Climbing up to the second floor of the large home wasn't too much trouble, nor was avoiding the guard posted at the front door. Even shimmying along to the window ledge wasn't too difficult despite the limitations posed by Katherine's linen dress and heeled leather boots; the latch easily opened with the butter knife that she had acquired from the tavern. The hinges creaked ever so slightly as she prised the window open and crept inside, the thick drapes allowing her to slip through unnoticed as they shifted in the breeze. The bedroom on the other side was shrouded in darkness, but she could see well enough to know that no expense had been spared on the furniture. No one else in town could have afforded the lavish decorations that outfitted the entire place, the lush rugs dampening the sound of her footsteps.
A large, four poster bed was the focal point of the room, the carefully carved posts and padded headboard much older than the house itself, likely shipped from somewhere overseas. Wrapped up snugly between the silk sheets and down pillows was a little boy, no older than three years old. He looked peaceful with his mousy brown hair and angelic face, sleeping soundly and completely unaware of the intruder in his bedroom. It was as if he didn't have a care in the world; his dreams free of the monsters that hunted in the night. How wonderful it must be to maintain such innocence and remain ignorant of the perils in the world, a fresh and eager mind with so much left to see and do.
Katherine quietly moved over to the foot of the child's bed, gently stroking her fingers along the woodwork as she moved up the side to stand over him. She took the time to observe the precious life within arms reach, her focus entirely on him as everything else around her peeled away. While she waited there in the dark, she couldn't help but smile as she was finally given the opportunity to admire him up close. How handsome he was, and the way that he smelled... His scent was so sweet. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and stroke the boy's soft skin, but she knew that she shouldn't. It wouldn't be fair to either of them if she did. Even now she could tell that he would be warm to the touch, tucked up and safe from the cold of winter, his little heart pumping fresh blood around his body. What a tempting morsel he was; one that she had to do her best to resist.
Mumbling quietly as he stirred from his slumber, the boy slowly rolled over to face Katherine, his eyelids beginning to open. It took a moment for him to realise that someone was there as he sat himself up against his pillows. "Hello?" he muttered, not quite sure as to what was going on.
Katherine moved to ruffle the boys hair with affection, unable to hold herself back any longer. "Do not be afraid, my sweet boy."
"Who… who are you?" He rubbed his eyes sleepily, opening them slowly as he came to look upon the woman by his bed.
"Oh, Oscar..." Katherine smiled warmly, the love that she felt for the child near overwhelming. "It is I… Your mother." She desperately wanted to embrace him; to wrap her arms around him and squeeze him tightly, but something in the back of her mind stopped her.
"Mama?" the boy replied with slight confusion.
"Yes." she whispered as she leaned in to kiss him upon his forehead, the voice inside her own head losing ground to her strong maternal instincts. "I love you and missed you so much."
"Mama?!?" he called out, showing increasing sounds of panic that caused Katherine to pull away in surprise. Why was he so frightened? She just didn't understand.
"I am right here, Oscar!" Katherine responded, raising her voice a little as she tried to get through to him.
"Mama!!! Papa!!!" the child cried, pulling his covers up to his chin as he stared at her in horror.
There was no recognition in the boy's eyes, as if he had never even seen Katherine before. The fear upon his face was unsettling and left her feeling wounded. She couldn't work out why he didn't know who she was and desperately wanted to calm him down. If only he took a moment to look upon her face, he would realise that she was there to look after him, not do him harm.
Katherine was too distracted to hear the yelling down the hall and was completely unaware of anyone else within the house until the door burst open, startling her as an orange light flooded the room. She shielded her eyes for a moment until they adjusted, moving her hand again to look over at a man who stood in the doorway holding a lantern. His dark hair and heavily groomed moustache were a familiar sight, his robe wide open; the striped pyjamas beneath them creased as he stood there in his slippers, looking as though he had seen a ghost.
"Gregory…" Katherine scowled at the man, her voice full of the hatred that she felt for him.
"You! You are meant to be dead!" he shouted angrily, his own eyes narrowing with disgust. "Get away from my son, you whore!"
"Your son?!? He is mine!!!" Katherine screamed, baring her fangs as she snarled at him. The rage that she felt quickly bubbled to the surface, threatening to unleash itself upon them.
The child shrieked and pointed, bursting into tears as he stared at her with wide eyes full of horror. "Papa!!! M… m… monster!" He was so very frightened, and the fact that she was the cause of that fear made Katherine sick to the stomach. It pushed her anger aside and allowed her to cram it back from whence it came.
Running to stand between Katherine and his boy, the man brandished his lantern as a weapon; the light that emanated from it keeping the darkness at bay. She wanted to rip it from his grasp and use it to hurt him; to beat him and burn his flesh for the pain that he had caused her. After all he had done, after everything that he had taken from her, she wanted to tear him apart.
Katherine could see how her son watched her with that fearful look in his eyes, and it was then that she realised she couldn't do anything to the man that he knew as his father. Whoever the inhuman monster was and whatever he had done to her, he was just a mortal, and she couldn't do anything to hurt him with her child there to witness it. The boy wouldn't be able to comprehend what was happening and would view her as the monster instead. It was bad enough that he didn't know who she was, but Katherine couldn't let him see her for what she had become. She had to stop herself from lashing out against the man who had destroyed her life, as she couldn't risk injuring Oscar in the process. If she unleashed the beast inside, there was no telling what damage would be done as she lost control and the bloodlust took over.
"Get away, you fiend!" Gregory shouted, waving the lantern around as if the tiny flame was enough to scare her off. It wasn't even close, but she couldn't advance upon him either. In fact, there was little more that she could do without making matters even worse. No matter how much it hurt, she couldn't stay there with her son any longer, and as painful as that was, she knew what had to be done.
With one last look at Oscar, Katherine turned to flee, running back towards the window from where she came and leaping out into the night. She could hear yelling as she hit the snow, the whole town now alerted to the intruder in their midst as they gathered up arms against her. There was no choice now but to escape, searching for the Gentleman who had promised to help her through this tough transition into her new existence. He had warned Katherine against visiting her child, saying that it would only bring her sorrow, but she hadn't listened. She simply had to see her boy, as he was all that she cared about in this cruel world.
Oscar was the one true love of Katherine's life and she would do anything to keep him from harm, however she had never expected that she would be the one to hurt him. Perhaps her maker was right and she should forget her old life altogether, however difficult that might be. She had to forget all about her little boy, for his sake more than hers. He had to be allowed to live a normal life, which was something that she could no longer offer him. The night had taken its toll, but she finally understood that he was far better off without her.
As Katherine fled into the forest, her eyes streaming red with blood, she could hear the panicked shouts of the townsfolk as she left them far behind. She began to wonder how she had come to this point, the awful events that led to it little more than a blur in her mind. She remembered that Gregory had been quite plea
sant at first, just another wealthy regular within the brothel in which she worked. Sure, he had a wife and only visited her in the night, but he wasn't the only person in town with secrets.
It was when Katherine became pregnant with Gregory's child that things changed for the worse. The man's wife was unable to get pregnant, a fact that had caused endless strife in their home. As such, he had offered to pay cash for Oscar, a great deal of it in fact, explaining to her that he could give the child a good home and a better life than she ever could. Katherine hadn't believed that at the time and turned down the offer outright. No amount of money was worth giving up her son, nor was it worth missing out on important events like his first word or those precious first steps. In her eyes, her little boy was priceless and she wouldn't trade him for the world.
That would have been the end of it, except that Gregory had his goons beat Katherine to the edge of death as they took the baby by force. Her fighting spirit wouldn't let her give up however and she somehow pulled through, but it was already too late. No one was willing to help her reclaim what she had lost, instead treating her as if she was crazy and unstable. A common whore like her was no match for a wealthy and respected businessman, especially someone who was well known and influential in town politics. He was far too powerful for her and she knew it, but that never stopped her from trying.
Katherine did what she could to scrape money together, trying everything that she could think of to get Oscar back as she worked herself to the bone in the process. Unfortunately, the physical strain that she put on herself proved to be her downfall, as a debilitating sickness took root and her health rapidly declined. If it wasn't for the Gentleman's intervention, Katherine would have perished on her deathbed; her body shutting down one organ at a time. He remade her in his image and brought her back from the brink, offering a chance at a new life as a creature of the night. However, as much as she tried, she couldn't forget her precious little boy and eventually found herself at the estate of the man who had taken him from her.
Moving deeper and deeper into the woods, Katherine felt as though she was running away from her life and all that she loved. She wondered if she was giving up too easily and spoiling any chance that she had of happiness. Oscar was meant to be her future, but he didn't even know who she was. The way that he had looked at her, his sheer expression of terror, it simply broke her heart. As horrible a man as Gregory was, she knew that she had become something far worse. She was a parasite, a leech; a bloodsucker who preyed upon others to survive.
Picturing her son lying there in his bed, Katherine could almost smell the blood in his veins. If she had given in and let the beast run wild, she would have turned on him in a second. It was clear to her that nothing was sacred to the damned, not even the life of a child. Whatever she did, she couldn't risk hurting her little boy. He was everything to her and as much as she despised leaving him in the hands of someone she loathed, she knew that he would be well taken care of.
It surely was the lesser of two evils, to let Oscar live with a demon when she had become the devil itself. The thought of it absolutely tore her apart, especially because of who the man was, but Katherine believed that her son would be safe in the hands of her mortal enemy. He would be happy and content in the home of 'the esteemed' McKay family.
Alice snapped to her senses, her body feeling weak and fragile as if she had been put through the ringer. She wanted to scream, but she stopped herself, realising that she no longer knew where she was. Wherever she found herself, it was dark and wet; her eyes struggling to see in pitch blackness.
Alice could tell by the dampness of her cheeks that she had been crying, but the person that she had been mourning for was someone who she had never even met. The McKay family name was one that her birth mother and father bore, the same cultists who had sacrificed her to their immortal goddess. And now it seemed that she hadn't only descended from a man named Gregory McKay; as if the memories were true, Katherine was an ancestor not only through their vampiric bloodline, but by mortal blood as well.
The things that Alice had witnessed in her dream felt as though they had happened to her too. She had grieved at the loss of Oscar as if he were her own son, and had felt the hatred towards the man who had taken him. This had to be the reason that Katherine had a hard time trusting anyone. After all, the father of her child had taken him from her and had left her broken both physically and mentally in the process. If the man had gotten his way, she would have been dead and completely out of the picture, never to return. Instead, Katherine came back stronger than ever before, and with a bitterness that would define her choices for years to come.
If Alice truly was a descendant of Katherine, then it changed almost everything. She began to wonder if Renée Girard had known about it all along and if that was why she had used the McKay family as she did. Perhaps Alice's maker had turned her into a vampire to spite the one who created her and it wasn't some prophecy outside of her own delusions; transforming them into a cult that served her unquestioningly. It made some sort of sense, as there was no love lost between Renée and Katherine, and it was the type of ploy that suited immortal beings who had lost all sense of their humanity.
Maybe Katherine wasn't completely callous and actually cared about Alice and all those of the McKay family, but if that was the case, then why did she have so many of them killed? Was it due to the surname they bore and the terrible memories that it dredged up from her past? Even with this new found knowledge, there was still no telling what the woman's true motives were. Alice wanted to believe that there was still some kind of warmth in Katherine's heart, some goodness that still cared for someone other than herself; but those feelings had likely died out a long time ago.
Alice's thoughts returned to Matty and the fact that he was gone. She loved and missed him so much that it hurt, but even those intense feelings paled in comparison to how Katherine had felt about the true love of her life. Oscar had been her sole reason for living, and yet he had been stripped from her as easily as her life itself. She had always despised the Gentleman for how he had controlled her existence, but she hated Gregory McKay even more.
Alice didn't believe that she would have had the same strength to leave Oscar behind, allowing him to have a better life than she could have offered. As selfless as she liked to think that she was, in those circumstances she wasn't sure that she would have made the same choice, never mind the right one. Whatever she had become, Katherine Louviere had once been a strong and independent woman. Perhaps not the greatest of role models, but she still had many good qualities to aspire to.
Images of unsettling events flashed in Alice's mind. A twisted monster who begged to be released, drained of blood and crumbling to ash. A perfect beauty, unnaturally symmetrical and dead to the world, empty in both body and soul as she slowly fell apart. These weren't Katherine's memories, but Alice's own. They were the atrocities that she had committed as she gave in to her darker instincts and submitted to the voice in her head. She had unleashed the beast and it had taken control of her, but she had done so willingly. It was due to Alice's own actions that Matty had paid the ultimate price and no one else could be blamed for that, not even Katherine. She would be the one to carry the burden of what she had done, and she couldn't rely on anyone else to do that for her.
"Ah, you have finally awoken." A familiar, yet eerie voice whispered in Alice's mind. She had heard it once or twice before, but she couldn't picture who it belonged to.
Looking around from where she was sitting, Alice tried to find the woman who had spoken to her, but all she could see was the rough stone walls of whatever cavern she found herself in. The hard floor sloped upwards to what she presumed was the entrance to the small cave, the wind whistling away outside. She had been resting upon several layers of blankets, the taste of fresh vitae upon her lips. Someone had been feeding her, but she had no recollection of who that was, her last real memory that of Matty dying by Katherine's hand.
"Who's there?" Alice ask
ed, her voice still shaky and weak.
Stepping out of the shadows and into Alice's view, a bright red robe seemed to glow in the darkness, the fabrics emitting an unusual and unsettling crimson light. The hood was pulled down over the figure's face, and yet Alice immediately recognised her.
"Morgana?" she questioned the witch, unsure as to whether she should stay put or try to run away. "But you serve Katherine."
"So I am reminded of time and time again, although allegiances change with the seasons." The red witch remained at a distance, unmoving and unflinching as if she didn't truly occupy the space in which she stood and was in fact some form of apparition.
"What are you doing here? Where am I?" Alice had many more questions, but she tried to limit herself as she calmed the confusion in her mind.
"All will be revealed in time, daughter of the blood." Morgana replied, taking a short pause before continuing. "What I can tell you is that several weeks have passed since your encounter with the Blood Queen, and the final conflict looms on the horizon. Those who oppose her rule gain support, yet it may already be too late for your friend."
"Weeks?" It was tough to accept, but Alice could sense that the witch was telling the truth. It then occurred to her that the friend that was mentioned wasn't Matty, but someone else entirely. "Sam? What happened to Sam?"
Morgana raised an arm to gesture towards where Alice was sitting as the whispers continued. "The Forsaken one was within this very cave, tending to your body as you fought to repair a broken mind. The loyal fool refused to leave your side, even when requested. At least until I reminded him of his true worth."
Alice sat up straight, curious as to what fate befell her friend, the questions still flowing from between her lips. "Sam was here? What did you tell him?"
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