Series 1/Chapter 5: LEOPOLD AWAKENS

The sea thrashed against the razor sharp rocks along the coastline that made up the cliff known as Widow's Hill. The wind blew fiercely, howling through the trees and the pitch black of night, in the distance a small figure began to imerge from the mansion. It was Alexandra, dressed only in her nightgown, no shoes, no coat, her hair blowing wildly in the wind.

She was headed for the edge of Widow's Hill.

 Alexandra walked across the grass slowly listening to the waves crash against the cliff side, stronger and stronger the beat up-against the rocks. As she got closer and closer, she could feel the crash in her chest like a beating drum, pumping and pounding the beats of her heart. The wind was like ice and the clouds above were like silver pillows filling the sky.

"There's nothing left for you Alexandra. This is your fate." said a voice from in her mind. 

Alexandra could feel eyes watching her from some unknown place. Their presence was heavy and cold, constantly pushing her closer and closer to the edge and wind blew harder and harder pulling her in all directions. Suddenly, Alex's instincts told her to turn around, they told her to look behind her, they told her to do it fast. The eyes watching her were behind her. Alex turned quickly and there standing behind in her in the frozen white snow was the dark haired woman in a blood red cloak.

"Who....Who are are you?" Alexandra said as the woman floated closer to her above the snow.

Alexandra shivered in her nightgown and started to back away from the approaching woman in the red cloak came closer and closer extending her arms in Alexandra's direction.

"What do you want from me? Who are you?" Alex screamed over the howling icy wind.

The woman in red, was the same woman who had taken Jack. She got as close as she could to Alex and whispered only one word in her ear, "Claudia." 

Then Claudia pushed Alex off of Widow's Hill. 

Alexandra screamed as she fell to her impending death, but just before her body fell on to the spike like  black sea rocks to her death Alex woke up screaming in her warm bed inside the mansion. 

"Darling? Are you OK? I heard you scream." Carolyn said rushing through Alex's bedroom door.

"I was falling. I was ....someone pushed me...I was falling!" Alex said hysterically as she double checked her surrounding.

"Pushed you? What do you mean?" Carolyn said hugging her panicked daughter.

I don't know, I was walking in the cold and a woman was behind me, she whispered to me something.....a name....I don't remember....then she pushed me from the cliff." Alex said burring her face in her mother's chest.

"It was just a nightmare, you're here, you're ok." Carolyn consoled running her fingers through Alex's blond hair.

"It was so real. I can still smell the sea. I can still feel her hands pushing me. What was the name...what did she tell me her name was?" Alex said trying to remember.

"Was a name you heard before?" Carolyn wondered.

"I think so, but not a name of someone I know." Alex answered.

"Well it wasn't real. You're safe and you're here with me." Carolyn confirmed kissing her daughter on the forehead.  "Detective Banning called, she wanted to come by this afternoon, but I asked her to come this evening. I wanted to run out to the store and get more things for us. Would you mind coming with me?" Carolyn then asked politely.

"Of course, just give me  sometime to get out of this bed." Alexandra answered feeling silly about her nightmare.

"I'll meet you downstairs." Carolyn said as she walked out of the room.

Alex shook her head in disbelief. She was a 25 year old woman having childlike nightmares and felt silly. But the truth was, she was terrified. The dream felt real to her, ever element around her from the frozen grass on her feet to the feeling of wet sea-spray covering her exposed skin was real. She could still feel the water from the on her arms. 

Alex got up from her bed and looked at herself in the mirror and whispered: "Claudia." 

The two later went and braved the cold and were driven by their driver, Powell, to the store to gather supplies they needed for the house. It had been a while since Carolyn had set foot in town. But not much had changed. The town had grown some from what Carolyn could remember, more homes, more buildings, even Collins Enterprises had  become 12 story high-rise in the center of town by the marina, the tallest building in the small fishing village.

Founder's Park, with the copper statue of Collinsport's founding father Issac Collins still stood strong. The lake in the center of park named after Issac's wife Annabella sparkled in the winter sun.

As they left the grocery store, Caroly and Alex hurried back to their car  where Powell was waiting for them. The snow was about to fall again and Carolyn wanted to make sure to avoid a frothy drive home. As they made their way back to the car the town's people were already starting to whisper and gather in little groups in the parking lot togawking and the strangers, strangers that oddly seemed familiar.

"They're looking at us funny." Alex said trying to get back into the car.

"Excuse me miss!" A man's voice said from behind.

Alex turned and a handsome man with big brown eyes, thick fingers and dark hair handed Alex her wallet.

"You dropped this back there." He said smiling.

"Oh thanks! I would have been lost without it." she said smirking.

"I'm Christopher. Are you new here?" He asked, suddenly smitten with the beautiful Alexandra. 

"Yes! Well, I am! My mother is actually from here. I'm Alex." Alex responded.

"Oh....." Christopher said, standing awkwardly with Alex by the car door.

Carolyn noticing the strange interaction decided to break the ice and interject.

"Hello!" Carolyn said from the back-driver's-side of the SUV.

"Oh hi! Umm... I'm Christopher ...Chris...Chris Reed." he said introducing himself to Carolyn too, still awkward. 

"Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne, its a pleasure Mr. Reed... We're just about to leave."  Carolyn said, helping Chris with his exit.

"Listen, I know this is really sudden and your mom seems to be in a hurry, but could I call you sometime? Show you around maybe?" Christopher said in his shy 25 year old voice.

Alex blushed and placed beautiful blond strands of hair behind her ears and nodded yes. She went through her purse and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen to write her number.

Christopher ran back to his own car where his father awaited him in the passenger side.

"Finally! What was that all about, I thought you were just going to take her the wallet you saw her drop." His father Victor grumbled.

"I did, but she's really cute." Christopher said smiling.

"God. Whats her name?" his father responded.

"Alex. She's new, cute british accent, her mother though is from here.  Carolyn something...Stoddard? yeah that's it. Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne. Guess she used to live here."

Victor's eyes became serious. He knew exactly who she was.

****

At the old house, in a darkened bedroom, candles splashed a gloomy red light on the walls.
There had been someone else living in the House for a very long time, awaiting the perfect storm to finally strike: he mysterious woman in red that attacked Jack and appeared to Alexandra in her dream, the woman named Claudia ,

Claudia was a powerful sorceress watching over Collinwood, she had hidden away there through years of abandonment. Collinsport was practically void of any family members and the state of the family compound, Collinwood, was in decay. But she remained there. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. For one man in particular. 

An old family secret involving Claudia kept here there... Plotting her revenge on the Collins family she saw as her one true enemy

.

The old house was dark and damp and lit by only candles. Claudia made her way from her champers to another dark room that was also filled with candles. There were thousands of them, lit with a snap of her fingers, melting fuming all around her and in the center of the room, a small black coffin with the initials BC carved meticulously on the very top.

Claudia's true love, a man by the name of Leopold,  died years and years ago. When she saw Jack enter the main house two days before, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Jack, albeit older now, was the spitting image of her long lost love Leopold. She watched Jack walk up the path and into the house and knew it was fate that had brought him back to her. Claudia would not neglect the opportunity for the reunion with him, and with her powerful spells, she would revive Leopold through Jack for her to love once more and together they would seek revenge on the family that had brought Claudia so much pain and suffering. 

Claudia took a breath and removed the hood of her blood red cloak and carefully opened the coffin lid.

She gasped!

There he was, the exact image of her lost love just as he looked the day he died. Young. Beautiful. Filled with youth and vigor. The spell to reverse Jack's aging and turn him back into a young man had worked, inside this new being's mind would be the memories of two men, the love of Claudia's life and the man who Carolyn was searching for, her own love, Jack Thorne.

"Leopold. Wake my love, It's Claudia." the witch said leaning in for a kiss.

As she got closer to kiss his lips, Jack's eyes and mouth snapped open! His teeth had now two long fangs protruding, he hissed and grabbed Claudia by the neck and seemingly flew out of the coffin pushing her to the wall knocking over candles and tables. Her spell was not only one to bring back the dead in a new body, but was one that would make Leopold blood thirsty and immortal.

He now a vampire and he was starving for blood.

Claudia reached around and placed her hands on his face, then released a powerful jolt of energy, like sunlight, blasting Leopold  away.

"You fool! You cannot feed from me! You'll kill us both." Claudia explained.

Leopold's renewed life inside of Jack's body that had been bewitched to look younger gave him a dangerous hunger, his thoughts were confused and jumbled mixing those of Jack's and Leopold's. Vampires cannot feed from witches. A Witch's blood is tainted by Satan, something the new Leopold would have to learn again.

"What am I?" He said as his fangs slowly morphed back into normal incisors "What have you made me?"

"Soon your memories of life as Jack will fade, and only Leopold's will remain. I've made you perfect. I've made you immortal. That is, unless you become foolish and feed from a witch." Claudia explained as she went over to comfort the confused vampire now cowering on the floor next to his coffin.

Just then came the sound of Carolyn and Alexandra's car rustling up in the snow of the stone driveway of the main house.

"Look! There. Tonight, when the sun has set, and the fog has rolled in. There is you next feed." Claudia said pulling Leopold up by his arm, her red cloak still securely around her shoulders.

Leopold's Amber eyes gazed out of the boarded up windows of the small house behind Collinwood. He squinted in the bright sun light but then, through  the cracked wooden board saw his former wife and daughter getting out of their car.

Leopold's eyes turned red. He was hungry, and thirsty. Not even Jack Thorne inside of him could stop his maddening cravings for blood. Anybody's.

"The night will come soon my love." Claudia said turning him from the window.

"Love?? This is not love! What have you done to me! You've made me a monster again!" Leopold said pushing Claudia's arms away.

"What? But this is who you were?" She said.

Leopold's memories were foggy and confused, but he knew that this is not who he was. This is who she had made him and he began to remember how it all started.

  ***COLLINWOOD In another time****

Years ago when Claudia first met Leopold, she was suspicious of him. His beauty was alluring but she had many secrets and lived as someone else. Hiding herself Hiding who she was as to continue her quest to find her family and seek revenge on those who wronged her all her life. He met her, and  as her love for him grew, so did the her lies. And her secrets. 

Despite their troubles they fall in love albeit a tortured one. Eventually time and truth caught up to came Claudia. She exposed herself as the daughter of a witch, and that she too carried the gift of sorcery and black magic. How could he go on with their love with such a secret. It was a shame and a dark curse upon them both. Most of all, for Leopold, it was deadly. 

He fell into a deep depression after losing his heart to her. How could he go on, he thought, without her? Leopold was no stranger to lost love. He had lost a love before, and stronger love, a love that he had paid dearly for and now, he was losing it all over again, this time with Claudia. 

In a dark frothy night, Leopold walked found himself stalking Claudia near Widow's Hill. A 300 foot cliff side awash with dark and violent crashing waves called to him. When Claudia detected him they argued. She knew in her heart they could not go on together. Not now, not ever. Their love was never ever to be

. In that moment of despair and loss Leopold could no longer live knowing his beloved Claudia was a daughter of such dark individual. 

Then there was a physical struggle between the two lovers. A fight at the edge of a hill known for lost loves and death. 

Leopold felt as if he has no choice and to take the woman whom he knew as a witch to death with him at the edge of the hill ….but his plan failed and fell to his death to the crashing waves below, leaving Claudia screaming and crying on the Widow's Hill cliff side. His body impaled at the bottom and crushed by waves.

His deep secret safely gone with him in his watery death. 

That is the moment Claudia knew the secret of her true identity is what made her life to this point a disaster and a living hell, and someone needed to pay, and pay dearly.

After Leopold's death, Claudia became a recluse. Locked away her heart and her mind inside a room where she would remain until the time was right to emerge with the truth of who she was, the daughter of a witch and a monster. And they would all pay dearly for causing her centuries of loss and pain.

 ****COLLINWOOD, PRESENT TIME**** 

"I know those women." Leopold said coming back from his memory and seeing Alex and Carolyn from the window. His eyes now back to Amber and glowing in the candle light.

"They are relatives of Barnabas." Claudia said, the name Barnabas sizzling off her tongue.

Leopold turned to Claudia, his newly young face still frozen in anger, but now a glimmer of hope. Even though he was now a monster, dammed for all eternity to feed off of blood to stay alive, perhaps at least killing every last member of the Collins family would make it worth it, if it weren't for them Claudia wouldn't be who she was, and he would never have had to jump from Widow's Hill.

"I can feel their blood pumping." Leopold said, his eyes closing the smell of Carolyn and Alex's blood filling his brain.

If he was going to be miserable, why not spread the misery around.