would she?" Nik wondered out loud feeling as if he had answered his own question. "No she wouldn't. Ill check in the village, I have an idea where she might have gone." He added.
"Have you? Where?" Rebecca asked, suspicious of this information Nik was privy to and she wasn't.
"A friend's house." Nik said still relaying the information as vague as possible to keep Evie's private relationships still private.
Rebecca lifted a brow as Nikolas rushed out into the storm to find his sister. She felt un easy about all of it, to the point where there was a knot in her stomach. She then turned to see the open door of the dining room and peaked in where saw found a housemaid and her assistant and driver Hamstead inside at a long table polishing silver.
"Hamstead," Rebecca said from the open dining room door. "a word please."
Hamstead got up from the silver and walked out into the foyer where Rebecca was waiting.
"Ma'am?"
"There are a couple of members of the household missing this morning. I don't feel very confident in the explanations on their absences." She told Hamstead.
"Are they in danger?" Hamstead asked.
"Possibly. With everything that has happened in the last few weeks, I don't have the confidence in anything at this point and Eliza Goode still roams this world. Reigns has been quite silent on what he's done to her and I do not date seek her out myself." Rebecca said.
"Do you think Eliza is responsible for these absent members of your household?" Hamstead asked.
"The witch has her claws in everything. Knowing her, she's killed Reigns or something, I mean he hasn't replied to any of my message about what he's done to her and I wonder if she's even been taken into custody and punished like I thought he would. Now, I wonder what in the world she'd do with Evie and Georgina should she be responsible. She could use them somehow, some way, to get to me. I know she would! Especially if she found out I was the one who told Reigns about her." Rebecca told Hamstead who was starting to see his boss as a bit paranoid in her business with Eliza.
"Ma'am, I am sure Constable Reigns has taken the appropriate response legally to Eliza Goode. She will not be any kind of trouble for you anymore." Hamstead said attempting to cool Rebecca's paranoia.
"No, Aaron, no," Rebecca said using Hamstead's first name. "I can't trust that. I can't trust that one bit. Eliza is a dangerous and viscous sorceress. She'll have us killed. She's started with Sebastian. What would she do to Georgina or, my god, even Evie?!" Rebecca replied as Hamstead saw her falling further into her strange paranoia.
"What would you like to do then Ma'am?" He asked.
Then as Rebecca thought and fiddled with her rosary beads, she remembered the man she met weeks and weeks ago at Hope Hospital when Jacob was admitted after his attempted murder. She remembered the man said to call on him when she needed her help, that she would soon need her help. Caspian was his name and he lived in the village and was a man of great psychic powers.
"Take me to the village. I need to speak with someone. Someone who will no doubt help me." Rebecca said as the storm raged on over head in a roll of thunder and rain.
"Yes ma'am." Hamstead said.
Rebecca went to a small side closet in the corner of the foyer and grabbed a thick coat, a black bonnet and an umbrella. She tied the bonnet tightly around her head and tucked the white and red curls of her hair neatly under the bonnet then peaked back into the dining room door.
"I'll be out this afternoon, please be of assistance to Celeste and the baby and check on Charlotte's room. It should be cleaned." Rebecca instructed the maid polishing silver who got up from the table curtsied to Rebecca and nodded her head that she'd do as she was asked.
Then, Rebecca went to the front door of Tirymor and saw the rain pouring down onto the well forested grounds of the mansion. She hopped into the car that Hamstead had pulled around and they, together went off to find Caspian for answers.
****
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| Alice, Matthew & Nik in the caves of the Westrdige Woods |
Nikolas arrived at Alice's front door soaking wet as the storm above finally let the rain fall in what seemed like gushes of water every 5 minutes. It was a strong tempest that caused the cobble-stone streets to slightly flood with the mush of mud and wet clumps of the fallen autumn leaves in every corner.
He knocked frantically on Alice's door hoping Evie was there.
When Alice opened it, it was almost as if she already knew what had happened and in a way she did know. Her dream the night before had told her there was something happening to Evie.
She grabbed Nik and held him close, his wet clothes cooling her warm body.
"How long has she been gone?" She asked of Evie.
"We don't know," He replied as he warmed by the fire. "Rebecca thinks just over night. I went to bed early and didn't really catch up with her, so I really don't know. Alice, I'm worried about her. I was hoping when I got here she'd be here with you and Matthew. Where could she be? Can you feel her energy? Can you find her?" Nik begged.
"Whats this?" Matthew said, entering the small home he shared with his sister.
"Matthew, you're home?" Alice asked surprised.
"The fleet was sent home, we can't go to sea today, the storm is too wild out on the ocean. Every liner in the area has been docked. What's going on?" Matthew informed seeing the panic in Nik's face.
"It's Evie." He said
"Evie?? Is she ok? What's happened?" Matthew asked in a rush.
"They don't know where she is. Nik thought she'd be here but... no." Alice confirmed. "I think that I can find her but it's going to take us going to a place where we'll finally get the answers I've been searching for all along. It won't be pleasant. But I know it'll finally get us the answers." Alice said.
"What do you mean 'the answers'? Is there more? Have you been having your dreams again?" Nik asked remembering Alice's heart-poundingly visions of Sebastian.
Matthew and Alice shot each other looks, unsure of how to broach the topic of Alice's visions and dreams. He knew that it would terrify Nik if he knew the details but if the storm in the air was any sign of what was to come, the truth would come down like the rain.
"Nik, there is only one way we can make sure what I am feeling, what I am dreaming, what I am sensing is real or not." Alice said before turning to Matthew "We have to take him there. We have to go now." She said grabbing her brother's hand.
"I don't know." Matthew answered as Nik began to feel his stomach flip in knots.
"Where?!?" Nik exclaimed. "GO where??? To Evie? What are you talking about?"
Alice and Matthew said nothing, she only handed Nik his coat and grabbed her own.
"Come." She said.
The three-some got into Matthew's small car he had purchased two years before. It was tiny and puttered around the village loudly but he was proud of it. It often flooded in large rain storms but on this day, despite the wild storm ravaging across the sky over the island, the car seemed to run fine. No stops. No flooding.
They drove and drove over the small streets that took them to a larger road that lead out of the village and into the forest in through the thick lush wilderness. Nik turned and looked back through the back window that was covered in giant drops of rain reflecting the Village that was getting smaller and smaller in the background.
"Where are we going? Why wont you tell me?" He asked.
"In time." Alice said, as she made eye contact with Matthew in the review mirror, both keeping quiet throughout the drive out of town. Nik felt his stomach tighten with nerves as various scenarios of where in the world he was being taken flooding his mind.
The three continued on their quick journey on the rugged roads in the outskirts of the village. The green hills and slopes of the island were even more emerald toned in the storm of this early fall. None of the wild grass had turned yellow and orange just yet, everything still as green as summer.
Then, the small car carrying Alice, Matthew, and Nikolas arrived a giant rock formation just off the western side of the Island known as The Westridge Woods.
The cliffs of the Westridge Woods. seemed to float all the way up to the heavens and dropped down all the way down the cold Atlantic sea below. The rain fell hard now, the waves crashed loudly and Alice and Matthew lead Nikolas up a small muddy path through a green pasture near the rocky cliffside. They continued this small hike up the cliffside then down a path that turned almost in the shape of a sickle and to the opening of a cave.
"Where are we?" Nik asked.
"Come." Alice said as she grabbed his hand and went with Matthew and Alice into the cave.
Matthew grabbed at the wall and found an old torch, he knew would be there. He'd been here before, so had Alice. This cave was not something of a mystery to them. It was a place they had known all their lives, they had been here as children, as teenagers, as young adults.
It was a place of worship for them. It was a place of solace and hope.
This was the catacombs of their people the Dænians. They were buried here. All of them.
As the group made their way through the dark tunnels in the cave on the Westridge Woods, quietly listening to the drops of water drip down the jagged edges of the cave walls, they entered a large chamber in the center that had an opening at the top where natural light and rain fell through.
The three stood together and Nik looked up at the walls that had carvings and paintings all made by the people that had lived here for generations and had been killed the settlers from England, Wales and Scotland that took their land as their own. The drawings were of their people, the land they loved and the stories passed down generation to generation.
Some drawings explained what the place in the caves was, who the people buried there were and what had happened to them. In the walls, large carved out shelves that held ancient sarcophagi, some made of stone that had been dragged to this place generations ago; other sarcophagi were made of wood, these were more recent burials—at least 75 years old.
And others, even more recently made, were crested of iron, crafted by the very hands of the person buried inside.
Nik looked around, he counted and counted and stopped at 64 sarcophagi before he felt the dizzying of his eyes. There were just too many to count.
The cool air felt like it was getting colder the longer they stood there and Nik felt a kiss of it just over the back of his neck as he stared at the thousands of old coffins lined up in the circular cave.
"I need you to believe in what you are about to see." Alice asked Nik as she grabbed hold of both his hands.
"What am I about to see?" He asked shaking in the cold.
"The truth." Matthew answered. “All truth.”
Alice took both of Nik's hands and placed them in Matthew's hands. Matthew squeezed Nik's hands tightly and winked at him trying to comfort the nervous Nik.
Then, Alice went over to the center of the chamber where the light trickled in from the surface with the rain. She stood there and allowed the water to pour down on her with the little light from the sky that could peek in. She lifted her hands and began to hum a song Nik had never heard. Matthew then started to hum too. They were humming the same song, in tune from the depths of their bellies.
Then, Alice began to levitate. Her eyes began to glow, her hair began to sway in the air back and forth like the storm in the air was pulling at her dark trusses.
"LET IT BE KNOWN; THE TRUTH! SHOW US, DEAR ANCESTORS, WHO SHALL WE FEAR, WHO SHALL WE TRUST AND WHAT ARE WE TO KNOW!?" Alice's screamed, her voice echoing in the chamber where all her ancestors were burred.
Suddenly in the reflection of Nik's eyes that were open as wide as they could be, bright bulbs of light began to come out of the stone walls of the Catacombs. They were forming in the shapes of people, 20 people, 30, then 100 and 200. More and more of the ghostly ancestors of the Dænian people began to appear on the rocky walls. They were thousands of them all now humming the same song Alice and Matthew were humming.
At the center of the group of the ancestors, one stood out. He was large framed, had no face, but long hair the glowed blue with his phantom like body. As he stood up, his mouth formed and the humming from all the spirits stopped in silence only allowing the rain to make it's pitter patter on the rocks from above.
"Who is that?" Nik whispered, as Matthew shushed him.
"SPEAK NOT OF THE NAME YOU FEAR." The ghost said as everyone listened. "HE IS CRAVEN AND VILE AND WISHES TO HARM ALL WHO ATTEMPT TO STOP HIM."
"WHO, GREAT ANCESTSOR, IS THIS MAN I FEAR?" Alice answered as she continued to float in the air facing the great man who was speaking.
The rain continued to come down, the thunder once again blasted across the sky and the great ancestor spoke the name "SEBASTIAN LORD!"
Nik almost fell to the floor hearing the name of the man he thought was dead. His own brother in law.
"WHO HAS EVANGELINE?" Alice asked.
"SEBASTIAN LORD!" the ancestor spoke.
then the thousands of ancestors in blue glowing light repeated "SEBASTIAN LORD"
"WHO SHALL I FEAR MY LIFE FROM?" Alice asked.
"SEBASTIAN LORD!" The ancestor said again.
the other ghostly ancestors repeated the name "SEBASTIAN LORD"
"DEAR ANCESTOR," Alice began to sing. "THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE. ALL OF YOU. REST NOW AGAIN, IN YOUR ROCKY KEEP."
The shock was written all over Nik's face. Alice floated back to the ground and showed her regular form once again. Matthew handed Nik over to Alice again and she hugged him. He was trembling. Shaking.
"It's him." Alice said confirming the truth, the Sebastian was alive and her dreams were warning her. "He has Evie."
"Lockwood. Take me to the thicket." Nik said as Matthew and Alice both agreed, that is where the monster had Evie trapped, it had to be true.
They gathered themselves and quickly made their way back through the caves to the awaiting car.
****
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| Filipe gets caught inside Tirymôr |
As evening approached and the storm overhead continued on its blustery journey through the atmosphere, Celeste paced back and fourth dressed in a dark robe with ivory colored dashed tied neatly at her waist in a bow, she cradled her crying baby in the nursery hoping the thunder would stop soon and they could both get both get some sleep.
While she did this, someone was picking the lock on a back door. Slowly and methodically the person jiggled the lock with two pins clicking and pushing until finally the latch lifted and the door popped open all on its own.
The person pushed the door open slowly and stepped into the mansion.
Tirymôr was quiet. Rebecca and Nik were out. Evie and Georgina were missing, but the person entering the quiet mansion had no need for them.
As the person slowly made their way into the house and through the first floor parlor and into a long hallway with golden framed portraits and long legged tables made of black marble, they passed a framed mirror that reflected the face and body of Filipe Braga.
He has snuck into the mansion to beg Celeste one last time to go back with him and leave the Lords once and for all. He was terrified for her. He wanted to save her, and keep her safe from harm, her and the baby.
Filipe continued on his path into the mansion when suddenly, as he started up the same staircase Celeste was pushed down, something came down on the back of Filipe’s head in a large blow knocking him to the floor.
Filipe fell backwards and knocked his head on the marble floor at the bottom of the stairs. Filipe’s eyes opened, they were blurry but he could see the dark cathedral like ceiling above his head. His head was throbbing with pain from the blow to the head. Still lying on the ground with blurred vision he reached to where the pain was coming from around the back of his head and when his hand returned to the fogginess of his vision he could clearly see blood.
Then, a face appeared standing above Filipe.
It was Jacob Lord.
“I should call Reigns right now and have you arrested for breaking and entering but I feel like I owe you something for that mangled hand of yours.” Jacob said referring to Filipe’s damaged hand from the accident he had with Jacob all those years ago.
“My head…” Filipe moaned.
“Get the hell up.” Jacob growled.
“Where’s Celeste? Where is she?” Filipe asked stumbling to his feet and steadying himself on the banister of the staircase.
Jacob smirked evilly. “Ahhh…so you’re here to win her back is that it? Well friend, that will prove to be futile because Celeste has just given birth to my son. Our son, hers and mine. And she’s agreed to be my wife.”
“You’re lying. YOURE LYING!!” Filipe shouted
“No friend, it’s all true.” Jacob said with a snake like his voice while the rain poured down outside.
“She would NEVER marry you!! She hates you! She’s always hated you. She would never marry you Jacob, she loves me and she is to marry me. I will marry her!” Filipe said as the trail of blood continued to come from behind his ear and down his neck staining the colar of his shirt.
“I feel you are now mistaken. And it’s a shame you had to discover it this way. But it’s true. She and I we made love. We became one. Me. Her. Our bodies joining together in my bed… all warm and wet inside and..”
As Jacob began to embellish his time with Celeste to purposely taunt Filipe, filipe groaned in emotional agony and leapt from the edge of the staircase and lunged at Jacob out grabbed hold of him. They both fell to the floor of the and began fighting. One punch to the face, one punch to the ribs. Jacob was stronger than he looked after his shooting and Filipe was one handed.
They fought for only seconds but it felt to them both like yours, finally Jacob landed a punch hard to Filipe’s face knocking him out and without even thinking Jacob dragged the man’s unconscious body up the long staircase and through the halls passed the various gloomy faces of the family members in the painted portraits finally arriving on the third floor landing just in front of the turret room door.
Jacob turned the locked door and dragged Filipe in, leaving him just beyond the door and then vanishing leaving Filipe there in the dark to rot alone.
Or so Jacob thought.
Hours passed and finally Filipe came to but not in the dark room of the turret like Jacob found it, but in the candle lit room where Mary was in hiding.
She was weak and cold and hadn’t eaten in days thanks to Celeste and Charlotte being busy with the new baby. She stared at Filipe from her small make shift bed as Filipe rubbed his eyes.
“Mary??” He said in shock. “They said… they said you were gone? Dead! Has Jacob had you here the whole time??” He asked and rushed over to her with his head still bleeding.
“It’s a long story, very long.” Mary said. “Here, sit here. Let me clean that up.” Mary added.
She sat him down, his hair now hardened with the blood with the cut he suffered from the beating Jacob gave him. She cleaned the cut as best she could and then washed his hair. They were both now in the same boat, trapped in the turret of the Lord family mansion hiding from their pasts. Hers much more twisted than his, but still they were both locked away.
“I wish you could tell me where you’ve been.” He said as she helped him remove his shirt so she could wash out the blood.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She said grinning. “Besides what’s the point anymore? I’ve lost all of it.” She added.
“I think I would believe it, I’ve seen what you and your mother could do. And it’s not like we have anything else to do.” He answered.
Filipe was right. He knew what she was. He was there on the night she and Eliza turned Sebastian into what he was in fact she was the one who took his blood to use to revive Sebastian. They should have no secrets from each other but Mary still weak from helping Eliza escape Reigns didn’t want to get into her transformation.
“Who knew we’d end up here together? All these years and all the terrible things we’ve seen and now it’s just us two here in hiding like two ghosts haunting an attic. They’ve really done a number on us, haven’t they?” Mary said referring to the Lords.
“I wish I could change it. I wish I could go back and change it all.” Filipe said as Mary washing his shirt in a small porcelain sink near the tiny turret window.
“We can’t change the things we hate from our lives much like we can’t change the thing we love. We can only move forward.” Mary said.
“How can we? This family seems to cross us at every part. Look at Celeste! Jacob has her now in a way I only wished. I don’t know how I can ever get her back.” Filipe said.
“They sent us on a path to no where haven’t they Filipe.” Mary said sitting next to him on the bed.
She looked in his eyes, his tired pained eyes and he looked into hers, the reflected a blue shine of beauty they seemed to be just as hurt as he was. They were two broken hearts with their worlds in turmoil trapped together.
He leaned down, lowering his head so that their noses met and kissed her softly. She leaned back in surprise then she kissed him back.
Their two broken hearts healing together in the turret room finding peace in the silence and the solitude they shared. No one was coming for them. No one cared where they were. They even believed that it was the end for them; that no matter what they did as the night soon came they’d be left to die there in that small stone-walled room.
“Is there nothing else?” Filipe whispered to her as she felt every inch his chest.
The rain fell. The storm rolled across the sky continuing thought they evening.
“There’s always more.” She whisperer back, and now that it’s just you and me perhaps we can be friends. Or maybe fait had brought us together here to be more than that.”
His eyes, so warm, so deep and brown twinkled in her gaze. He felt needed. Maybe he could help her find her way out of this. Maybe he could save them both. Somehow.
Filipe smirked boyishly at her, which made her giggle. Even though his heart was broken, her showed a happy face. It was something she needed to see too. He paused then slowly kissed Mary again. Her soft long blond hair finding its way tangling up in his fingers. Then, Filipe lay her back and slowly unbuttoned her top as their skin touched.
In the flickering light of the candles and oil lamps all around the small 500 square foot turret room Filipe and Mary found a silver lining in their captivity in each other’s eyes, in each other’s kiss… and as the rain came down they made love.
****
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| Rebecca seeks help from Caspian |
In the setting sun, a little house in a quiet lush neighborhood saw a car, shining and glittering with tiny drips of rain reflecting the shy above, pull up onto the mud just in front of the tiny wooden porch. The curtain of the front window shifted to the left as a hand pulled back the fabric to see the car.
Hamstead opened the back door to the soaked car and helped Rebecca out and over the large murky puddle holding her left hand up as her right hand lifted the front hem of her long dress.
Inside the house, was Caspian, a man new to Welshport Village that Rebecca met the night Jacob was brought to the hospital after being shot. He said of himself of being wise; his face sun scorched and tan with dark hair and dark brown eyes. The wrinkles around his face seemed to frame a woman who smiled often, but his wrinkles were marks of from the sun.
Caspian opened the front door to his small cottage before Rebecca could knock.
"Well. You finally came." He said standing front and center in his doorway with a dark cloak around his shoulders.
"You told me the night we met you could guide me. I have to know things. I have to know the truth about what is really happening in my household." Rebecca said as the cold rainy wind blew across her face.
"Come." Caspian said standing aside so Rebecca could enter. "Not him." He added pointing to Hamstead.
Rebecca had Hamstead sit and wait in the car as she entered. Caspian lead Rebecca to a small side room, a parlor of sorts, that had been decorated with large tapestries framed on the wall. The curtains of the room had been drawn and only three giant candles, circular and cream colored wax were lighting the room. In the center of the room, a round table with four chairs draped in black. Rebecca noticed the black table cloth was freshly clean and embordered with small white stars all along the edges.
On the wall behind her was an iron letter H with iron ivy leaves growing around it and through it's arches.
Rebecca sat down across from Caspian who smiled at his new client innocently. He extended his hands to Rebecca's and held them tight.
"What is it that you seek Mrs. Lord?" He asked as he poured her a glass of wine.
"The truth." She answered, taking the glass but never sipping a drop. "My family is in constant turmoil. Darkness, lies and secrets are common. Now two members of my household have gone missing. I don't know whether or not to believe what I've been told about their vanishing but in truth I have no idea what to believe about anything anymore." Rebecca confessed.
"I see." Caspian replied. "I can help you. I WILL help you. There are things in this realm that are hard to explain but I will do my best."
"Ive dealt with the other side before, I have no fear of it. Trust me." Rebecca said.
"Have you?" Caspian smiled. "How interesting. How have you dealt with the other side? The side we all go do after we live this life."
"I once had a man who lived in my home. He was a sort of spiritual guide that unfortunately met a terrible fate. I wish I could have helped him before his death, but...alas, he succumbed to his injuries." Rebecca said of Gaspar DuBois, the con artist Jacob hired to convince Rebecca her superstitions were real only for Sebastian to come along and take him as his first victim. "And my late husband has visited me. I think...I think it was him." She added.
"Interesting." Caspian replied. "Here, take these." He added handing Rebecca beads from a small pouch he had around her waist.
"What are they?"
"They will protect you." Caspian answered.
"Protect me? From what?"
He stared at her. She felt it, the heat of his stare. The intensity of his eyes that seemed to glow, like a flame, like a hot red flame. Then he smiled as if he had heard a joke. He found her constant questions amusing, as if she were the one in control but he knew otherwise.
"Mrs. Lord..." Caspian paused and licked his lips. "I don't know what your other spiritual guide did for you, but when I do my work, I truly enter the other world. And for me to enter the other world to seek the truth, I need to let some of those spirits enter me. These beads will protect you from any of those souls to enter you. We wouldn't want that, would we?" Caspian explained.
Rebecca gulped and shook her head no, then squeezed the beads tightly in her hand.
"Stay quiet, I will have the souls and the spirits of the Sister of Highgrove, of my House to reach me." Caspian instructed as he closed his eyes. "Breath of Frost, cold and lost, come into my heart and sing, surround me with a ring, of light and sound, never go out of bound with my words and in my soul... let me be the vessel, the center, the world, enter me and tell me so, what it is that takes Rebecca's glow!"
As Rebecca's heart pounded and the storm began to churn above the small house in the village where Caspian lived, the table cloth began to sway in a cool breeze that came from nowhere. Caspian's face suddenly changed.
It became ashen and cold. Hard even, like white marble.
He began to shake in his chair, and his grip on Rebecca's free hand tightened.
Then, in a shocking turn, Caspian opened her mouth and blood began to pour.
Rebecca screamed and let go of his hand, she grabbed on to the beads and screamed as Caspian's blood poured all over the table cloth and oozing down turning the tiny white stars on the trim blood red.
Caspian, in his trance, opened his eyes, they were white and glowing. Then his teeth, the two canines in his mouth became sharp and pointed and the man hissed at Rebecca cold and evil.
Then suddenly, the thunder clapped and Caspian passed out on the table.
Seconds passed and he came to, his mouth and face stained with blood, his eyes back to normal, his teeth now safe in their natural shape.
"WHAT DID YOU SEE???? Tell me! What did you see of the two women, Evie and Georgina, where are they? What has happened to them?" Rebecca asked of her new fortune teller knowing full well that Caspian's shapeshifting resembled was that of the creature her own grandson had been turned into.
Caspian Pretended to be terrified of what he saw. He wasn't. Nothing scared him.
He was mostly intrigued of the power of the creature the spirits of his house, the coven of The Sisters of Highgrove had shown him through his supernatural shapeshifting. The Vampire Sebastian.
He could still taste the blood and he found himself feeling a bit competitive knowing he was not the only shadowy creature haunting the rocky shores of Welshport.
"Well????" Rebecca shouted. "What did you see? TELL ME!"
Caspian, once again pretending to be in fear, and worried for Rebecca's loved ones when he truly was not, only replied in one honest word of what he saw in his vision, he said:
"DEATH!"
