In a coffee shop in the quaint downtown area of Collinsport Alexandra Thorne waited at least an hour for date Christopher Reed to arrive. She text messaged him profusely but he never responded. Eventually, she packed up her things and headed home. As she stepped out into the cold Collinsport air she failed to notice Chris' car just a few parking stalls away from hers in the cafe parking lot sitting there abandoned by it's owner
She got in her car and drove back home.
As Alex drove home to Collinwood, Claudia lay in the Collins Family crypt at Eagle Hill Cemetery. There was no simple way of for her to get her eyes back inside the mansion and continue on her quest to destroy every last of her father's descendant, the man who took her from her mother Angelique's arms and placed in the hands of stranger in an orphanage back in time. Her obsession for getting even with the family she always felt abandoned her was now at a fever pitch.
Claudia writhed and screamed inside the crypt in a frustrated and sweaty rage. She had to get out, but being locked away in a cold dark crypt on hollowed, sacred ground had stifled her powers...except one.
The only power she had left was the power of metaphysical transportation which didn't use black magic, it only used the power of her mind. Claudia still retained the use of her mental strengths, every last once she she could muster, to transport her life force into someone innocent and someone pure to continue her mission. And just as Claudia plotted this, Alexandra drove past the cemetery. Alex's eyes fixated on the passing cemetery and the fog covered tombstones. A shiver went up her spine as her eyes turned back to the darkened street in front of her.
****
During the fight with Christopher in the coffee shop parking lot, Victor had plunged the syringe into his son's neck, but in his rush neglected to use the entire amount of the sedative. Victor panicked and sped up the jeep to get home faster. The winding and curling roads that led to Victor and Christopher's home felt longer and longer, the closer they got, the further Victor felt. And he could hear the werewolf begin to waken.
Victor sped up.
As he did, a vicious groan came from the back of the jeep. The werewolf snarled and tried to move but was still tied. He growled louder and Victor tried to reach for the syringe on the seat next to him so that he could use the rest of if the sedative. Victor leaned over and reached and as he did he pulled the steering wheel too far over into on coming traffic. On the other side of the road the other cars started honking and moving out the way and Victor tried to over correct his jeep and it spun out into thick woods, blasting through trees and bushes deep into a forest and finally slamming up against a large thick trunk. It was an explosion Christopher the werewolf's favor.
Bruised and bloodied, Victor pushed open his crushed door and made his way to the back of his jeep, limping and holding the right side of his rib cage. He could hear people trampling through the forest from the road; witnesses of the accident calling out to see if he was ok.
He had to think quick, no one could see Christopher in this shape. He popped open the back of his jeep, and there was Christopher a hairy beast growling and foaming at the mouth still tied up and looking Victor dead in the eyes. Victor took a pocket knife and freed Chris' legs and arms. Chris howled and swung his sharp claws at Victor nearly slashing his jugular vein. A terrified Victor fell backwards into a snow heap and Christopher dashed off into the forest just as the people from the road arrived to help.
"Jesus man! Are you ok!?" A witness said helping Victor up.
Victor only nodded but never looked at them, he only looked out into the foggy forest in the direction Christopher ran in, praying he'd be safe until day light.
* * * *
Back at Collinwood, Leopold and Kimberly were having a conversation but it was getting late and Leopold began to feel l the need for his nightly vampiric feed. Being in Kimberly's presence was not a good mixture--for Kimberly.
He politely excused himself and set off to old house where he had been staying, leaving Kimberly in the drawing room alone awaiting Carolyn and Caleb's return.
Kimberly peeked around the corner of the foyer and up the stairs making sure it was safe enough to grab her phone to make a phone call. It was essential no one would hear. Carolyn and Caleb were still upstairs so she went into her purse and pulled out her cell phone and dialed.
She waited and waited but the phone only rang.
"Come on Victor. Answer your phone!" She said as his voice mail picked up. "It's Kim. I'm back in town and at Collinwood. I needed to see Caleb before we ....well, you know. Give me a call later tonight. I'll have my own room. Ok. Bye."
Just as Kimberly hung up her call to Victor, Alexandra pulled into the long winding drive up the from of Collinwood mansion. Her body immediately registered with Claudia's powerful pull from her locked state in Catherine Collin's tomb at the cemetery.
In the darkened tomb Claudia closed her eyes, her dark soul lifted from her body like a black mist surrounding the entire coffin. It seeped out through the tight cracks and into the air surrounding cemetery floating through the air all the way Collinwood faster than the wind blew through the trees. The spirit was looking for Alex's body to inhabit.
Alex still sitting in her car rolled her eyes at the floorboard of her car. Her purse had spilled. Flusterd, she slowly put her things back into her purse and the tightened the scarf around her neck to step out into the cold.
She opened the door and almost as soon as she stood on her own two feet Claudia's black mist of a soul descended on Alex like an sinister fog engulfing her. Alex gasped for air and tried to bat the strange black fog away but as she did portions of the fog morphed in to the heads of vicious black dogs with red eyes biting at her hands.
The mist soon overcame Alex and entered her body tossing her to the ground. She writhed on the floor, tossing and turning in the cold snow, fighting Claudia's soul but it was too late. As soon as Alex got back to her feet her beautiful blue eyes has flashed black, Claudia had possessed her body.
Now inside of Alex's body Claudia made her way into Collinwood . No one was around. She heard voices upstairs and recognized one as Carolyn.
As Alex, Claudia quietly made her way into the main drawing room and closed the flu of the lit fireplace.
Claudia lit a candle from the drawing room and made her way into the library. She looked around at the centuries of books the family had collected over the years. Vast amounts of stories from the world's greatest storytellers. She picked up one book and opened it to the center, the flickering light from the candle shined on her face like a setting sun. She smiled and put the flame to the page and set books a blaze.
Book after book, over and over until the flames spread to the drapes and passed shelf to shelf enveloping the entire room.
The smoke was thick and gathering and not filtering through the old house, especially now that the flu of the fire place was closed. One room a blaze. Then another. Then another.
As the whole bottom floor of Collinwood started to glow orange and red, Claudia made her way outside to watch it burn. Her eyes flashing black again and again reflecting the inferno that was now Collinwood.
****
At the police station a frustrated Kat walked in throwing her purse on her chair causing a loud noise and lots of attention. Her partner, Loomis sat across from her at his desk eating a sausage sandwich with a big grin on his face. This was a moment had been waiting for all night.
"Let me guess? Didn't get as much Collins access as you would have liked eh?" Loomis said wiping his mouth.
"You won't even believe what happened. We're sitting there, drinking and talking and this hot gorgeous blond shows up..." Kat said finally taking a seat at her desk.
"Another chick?" Loomis questioned.
"His mother. His mother is some gorgeous doctor lady who he hasn't seen in like 10 or 15 years and she just so happens to show up right when we're trying to re-connect. Needless to say he cut the night short and bolted with her back home to see the rest of the family." Kat explained.
"Where's she been all this time?" Loomis asked sipping coffee from a paper cup.
"I don't know. He didn't really say. All I know is that something went down with his mother and father back in the day and she skipped town and his father ended up raising him alone here in Collinsport, at least that's the cliff notes of the story I got." Kat explained.
As the two detectives talked about Kat's failure to get closer to Caleb and his family a commotion came from the other end of the room.
Loomis flagged down a passing police officer heading to the call.
"What's up?" Loomis asked.
"Massive fire! Just over by Widow's Hill!" He said dashing off.
"Widow's Hill? That's on Collinwood!" Kat said as she and Loomis grabbed their coats and followed the other police officers to the scene.
As Kat and Loomis arrived at the Collinwood the blaze had risen to the second of its three floors. The smoke flew high into the dark sky flowing up as if it were two giant hands reaching for the full moon the orbited above.
Kat ran over to the front and saw Alexandra still standing in the drive way, still possessed by Claudia's evil sprit.
"Alex! What are you doing get back?!" Kat said as Claudia quickly changed Alex's blackened eyes back to blue.
Loomis, Alexandra and Kat hurried back to safety as the fire raged on. Carolyn, Caleb and Kimberly no where to be found.
