Monday, April 24, 2017

Series 7/Chapter 8: MISERY


In the mist and the fog of the night a woman named Anna Take, consumed by the furies of an immortal phoenix  made her way through the village with only one thing on her mind. She needed to make sure Sebastian, the lycan,  transformed again, the souls she needed to release the spirit of the phoenix deep in side of her, the soul of Laura Collins needed the plan to work.

She slowly walked up the small path that lead to Sebastian's apartment door. She noticed the plants and shrubs that surrounded the door had been ripped up or destroyed. In fact, the entire entry way seemed disheveled. A possible by product of Sebastian's beastly alter ego.

Anna opened the door that was left slightly open. She walked in and saw that the apartment was overturned, ransacked, a complete mess. There were no lights on except for the television that had been left on to the evening news from Bangor.

"Police report of body found on the lawn of a mansion in Collinsport this evening; a possible victim of a wild animal attack. There is no word yet on what the animal might have been only that the family that lives in that mansion is well known in the town, and may have had this happen several months earlier in the same fashion....." the television reporter said trailing off into the story of Victor Reed's death a year and a half go.

Anna continued through Sebastian's apartment, and there he was. Laying almost  naked on the floor, exhausted and scratched up, his eyes open, his body trembling.

Anna knelt down, her true self felt terrible pity for him, but Laura's spirit, the spirit she was born with inside of her would not allow that pity to last for long. He was made this way for a purpose, she needed him to be the monster she created and the duality of her personality battled against what she was doing to him.

"It'll all be over soon. I promise." Anna said as she stroked his head.

"Why....why are you doing this to me?" Sebastian asked.

"You mustn't see this as a punishment Sebastian. You are the chosen one, the one I need to release what is inside of me. I've searched for you for years, and when I got to Collinsport, I just knew you'd be the one to bring me the souls I need." Anna said in a creepy soft tone of voice.

"I killed someone today." Sebastian replied.

"For a good reason. It's all for a good reason." Anna said sternly.

Anna's heart wasn't all evil. She was in fact, a real person before all of this happened to her. She grew up in a happy home with a mother and father but she was always different. Laura's soul had been trapped in her body all her life, it was as if she was living a double life. She had the memories and the history of Laura but was living the present and the future as Anna. The complicated battle in her mind of which personality would reign over the day caused her anguish and loneliness.

Anna, the real Anna, was falling in love with Sebastian. Her sympathy and care was doing all it could to out maneuver and over power Laura's rage.

"All she wants is to be with her son, once Laura and David are reunited, it'll be over and you will have saved me. That's what matters." Anna said.

"How much more?" Sebastian said, the worry in his voice spilling out into the air.

"Five more Sebastian. Just five and we'll be free of Laura forever." She replied.

"I don't know if I can take five more lives. I can't do this to people. I promised my sister I was changed." Sebastian said finally lifting himself off the floor to look Anna in the eye.

"If we don't free Laura, we can't be together. Just you and me...she needs to be free Sebastian, otherwise, I'll be locked away like this and never be who I was supposed to be." Anna explained.

"But to kill people?" Sebastian asked.

The question left Anna breathless. She started to feel warm and a bit light headed. She knew the feeling, it wasn't something she had never experienced before. It was Laura pushing herself through to greet Sebastian once more. Anna's eyes quickly flashed a bright red light and just like that, like the snap of a finger, Laura was there.

"Listen to me lycan, I've known the likes of you before. You need to be free of this curse too, and the only way you can do that is if I do that for you. You can have Anna, you can have her forever, but the only way is if you do what I've asked of you. Bring the the last 5 souls and Anna is free of me, and you'll be free of this curse. There is no other option." Laura said from Anna's body as Sebastian stay on the floor staring up at her in confusion.

Anna, still under Laura's control grabbed the locket around her neck and closed it inside of her hand. She shut her eyes and lifted one hand that started to heat up, it grew hotter and hotter until the visible strands of heat could be seen. Her hair lit up like a flaming torch, he skin burned like lave and Sebastian stood up, still disheveled from his earlier transformation and stepped forward. The wave of heat blocked him from getting closer to Anna as he reached for her.

"Once more you'll change into the wolf, and come to the house of Loomis McGovern. Bring me his soul. Bring me his soul." Laura said in Anna's voice, her eyes glowing red like two white hot suns.

Sebastian fell to his knees in pain, the hair from his body began to grow again, the teeth in  his mouth began to spike out like knives, his eyes turned to a yellow and red gaze, his feet and hands turned to powerful paws. The curse was transforming him again, and now Loomis, Kat's partner was in his cross hairs.

The wolf growled and snarled at Laura, and knew of the task at hand. He howled a horrible howl and dashed past Anna out the open front door again to find his next soul.

****

The long night grew even loner and the old house, so many years desolate and left in disrepair until it's faithful owner refurbished it, was alive with activity. Barnabas' new wife Jacqueleen had began to make her stake in the old mansion by drawing up changes to suit her taste. 

"What do you think, of this color darling? It would make lovely drapes for the drawing room." Jacqueleen said passing a swatch of cloth to Barnabas who was sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette under the light of a candelabra.

"I am in no mood to nest with you Jacqueleen. Don't get too comfortable, because as soon as I can figure out how to get rid of you, I will." He answered coldly.

Jacqueleen smiled rebelliously and got up from the sofa and walked over to Barnabas then took his cigarette from his hand.

"And that would be your undoing, I've already told you that the minute you try and take from me the things that I am owed I will make it so that the world knows what you are. And they'll come for you Barnabas. They'll come for you and they'll destroy you forever." She said puffing at his cigarette.

"Maybe that's a good thing. Removing me from this hell you've placed me in. I was happy, finally! I was free of this curse for decades and the second I encounter you, you turn me back in to the thing I hate most. This cold hungry ...." Barnabas said before he was interrupted by Jacqueleen.

"And what did you create of me? Look at me! You did the same thing to me and then tried to bury me in the forest like some piece of trash. Do you really believe that this is the life I wanted. Here? With you forever?" Jacqueleen screeched.

"Isn't it? In 1920 you tried to seduce me. You tried everything you could to get your claws into me and you succeed, you just didn't know that I had claws too." Barnabas reminded her.

"Fangs." Jacqueleen corrected as she moved away from Barnabas to the roaring fire place.

Her beautiful dress, now in a modern style shined in the heat from the hearth. She looked into the fire, that reflected the red hot coals and flames just before  her. She realized the mess she had made for herself. She realized the mistake she had made and now she was paying for it too...but she would not allow herself to be the only one to suffer and far be it for Barnabas to know exactly how she felt. If she was unhappy she would make the world unhappy with her.

"Misery loves company." she whispered to herself as the fire crackled.

She turned around and looked at Barnabas again, her eyes filled with the puddled of coming tears. Her thoughts only on the family she knew back in her own time of 1920.

"I'll never see my daughter Catherine again. I'll never see my grand-daughter Elizabeth again. She was ...she was my heart and soul, and I'll never see her grow up. You took them from me Barnabas, and for that I have to make you suffer too. We're bound now, for life. This is your doing, not mine." Jacqueleen said, turning her face back towards the fire.

"You forget that Carolyn and David are your great-grandchildren. For what it's worth, at least you'll get to know them and their own families. They're wonderful people. They've never seen me for all that I am, David is very stubborn and Carolyn has a powerful resolve in her...perhaps those are parts them they've inherited of you too." Barnabas said trying to soften the blow of Jacqueleen's despair. 

Jacqueleen was a product of the past. Living so far into the future was going to be difficult for her to manage and become accustomed to, but her stubbornness and resolve of which Barnabas spoke were no match for the strain of being one of the undead, after all, Barnabas knew the pain of being inside this curse for centuries of his life. The guilt of creating Jacqueleen like him ate him up, and she was prepared to use that guilt to her advantage. 

As the two "newly weds" spoke in the drawing room, the front door burst open. It was Siobhan, Barnabas' daughter with Julia Hoffman. She came in with news of Laura, but was in for another shock when she saw her father sitting in the drawing room of the old house....young again. Young and a vampire.

"Father!!" She screamed at the site of him.....what...what's happened to you?" Siobhan asked confused at the situation in front of her. "Who is this?" she asked again questions and panic flowing from her mouth like a waterfall. 

"Siobhan! Darling, I was hoping Xander would have reached you before you came home." Barnabas said standing up and coming towards a weary Siobhan.

"Stay back...." his daughter said unsure of what she was seeing.

"Darling it's me. It's your father. I...." Barnabas said not knowing how to explain how he changed back.

"You're young again. When I left you, you were ...you were your age! How did this happen?" Siobhan asked staring deep in the youthful face of the father she thought was in his 90s. "You've been turned back?" Siohban continued; her father with sadness in her eyes.

"It looks that way, yes." Barnabas equally as disappointed responded. 

"All of mother's work is just gone, just like that? We can do it again. Maybe we can get the cure for you again and re-stage it." Siobhan offered.

"The synthetic serum that we used has been destroyed. After Dr. Lo saw what your mother and I did, and what I was, he feared we'd come for him again. He destroyed every last bit of it. It looks like this is what I was meant to be. Forever, locked in this curse." Barnabas said. 

"I....." Siobhan started but paused.

"Please don't say anything. Just know that I am still the man that raised you. The man that you saw grow old in Singapore. I am still that man Siobhan." Barnabas said to his daughter.

"I don't know what to say." Siobhan said warring over the fact her father was now back to his old self, a self she had never really known.

"Sometimes a curse takes years to plan its resurgence. It took mine almost 40." Barnabas said thinking back on the 40 some years he was cured. "This is Jacqueleen. She'll be living with us." He added as he introduced his daughter to his new vampire bride.

"Pleasure." Jacqueleen said with an evil grin.

"She's like me. We have to keep her safe here. The world isn't ready for two of us." Barnabas explained.

Siobhan looked confused. Then her mind started to add two-and-two together slowly connecting the dots in her mind.

"You and her..???..Were you responsible for what happened last night? On the grounds here?" Siobhan said remembering something David had mentioned as they left the restaurant about a man found dead on the ground of Collinsport that same night."

"What? A man dead?" Barnabas asked completely in the dark about what happened.

"How did this happen to you?" Siobhan asked of Jacqueleen, her suspicions of her father and his new wife now running rampant in her mind.

Jacqueleen thought about it for a second. She could be vengeful and tell Siobhan all the sorted details of what Barnabas did to her: that he was the man that created her this way; placing her into an eternity of damnation under the same curse that haunted his whole life, but there was something about how his demeanor changed when Siobhan entered the room that made her change her mind.

Barnabas' was protective of his daughter, it was a rare softness that he offered, and for all the anger she had towards him she could not bring herself to break that sensation in the room, so instead she would be vague, and allow Siobhan to figure it out on her own. With a trap.

"It's a long story darling. One that maybe one day you'll learn, or maybe one day you won't. If it's all the same just know that a man I loved turned me into this, and now we're like this together." Jacqueleen said, obviously hinting at Barnabas.

"A man. My Father? Does she mean you? Did you do this to her?" Siobhan said, her facial expression hinting at horror.

Siobhan had always know what her father was in the past. Before her. Before she was born, the actual terror and reality of seeing what he was never something she expected. It was the furthest thing from her mind,  but now it was facing her. Her deepest, darkest fear. Her father the monster.

"Darling, it was a long time ago...." Barnabas said stumbling.

"No.....no...this isn't happening. I don't want to see this side of you. I can't see this side of you. It'll take too much from me!" his daughter said releasing her hand from  his.

"It was a mistake, and at the time I didn't know what was happening, or that she would remain this way. You must believe me." Barnabas asked of his daughter.

"This monster you've become....I don't know him. I will never know him. I have to get out of here. I have to leave." Siobhan said grabbing her coat from the sofa.

"Siobhan please! Stop! Don't go, you don't understand! It was....it was different!" Barnabas yelled as his daughter escaped the room.

But all Barnabas heard was the door of the old house slam shut and the wind blow against the glass from the outside. An empty feeling. An empty sound.


****

The wolf was now loose in the Collinsport night scavenging the village for the man Anna named, the man she wanted dead and who's soul she needed to continue on her quest to release Laura, the Phoenix from inside of her.

Sebastian, in his wolf form, crept in the shadows of the village. He sniffed and smelled his way to the place he needed to be. And just as Loomis McGovern arrived home from a late night at the police department he could sense he wasn't alone.

Loomis carefully gathered his belongings from the front seat of his car, all the while feeling as if he was being watched. He kept his peripheral sight open knowing that somewhere in the margins of the darkness, some one or something was watching him.

He slowly walked up the small stoned path to his front door, one hand carrying his belongings, a small satchel with police files, and the other hand hovering over his gun strapped to his side.

The werewolf Sebastian sniffed and snorted from the shadows, and when he felt like he had his moment pounced on his prey tossing Loomis to one side of the yard, his forehead gushing a bright spring of blood.

Loomis scurried to his feet and pulled his gun from his side and nervously shot one bullet into the black night. He looked around for what had just attached him  but all he could do was hear the growling of something.

A dog? A coyote?

Then again, from behind a birch tree in Loomis' neighbors yard came two villainous yellow eyes. They were glowing and coming closer and closer. Loomis squinted and pointed his gun, the blood from his head wound starting to fall into the corners of his eyes.

Loomis looked straight ahead. his target growing then standing up on it's hind legs and howling a vicious, monstrous howl that terrified Loomis to his core.

And suddenly, as if he were flying the werewolf lunged at Loomis, jaws open ready to sink into his flesh.

Loomis closed his eyes and shot three more times, and in a split second the wolf was gone. Three bullets missing it's target.

Loomis stood in the Collinsport fog and listened. All he could hear was the waves from the sea just down the road from his home crashing up against the shore. Then far in the distance the howl came again.

The wolf had rushed off.

"What the hell was that." Loomis said to himself shivering with fear. He grabbed his cell phone to dial Kat, but it had been destroyed from his fall. Loomis, shaking in his stance, fell to the floor not knowing what in the world had just happened to him.



With Anna's targeted soul still living, the wolf knew his job was not done.

Five blocks from Loomis' house was a boat house where three fishermen were pulling into dock from the night. Sebastian the wolf slowly made his way down a small ramp nearing the fishermen and their boat. He slowly tipped toed into the shallow water that flushed up from the sea.

The fishermen didn't notice the large best below on shore staring them down, their work fogged their perceptions of their surroundings. Luck was in the werewolf's favor, he lunged up onto the boat surprising the three fishermen who screamed and scrambled about their small boat trying to escape.

The first swinging at the werewolf Sebastian with an ice-pic that they used to crack frozen water in the northern seas, the pic tore through the furry flesh of Sebastian's arm.

The wolf lunged at him and ripped out his throat killing him instantly.

The other two men were running together off the other side of the boat, but Sebastian's speed in animal form caught them both. One man was quickly beheaded and the other's chest was smashed.


Hours later, Sebastian walked back into his own apartment. His body ripped by the battles he had just been in. He was exhausted. Bloodied. Bruised.

He walked into the front room and found Anna laying on the floor of his apartment surrounded by a circle of candles. Her eyes were closed and her necklace lay on her chest. It began to glow in a bright yellow light as the souls of the fishermen flowed in.

Sebastian lay next to her, spooning her side, cuddling her neck.

"I can't kill anymore. Please. Make this stop." He said in a whisper.

Anna tenderly put her hand on his face, the candle light softening the battles scars of his night.

She knew his struggle, but Laura was stronger than both of them and she wanted out of Anna's body. She wanted her own freedom.

And now she had 4 souls. Only three left and Laura would be released to finally reconnect with her beloved David.



****

The energy of the violent night vibrated through the land. It was like a raging wild fire engulfing all that surround it. In her cottage just outside Collinsport, Ezrabette could feel it. She felt it in her blood. She felt it in her hands. She felt it all round.

The shadows were coming for their revenge. She sat at a table, the tarot cards spread around her. She could feel the death coming fast.

Then a knock at the door.

Ezrabette, the mystic voodoo priestess, and Maggie's closest confident slowly walked over to the door her black cat lay stoically on her sofa with glowing green eyes.

Ezrabette grabbed the door knob, and even though the late hour guest would worry most, Ezrabette knew who it was. She had been expecting him.

Thatcher.

"I've been waiting for you." Ezrabette said leaving the door open for Thatcher to follow her in.

"Listen to me witch, I need to know where Maggie is and I need to know now damn it. I won't be kept from her any longer, do you understand me. I won't be kept from her!" Thatcher yelled.

Ezrabette sat back at her table, the energy still powerful and vibrating like a sound pulsating thick bass.  She knew from her tarot cards that everything was meant to be. The events that would happen after she opened her mouth next were already set in stone and there was nothing she could to do stop it. All she could do now was be the vessel of the things to come. She had to allow them to happen as they were planned; the good, the bad, even the deadly.

"Maggie is at her home. Find her at the Evan's family cottage. She's alone.

Thatcher looked at her angrily. This whole time she was in the easily place to find her. Her own home.

He got up quickly and made his way back to his car and pulled out of the dirt drive way in the direction of Collinsport.

Ezrabette sat down on her sofa, her front door still ajar from Thatcher, the cold air wafting through chilling her mocha skin. She picked up her cat and petted her thick black fur.

"May you rest in peace." She said as she flicked a tarot card from her hand and on to the coffee table that showed a silver furred wolf howling at a lemon  yellow moon.