***PARIS, 1725***
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.
 |
| 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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
"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!"
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.
"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.
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.
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.
