B8/Ch10: THE LONG WAY HOME

Cyfrinach burns 

The morning had finally broken. The sun was set low in the eastern sky lifting slowly over Goodwick, Scotland as Cyfrinach burned with fire that matched the tones of a dawning world.

Down at the bottom of the trail that led from the castle to the village, Sister Anna had fallen asleep in the grass awaiting the friends she had made and sent into the castle. She prayed all night for their return. The morning dew stuck to her black and white habit like honeycomb. 

She stirred when she heard yelling from up the hill. Her senses waking her too with the smell of fire.

She sat up, soaked to her skin from the moisture in the air, and saw a group of people rushing down the dirt path with a ferocity that made her stomach knot. 

As they approached, Sister Anna saw Matthew and Hope, her heart began to race. They'd made it!

"WE HAVE TO GO!" Matthew shouted to her as the others finally crowded around the nun.

"What happened??? Is it fire? I see smoke!" Anna said, her mind in a tailspin.

"We have to GO! NOW!" Matthew shouted at her.

"The church, we can kind in the church, all of you, quickly!" Anna replied.

The group continued to rush through the brush and grass down through small paths made by from the night before. They got to a cobblestone street that led into the village. Early rises in town watched in wonder as the sky above filled with smoke. They watched but did nothing. There was a sense of liberation about their frozen nature as the group quickly flickered through the village streets. 

Anna felt the difference instantly. It was as if a fog had lifted and revealed a joyous, bright new day. As her mind raced unsure of what had happened, the nun ushered the group to safety. She pushed the heavy church door open and everyone rushed in except Jean Marc.

"Hurry, child!" She said to him. "Take shelter."

Looking in through the door of the church, the young daywalker had many gifts from Dominique but stepping into a holy place was not one of them. The sight of a crucifix was stuff of folklore and did nothing to his darkened soul, any vampire knew the crucifix no danger to them, but the power of spirit, the power of truth, the power of hope and love within the walls of a shrined place like a church was deadly in ways no one, no story, no gothic book had ever told. 

The holy world that continued to reign amongst the believers that drew in goodness was a deterrence and could withered any creature of the shadows after a prolonged exposure. The crucifix was as dangerous as kitten to a shark, but the power and energy of the spirit was an unbearable veil the curse of Jean-Marc's kind would not survive.

"I -- I can't." Jean Marc said.

"He, he's one of them." Roman said at the door of the church. "We can't abandon him now, he's helped us escape. What should we do?"

Anna's heart went from racing to practically stopping when she realized the child was vampire. She could not comprehend how he was out in the light.  She stared at him, his beautiful pale face almost made him look like a porcailan doll. He's eyes were dark and haunting yet not frightening. His dark hair was perfectly combed even in the frantic state they were all in after the escape. She walked up to him and reached to cup his chin in her hand. He turned from her, a nun could not touch him. 

"Is he full?" She wondered, pulling her hand back. "He's in the light." 

"He's what they call a daywalker. A special gift the countess gave him when she created him. But this place is still off limits." Roman explained.

"Is there a basement? Or anything where we can hide him?" Matthew added returning to the church door.

"No." Jean Marc said. "I can't be here, nothing at the church." His face softening with worry and abandonment. 

"I don't know where to take him." Anna confessed, sounding hurt she could not help the poor boy.

"I'll take him to the Inn." Hope replied. "I'll stay with him." 

"It's too dangerous, what if they come for you?" Matthew added.

"Don't worry about me, I can take care of us." She said with a smirk. "Come, today we'll hide together."

Jean Marc's 14-year-old face lit up. He felt finally apart of a group that loved him, no matter what. Someone, Hope, was about to risk her own life to be with him and hide away. He hoped that they'd be safe but in his young heart he knew for her kindness to be with him he would do everything to keep her just as safe.

Hope looped her arm into his and the two carefully rushed off into town while Anna ushered the others into the church and locked the large, wood doors behind her with a large wooden slab that fell from one wall to the other in a large thud that echoed throughout the church.

Now, the escapees stared at the freshly locked church door and wondered had they escaped the dark, dingy prison of Cyfrinach and replaced it for the more beautiful, magnificent prison of the Goodwick village church. 

****

Sister Anna at the docks 

Later, down at the shipyard in Goodwick village, the sky in the distance that was once black with smoke from the castle now blurred with a blue undertone. The gray smolders still lifted into the air but the fire, at least from this distance, seemed to be weakening inside the Castle Walls.

Sister Anna, in a fresh habit, walked along the dock with a basket of food. She could see the faces of villagers were different, their skin almost brighter with the gleam of a new hope that came as the castle and it's court of supposed Saints lost their power over this tiny little fishing place. 

She came to a sailor and his crew who were tying ropes around giant steel cleats mooring their beautiful ship. The sails were being carefully lowered and folded away for another day out at sea. 

"Excuse me," Anna shouted over the crashing of waves off out to the beach. "I was hoping you could help me."

The sailor looked down at the nun and smirked "I don't think there be anything here for a good sister of the church, now ma'am. But I can try."

"I Need help, you see a group of my friends need safe passage to America." She said.

"America! A bit further than we've sailed in a while. Whereabout?"

"Maine." She said.

"Main...." He thought, scratching his sun scorched face. "America, eh? Close to Nova Scotia. How many?"

Anna thought for a second she counted six then wondered if she should add herself. She looked around the little village, her whole. A place she'd lived all her life. A place she once believed she'd never leave. A place that still needed her now that a new dawn had come.

"Six. Maybe seven." She said. "Six adults and a child." 

"It won't be cheap." The sailor smirked with the dark teeth and long dingy beard tied in a knot at the bottom. The winkles around his eyes and forehead made of leathery sun browned skin gave him an older look, but his little grin showed his relative youth. 

Anna looked in her basket and placed it on the dock's withered wood floor. She could see through the slats the water below washing it's blue jewel toned beauty over the black rocks. She removed items that she was taking back to the church for the escapees to eat and under was items of solid gold, money, and jewelry from the church's coffers sparked in the sun.

"Will this be enough?" She asked stepping aside so the sailor could see.

"Aye!" He replied happily, the items glittering in his eyes. "Where'd a sister like you get all this?" He asked coming down off the boat to inspect his new treasures.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that this is enough to get my friends in need back to America. They have to be out of Scotland by tonight." She said.

"Aye, my mates and me-self can handle that. None of this is stolen now, is it? We be sailors of the big blue but pirates we're not!" He warned.

"It's for you and your ship-mates sir, if you're willing. That's what you need to know." she replied.

"Sister, the likes of you can't be a liar, can ya?" He smirked. "Alright. Tonight then. Have'em here at seven in the evening. We'll be ready to ship out then." 

The sailor reached for the basket of items, but Anna slapped his hand away. He bounced back and looked at her crossly. 

"Seven it is. They'll be here." She then grabbed half of the treasure and handed it to him. "The rest of this is yours at 7pm." 

"A businesswoman, are ya!?" The sailor chuckled. "Seven pm sharp." 

Sister Anna nodded and grabbed her basket and walked off stockily back towards the village happy with her deal. 

****

Matthew & Evie at the Church 

Back at the church while Anna bargained for a safe travel back to America for her friends, Evie covered Roman with a blanket she found in the cupboards. He had fallen asleep in the pews under the glowing light of one of the large candle chandeliers that glowed dimmer as the night drew near.

She smiled at the little boy’s sleeping face. He looked so quiet and innocent, his whole past vanquishing like a ghost as he slept there like a child. She wondered how her cousin could have gotten into such a mess, how he'd found himself in this debt to the Doshalls, but she also remembered it didn't matter now. They were gone and he was there with her. Reunited.

Evie then turned and saw Matthew cradling Gabriel to sleep. Another smile broke across her tired face. It warmed her heart to see her son safe in arms she trusted. A rush of love came over her. 

Matthew had risked his life to come for her and her son. She no doubt believed he never thought twice about it.

She walked over quietly to Matthew and sat down next to him. They were on the one step of the that led up to the white walled alter under the ivory faced statute of the Virgin and child.

"How'd did we get here, huh?" She whispered as he handed her the sleeping boy. 

"How far should we go back?" He joked.

"Matthew, I don't know how I could ever repay you for doing what you've done. You and your sister could have been killed, and you both chose to come here, all the way here to help us. You risked both your lives. Thank you." 

Matthew put his large hand on her cheek; she nuzzled it warmly. He gave her a half smile and leaned in and kissed her. "How could I not come?" 

She shrugged “If you didn’t come, Gabriel would have been…” Evie chocked up at the thought of the diabolical plot on her son, his life being snuffed out for the sake of a vampire’s. 

“Shh— don’t think of it. It didn’t happened. You stopped it from happening and any minute now we’ll be out of here heading home.” Matthew noted.

“Home.” She repeated. Then she sighed, melting into the thought of her own bed, her own home. Her own life.

She scooted closer to him on the step as the statute stared down at them. She melted into his arms, their heartbeats seeming to beat as one. 

There were so many unanswered questions remained, so much yet unsaid. 

But finally, for the first time in what felt like a century Evie truly felt safe — there in Matthew’s arms. She wondered too if they actually did make it out of their sacred prison could she truly find herself with Matthew again— permanently?

****

Cyfrinach in ruin 

A black car sat in the driveway of the crumbling smoldering castle with its engine humming. Its sleek shiny hood reflected the doomed blackened sky filled with smoke from Cyfrinach. The leather seats were slick and shiny, ready for the travelers who were fleeing the village and perhaps Scotland itself. 

Thick chested Kildare packed several bags into the back of the car and opened the back doors just as the veiled Countess and her new consort Sebastian Lord exited the main entrance of the now crumbling castle she had called home for decades and decades.

At the bottom of the front steps she looked back through the lace of her black veil and watched as the final clouds of black smoke lifted into the blue sky. Her father dead. The entire clan dead. Her whole life now changed forever. She was a countess of a court of one. 

For his part, Sebastian's eyes turned the other way towards the sea and down towards the village. He wondered where Evie and Gabriel went. He wanted to sense them, to use his every going telepathic strength to locate them --- but he felt a block. There was something not allowing him to take his mind to find them. He turned and saw Dominique staring at him.

"You feeling ok madame?" Kildare asked of Dominique who was recovering from blast in the garden.

Dominique turned to Kildare from Sebastian and nodded. Then she put her gloved hand to her facial wounds from the explostion. She knew they'd heal quickly. After a good nights sleep, she'd be good as new.

"We should be going." Kildare said.

Dominique now saw Kildare as her most trusted confidant now that Roman was gone, he could see her eyes, gray in the light of day, looking towards the furthest part of the castle where there was a basement where the last of her clan had been destroyed. 

Kildare knew instantly what she was wondering. How did it get to this? 

"We should go." Kildare repeated. "Arameed is meeting us in the location you requested." 

She nodded back, "Sebastian." She added holding out her hand.

Her new loyal husband grabbed her leather gloved hand and helped her down the final few steps to the pebbled driveway. She entered the car, slid across and Sebastian followed. She could tell his mind was somewhere else. As his new wife she was already adept at his idiosyncrasies, and she was sure to scramble any thoughts of Evie. Dominique was to be the only female his mind occupied.

The car puttered down the drive alongside the same dirt path the escapees took on their way to freedom. Sebastian's green eyes followed the path as it reflected in the glass of his car window, a reflection that didn't have his face in it. 

"Why are you worried?" She asked him. 

"I fear for my son." he sighed. "Our son." He corrected, although in his heart the "our" belonged to Evie and himself. "I don't know what she'll tell him of me." 

"Although I see nothing special about Evangeline as a woman, I will admit her devotion to our Gabriel is admirable. I won't take that from her. That being said I don't see her poisoning him against you." Dominique replied.

"I can only hope you're right." Sebastian replied. 

Dominique could sense a sting of regret from her new husband. The power she held over him was strong but it seemed to thin as the days went on. The new countess wondered now just how long she could hold on to him and more importantly how his guilt would affect the path to their future.

She slithered over the black leather seat of the car and lifted her veil almost like a bride at the altar. She tilted her head and kissed him on the lips, her hand with it's cold leather clove, caressed his jaw and his face to hers. He kissed her back, the sweet taste of her lips on his tongue made his heart skip a beat. 

"I do thank you for what you've done for me. You've given me a lease on this life." He said wiping his mouth. 

"We've given each other a new lease." She repeated. "What you had before, your life in America was limited. Together we have the world at our fingertips, and I intend for you to see it and live the way you should have lived all your life all this time. Like royalty. I promise you Sebastian, this is just the beginning." 

"I don't know how I can enjoy myself without Gabriel. I have been so absent from his life for all these years, am I to just be a ghost to him now? A phantom in his dreams of when he thinks of his father?" 

"I won't let that happen." Dominique replied as the car turned down into the village. "He's our son and he belongs with us. Maybe not now, but he'll be with us. I promise you that." 

"How? How can you promise that? I won't take him from Evie -- it's too damaging." He offered.

Dominique once again saw the glimmer of the goodness in Sebastian. His apprehension of taking what she thought was rightfully theirs-- hers-- could put a damper on the plan for Gabriel's life. She needed the mixling to live, it was still far off, but eventually she would fall prey to what happened to Alexandre. Time would take her beauty. Time would take her strength and at some point, time could take her life. Dominique would find herself at the mercy of whomever she chose to succeed her IF the mixling's life force was not used.

This was a matter of time, not conscience. She would get what she needed for her life to last forever, but in due time. The flames of the destruction of Cyfrinach had barely cooled, it was too soon to rip the curtain back and take the mixling for herself. 

Not yet.

Not now. 

"Evie will see the light at some point. She has to. She can't imagine herself as the mother of this child, a child that is so important of our way of life, and pretend his father was never you. We are his rightful parents. He belongs to us, and when the time comes, my darling Sebastian, we'll be reunited with him. I have many, many ways of getting what I --- " she paused "what we deserve." 

"I won't allow you to hurt anyone." Sebastian said, as the car turned a corner in the village passing the church where his son was being held.

Sebastian snapped his head to the church sensing something there. The white walls were bright with the sun's heat. Something made him look there. Something made him watch the church in his car window get smaller and smaller as they went passed it. He could sense that his whole heart was in that place. The woman he would never not love, the child he would have given his life for. 

In the end, his life took a different path. Could he ever find a way back to them? Could he ever find a way to a future where he could live amongst them after all he had done. Flashes of his time with Evie went through his tortured mind: How they met, their first walk in the lush gardens of Tirymor House, their first kiss and the first time they made love. Even the bad things swept in, like his murder, their disastrous time at Lockwood Thicket as they tried to rebuild their relationship only for it to blow up in their faces with Alice Winterborn's exposure of his darkness. Even his frantic digging up a frozen over grave to find Evie buried alive thanks to the obsessed with Jacqueline's games. 

All of those experiences gone now, only history and memories in his mind that were to be rebuilt with his new wife who sat beside him in their leather seated sleek black escape care. 

Dominique noticed his neck, craned to the side observing the church. She reached over and grabbed her new husband's hand and squeezed pulling him out of the memories of the past. 

"No one will be hurt." She replied, her eyes back under the black veil were blank and hypnotic. It was like sterling out into two black whirlpools of constellations and stars swirling into nothingness. She knew she could not promise that. But she did anyway - he was under her complete control.

As the car went out of view in the village and up a road that lead though the highlands of Scotland a blast was seen from the west wing of the castle basement where the last of the vampires were sleeping, hiding away from the deathly rays of light that they could not live under. 

The daywalkers escaped but the night dwellers faded into the fire of the blast. 

The Saints of Goodwick were gone. Castle Cyfrinach emptied and filled now with more fire, more smoke and ash. Its stone walls now returned to history and the villagers who'd go in at some point and remove all proof that a deadly vampire cult had ever taken refuge there. 

****

The long way home 

It was seven in the evening. The was sun lower in the sky and was setting soon. It cast a glow so beautiful that Goodwick looked new. A sparkling gem on the coast of Scotland with it's little homes floating in a sea of green hills. Gas lanterns lit snakelike streets and the windows of cottages all along the shoreline dotting up the side of the seawall and down the slope of the emerald hills sparkled in the dusk.

Evie, Matthew, Hope, Roman, Jean Marc and Gabriel, carefully walked up a long wooden plank with ropes along the side to the mid-sized ship that would take them back to America. 

Free.

Sister Anna walked with them helping with a few sacks of goods for them to eat and some clothes to wear during what would most likely be a hard trip back. 

"Thank you for all you've done." Hope said, hugging Anna. "I wish you'd come with us."

Anna looked back at the village, her eyes watered. "This is my place. Here. The new Goodwick will need all of it's children to rebuild. This is truly a new day." She smiled.

"'A new day', I like that." Hope answered. "Will you remain in the church alone?" 

"I suspect we'll finally get a priest here at some point. Now that it's safe. Clergy knew not to set food on this land when those so-called Saints occupied us. The evil kept the good away. That curse has lifted now, thanks to all of you." 

"Anna, you've done so much good here. You've risked your life not only for us but for your town and I truly hope things will be better here, not just for you and the ones who live here but forever and always." Hope replied as she pulled she kind nun into a hug.

"Thank you." 

"We should be setting off now sister, time to pay the piper." The sailor replied from above in the ship.

Hope stood back as Sister Anna reached for her basket that was much lighter than it was when she first came to the docks. She lifted the small white towel and showed him the rest of the treasures from the church coffers. 

"Your payment." She said. "Do not make me regret what I've done by giving you this. It's all the church had." She said.

"On my life, I'll do as I've promised. They'll reach their destination, sister. Sailor's honor." he winked taking the glittering bounty and sharing it with the rest of his crew.

With that promise, Anna took to the plank and went back down to the docks. Her eyes teared up and tears fell down her cheeks watching the ship prepare to leave her in the village. 

Evie stood on the bow of the ship holding Gabriel in her arms. She noticed the brightness of the town before her. It seemed so innocent, no one would believe what had haunted the hill just above in a smoldering cloud of fire and smoke since the second and last blast occurred in the castle basement. 

Gabriel signed to her "Daddy"

Evie signed back "Daddy misses you. We go home now." 

"Home?" Gabriel signed. 

"To Grandmother and Uncle Nik" the mother signed back. 

"And Fabien?" Gabriel signed. 

Evie giggled and signed back "Yes, and Fabien." 

"Daddy." Gabriel signed again looking over to the village. "Where is Daddy?" 

Evie grabbed his little fingers and kissed them; they were cold as the cool autumn air took the warmth from all their exposed skin. She did not answer him this time. She didn't want to keep saying that Sebastian was fine, or that he would come soon, or any kind of cover-up as to not upset the child. His green eyes were so loving and caring, and she could tell by his quivering lower lip that he missed his father already but, this had to be done. Their freedom from the shackles of Sebastian's darkness and deep seeded sinister side was bound to happen sooner or later. 

Evie was happy it was former. 

Evie then felt a thick hand cup her shoulder. It was Matthew. His large brown eyes seemed warmer than ever. She had broken their relationship soon after the witch trials, that now seemed a lifetime ago. Perhaps, she thought, she was too hasty. She did love him, she told him this, but at the time she loved Sebastian too. She could not make a choice between them, so she chose to focus on her son.

Fate had other plans and Evie found herself on the bow of a ship escaping a kidnapping by the very man she believed would never hurt her again. 

"Are you alright?" Matthew asked as Evie turned back to the village as the castle in the distance burned away.

"I will be." She said. "We will be." She added. 

"Dare I ask?" He wondered. 

She lifted Gabriel up, the almost 4-year-old slipping through her arms. "You can ask me anything, you know that."

Gabriel then fell out of her arms and ran over to Jean Marc who was slowly learning sign language. 

"What do you think happened to him?" Matthew asked, surprising Evie. She expected him to ask about their relationship.

Evie sighed, her hands nervously tugging at the collar of the coat Sister Anna gave her. She nervously tried to cover the bite scars on her neck. "I don't know." She said. "He chose Dominique and her world of smoke and mirrors not truth and reality. Its what Dominique the only way she could keep him tightly wound around her finger. That’s something Sebastian will have to come to terms with in his own when it all unravels." 

"So you think he survived? That blast we heard, it's taken down that whole area of that wing of Cyfrinach where we left them." Matthew noted.

Evie smiled "Sebastian is a lot of things, Matthew, most of all a survivor. I believe that of his new wife too. They're out there somewhere and I’m sure they're going to make each other very happy — or kill each other. Frankly I have to let it go, it’s time." She said.

"It?" Matthew asked.

"Him." Evie replied with a sigh. 

"Evie," Matthew said after a beat, his voice suddenly changing in tone. His eyes so loving and caring showed so much emotion and trust in her. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hold her. He wanted to feel her next to his own body to be sure she was real and there in front of him and not some dream that he was having. 

"What is it?" She asked as wind blew into her hair just as the boat began to slip back out to sea.

"There is so much I've been wanting to tell you and there has been so much we've been through — together. I want you to know that nothing will change how I feel about you. I will always, always, be there for you. I will always protect you and Gabriel, no matter what. I love you." He said. 

Evie’s eyes softened as Sebastian’s memory suddenly faded into the distance of her mind like the fog over the ship they were only slowly drifted into swallowing up the castle and Goodwick behind them.

“And whatever happens next,” Matthew continued “this love will not die. Not the way other loves have died. Even if we never ever see each other the way we did in the past, it will always remain." 

Evie's eyes watered. She knew that of him. Matthew was true. His heart was always on his sleeve and he kept his true feelings for her always out for her to take. She could only promise him one thing, that she would never ever take him for granted. Right now, on this ship back to America they were the best of friends. 

Evie, knew however, that the future was close by and they were destined to connect again because deep in her heart she did love Matthew more than she was leading on. But her fear to love was stronger than anything she could withstand. Her fear to love is what truly held her back. Her trauma over Sebastian's tormented love of her made her weary, made her hold back, made her second guess her feeling for Matthew. 

"Matthew," she said, her body trembling now in the shimming light of the setting sun "I love you too, but I ..." he paused unable to get the words out and just pulled her close into his arms to warm herself. 

"Shhh," he said. "Its ok. You don't have to say anything else right now. I just want to sit with those words for a moment." He smiled. "I'm not asking for you to make me feel anything hopeful. I just needed you to know where I stand and why I did what I did by coming here." 

With hearing that, those words Evie fell into his hug deeper and they held each other as the ship carried them further out to sea. 

Roman shivered in the corner of the ship as he saw the village he called home for many years fade into the past. He worried for his own life, not because he felt that it was still in danger but because it had been years since he had been apart from the cult he lived among. His life had not been his own in many years. 

He was still such a young man and now, he could live freely in his own skin without the haunting darkness and control of Dominique, the countess Doshall.

"Are you exited?" Hope asked him as she wrapped herself in a blanket that Anna had given her. 

"Excited?" He asked.

"For America." Hope said. "It must be a dream come true to finally see the other side of the world."

"Oh," Roman said. "I've seen America before. When I was a child my mother and I would go back and forth in those early years to visit my grandparents." he said.

"Your mother is Evie's mother's sister, is that right?" Hope asked trying to keep the family tree straight.

"Yes." Roman said. "Miranda Ashby. She came to England with Aunt Aurora when Aunt Aurora was to marry Uncle Richard." 

"I see. And your father?" Hope asked. 

"American too. Mother came to England while pregnant with me... he stayed in America." 

"Oh, well he'll be happy to see you." Hope replied.

"I don't know." Roman said. "He doesn't know about me."

"OH!" Hope exclaimed. "But you know of him?" She asked, the wind drying out both of their lips. 

"I do." He smiled. 

"Will you seek him out?" She wondered. 

Roman smiled then shrugged clearly uncomfortable with the idea. He wasn't sure about anything except that he was now on a ship headed for a place he had never lived in for more than summer visits and had not seen in over 2 decades. There was a small thorn of fear sticking in his side, it stung, it burned but it also made him excited to feel it. 

It was an entirely new sensation for him: to feel his own feelings of excitement and nervousness and hope. They were his and they were true.  They were not controlled by someone else, fabricated to fulfill a master's desires. They weren't designed to capture something or someone else in a web of lies. He finally felt things -- for him and only him, no one else. 

As light drizzle began to sprinkle down on the escapees staring into the big blue in front of them under a gloomy Scottish sky -- they all felt truly free. 

****

Return to Welshport 

At the very same time as the ship coming from Scotland sliced through the icy waters of the North Atlantic, life in Welshport had not become frozen in time as many would have hoped.

The world continued to turn, the days and nights shifted like alliances between friends and foes, lovers and enemies. Secrets on branches of the Lord family tree snapped devastating the lives of neighbors and friends who continued to live amongst havoc in the village.

Dr. Nikolas Jordan stepped out of a taxi cab and walked a few steps around the black shiny car to open the other passenger side door. He extended his hand and Danielle Holten grabbed hold of it.

She reached back into the taxi and grabbed a bouquet of flowers. Fresh white roses they marched the pale color of her coat.

"Would you stay for a bit? You can keep your count." Nik asked the driver.

"Yes sir."

Nik and Danielle grabbed each other's hands and began their way down a sloped hill of St. Thomas' cemetery. They walked passed crumbling tombstones of old names forgotten by time. Danielle felt a chill up her spine as they came to the freshly dug grave they came to see.

She teared up and knelt down placing the flowers down. 

"The headstone is almost done." Nik said. "It'll look nicer once it's placed." 

"Yes." Danielle sniffed. "I feel so responsible." 

"No," Nik said taking her into his arms. "You did nothing wrong. What happened was -- wasn't your fault Danni. You know that don't know? Deep inside you have to know that." 

Danielle shook her head and wiped her tears with a pink handkerchief she pulled from her coat pocket. 

"If I didn't come back here to settle my mother’s estate maybe none of this would have happened." She said.

"But you did come back and it did happen. That doesn’t make what happened your fault, because you did nothing wrong. Do you hear me? I promise you; it's not your fault." Nik said.

A cold wind blew across the cemetery and Nik pulled Danielle into a hug. He held her in his arms as she shivered in the wind. "We should go." 

She agreed and the two went back up the hill to the awaiting cab.  

Leaving the grave and the white roses of their loved one alone again in the autumn sun. 

**

"GRUB!!!" A Police guard shouted as he rolled a cart with several food trays loaded on to it.

"Back away from the cell doors, you lot, and get ready to eat." Another, more strapping guard said as they walked along with the guard with the food card.

"BARNS, step back!" The food guard announced as he opened the jail cell to slip the inmate’s food in.

"RAFFERTY, step back!" The same guard shouted as he went to the next cell.

"ANDREWS, step back." Another inmate in the Welshport jail was called to receive his food.

"LORD!" The food guard called. But the person did not move from the front of the cage. 

"LORD! You were asked to step back." The bigger guard  repeated. 

The person, named Lord, did not move.

The second guard's eyes narrowed, he slapped his nightstick on the bars causing a loud clang to echo into the hall of the jail. Ironically, the same jail cell that held Evie, Matthew and Mary only half a year earlier during the witch trial.

"BACK UP! Or you don't eat." The food guard shouted. 

The person, named Lord, finally listened and backed away from the bars allowing the food guard to open the gate and slip in the food tray.

The bars slid closed and Rebecca Lockwood-Lord-Casador grabbed the food tray in her jail cell and threw it across her tiny room smashing the food against the hard concrete walls.

The other three inmates all began to laugh and cheer her on. 

The food guard rolled his eyes, the other walked back up to the bars and snarled at her.

"You'll have to eat it off the floor then." he said.

Rebecca sat down on her bed and folded her arms across her chest and said nothing. 

**

Further off towards Bellmore Beach, Evie's beach house gifted to her by Rebecca herself, Aurora hurried around searching for a small little blanket she knew she had left on the sofa in the front room. She scurried around searching under chairs, behind pillows, near a baby's crib and finally found it in a toy box. 

"Oh!" She scoffed. 

Aurora then went back into a Gabriel's nursery and picked up a teddy bear. She cuddled it like a child and worried about Evie and Gabriel and where they were. 

"You found it!" A male's voice said.

"Of course it wasn't in the toy box, it was in the crib." Aurora chuckled. 

"AH!" the man smiled. "I knew it wasn't lost." The man said of the bear.

"I just wish I could hold him just as I'm holding the bear." Aurora said tightly squeezing the teddy.

"I know imagining Gabriel out there somewhere hurts, but does some of that hurt go deeper. Are you also think of..." Aurora interrupted him.

"Our son?" She said of the child taken from her. "Yes. I think of him too every day. He's out there. Somewhere. Just as My daughter and grandson are. I just want them all home. I want everyone single one of my children here with me." She said with tears in her eyes.

The man smiled sweetly and reached over for Aurora's hand. They held hands and realized they'd gone through hell to get where they were. So many lives had been changed so many worlds had been destroyed but they were together. 

"I love you Aurora." the man said.

"I love you too Viktor." Aurora replied to the man once known as Caspian Casador, now going by his true name, Viktor Holten and staying with her at Bellmore Beach.

**

Off in the distance, passed the sea on the mainland in Maine, a train pulled out of its station in a town called Collinsport. The train was headed south, far away from Maine and the secretive and dangerous world that was Welshport Island. 

"Papa, can I read that?" A young boy asked his father who was going over paperwork for work.

"This is not for you to read." The father answered. "Not yet. One day this business will be all yours son, and then you can read over these manuscripts and contracts all you want." 

"When is one day?" The boy asked curiously. 

The father lowered his work file revealing the face of Jacob Lord smiling at his son Fabian. "Not for a long time. Once we get where we're going maybe I'll give you a little idea, but now, just read your storybook, ok?" 

Fabian agreed and picked up his book and started reading it as if he were working like his father was. The two Lords were leaving town without Celeste. The trouble of their family following them every step of the way.

Jacob looked out of the window as the train curled along the crooked main shoreline. He could see Welshport and Goode Islands off in the distance. He noted to himself how small that place was and yet when he was on the island it felt so much like the biggest place on earth. He had bigger plans for himself now, however. The world he had built for his family had seemingly crumbled down a pulp -- his exile from the "land of the Lords" was a long time coming and the empire his father and his father's father and his father's, father's father built was now in someone else's hands.

Temporarily, in Jacob's mind.

The two Lord men were now on a train trip to parts unknown after what occurred while Evie was away.

It would not be forever.

**

As the smoke from a train's smokestack lifted into the sky above a winding track that hugged the side of an evergreen cliff, Celeste stood at a large window in the mansion of Tirymor now alone. She could see the smoke in the sky from the train but did not know where it came from.

She held herself, tears falling down her face. She had been abandoned by the family she married into. But it wasn't her fault. None of it was. What had happened was all beyond her control and now she was left to pick up the pieces, all the shards of a world blasting apart in front of her face. 

"Ma'am, someone is here to see you. A doctor." Jane said from the doorway.

"Alright." Celeste answered. 

"Mrs. Lord, how are you?" A doctor said entering into the glittering drawing room of the mansion.

"I'm fine Doctor, thank you. How's my brother." She asked, identifying the doctor as Johnathon's new psychiatrist at Churchill Green.

"He's doing better. The last time you I chatted, last week, he was getting better but now I do believe we've made much more headway into his treatment." 

"I'm pleased." Celeste said pouring the doctor tea that Jane brought for them.

Now that they were alone, the doctor slipped over to Celeste's side of the sofa. He reached for her face and they kissed passionately on the sofa.

"I've been waiting for this all day." He said.

Celeste smiled and wiped her lipstick off his lips. She felt guilty for it, she was still married to Jacob although months and months of turmoil had destroyed their marriage, but she needed this new man. He was strong and he felt so good to her.

She reached for his face and kissed him again just feet away from the large painting of Albert Lord, the man who built this life she was now living in. 

**

On the other side of town, a woman closed the door to Dr. Peter Ward's office. She read again the paper he had given with excitement. 

She was pregnant. She was having a baby with the man she loved: Aaron. Cora couldn't wait to tell.

Across the garden courtyard between Welshport Hope Hospital and Churchill Green Asylum a nurse made her way up a path and into the Asylum. She was there for her shift. She slowly made her way up a flight of stairs and into second story hallway and into a ward for the lower risk patience. 

She grabbed a tray of medication and followed the corridor into a bedroom where Johnathon DeViana was sitting in a chair staring at a table with an unopened letter that had just arrived. 

"I've been waiting for you all day." he said to the slender blond haired, blue eyes nurse.

He came over and took his medication and tossed it into the waste basket in front of him.

The nurse smiled and went into his arms. They kissed.

In the refection of the hospital room's window, the nurse blond nurse showed her true face, that of Jaqueline Gray-DeViana. 

**

Back in the village a man and a woman held hands in a small private ceremony. 

The bride's dark hair hid under a white veil; the groom watched over her with tears in his eyes feeling that he was having a Deja vu.

The 14-year-old maid of honor and the 14-year-old best man looked across the aisle to each other on their respective sides and smiled. 

It finally felt good for them too.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife." Father Ryan announced. 

**

"Mayor." A woman said, handing paperwork over to the mayor of the village. "You'll need to sign this." She added.

The mayor looked down at the forms and smiled. They were his inauguration paperwork affirming his place in history.

"Thank you." The mayor said as he signed his name "Nathan Cramer." 

He handed the papers back to the woman, a secretary, and put down his glasses on to an old paper with the obituary of TIMOTHY CHURCHILL. 

**

Over two blocks, in a small house where Filipe and his mother Fatima lived Mary Goode stood watching over a pot of boiling water, she was heating to make dinner with. Her mind was somewhere else. She thought about everything that had happened to her since the witch trials and wondered had it all been a giant case of karmic whiplash for the sin she'd kept secret for more months than she could count.

"Is dinner almost ready? This little one is getting hungrier and hungrier." Filipe said stepping into the kitchen holding their little adopted son Caleb.

She looked at the beautiful child and the tears could not be held back, she burst into tears and sat Filipe down. 

"What is it honey? What's the matter?" Filipe asked, his heart pounding in his chest.

"I have to tell you something." She said in a whimper.

Filipe adjusted Caleb in his arms holding him tighter. He looked at Mary and waited almost holding his breath for what she had to say.

She reached over, eyes bloodshot and puffy, and grabbed little Caleb's fingers and squeezed them.

"Mary, what's the matter?" Filipe asked, his worry turning to panic. 

She stared at them both as the water boiled over the pot and splashed over the burning range. She jumped out of the chair at the table and stared into the water that bubbled and burned. Her reflection in the water showed a woman on the verge of losing everything if she confessed the realization that came to her during the witch trials about Caleb.

He was not legally adopted. He was kidnapped from his birth parents Aurora and Caspian. 

But aside from that, there was something much, much worse that happened. Something Filipe had not known and something that would change his life forever. 

In her reflection of the cooling water saw her finger come up to her lips and shushing her to secrecy. The vision startled Mary and she screamed and jetted backwards towards the other side of the kitchen.

"My god Mary! WHATS GOING ON!!" Filipe shouted as Caleb screamed with the noise.

Hearing the commotion, Charlotte entered and grabbed hold of her mother. "It's ok. It's ok." She whispered.  "I'll take her upstairs, she's burning up." Charlotte added.

Filipe watched as Charlotte hurried out of the kitchen with her mother and went upstairs with her. His heart sinking with despair not knowing what to do.

Charlotte helped her broken mother Mary onto the bed. She lay back as Charlotte helped her feet up.

"Don't tell him what's happening." Charlotte said. "Not yet. First we deal with the child, then we tell him." 

The time since Evie, Matthew and Hope were in Scotland had not stopped the lives of Weslportonians for carrying on just as they did before. Secrets continued to build, worlds continued to crumble. Rivalries continued to ruin relationships and devastating betrayals continued to destroy lives. 

Evie and Matthew were about to return to family in friends in turmoil. This was only the beginning. 

B8/Ch9: THE FURY OF A SUNRISE

***PARIS, 1725***

Dominique, a previous life 

A young Dominique lay on a bed, her face covered with a white mask tied around her soft featured face. A large white feather arched from one cover of the mask to the other over her forehead. Her hair piled high under a white powder wig. Her breasts squeezed into the top of one of the tightest corsets she had ever worn. She giggled at the silliness of it all, this masquerade at a chateau in Paris' richest neighborhoods. 

She continued to giggle with anticipation in the bedroom on the third floor. It's rich fabrics and furniture felt as if it had come from Versailles itself. She waited for a mystery man she met and had so quickly fallen in love with down at the party. The two escaped the endless bottles of champaign and wine and vanished into the rooms to be alone together.

She quivered with delight as he suddenly entered the room. He was strapping and handsome, only slightly older than her. He too wore his mask over his face ---  and nothing else. She removed her mask and stared at his body, strong legs, hairy chest. His nipples erect and pink. Her mouth watered.

He came to bed and slowly and lifted the many layers of her dress. Slowly. Over her ankles. To her knees. Over her thighs. His soft beard tickled her inner thighs. She giggled and closed her knees around his face and let herself go to that place she felt so free.

He lifted his head and came up to her face. They kissed. She enjoyed his lips. He hers. He moved from her soft mouth to her cheek. Nibbled her ear and played with the pearl droplet earring with his tongue.  

Then it happened. 

His fangs exposed. His eyes behind the mask went black as night just as he bit down on the soft flesh of her neck. Her nails instantly dug into the skin of his back, his hips arched as he entered her at the same time feeling every erotic emotion any being could muster in such a moment. She screamed and suddenly, as blood gushed from neck she screamed and tried to kick him off. 

She would have been saved had he not drank her blood, but he wanted it so much. He drank. And Drank. And drank more. And took her lifeforce into his body. He came up from her neck, exposing her wounds. She gasped for air. She ached. Her whole body felt as if it were on fire. She ripped off her layers of dress and ripped off her mask. 

Blood oozed down her chest and down her soft stomach in a long thin river. 

"What -- what is this?" She asked in a weak voice as her skin went pale and her eyes froze over in horror. 

The man Alexandre Doshall, removed his mask, wiped his mouth and covered his naked body with a white sheet that had been stained with Dominique's blood. 

"I have saved you." He said to her.

Alexandre was not Dominique's father by birth. He was the man that created her, the father of her vampirism. He had chosen her to be his--- his heiress. The one he wanted to breath life into his own. She was the youth that saved him and he hoped she would usher in a new way of life for his clan. The Saints, he called his clan, had a new crowned princess. Dominique: a young lost woman of a certain street profession who'd joined the masquerade as a perfect guest. One that took money for her body and now was part of a living breathing vampire dynasty.

"What did you say?" She asked in shock. 

"You are now one of the most remarkable creatures the world has ever seen. I've given you a gift, Dominique. I have saved you from a life of ordinary days. Of weak lovers. I have saved you from ever having to marry a man who knows now how to lust for you and who will never see you for who you truly are. The most exquisite piece of art nature was too afraid to create. And so, I have created you." 

"You're sick. You're a sick, sick man! Look at me, look at what you've done do me! How am I still breathing?" She shouted, reaching down to replace her clothes on her chilled body." 

"You're more than human now. Something better." He answered.

"SICK!!!" She screamed back.

"I was sick. Until the one that made me, made me and now I've made you. And one, day, sweet daughter, you'll make someone too." He answered.

Dominique confused and terrified went to a mirror to see her wounds and what she saw in the reflection would have taken her life in shock, had she still a life to take. 

There was no reflection 

"What... what witchcraft is this!?!?!?!" She screamed. "WHAT IS THIS!!!!!!!!" 

Dominique fell backwards to the floor. She quickly got up, looked again in the mirror. Still nothing. She screamed and grabbed a small hand mirror on the vanity.

Just a view of the ceiling. Nothing more. 

"How can this be?! How can I be nothing and yet I am here?!" She screeched.

"You are one of us now, one of mine. My special creatures. I promise you a life for years and years to come and we'll be together. I am your father now." Alexandre said, as he put his hand over her bleeding wound and healing it just with his touch. 

"My father is dead!" Dominique shouted.

"Your birth father, he's dead and buried. But the father of your birth is standing in front of you handing you a world beyond your wildest dreams." Alexandre said.

"No, I won't accept it. How can I?" Dominique shouted. 

As the thought of living like the creature she was for all eternity slowly and grossly settled into her mind she saw the bedroom window. She rushed towards it, her blood stained dress flowing in air like a flower losing it's petals. She pulled back the drapes, opened the shutters and sat on the windowsill preparing to fall from the 4th story window of the chateau. 

"It won't work." He said calmly, looking out onto the horizon seeing the day coming.

Alexandre stepped out of the way of the glass into a darker area of the room. A little ray of light poked its way from the thinning night sky and slashed it's over to Dominique's arm burning it.

She screamed in pain and fell back into the room and hid from the open window, the day foiling her plot of self-destruction.

He pitied her as she nursed the small burn on her skin. He had tricked her to this room from the masquerade downstairs. She believed she'd found love, or at least a benefactor for life. And he knew all the while he was about to take her soul for himself. It was a selfish trick that vampires like him had perfected for generations, millennia even, without a care for their victim's future.

Yet, for some reason, Dominique seemed to warm the ice-covered stone that was his heart. There was an innocence in their conversations before they'd come to the bedroom. He felt human again for that time -- in fact it was those conversations that made him understand she was perfect for him. 

He could not be cruel to her, not any crueler than she believed him to already be. 

"I can your connection to the sun. But you must remain with me for all time because if I do this, it's a special gift. Not all of us, not even I have been given it." 

"How?" She asked.

"You must trust me." Alexandre explained.

She backed away into the shadows of the other side of the room. They stared at each other each on their side of the sunlight that had created a beam breaking the room in half. 

"If you do not trust me I cannot fix you." He said.

"What does that mean? Fix me? Will I be back to what I was before this?" She wondered.

"No." He replied after a slight pause.

"THEN I DO NOT TRUST YOU!" She shouted. "I WILL NEVER TRUST YOU! I WILL NEVER LOVE YOU! I WILL NEVER BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE!!!" She screamed.

He smiled. The flames in her already billowing out like a raging wildfire, it was just as he expected from her; a powerful force of a woman that could truly be the one, the heiress he needed to lure in more to his growing clan. 

"You already are what I want you to be and yet I want you to be more. The gift is yours." he said and walked over slowly to her. He covered himself, head to toe, with the sheet from the bed. The blood from her wound still staining it like splatters of red paint splashed across a white canvas. The sun touched the sheet and heated his skin, but it did not burn. The sheet added a slight protection for the seconds of sun touch. 

He approached her, both now hidden in the shadows of the dawning room. She backed away, her back hitting the wall. He grabbed her arm, pulled her wrist to his mouth, she flinched and told her to stay still. He bit down but instead of blood going into his mouth, he pushed his own saliva into her blood stream. She fainted with the disgusting act. 

Moments later she awoke her body laying in the light. 

Unburned. 

"What's happened??" She said, her head dizzy and in a blur. 

"You're one of the special ones now, free from the shackles many like us have who shy away from light. Its rare, its precious and its yours. A gift for your loyalty --- to me." He answered from a chair in the shadows of the room. "You are a daywalker." 

She stood up, looked down at her own naked body untouched by the heat of the sun. Her pale skin seemed to glow. Dominique was now trapped in Alexadre's world.

Forever. 

**PRESENT DAY, CYFRINACH CASTLE**

The marital bedroom of the Lord-Doshalls 

In a large bed covered in dark purple sheets that seemed to flow on the bed like waves from the sea, Dominique Doshall, the new countess of Cryfrinach, tossed in turned as she remembered her introduction into the Doshall court and how she first came in contact with the man she called her father, but in fact was her maker. The man who made her who she was.

Her true family had abandoned her centuries ago when she was forced out into the streets to take money for her body. She rebelled against that and instead took the money for herself. This independence, however led her to Alexadre's hunting of her and pouncing. 

Dominique was only awoken by Sabastian's gasp for air as his nude body unwrapped itself from hers.

"What is it?" She asked, seeing him standing naked in front of the closed dark drapes. His eyes reflected the tiny bits of light peeking out from around the drapes in a square formation.

"Dawn." He said, quickly searching for his clothes. "We have to shelter." 

She smiled, seeing his boyish behavior quickly dressing to get to some kind of darkened place where the sun would not hurt him, but she knew better than to rush around because of Alexandre's gift to her. The gift she'd kept secret and only given to one other. 

Dominique slowly got up from the bed and wrapped herself in a silk robe and walked to her new husband. She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. For that split second his worry vaporized in the kiss but returned just as fast.

"We have to go." He repeated.

"Sebastian, stop." She said, grabbing his arm. "What do you remember from last night?"

Sebastian thought for a second, his mind searched for an answer for her. He had recalled going into a room where Alexandre was. He remembered seeing him, lying on the bed. He remembered something turning to ash. It was Alexandre. But everything else felt foggy, even how he got into bed with Dominique. He felt strange with that feeling, the feeling of mystery about what he did that night. His face clearly showed his worry and Dominique smirked, she knew Arameed's powers had allowed her to proceed in a ceremony with Sebastian's mind somewhat trapped in a haze.

"Last night," She began to explain "the world became ours to take. We've joined each other in a very powerful union that will last the test of time. And as a wedding gift I've given you something that will help you life a more happy life in this world. It's something I was given too, but rarely did I tell a soul about it. Only a select few of us have this gift. I could not in good conscience marry you without bestowing it on you too." 

"Marry? We're married?" Sebastian asked, his mind slowly dipping back into the strange night's memories and realizing, it happened. "I... I don't know what to say. What about my child? What about his future? What is it that you've given me?"

"Our child will be very happy knowing that both of his parents can walk in the light." Dominique said suddenly claiming Gabriel as her own. 

 
She walked over to the dark drapes and suddenly pulled them open shining a light from the warmest sun on Sebastian's skin.

He gasped, covered his face and fell to the floor, his hands clinging to the rug for dear life expecting to feel his skin sizzle in the light like it did the very first time he came to the surface when Mary saved him from his coffin. But this time... there was nothing.

Sebastian looked down at his hands. He looked at his arms. Nothing. They were fine. He got up, looked at his chest, the skin almost transparent -- but no burns. 

"How? How can this be?" He asked with astonishment. 

"It's the gift. You can daywalk, just as I can." She revealed. 

"But you've only came out in the night." He recalled. 

"A rouse." She mused. "The rest of the court, aside from my sweet Jean-Marc, don't know of course. And you must keep it a secret. This is our special secret. It keeps things on a level playing field. It needs to remain this way." 

She went back over to him, once again looped her arms around his neck and stared up at his pale blue eyes. He smirked at her, feeling a happiness that he had not felt in years, it was not the same as when he was married to Evie, that love felt emotionally driven, filled with promise and hope. With Dominique it was lust, sexuality, power and an even more intoxicating drive for freedom. He had this with Dominique. Her abilities were extraordinary something he did not expect when he got to Goodwick, and now, they were one. What was hers, was his. 

"Shall we go see our son?" She said of Gabriel.

Sebastian smirked back and kissed her. "I'd like that." 

****

Found in the east wing dining room 

A panel slid silently open distorting the wall of a large room in the east wing of the castle that had large mural of a jungle on it. Painted tigers hidden beneath lush green leaves hunted their prey, a tropical bird with an orange beak and blue and green feathers clung to a tree branch while humming birds, butterflies and bees scattered midflight above dozens of colorful flowers. 

This was the east wing Dining Room. 

The movable wall made the bird's head shift over giving it a decapitated look.

Jean Marc stepped out from the secret passage, then Evie then Roman. 

"EVIE!" A voice shouted from inside the room.

When Evie's eyes adjusted to the light of the dawn from the darkness of the hidden tunnels, she saw Matthew Winterborn standing there holding little Gabriel.

Instantly, she burst into tears and rushed to grab her child with a feeling of reassurance and relief washing over her like a cold rain. 

Matthew happily handed the boy to his mother, and she wrapped his little 3-year-old body in her arms. She kissed him over and over and over on his plump cheeks and wiggled her nose against his little nose. 

"Mama found you." She signed to him.

"Gabriel miss mama." the boy signed back with his little hands.

Evie replied in her best sign language too "mama missed Gabriel so much!"

"Where was mama?" the child asked. ""Where is papa?" 

No one in the room knew sign language but could tell by Evie's expression that her heart suddenly cracked in half. "Mama was lost." Evie replied in a fib. "She wont leave you ever again."

"Papa?" The boy signed.

"Papa not feeling well." Evie told Gabriel, adding another fib for his protection.

"Papa is sick?" Gabriel asked.

She hated to lie to the boy but in a way, it was not too terribly far off. Gabriel's big green eyes looked at her with hope that she'd correct herself and say he was fine and that he'd meet them soon, but she knew that whatever was happening with Sebastian, he was no longer the person she married and fought for then fought against for so many years. He was someone different. The sickness of his vampirism had finally taken total control of him and Dominique was exploiting that. It was a sickness after all.

"He is. yes." She replied. Matthew rubbed her shoulder to comfort her seeing her expression. 

"What are you doing here?" Evie asked Matthew jumping into a hug.

"I couldn't live without knowing you were ok. I knew that something was off the night I saw Sebastian outside Churchill's house. I could tell that he was doing something, planning something. I couldn't just leave you to him." Matthew explained.

"Outside Churchill's house?" Evie asked confused.

"It was late at night soon after the trials. I saw him, I followed him and he entered the house. I don't know what happened next." Matthew said. 

"He came to us at the Beach House, he mentioned nothing about Churchill." Evie began to explain as Roman, Hope and Jean Marc surrounded them to hear the story. "He was telling me how he wanted to keep our family safe from everything in Welshport. From the eyes and the scrutiny and -- he just wanted to keep us safe. He's told me that over and over again here. His eyes were so different when he took us. He...He was dark. I've seen that in him before, but what he did next I never expected."

"What did he do?" Matthew asked.

Evie took a beat to processes what Sebastian had done and slowly lowered the high collar of her dress to show the two little scars left on her neck from Sebastian's bite.

"Oh my god, Evie, he didn't....did he make you ..." Matthew began before Evie cut him off.

"No, no. I'm ok. He said he bit me only to stun my system, to sedate me. He didn't drink which would have turned me into what he is." She said.

Matthew sighed with relief and introduced his sister Hope. Evie shocked to hear of another sister but quickly learned Hope's escape into exile while the other members of their tribe succumb to the horrors of the first Welshport families. Hope did not have it in her to assimilated like her siblings Matthew and Alice. 

In turn, Evie introduced her friends from Welshport to her cousin Roman and Jean Marc, the young vampire boy who could walk in the light too, thanks to Dominique. He was going to lead them out of Cyfrinach and quickly, and hopefully, get them to freedom.

"We don't have much time. The villagers who care for Cyfrinach in the day won't let us escape that easily. We have to be quick and stealth otherwise they'll find us and god only knows what they've been told to do with anyone who is helping Evie." Roman explained.

"Evie, you didn't do what they're saying you did, did you?" Hope asked.

"No! Of course not!" Evie exclaimed. "Sinead came to me, in my room. She and I had an argument. She wanted to hurt me because she felt I was holding Sebastian back. We did fight, physically, when she attached me, but I had nothing to do with her falling out of the window. In our scuffle, I feel and when she came back at me, she tripped and fell out of the window."

"The court is after Evie's blood. Evan wants her dead." Jean Marc said.

"Does Dominique know?" Matthew asked.

"The countess? Yes." Jean-Marc replied. 

"The countess?" Roman asked, surprised at the title.

"I heard it from other's while I hid Gabriel. Alexandre is dead and Dominique has replaced him. You see, the countess has taken over his realm she's in full control keeping Gabriel still in danger." Jean Marc explained surprising everyone. 

"Then we need to go now." Roman explained. Dominique's youth and power-hungry ways will not boast well for us. Come, this way!" Roman said, ushering everyone back over to the secret passage. 

"I'm so glad you're here." Evie whispered to Matthew as the group moved.

With Gabriel in her arms she fell into his chest as they all walked. He held her tightly. 

"I would never leave you." He replied.

"Shhh." Roman ordered.

One by one, they slipped back into the dark walls of Cyfrinach's secret passages. 

****

The destruction of the crypts 

There was a nervousness in the west wing of the castle. A ghastly feeling of unease that reverberated in the crypts of the Court while they slept. The rest of the vampires knew something was amiss. They knew something was teetering off into a wild madness but because of their inability to step into the light they could only wait for nightfall to continue to try and figure it all out. They didn't fully trust what had just happened with the new regime in place, they weren't sure what to even make of it, but for now -- they had no way of fighting back. They needed Dominique. They needed her powerful sway of the world they lived in to survive. 

Indeed, the toxicity of what had just happened within the stone walls of Cyfrinach and within their own ranks and with their new leadership, the Countess Doshall, no one felt secure. Not yet anyway.

And after the next stage of destruction -- they would never feel anything at all again.

In the darkened room where several crypts were placed, a person stepped in covered head to toe in a thick black sheet. This person, tall, strapping, large in frame, walked over to each crypt and slid open the tops.

Then, one by one, this person opened up the coffins and revealing the sleeping vampire inside. Males. Females. There were 8 in the first room. Then, as the coffins lay open, the shadowy figure walked over to tall slender windows that faced the ocean and the sun, a strange place to put coffins where windows and sunlight were seen as poison, yet this was a place where they could wake in the night open the window to the darkness and still connect to their human world outside. 

If felt like a mockery, to see the outside world in the dark and only in the dark, but it was a way to keep them halfway in their human frame of mind despite knowing better. Now it would be to their death. The person suddenly yanked on a long rope that pulled the curtains open exposing members of the Doshall court to the morning sun, he rushed to a side corner of the room where shadow remained and watched as the sun burned the vampires in their sleeping state. 

Seconds later, a vampire's worst nightmare happened. Their exposure to the outside world in the for of daylight came back to haunt them --- and kill them. 

Several gasped as the sun scorched them as if they were a fish out of water. Then they burst into falmes, they screamed and stood up in their coffins and the person who did this watched in pseudo-shock, pseudo-delight. He watched as they fell to their knees and quickly burned away and lifted into the air of the room in plumes of smoke and ash. 

The smell of rosewater and sulfur filled the cloaked man's nostrils. He hid away in the shadows and waited until each one of the first 8 vampires were gone then pulled the curtain again darkening the room as if to mask with darkness the death he caused. 

He then lowered the hook of his cloak revealing the face of Evan Sheernan.

Evan had decided to end the madness of the court now that his sister's life was discarded like a meaningless memory by their new leader. If Sinead would not be avenged, no one was safe, not even the ones like him. He would burn it all to the ground and make them all suffer for trusting the outsiders. 

Evan repeated this act of murder again in the next room killing another 10 members of the court. He felt nothing, not regret. Not remorse. Not even fear. 

Only callous furry. 

****

Sebastian slowly pushed open Gabriel's bedroom door hoping that it would not wake his sleeping son so early in the morning. He was excited to see him. He had never seen his son in the day. He had never seen the sun touch son's face, or how he looked with bright light on his perfectly peach toned skin. He had never watched his son play in daylight like other fathers did. He had never seen his child run along the grass in the afternoon or splash along a sundrenched beech. 

Now that he too was a daywalker like Dominique and Jean Marc, the thrill of the possibilities filled his mind as he and Dominique approached little Gabriel's crib.

They looked in.

She gasped. 

He froze stiff.

"It's ...its empty." Sebastian said to her. "What have you done to him?" 

"Nothing! Nothing has been done to him. He was supposed to be here safe. This is where you placed him and I was sure to have him guarded. Sebastian, I have done nothing." She explained.

"Then where is my child!?" Sebastian shouted, rushing into closets and looking under another bed that was in the room. His frantic search escalating at every empty corner. 

"I don't know Sebastian. I can't imagine what has --- " before she could finish her sentence, Dominique looked over and saw the secret wall of the bedroom had not been replaced after the group secretly escaped. She walked over to the wall and touched the opened portion. She arched a brow and knew now she had not known of such secret passages, not all of them at least. 

Sebastian came over and saw the opening and pushed the wall open further quickly understanding what had happened. Dominique grabbed his arm. 

"NO!" She ordered; he turned back to her. "Kildare. He'll handle this." 

"Who could have done this? The others of the court are sleeping." Sebastian noted.

"Roman." Dominique replied. "Or Jean Marc. They're the only other two I can easily point a finger at. Roman has been especially distant from me lately. I meant to question him further but...I had other business to handle." She said cupping his strong jaw in her hand.

"Dominique, we need to find him. My son is everything to me. I would never forgive myself if someone in this place hurt him." Sebastian replied. 

Dominique knowing what her original place was for Gabriel arched a brow. She had planned more than just hurting Gabriel, at one point. And although that plot was on hold, it was still not far off into the future where she'd need to finally complete it.

"I should have known better than allowing Roman to live after I sensed his distancing." Dominique replied smartly changing the subject and blame back to her formerly most trusted aide. "But I foolishly trusted him. Come, we have to get Kildare on this. They're probably much further ahead than we realize. We'll get our child back Sebastian. We need to. He desperately need to." 

"He mustn't hurt Gabriel. Or Evie. Sebastian answered. 

As the two began their way out of Gabriel's room Dominique did not reply. She wanted Gabriel safe, he was the key to her future, but Evie -- Dominique could do without the competition. The birth mother's life was dispensable, and she would not bargain for her life if Kildare felt necessary to take it. 

 

****

Evan is caught in the act 

As the hours passed, Evan continued to destroy room by room of Court members. Their ashes filled the coffins like mounds of dust from the moon. 

On his patrol rounds, Kildare came across these empty, ash filled coffins and was shocked to see that the entire court, save for 4 other vampires sleeping in a basement crypt were alive. He was horrified by what he had found, and to some extent relieved that many of his captors were gone. What worried him most would be how Dominique would react. 

In the last of the rooms to check on, Kildare entered and saw the cloaked Evan finishing up the last of the vampires in the upper chambers. The drapes closed and Kildare saw the cloak drop. Evan turned to him and smiled evilly.

"You might be free of us by sundown."  The crazed vampire said.

"What have you done?" Kildare asked, removing a sharp stake he kept close to his waist for safety.

"I have saved you." Evan replied. Isn't this what you've always wanted? To kill us and be free? We'll I've done it. And now I'll finish the rest." 

"STOP!" Kildare said raising his arm up high with the stake pointed down. "You will not pass." 

"What are you doing? Don't you see? I am helping save this town from us. Once I'm done, I'll off myself and you all can be free! The WHOLE village! It'll be over." Evan explained.

"But -- why?" Kildare wondered. His whole life he'd lived under the rule of the Doshall dynasty. His father and his father's father. They'd all been in the same position within the walls Cyfrinach. It was all Kildare knew, and now it was literally turning to ask before his very eyes. He wanted to feel happy but at the same time he wanted to feel in control. Without the leadership of the Counts Doshall he knew not what his life was. It was a long mental trap that he could not escape and now he felt trapped. 

Kill Evan for destroying the only way of life he's ever known or allow him to pass and continue the path to his own freedom.

"WHAT IS THIS!?" A shocked voice screeched from the doorway. It was Dominique with Sebastian. 

She rushed over to one of the coffins and saw what was inside. She screamed. She went to another. And another and put her hands in the ashes of her one-time follower and lifted them up allowing the ash to sift through her slender fingers. Her hands were gray with the remains, almost as if she were wearing gloves. Her tears began to fall and she walked over to Evan and slapped him across the face leaving a gray palm print made of ashes. 

"You'll wish you never did that." Evan said.

"You'll wish you were never born." Dominique replied, her voice cracking with emotion. 

"Why have you done this Evan?" Sebastian asked. "Your own kind. Your friends, your family." Sebastian added his mind unable to see how Evan could destroy the very people Sebastian had been so desperate to be apart of.

"DO NOT SPEAK TO ME, USURPER!!" Evan growled. "Since you and your bitch wife came to this place everything has been upended. What do you know of my friends and my family. You know NOTHING of them!! You've come and taken your place here as if it were your own and you are not like us. You are not one of us. I'd rather see us all turn to dust than allow you to come in and take what is ours and turn it into some warped version of a happy home for your own conscience."

"I'm here just as you are, to be apart of something greater. Dominique has promised me, US, that" Sebastian replied naively.

Evan laughed "Is THAT what she told you?"   

"Enough!" Dominque interrupted, being sure Evan didn't say anything else, especially her plans for Gabriel. "You've betrayed us all Evan. You know the consequences for that." 

Evan paid no attention to her. "Strangers in the village, I hear they're coming for you. I hear they're coming to take the child away and then what? We'll all be left to wait another 300 years before another supposed mixling comes along to save our Precious Count? I ended this because it's time we all just die!" 

"The count is dead." Sebastian said. "You're looking at the Countess Doshall." 

Evan turned to Dominique, his onetime lover, his onetime partner in crime. Years and years of history between them now almost a fantasy of his. She was now the leader. It was no matter to him in the end. This world had to see its final kiss of death no matter who led the court of the Saints of Goodwick. 

"You've gotten what you wanted now, didn't you good Countess. Perhaps now we can all rest in peace." Evan said rushing over to the drapes and pulling the cord allowing the sun to filter in once again.

But as he jumped to the side and replaced his cloak as to not feel the sun burn his own flesh he watched Dominique and Sebastian stand in the light just as Kildare was. The sun had not destroyed them as it did the others.

The daywalker gift ran through their veins and Evan had never known of it.

"What... what is the meaning of this? The sun has no effect on you. The ... the light does not kill you!!" He said, his voice trembling with shock as Dominique approached him. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!!!" 

She reached for Kildare's stake and slowly made her way close to him. He stood there frozen in fear and shock at their lack of vanishing into ash. 

"Dominique, don't do this." Sebastian said from behind.

"A gift of walking in the sun, this is what you'll never know the meaning. Not now. Not ever. This is your consequence Evan Sheernan, this is your end." Dominique said. "Goodbye." She lifted her hand and plunged the stake deep into Evan's chest. 

Evan gasped for air and fell down into the shadows. Black blood had sprayed from the thrust of the stake into his chest, everywhere even on Dominique's face. Little black droplets speckled the wall and her neck. She wiped a drop from her lip as Evan crawled along the shadowy floor over to the area of the room where the light from the window on the ground. He entered the light on all fours, his skin began to burn. He was choking for air, he was screaming with pain from the burning light and then he fell on his back and let his skin sizzle off.

The shadow of the window muntins fell over this body in a cross shape. It was like a crosshair from a pistol locking in on the mad Evan Sheernan. His body then quickly turned to bones then in a flash second to a pile of ash before their eyes.

Dominique wiped the rest of Evan's black blood from her face with a white handkerchief and walked back over to Sebastian who saw her again take the life of someone brutally. First her supposed father Alexandre, and now Evan.

She kissed Sebastian on the cheek; he was not as innocent as she thought but there was always something about him, she felt she needed to protect. The darkness he'd seen of her in the last 24 hours was indeed something she'd hoped he'd never see, yet there it was in a pile of ash. 

"Kildare, the mortal has escaped with the mixling. Find them, and make sure whomever she is with does not see another day. They know too much now." She ordered.

"Yes ma'am. And what of the others?" He asked.

"Others? She replied confused as she had already told him what to do.

Kildare shook his head.  

"I see." She replied.

"What should we do? Bury the remains?" Sebastian asked. 

Dominique smiled at his kindness, but Cryfrinach was now only a shell of itself. It would not last way. Four followers were not enough. She had to start from scratch. 

"Yes." She replied softly. "Kildare we'll deal with them before sun-up. First, get the mortal." She ordered.

"They're in the tunnels within the castle. They are so many, how will I know which tunnel to look in first?" Kildare said.

Dominique lifted a brow and replied simply "They're hiding like rats, so like rats, smoke them out of the tunnels."

Kildare nodded and quickly went to round up more of the village servants to block all the castle exits and hopefully create a trap in the secret passages where no one could escape. 

****

Caught in the courtyard 

The group of Welshportonians Evie and her son Gabriel, Matthew and his sister Hope followed Roman and Jean-Marc through the narrow passages inside the walls of Cyfrinach Castle. The labyrinth of twisting tunnels were narrow and chocking with air that felt stale and damp. Evie wrapped Gabriel in a shawl that Hope gave her to keep him warm. He signed that he felt frightened, and Evie signed back "hold tight to mama", and he did. 

"This way." Roman whispered and he and Jean Marc continued to lead the group through the stone walled passages attempting to keep their wits about them and encourage their continued push to freedom. 

"How much longer?" Evie whispered to her cousin Roman, knowing her little boy was becoming more and more frightened. 

"Shhh," He replied back but whispered "It won't be long now." 

Without the group knowing, Kildare was setting little fires inside the walls of the castle. He and the rest of the villagers were prepared to control the flames within iron tins using the smoke to fill the passages and choke out the group. The flames continued to heat, the smoke began to slowly make its way from 6 different passage entrances and creep through like an injected poison into the veins of Cyfrinach. 

As Roman lead the way towards the back of the line Hope paused halting the entire group.

"Do you smell that? Its smoke." She said.

Evie sniffed. "I smell it." 

Roman looked at Matthew the two instantly knew what was going on.

"We have to hurry." Matthew told Roman who agreed and pushed them to quickly continue on their way.

But the smoke got thicker and thicker. The white and gray plumes quickly turned black. The smoke swirled around them chocking their lungs. The walls of the inner passages of the castle felt as if they were lifted and moving closer to them tightening around their bodies but in smoke form. The stones of the walls, heavy with history, were completely fogged out by darkening smoldering smoke.

"We have to get out! We have to get out!!!" Evie shouted coughing while covering Gabriel's mouth and nose with the shawl. 

"We're close!" Roman said, "We have to keep pushing."

Seconds later, it was clear that there was no way out of the smoke. They were blinded now, completely surrounded with the stench of smoldering fire and sulfur. 

"We have to get out, Roman, its too thick." Matthew said.

"I can't breath!" Jean-Marc Shouted as he held Hope's hand.  

Roman finally relented and told them there was an opening near, it was lead them into a large corridor that opened into the grotto between the towers near the garden. Evie gulped, remembering the garden is where Sinead's body fell to it's death. 

True to his word, Roman led the group to the exit passage that indeed led them to an inner corridor. The smoke exited with them like a chimney spewing it's smog. They all coughed feeling the clean air of the castle enter their lungs from the corridor. Roman keeled over coughing and pointed over to a pair of French doors that opened into the garden. They had walked all the way from the east wing to the west wring in a zig zag line of secret stairwells and passages that finally got them to fresh air. 

They exited into the garden hoping it to be one step closer to freedom and escape but that was not to be. To their horror they were discovered. Standing as stern as stone statues in the garden were Dominique and Sebastian. The dark overcast sky loomed over them like a omen. The garden itself felt quiet too quiet and Kildare and several other villagers stood behind the new power-couple ready to strike and kill on their behalf.

Evie and Sebastian's eyes locked instantly, only for second, as the father quickly eyed his son still coughing from the smoke, Evie tightened her hold on him.

"How are you  --- how?" Roman asked unable to speak yet from the lack of oxygen in his lungs. He motioned to the sky noting it was daylight and Dominique and Sebastian were unaffected by the sun.

"There are a lot of things you never knew about me Roman, just like there are a lot of things I didn't know about you. Like how quickly you'd betray me if a new face showed up. What is it? Did you fall in love with Evangeline?" Dominique asked.

"He's my cousin." Evie replied shocking both Dominique and Sebastian. 

"Your cousin?" Sebastian said.

"Looks like there are things you don't know about me." Roman said.

"Well, a family affair. The irony. No matter, this is where it all ends. Evangeline, hand me my child." Dominique ordered.

"What? YOUR Child??? Sebastian what is she talking about? Why are you letting this, this... person do this to us? I won't stand here any longer and listen to any more of this nonsense, Sebastian.” Then Evie turned back to Dominique and demanded “You will let us go NOW!”

"Evie, no.” Sebastian answered eerily calmly. “Gabriel can't leave. He's too important to us. He's too important to what I've become and I need him with me." Sebastian replied his voice seemed almost not of him, it seemed strange to Evie's ears. He was talking but it wasn't the Sebastian she knew and once loved. 

Sebastian stepped forward but Matthew stepped in his way.

"You've done enough damage. We're leaving." Matthew said, his chest strong and solid hitting Sebastian's. 

Sebastian smirked "I knew that you'd come here. I didn't know so soon, but of course you'd come. You haven't been able to let go of her since I returned."

Matthew's eyes narrowed as Sebastian tried to pass him and go to Evie to take Gabriel whom she held tightly. 

"No." Matthew said, his large hand once again blocking Sebastian by the chest.

"Husband, steady yourself." Dominique said with teasing words.

"What? Husband? Sebastian what does she mean?" Evie asked.

Dominique smirked and stepped closer to Evie and lifted her hand to show her a giant diamond ring surrounded by black onyx stones. "Meet the New Mrs. Sebastian Lord." 

"Evie, we're married." Sebastian said. "She's adopted Gabriel."

Evie laughed at Sebastian, still noting how entirely trapped in his mind he was thanks to the domineering Dominique. 

"Oh my god." Evie said, "You both have lost your mind." As Gabriel signed to his mother that he was frightened.

Dominique looked at Gabriel, his beautiful face looked so much different under the natural light. She could see how attached he was to Evie and how much he looked like both mother and father. But she needed the child to live and to live as her insurance policy. There would be a time where the deathly wave would come to her just as it did Alexandre, and Gabriel being the coveted mixling, would once again be needed to save her life. She stepped close to Evie who turned and handed Gabriel to Hope.

"Get back." Evie said. 

"You don't know what you're doing, Evangeline. I can snap your neck with the snap of a finger, and your son will watch you die. Is that what you want?" Dominique growled. 

"That's how your new wife treats the mother of your child?" Matthew asked.

"Dominique," Sebastian said to his new wife, in an almost pleading way before he was interrupted. 

Dominique arched and brow and took a step back, her arms up.

"Just let us go, you have what you've always wanted," Roman said "we just want to leave now."

"LEAVE?" Dominique shouted at him, "Why do you want to leave? You've been given all of this, this whole place is yours. You're the highest in rank and I've given you so much. This is how you treat the woman who saved you from financial ruin, the woman who took you in and gave you a place to call home?" 

"I needed it at the time yes....and I've served you well over the years Dominique, but...I know who my family is. I know where I belong." Roman added.

"We'll leave and the two of you can be happy however you please." Matthew added.

Dominique turned to Sebastian who's face froze starting at Matthew who's arm was on Evie's shoulder. She could sense the seething anger boiling in his cold blood. The sickness of jealousy he had towards Matthew still lingered no matter how powerful Dominique's influence on him.

"You come here, sir," the Countess said to Matthew, "and face me so confidently while you slither in and take another man's wife. I see you. I see who you are."

Sebastian turned to Dominique, confused but he let her continue. 

"You don't know what you're talking about." Matthew replied.

"So righteous, so noble." She said. "And deep inside all you can think about is her sweet smell. Her peach like flavor. The soft skin of her inner thighs, the same thighs, the same thighs that open up to you and give you so much warm wet pleasure. But nothing you say or do will ever take away that fact that you smell the blood in the water and the vacancy inside of her for man in her most sacred place. A place you will most happily slip right into once the lights are low but you'll never be that man. You'll never be enough." 

"Stop that. STOP THAT!" Matthew replied.

She was baiting him, she was egging him on. Dominique knew the buttons to push for one last showdown in her own warped way of getting Sebastian to show his loyalty. 

"So what's the plan? You leave here with your prized Evangeline and just grow old together. How very quant... what is next? Hmm? Her bed. Her warm soft billowy bed where her naked flesh, wet with the sleek sweat of a woman ravaged by your big, thick..."

It worked. 

Matthew lunged and grabbed Dominque by the throat and choked her. She walked back, her eyes darkening with evil delight.

Sebastian sickened by the poison imagery in his mind of Matthew and Evie making love hissed showing his fangs, he went for Matthew, pulled him off Dominique gasping for air. The sky flickered with a strange light as Matthew and Sebastian went to blows, screams came from seagulls above and Hope and Evie who matched the birds' cries in tone.

The two rivals for Evie's heart tore at each other fists flying, fangs out, eyes glowing, shoving, punching and then a scream. 

"STOP NOW!" 

It was Hope. Her voice suddenly locking both men in place.  "We're leaving this place. Now." She added.

Roman pulled Matthew back, Kildare pulled Sebastian back.

Dominque regained her composure. "No one is leaving." She replied. "Not with the mixling." 

"Why does this sick woman call Gabriel that? I have known something has been planned for Gabriel since the moment I woke here and I want to know right now what it is." Evie demanded.

Dominique did not beat around the bush; she clasped her hands in front of her. Her long dress shifted as she walked in half a circle to meet Sebastian where he stood. She looped her arm through her new husband's arm and smiled. 

"Our son's life force is our life force. He will bring us rejuvenation and power the likes the world has never seen. Evangeline, you don't fit in his life anymore. He'll grow. He'll become a symbol of something beyond this world. And he'll forget you. He'll never think of you again as his mother. Now, make things easy for yourself and hand him over." 

"I will NEVER hand MY child to you. NEVER!" Evie shouted forcefully. 

"Evie, please don't make this harder than it already is. We just want Gabriel to help us, that's all. He's special, he's the chosen one." Sebastian said.

"Sebastian listen to yourself, think about what she wants to do to OUR child. He is not some kind of savior for your kind, that is not why he was born. Can't you see? She wants to hurt him, by using him for whatever it is that this mixling should be used for will kill our little boy, you have to see that! YOU HAVE TO!" Evie said, attempting to appeal to Sebastian's better angels. 

"NO, not that's not what she wants, its not what we want. We have good plans for him, he's special." Sebastian said, his mind flickering from reality to fantasy unable to understand the fine line between both world and somehow seeing them both as truth.

"She'll kill him Sebastian. Is that what you want?" Evie asked.

"Lies! She lies!!" Dominique said, adding more confusion to the contestation. "Sebastian, look at me, listen to me, our boy is what we need to continue what we have here. You know that, don't you? I would never hurt my little boy, our... our sweet little boy." 

"YOU SICK BITCH!" Evie screamed pulling Dominique's shoulder and swinging her left palm across the countess' face. 

Evie's hand swooped across the manipulative and diabolic countess' face but missed contact except for the diamond ring that adorned her hand. It scraped Dominique under her left eye causing a 2-inch scratch to slice across and cause some blood to draw. Black blood, like vampire oil.

"EVIE! NO!!" Matthew shouted as Evie went at Dominique to try and slap her. 

"I won't hold this against you, Evangeline" The countess said. "You're desperate. A desperate woman will do all sorts of animalistic things to keep wits about her. But the clock has run its course. You have nowhere to go. THE BOY IS MINE!" Dominique added reaching passed Evie and lunged for Gabriel in Hope's arms.

Hope screamed and pulled away, Sebastian grabbed Dominique's arm and pulled her back, Evie lunged for the countess and landed a punch over her face, Dominique pulled out a hidden dagger from her boddice and swiped it to slash Evie, she missed. Matthew pulled Evie back, Sebastian pulled Dominique back. 

The villagers stood behind slowly biding their time trying to figure out what to do next.

"This child is ours," Dominique growled. "Hand him to us."

"Evie, hand him over." Sebastian said. 

"Over my dead body." Evie said, her voice low and dark, Matthew then let go over the woman he loved knowing the mother of this child needed to do what she needed to do to protect her baby. He would not hold her back any further and would do what he could help her.

"Have it your way." Dominique said as she snapped her fingers. 

The villagers who were standing behind Sebastian and Dominique began to run towards the group escaping with their arms filled with weapons. Axes. Knives. Pitch forks. 

Their faces were blank; eyes glazed over their minds taken over by Dominique's ultimate power.

Hope closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and hummed her song that lit the fires all around the castle to such heat that 6 different explosions rocked the castle walls. 

The entire castle rumbled. Then from nowhere from a force within the power of Hope's mind an explosion that shook not only the castle but the entire village of Goodwick like an earthquake rising from the River Styx. Everyone fell to the ground. Castle walls fell towards the edge of the Courtyard exposing it to the outer area. Dust and debris flew into the air and rained down like hardened snow. Everyone was down on the ground covered in the white ash and dust from the fallen walls. 

As the dust settled and the smoke began to fill the sky from fires burning wildly in the castle's east and west wings, Roman and Matthew quickly helped Evie, Gabriel, Jean Marc and Hope up from the ground. Their bodies bruised and wounded, their ears ringing form the explosion. 

"Run." Roman mouthed but no one could hear his voice. They were disoriented, confused. 

Within seconds, the noise finally resuming with Roman's scream "RUN!!!!" 

And like bats into the night, the group vanished quickly passed the damaged walls of Cyfrinach as their lives depended on it -- because they did. 

Dominique whose forehead was bleeding from hitting her head on the ground was unconscious. Her powers temporarily rendered all the villagers back to their normal selves. They looked around feeling strange not knowing how they had come to the courtyard with weapons. Kildare stood amongst them and watched as the group made their escape. 

Sebastian got up and stared at Kildare. 

"Shall I go after them?" He asked Sebastian.

Sebastian too was now slightly out of his dazed mind. He knelt down and placed Dominique's unconscious body in his arms and cleaned away the blood from her forehead. 

Sebastian watched as Evie and his son vanished in the dust and smoke of the collapsed part of the castle.

"Let them go." he whispered to Kildare.

"But...." 

"Just let them go." 

 

Evie and the group ran through the grounds around the castle and down the long dirt path that curved down the castle's hill. The day light began to brighten their way all the way down. 

They never looked back.