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| Lear & Lucas discover a common connection |
A warm summer morning sent the wind off to the west in warm streams. The village streets were busy with horse and buggies, small puttering cars and pedestrians all sharing the cobblestone streets hurriedly rushing to their appointments.
In one corner of the village, off a small ally around Main Street, new-comer Lucas Mural walked into an office that was messy and unkept due to the new tenant still unpacking several boxes.
The frosted glass of the office door read LEAR LOCKWOOD ESQ.
Lucas had traveled all the way from the Portuguese islands of the Azores with Matthew Winterborn just a month earlier and his intensions were to make a better life in America. All of his paperwork was back in the islands, and word of mouth in town was that the new attorney in the village, Lear Lockwood, was a brilliant legal mind and would help.
Luckas held the door open slightly and knocked on glass announcing his entrance, Lear popped out of a mountain of boxes and turned to see the handsome face of Lucas Mural.
"Oh! Uhh, hello, can I help you?" Lear asked, dusting his hands off on his white shirt rolled at the sleeves that was tucked in perfectly to a pair of black trousers and matching suspenders.
"Hello, are you Mr. Lockwood? The solicitor?" Lucas asked shyly.
"I am." Lear replied smiling. "What can I do for you Mr.....?"
"Mural, Lucas. May I?" Lucas replied motioning with this hand for permission to enter the small office.
"Of course, of course. Please excuse the mess. I've just moved into this office and still have a lot to unpack." Lear explained.
Lucas nodded "Thats a bit of what I wanted to seek your help on."
Lear furrowed his brow confused. "You wanted to seek help on my unpacking?"
"No, no!" Lucas replied with a chuckle, his olive toned cheeks blushing. "I'm sorry, my English is still rather confused. I also just moved here. I am from Europe, Portugal, and people here in the village say you may help me become more of a permanent resident. I need to work. But I also need to be permanent here."
"Oh! I See! You've immigrated here! Well, Mr. Mural, welcome. You'll find that most of everyone in this village and perhaps this state have roots from other countries. It's certainly part of what makes the fabric of America so unique around the globe. Please, sit!' Lear said, dusting off a side chair and pushing over to his overflowing desk.
Lucas said, his body tight with nerves.
"Now, when did you arrive?" Lear asked, grabbing a note pad and pen.
"Almost a month now."
"Very good. And do you have a residence?"
Lucas nodded. "I am staying with a friend. My friend lives here in the village."
"Well, that's a step ahead. You have someone who is American in the village who may vouch for you as a sponsor while your paperwork with the Immigration processes through. This is good." Lear said smiling.
They looked at each other while the discussed the process and it was almost as if they knew each other from another life or had been friends for years. Lear, for all his faults, was incredibly welcoming and kind. He was a person of long-lasting pain due to what his aunt Rebecca did to his father decades ago, but this was only a part of who Lear was. In reality, his heart was good and he wanted to help where he could with his profession. Lucas' immigration status and desire to stay and work in America was a perfect example of why he loved to help people in a legal way.
"And is there a Mrs. Mural that we'd call back from Portugal to come too?" Lear asked.
Lucas gulped, a question that haunted his 36-year-old life "Uh, no. No wife."
Lear wrote it down and looked a Lucas.
"Oh. Have you ever been married?" the lawyer asked sensing hesitation on the topic of marriage.
"Never." Lucas answered with a quiet voice.
"Neither have I." Lear said, hoping this similarity would put Lucas' sudden nerves at ease.
"They say I should finally find someone. Maybe here, maybe an American." The handsome Lucas chuckled.
"Well, we're probably around the same age, so I've heard the same thing. People don't really know that sometimes, maybe, there are people who have, I don't know, a different idea of what they want for themselves." Lear said.
"Yes, that is a good way of putting it, a different idea of what they want."
Lear smiled at Lucas, again their eyes connecting.
"Mr. Mural, aside from the idea wanting to be an American what else is it that you want?"
Lucas knew what Lear was asking. He could feel it all over his skin, the small little hairs on his arm lift as if a cold breeze had slowly rushed over him. This wasn't a new feeling; it was something he'd felt before when he lived in Lisbon. It was the feeling of someone knowing him, truly knowing him, without exactly having ever really met or saying the secret words out loud.
The two of them had a link, a secret language that only they and others like them understood. They were like rare pink flowers growing in a garden of all white daisies. They saw each other for what they were in this small bit of conversation and realized that the private connection they shared was something they didn't even realize could be found in another person in such a small place like Welshport. Lucas cardinally never expected it. But there it was... a silent bond that the two handsome young men could feel in their heart, in their mind and in their bones.
"You know, I don't really have many friends here yet. A bit of family that I'd rather not be around too much, would you ever like to have a beer with me over at the Siren's Call Pub sometime? We could discuss the next steps to your immigration status." Lear sad as he finished his notes for Lucas legal paperwork.
"Oh! That would be wonderful, yes. I have even less here, just me and my friend Matthew." Lucas replied.
"Matthew." Lear repeated, the name hitting him like a bit of a brick wall to the face.
"Yes, he's the one I'm living with..... For now." Lucas reiterated.
"I see. And would this friend come with you to the Siren's Call?" Lear wondered, thinking that perhaps the man called Matthew wasn't just a friend.
"No, no, he has a lot to deal with. He's been searching for the woman in his life and I believe he's found her. Its a long story, I could tell you over the drink." Lucas said smiling.
Relief! Lear soon realized that Lucas was, for lack of a better word, alone and free to have drinks with him at any time.
Just the two of them.
To discuss whatever, they wanted as long as they were together.
"To new friendships!" Lear said reaching over to shake Lucas' hand.
As their skin touched Lucas felt more of the little bumps on his skin rise. Lear too.
The chill in the air wasn't a weather front, it was a connection linking two men who suddenly saw a bright light in their rather dimming lives.
"To new friends." Lucas said with a sparkle in his eye.
****
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| Jacqueline & Johnathon reconnect |
A scattered pattern of shadows blanketed the front façade of the small cottage deep in the Tirymor Forest known as Lockwood Thicket. Sitting behind a window watching the pattern of shadows flicker in different shapes through a window was Jacqueline Gray. She sat there in the small bedroom, mid-day, nude and wrapped in a white sheet, her lover Johnathon De Viana lay just as nude on his stomach in the bed behind her.
They had entered into a passionate love affair, and after the last few months Jacqueline had plagued his mind with a spell, a spell to keep him infatuated with her thus keeping her safe from hard under the protection of a member of the Lord family. With this connection, she felt, no one would try anything to destroy her. She worried that time was running out and that Evie would somehow come and get her revenge for what Jacqueline did to her.
Jacqueline's mind was in constant rewind of the cruelty she inflicted; how she taunted Evie in her grave from the surface. How she was so obsessed with Sebastian that she'd stop at nothing to rid him of Evie so that she could have him all to herself.
Jacqueline turned in the chair away from the window and watched Johnathon sleep. His chocolate skin was so sensual in her white sheets. His body perfect. She lusted for Johnathon, the perfect man, but she loved Sebastian.
How could she have such strong feelings for both of them, even knowing that the man in her bed was the same man she saw in a vision doing something heinous to Sebastian -- that still remained a mystery to her -- what did Johnathon do to Sebastian and where was the man she really loved now?
Jacqueline slithered back over to her bed wrapped in the white sheet and cuddled next to Johnathon. The motion of her reentering the bed awoke him. His eyes fixated on the beautiful woman he had so quickly fallen in love with. He reached over and pulled her in close to his naked body. Their warmth uniting like to candles touching wicks.
"Why are you awake?" He asked.
"It's the middle of the day. We can't lay here and make love all day, can we? Don't you have to be in the village?" Jacqueline asked.
"I do. I'll get up in a minute." He said smiling.
She looked at him with soft eyes but a burning mind. She wanted to reach in and grab his heart and squeeze it in her hand until it burst. She wanted to know what he had done to Sebastian, she wanted to find the man she truly loved and free herself of Welshport once and for all.
She had other plans for Johnathon. He would be her husband, and being his wife she would be untouchable. By cloaking herself in shield that came along with being married into the Lord family no one, not even Evie, could come for her.
All this was of course dependent on when and if Sebastian would come back to her. She look into Johnathon’s eyes and see only Sebastian’s face, a face of true love that not even her powerful sorcery could return.
Until Sebastian’s return — protection came first.
"Have you thought about what we discussed? Our marriage?" Jacqueline asked.
The talk of marriage made Johnathon’s mind foggy. He could feel himself recoil at the idea. It was too soon, he thought. It didn't make sense that he'd want to marry someone he'd only met a short while back. But then, he could feel words form in his mouth to say "yes, let's get married."
And just as those words, those lyrical betrayals of words were to drip from his mouth like a leaky faucet, he stopped and shrugged to her surprise.
"Don't you think we should get to know each other more?" He asked.
Jacqueline's brow lifted. Her spell wasn't as tightly wound around him as she thought.
She smiled and lifted her right leg and looped it around his left. Again, their bodies burning when they touched. She could feel him hesitate towards her when the talk of marriage came up. She began to run her fingers through his hair, and she looked deeply into his eyes.
"Now, now, we already talked about it. We both love each other, and this would be the best thing for us. We could do it today!" She said as she slowly leaned down and kissed his full lips.
He was beginning to wish he didn't have to go into the office.
He pulled her in close and rolled her over. Now on top of her she gazed up at his hungry eyes and when they locked in gaze, she put both hands behind his head and focused and zeroed into his mind telepathically:
"Obsecro te intro, et mens es. Simul inter se. Simul in tempore."
"I ... I feel..." he began as her words continued to fill his mind. "What is that?"
"Obsecro te intro, et mens es. Simul inter se. Simul in tempore." She repeated.
"Can you hear that?" He asked, her words sounding as if they were floating in the air rather than just in his head.
"Hear what?" She asked softly as she nibbled his ear.
"I, I hear...." he said, she repeated the spell.
"Obsecro te intro, et mens es. Simul inter se. Simul in tempore; "Obsecro te intro, et mens es. Simul inter se. Simul in tempore."
He closed his eyes; the room began to spin. His heart felt as it were pounding a mile a minute. He lowered his head and rested it on her shoulder, she put her arms around him and scratched on both sides of his back leaving six long lines from her fingernails going from one side to the other. Her mark was made, he was now hers for the taking.
He lifted his head, and his eyers were different; almost sleeping but yet they were open.
"I want to marry you." She said to him in a breathy voice.
He looked at her and at first said nothing, she wondered if her spell had correctly reattached, a spell that would link her with him and no one else. Noone and nothing could break the spell she had just placed on him. Another desperate act of a woman who saw the writing on the wall should she not have the protection of the newest member of the Lord family.
She couldn't marry Sebastian Lord, the man she truly loved, and to protect her from the fires of whatever fresh Hell of revenge she believed Evie was planning, Johnathon as her husband would be her shield, it was a plan full of holes, but Jacqueline felt it was first and best step forward.
"Ok." He replied.
"Really?" She asked gleefully.
"Ok." he replied, his mind foggy as a Welshport morning.
Jacqueline scooted out from under her love and jumped to the middle of the room, again wrapped in the white sheet that now seemed more like a wedding dress billowing in white fabric at her feet.
"We'll go now! We'll go today off to the courthouse just before you go to work, and we'll be married. I'll be your wife and you can tell me everything and anything you want. I'll keep every secret you'll ever need to me to keep."
He chuckled at her girlish attitude to the marriage not knowing it was all a farce, a performance for his own gain.
"Come to back to bed and show your husband how happy you are." He replied extending his hand to pull her back into his arms.
She smiled and trotted back over into the bed where he pulled her in. They began to make love, a deep passionate love.
Jacqueline felt safe, in his arms. In her skin. And now, in Life.
Johnathon's name and family connections would buy her time to do so much, including find Sebastian and be sure that Evie never had a chance to get her back for all the evil she had done.
Yes, Jacqueline was safe, but for how long.
A good spell was only worth it's words if a witch knew how to control her reckless behaviors, and Jacqueline was prone to being a reck.
****
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| Jacob gets a surprise visitor at the office |
In the busy offices of Lord Publishing that afternoon, a wave of shock and surprise rushed over the several literary agents, assistants and editors and other staffers that formed LPH (Lord Publishing House). The reason for this was the buzz that Rebecca Lockwood-Lord, their storied and scandal ridden boss was actually in the building, something that almost never happened.
Indeed, Rebecca was making her way through the corridors floor by floor of the 5-story building making her presence known. She wanted to reiterate that she had returned to form as the company's chief and that Jacob would return to his post as her under-publisher where he belonged. This visit of course was all a surprise to Jacob who sat alone in his 5th floor penthouse office.
When Rebecca made it to the 5th floor, in a cloud of dark taffeta and silks, some of the editors and agents applauded her and shook her hand, one secretary even curtsied as if this were some sort of royal visits, a gesture Rebecca chuckled at.
"What the devil?" Jacob said under his breath listening to the commotion outside his office.
He leaped to his cherrywood door and when he opened it his mother was standing there fist up ready to knock.
"Surprise." She said.
Jacob stood aside and allowed his mother to enter, Aaron Hamstead, the Lord family's trusted driver, stood just outside awaiting his mistress.
"And to what do I owe this visit?" Jacob wondered.
"You're not owed anything son, this is my company, I'm here to see how things are going. For once." She replied.
"Mother, you know this is very unorthodox of you. You've never needed to come down the office for anything. We take things to you when they need your approval or for whatever other reason." Her son replied annoyed.
"Perhaps that is the error of the old way of doing things, I've come to understand that the employees want to see their boss in the workplace too. It makes them feel as if I care." She replied.
"They do see their boss in the workplace. I'm here every day."
"Me, Jacob. They want to see me." Rebecca shot back coldly. "And I want to see them. This is the first of many visits I'll make to LPH. I intend on turning the page and showing my face much more. For moral, of course."
"Again, mother, It's unnecessary."
Rebecca's lips pursed. "You're not going to run me out again, Jacob. Are you following? It's never going to happen. What you did: trying to push me out of the company I helped your father build bigger and better than his father left it so that you could hoard our family's hard-earned fortune is on a level of greed I don't think I ever expected -- even for you."
"Mother please, this is a place of --- "
Rebecca interrupted
"Money! Money has always been your obsession; to have it all! Well, I should have raised you knowing that sometimes you can't have it all-- especially not while I'm still alive and David is still out there. I'll be sure things here work like the well-oiled machine as they always have and that you are kept on a tight leash."
"David? Please! David is long gone; you know it and I know it!" Jacob shouted.
"You saw to that, didn't you." She replied recalling how she knew he was the who was behind David's disappearance after Sabrina's murder.
Jacob did not respond with words, only a cold look to his mother's equally fridged face.
"Where's Johnathon?" She asked out of nowhere.
"What?" Jacob asked, caught off guard again.
"Your half-brother, and oddly, brother in-law, where is he? He's been promised a high-level position here and I'd like to see how he's doing?" She asked.
"And why would you have promoted him? I already gave him a job here." the disgruntled son asked.
"And I promoted him. That's my prerogative. He's Albert's son, and deservedly so, he should be more involved in the company. It was an agreement he and I made. Simple as that."
"My! Your stint in the loony bin has surly warmed you up to your husband's bastard son, what happened in there? What made you change? I fully expected you to ice him out of the family all together when you were finally told." Jacob wondered as he poured himself a drink.
Rebecca rolled her eyes "It's not Johnathon's fault, it's not my fault. But it's reality."
"Yes, and you are so up-to-speed on what is reality and what is not? Maybe one your psychic friends told you this." Jacob snarled.
"Like the ones you hired to keep me feeling frightened and locked away in our home far, far away from the family business all these years, like the one buried under the Gazebo? Gaspar Du---" Rebecca replied before Jacob shushed her.
"Alright, now! Alright. No need to dig up old bones." he said without the slightest bit of irony in his voice. "You've made your point."
"Good."
"Johnathon isn't here yet. He's late and frankly, I don't care."
Rebecca furrowed her brow. "Interesting. Well, I'll wait for him, I know that'll be here soon I'll take your father's office in the meantime."
"Father's office? But... but no one has taken that office since he died."
Rebecca turned back to Jacob as she was opening his office door and smiled.
"It's mine now."
She walked out with those last words and Jacob felt the uncomfortable feeling of the tables finally being turned on him. His heart sank, he hated being under his mother's thumb, all his life was he was and now he'd once again felt the tiny little woman's powerful stamp on his face.
As Rebecca and Aaron made their way to the other side of the penthouse where a second large office had been locked up since Albert's death, Baxter Murphy stepped into Jacob's office grinning from ear to ear.
"Well, now THAT is how you return to work." the reporter replied.
Jacob's eyes narrowed at the sight of The Welshport Globe's dirtiest reporter.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I heard it through the grapevine that Lady Lockwood-Lord-Casador was going to be in house, I had to see it for myself." Baxter said.
"Now you've seen her, go back to your newsroom."
"Have a quote for me, Jacob? Anything to say on the return of the great Rebecca to the offices?" Baxter wondered again smirking ear to ear with the very juicy family story he knew irked Jacob to his core.
As Jacob's mouth began to form the word No, his mind quickly switched and decided to play the game the way he knew his mother was dirty: "Actually yes, I do have a word or two for you and the faithful readers of our paper. Quote me here in my office saying 'Although My mother has had her personal ups and downs, and the family has been under my watchful, caring and most of all protective eye over so many painful and person trials, I welcome her. This is my father's legacy, this company, and I will continue to watch over it the way he would. My mother understands her place, and I do too. She needs no reminding from me how my father would feel having her here working so many long strenuous hours after all she's been through.'"
Baxter looked at Jacob strangely as he scribbled the quote down on his pad. "You make her sound like a simple figure head; an old symbol of times gone by. She's obviously more than that here."
Jacob smiled back "Yes. A figure head."
"But she's more than that." Baxter reminded him. "Obviously." He added gesturing to the office workers who were so happy to see her face to face.
"Mr. Murphy, every queen has her dawn and her dusk, we're waiting in the twilight hour of Rebecca Lockwood-Lord."
"I see." Baxter said lifting a brow. "Can I quote you there too?"
Jacob shrugged. "I'll let you use your own writer's discretion. Is that why you were here? To get a good quote from me on my mother's return?"
Baxter bit his lip, almost attempting to hide the glee he was feeling after the messy family dispute he was so happily now tangled in.
"Actually, no, it wasn't. A source of mine dropped by and told me something very interesting about a member of your family." Baxter said.
Jacob shrugged. "Which member?"
"Sebastian. Apparently his very lucky wife says he's the one the saved her form certain suffocation in that grave of hers."
Jacob, knowing Sebastian's true nature as a vampire, narrowed his eyes at the idea of someone in the household exposing their family secret in such a way.
"That's ridiculous. Evangeline was hallucinating. You know as I do that Sebastian died over a year ago in a fire at my mother's family's cottage in the forest where he'd been staying since his kidnapping. What she saw were the visions of bereaved woman finding herself on the brink of her own death. Nothing more." Jacob explained.
"My source is a good one. They say Evie was adamite."
"Murphy, are you really saying you'd believe this bizarre gossip about Sebastian being alive after an explosion? Please."
"I do believe them. This is a very close source that knows more than you actually know, perhaps. But if you say this was nothing more than a simple hallucination, I'll quote you on that." Baxter said.
"NO!" Jacob shouted shooting up from his chair as Baxter turned back. "This can't be in the paper."
"Why not? If its not true, why not?"
"You can have the story about my mother and me at odds here at LPH but nothing else. Nothing about Sebastian and Evie." Jacob ordered realizing the damage another scandal about death in the family would cause.
"Its only a hallucination, Jacob." Baxter said. "And I quote, 'Nothing more'. So why the secrecy?"
"Your smugness is eclipsing the reality of who pays your wage, Murphy. The story about my mother and me, ONLY...hands off this Sebastian fairytale."
Seeing in real-time Jacob Lord squirm about something he honestly did believe was something Evie had dreamed up made Baxter even more curious. Viciously so. He could tell now that there was something to what his sister Coraline had reported to him about Evie's claims. It peeked Baxter's nefarious curiosity, and he'd soon become like a dog with a bone. Sebastian was alive. Somewhere. Somehow. Why else would Jacob fight so hard to kill the story.
For now, he'd let Jacob plant the seed of Rebecca's supposed irrelevance by putting down in print the acknowledgment of her very public mental breakdown only a year before. The mother/son battled good for now.
Jacob knew very well how attached the reigns of society were in Rebecca's hands and this slight in the paper by her own son would be a small bruise to many, but to Rebecca it was salt in the wound of one of her darkest most shameful times in her life.
Jacob knew she'd feel the sting reading it herself.
Baxter tapped his pen on the pad seeing as Jacob was done and turned to walk out realizing this would be a long game of who was on top of the Lord family heap. A heap Baxter couldn't wait to watch burn from the top down with Rebecca's fall, and eventually the exposure of what was going on with the golden boy Sebastian Lord's mysterious whereabouts.
****
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| Fatima & Donavon seek divine intervention |
Later that evening, in the Village as the sun began to dip below the horizon, Fatima Braga knelt in one of the oak pews of Saint Catherine's Church. The shimming light of the setting sun rained down a kaleidoscope of shapes in various colors through the church's rose window and painted Fatima's back like a jigsaw puzzle in ornate shapes of triangles.
She held tightly to her rosary and whispered private prayers as Father Donavon Ryan walked into the church surprised to see the few congregants there in quiet mediation; then he noticed Fatima Braga.
His stomach sank remembering their last conversation. He walked over to the woman, her eyes tightly shut continuing her prayers over and over again she mouthed the words in whispers.
"Fatima." Father Ryan said softly and placed his hand on her shoulder.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked up, their eyes locked and he could instantly see she was unwell.
"What's happened? Is it Filipe? Did... did something happen?" Father Ryan worried.
"Padre, tonight's quarter moon is the final warning of what is to come. There is only death on the horizon." She said as a nervous nun lighting candles to the side of the conversation overheard.
Father Ryan, noticing the nosey nun, took Fatima by the hand and lead her into a small chapel where they could speak in private.
"Is there nothing we can do?" He asked still holding her hand.
"Pray." She said.
"I've been doing that. Every night. It's invaded my sleep the idea of what is to come. Nothing seems to lull me away. I can't grasp in my mind how much danger we are truly in." Father Ryan said.
"I too have slept only hours a night. Filipe has yet to show any signs of what is to come but tonight will be the first test. The beginning of the end." She said.
"What if you're wrong? What if the wolf attack was just that, an animal attacking a human, and nothing more. There isn't always an answer to these terrible events that leads back to some supernatural reasoning." Ryan said.
"I know what I know, Padre. I see the hunger in my son's eyes." Fatima said, suddenly realizing she confessed a secret.
"Son? Filipe is your nephew." Ryan answered. "He is your nephew, isn't he?"
"There more to our relationship Padre, I've said too much." She answered.
Father Ryan felt his mind spinning. Too many times has he fallen prey to the villagers many secrets and lies. Sometimes it felt overwhelming to be the brunt of all their burdens and penances, but it was his job, to be the beacon of hope in the village, but Fatima's cross too heavy to bear for him. This predicament wasn't anything like the situation with Caspian. The demon in Caspian could be cast out, could be torn from his body with fierce prayer and the power of the light Father Ryan held in his golden cross.
"I don't know where to begin." Father Ryan replied.
"Its a long story and I hope that someday I can tell you so that you understand but now we have to find a way to keep this world safe from my son's burgeoning transition into something that is ungodly and monstrous."
"Where is he now?" The priest asked.
"Home. With me." She replied.
"Go to him. Keep him restrained as best you can, if what you believe is true and he is going to be this, thing, that you keep describing then he must be kept out of streets just as you say. We've all seen enough death and destruction to last us a lifetime."
Fatima agreed, but her heart told her she may not be able to control it forever. Why Filipe was chosen, why his body was the one to suffer such a terrible fate was a mystery but for now, the only way they could keep the world safe was to keep him locked away, far away, deep in the basement of Fatima's house.
As Fatima took her leave from Saint Catherine's church, she passed a small window at towards the church door and saw the sky had darkened significantly since she arrived to pray. Up in the dark blue air was the quarter moon hovering above Welshport along without a cloud in cover it's gray facade. The starts twinkled around making it such a beautiful sight to see, yet it was all only a reminder of what was coming.
And coming soon.
Safley tied by chains to his bed in Fatima's basement her son lay asleep. The moon light peeked in through a window near the ceiling and framed his face like a light blue halo. His arms became tense. The muscles in his body began to tighten and flex painfully. Filipe awoke in immeasurable pain as if his limbs were tearing from his body. He could feel his bones snap and become larger. His own DNA was beginning to change in second. His heart raced. His skin sweated. His eyes, although strained with pain never changed their deep brown color.
"Its happening, it's happening." He thought to himself. "I can't be here. I have to get out. I have to get out!!!"
Filipe yanked on the chains. They slammed him back to the bed as they were attached by iron nails to the wall. Filipe knew that if he stayed through the very next night and became this monster Fatima was fearing he would easily escape the chains, escape the house and kill anything in his way. He could feel the hunger in his body growing for flesh. He could taste it already without ever knowing the taste.
The wounds on his chest from the wolf attack suddenly began to heal in front his eyes as if they were never there in the first place. The pain of the skin binding together over the bloody scabs made him wale in pain. His rib expanded, his chest enlarged. His voice deepened.
His already large feet and big legs became larger and bigger.
The wolf of the full moon was coming, and the clock was ticking to full destruction.
****
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| Asha has an unexpected guest in the dark |
On another street in town, Asha Hoffman was coming home from a long day at the Hospital. She opened her door and entered the darkened living room. She was alone. Nikolas was staying with Evie at the Beach House Rebecca had given her helping her move in.
Asha reached for the drawer of a side table where she kept matches for the small oil lamp. She lit the match, a bright flicker of light brightened her face and showed her the face of Gregory Reigns on her sofa across from her sitting in the dark.
She screamed and the match fell to the ground burning a small hole in the rug.
"GREGROY!!!"
Gregory got up from the sofa. He came over to the lamp and lit it himself with his own matches. Asha, her hands shaking like leaves on a withering autumn tree, said nothing only watched him.
"We have to take care of something." Gregory said with a strange almost alien voice to her.
"Take care of what?" She asked nervously.
He turned to her, the flickering flame of the oil lamp cast a strange shadow on his face. Gregory was here to nip Asha's guilty conscious in the bud. She was a liability now, his coconspirator. The idea that she'd break and tell Nikolas, or worse Aurora herself, what the two of them did to the child Aurora gave birth to would rain hell on Gregory's relationship and career.
"Gregory we can make things better if we're just honest with what we did." She said to him.
He furrowed his brow sadly knowing what he was about to do next.
"It's too late for that." he said again in this alien voice.
"What do you mean?" She asked, as she stepped backwards one step.
"You are too good and maybe I never was. I need Aurora, I love her and you want to make sure that that ends, but it can't end. We are forever." Gregory answered.
"No! No Gregory, I don't want anything like that. I would never want to be the reason you and Aurora become a thing of the past, but she needs to know. She DESERVES to know her child is alive! You understand, don't you?" Asha pleaded.
But Gregroy, lost in his own pain and frustration with this one-time friend Asha did not reply. He walked towards her as she walked backwards. He put on leather gloves and lunged for her. Just when she was about to scream his gloved hand covered her mouth. He pulled her close to his body squeezing her tightly until the air left her lungs. The lack of oxygen made her faint in his arms. Her limp body, breathing but out cold, was now in Gregory's treacherous hands.
"I'm sorry." He whispered to her.
And from there, he took her away from her home in the dark of night, leaving the flickering flame of the oil lamp alone in her home.
