Rhyaad de’Annar’s Late Night Visit

It’s midnight and most of the community of Collinsport have long since closed their shops and businesses . . . most have headed home for a night of well-deserved relaxation. But for Samantha Evans, proprietress of the popular Blue Whale . . . . this night has been anything but relaxing. Disturbances have led to physical violence and a visit by the Collinsport Sheriff’s Department. But whereas she should be locking up now and preparing to head upstairs to her studio apartment, Sam finds herself lost now in reflection . . . not on the night’s annoyance . . . but the sudden possibility of a new relationship. A relationship that may be wrought with danger.

The cab pulls to a halt in front of The Blue Whale. It is well past midnight and the popular restaurant and bar should be closed, but the lights are still on giving the impression that the establishment is still open for business. Rhyaad de’Annar asks the driver to wait as he gets out so as to verify that the Blue Whale is indeed open. Up from Arkham, Rhyaad has been searching this night for the whereabouts of Nicole Collins. He has read of the recent reports of attacks on young woman, and having met Miss Collins earlier, he is filled with apprehensions, suspicions and concerns. Inside The Blue Whale the tables and booths are empty. “Hello, is anyone there,” Rhyaad asks. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry, we should be closed.” A weak voice answers. Rhyaad stepping past a wooden column sees behind the bar the raven-haired owner of The Blue Whale, Samantha Evans, and he is immediately struck by her appearance. She seems weak, dazed. He watches as she catches herself against the bar or she would have fallen. “Are you alright?” He asks moving quickly toward the bar. “I-I, just a bit dizzy is all,” Samantha says, hands on the bar to steady herself as she walks down along it, “I don’t know why, I’m just so suddenly weak.” “Here, perhaps you should sit down,” he suggests as she moves around the bar and takes a seat on one of the bar stools. Rhyaad sits beside her growing more and more concerned as the young woman looks as if she is very close to fainting. He prepares himself to be ready at any moment to catch her. “I’m sorry to be here so late, but I had heard that Nikki Collins was here.” He tells her. Samantha smiles, “Oh, yes, she was earlier, although I’m not certain when she left.” “You don’t remember when she left?” He asks. Samantha looks at him with a slightly bewildered expression, “No, not really.” She reaches a hand up to her throat and detects dampness, looking at her fingers she says, “Oh, my, I must have cut myself.” She keeps touching her throat and finding the tips of her fingers crimson. “There was a fight earlier and I must have been hit by some stray glass.” “Here,” Rhyaad offers, “Let me take a look.” As she bends her head aside, he sees twin puncture marks in her throat, each wound still damp with blood. “I really think you should go to the hospital,” He tells her. “What, you think it’s that bad?” she tires to look in the mirror behind the bar. “It’s got to be only a scratch or something I just need to fix myself a cup of tea and get some rest.” Rhyaad reaches over and continues to inspect the wounds, twin punctures with bruising, “Well at least make sure you put a lot of sugar in your tea. And have some cookies or a piece of cake.” Samantha shakes her head, “No, I don’t like sugar in my tea.” “Well, I think you really should.” But he wants to determine her state of mind and so he asks: “So, tell me what do you remember?”

“What?” she looks at him confused, “About what?” “Your recent memory, just trying to check and see what you last remember.” Rhyaad asks well aware of what the wounds on her neck mean. “Oh, well,” Sam seems to be slowly gaining some strength back as she sits at the bar, “Let’s see, I was at the bar. I was talking to Nikki, oh, you said you were looking for Nikki, didn’t you, she’s probably home by now, you can most likely call her or go by the Old House.” Rhyaad continues to trying to probe Samantha’s memory in order to determine if there are any effects on her short term memory: “Nikki, tell me about Nikki,” “Oh, well, back to Nikki, well, we were talking.” Samantha smiles now as she remembers, but then gives Mr. de’Annar a look, “Oh .” “No, please go on it’s important to be sure you are alright, just tell me what you remember.” There is something comforting now in his voice, and so although normally a very private person, Samantha finds herself telling him. “Well, you see, I’m a . . . so, I wanted to — I asked her out.” “Oh, I see.” He says matter-of-factly. A bit self-conscious with this stranger and a bit confused as to why she feels the need to talk so freely with him, she continues anyway: “I had seen her before, Nikki, at this club I go to some times, The Girl Spot. So I knew that she was — but, I was just so nervous, you know, which I usually never am, I mean, after all she is a Collins and all. But I just suddenly asked her.” “And what did she say?” “Yes! She said yes!” Rhyaad smiles at her apparent happiness. “And so, I knew I should be starting to close up, but we were there,” motioning toward the other end of the bar, “she was sitting on that stool and I was talking to her from across the bar, and her eyes, they are so, so blue, and she was stroking stray stands of my hair, and . . . ” “Yes?” Samantha seemed confused as she couldn’t remember. “She must have left.” “But you don’t remember her leaving.” “Now that I am thinking about it, no. No I don’t.” Rhyaad now growing even more concerned then he had been when he had arrived in Collinsport, there was no doubt about this, Nikki had attacked this woman, of that we was certain. And in such a public place, anyone could have walked in on them. “I am really concerned that you should see a doctor about that, cut.”

Samantha sitting up now seems to shake her shoulders and takes a deep breath — as it appears she is growing a bit more stronger as she sits there talking to Mr. de’Annar. He notes that she seems to have gained some color. “Oh, no , goodness no, it’s just some stray piece of glass. I’ll be fine, like I said I am going to make some tea, maybe a nice hot bath, and relax. It’s been a really long day.” Suddenly Samantha’s iPhone begins to chirp. Samantha pulls the phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, “Oh, it’s Nikki. It’s a text, asking if I am alright.” Her fingers working the phone’s keyboard. “Want’s me to get some rest, and drink some tea with lots of sugar.” Smiling. “Oh, I am texting her that you are looking for her.” “Thanks” Rhyaad says. “She’s at the Old House, says for you to come over.” More texting, before she slips the phone back into her pocket.

“Oh, well, I need to lock up.” And she gets up, a bit unsteady at first, but then starts moving about with more strength and confidence. Rhyadd, glad that Nikkki had at least checked on Samantha’s condition, stands up, he really needs to see her now. “Are you sure you are going to be fine here by yourself?” Samantha tells him yes, but he leaves her his card and tell her to call in just in case.

Rhyaad exits The Blue Whale to find his cab awaiting and directs the driver to take him to the “Old House.”

~Transition~

A cab pulls up before the old house and a dark clad figure gets out. Approaching the manor, he rings the bell, and waits.

She doesn’t have to open the door to know that it is Mr. de’Annar, she feels his presence and has been expecting him since she received the text from Samantha Evans. Nikki has been waiting in some anticipation for this conversation. Nikki slowly saunters across the foyer toward the front door. She pauses a moment, thoughtfully, and then opens it to find Rhyaad de’Annar looking at her with a look of both relief and disappointment. “Mr. de’Annar, I have been expecting you,” She says, “Do come in.”

“It’s good to see you Miss Collins,” He nods. “Thank you,” and he enters the Old House as he follows her into the foyer. “I trust Miss Evans told you I was coming?” Nikki motions to a chair in the sitting room, “Yes, I got a text from her. She is alright?” Rhyaad nodded, and paused, before going to sit down. “Yes, I think so. But of course . . . .” He looked into her eyes, “Of course there was a cause for serious concern, do you not agree?”

Nikki takes a seat on the sofa and averts her eyes, looking our the front window, “Perhaps.”

“Um, Miss Collins . . . Nikki . . . look at me please.” Rhyaad de’Annar demands, “Do you know what was wrong with Miss Evans?” Nikki turns her arctic blue eyes upon him, cold and unblinking, “Yes. As do you.” She cocks her head a bit and then goes on to explain, “It’s not an excuse, but an explanation. Samantha Evans is infatuated with me, I could read it in her eyes. If not in love. And, I have been so long without someone, who I thought could even feel that way for me in my present state.”

Rhyaad nods; “Yes, she is. And I can not blame her. But that was not the cause of her distress this evening. At least, not physically. Yes, I know we can get so lonely; feel so isolated.” Nikki looks at him, dropping the veneer of a false apathy. “We were there just the two of us. She, she had asked me to go out with her and I had accepted and she was so very, very close and I was touching her hair.” Nikki leans forward as it to speak with even more confidentiality in a house in which they were the only ones present, “and she kissed me, a kiss.” Nikki closes her eyes in remembrance of those warm lips pressed to hers, “And the kiss led to something which I stopped as soon as I was aware of that I was doing.” Rhyaad felt as if he had established a connection with this wayward Vampire and so he pressed forward. “So I noticed. But, the operative word here is, aware. But what if you had not become aware until too late, what if you had allowed yourself to go further? What if you, if you had not been able to stop?” “Okay, okay, I admit it, I bit her. But, I only just tasted her sweet blood and I stopped. You have to understand I did have the control to quit.” He frowned: “Only no control to keep it from happening?” Rubbing her hands together, as if to warm them , “The wound should only be superficial, I then caused her to forget it ever happened.”

“I think you are missing the point, you seem to be able to accept that it was only a minor incident. What you are not accepting is that it should have never happened to begin with, it is very obvious to those of us who know what it is, know what to look for. There are hunters out there, you know. I know several of them.” Nikki grows silent for a long moment, then she looks at him. “It was wrong . . . I know it was wrong. . . but, she is going to be okay. She is okay?” Rhyadd nods. She feels relieved. Rhyaad sits back, he feels for her, “I am just concerned for the both of you. And with the talk of ‘these attacks’ in this town. Indeed all over the northeast . . .” Nikki suddenly grows angry again, “That is something that is not of my doing, I am not doing all of this, Arkham, Westchester . . .I did not do those and I would not have done this tonight.” But Rhyaad does not let her try to talk around the issue, “I understand your desire too well. It’s nothing I haven’t done. But the risks are just too great right now.” Nikki looks at him imploringly, “It’s just what she kissed me, and I was not expecting her to!” He nods, “But you must learn to be able to dip your nose in the icing and not eat the cake, Miss Collins!”

“Even thought it was superficial?” Nikki ask, “I mean I can exercise some control over her, now. I will be certain she wears a high collar. Until the marks disappear.” She looks down and then back up, “I promise I won’t do it again, I will try not to do it again . . . . I-I felt I had all of this under control.” Rhyaad looks at her, “That’s wise . . the collar. But surely you understand the risks if this got out. There are already rumors about you.” Nikki sits back on the sofa laying her hands on either side of her hips to rub the cushions, “I just never expected a beautiful young woman to lean across a bar and kiss me, every again. Not the way she kissed me.” “Well you should, honestly. And it will happen. Hundreds of times. Perhaps thousands of times. How old are you, Miss Collins?” Rhyaad begins to suspect she was dealing with someone not so very old in their transformation.

Not really answering his question, still thinking aloud to herself she says: “I know, I am going to have to maintain some control, or I will have to return to England.” She then looks at him once more in earnest, “And I will never find out about my father.”

“Barnabas?” Rhyaad asks. Nikki Nods: “Yes.”

She lifts her chin slightly and rolls her head, “I know there is some clue here as to what happened to him, if only I can find Quentin Collins.” As this point Rhyaad decided it was time to press her further for more information about her background, “And did you acquire your . . . condition . . . from him?” She shakes her head, “No, my father and my mother. My mother is Angelique Collins. From what I understand she was somehow resurrected in 1840 and turned into a succubus. She, in order to avoid my father — left the United States and went to Europe in order to make certain that she would cause him no further pain. after they had reconciled sometime back in 1840. All those years apart,” Nikki says longingly. “And then one day they are reunited by accident in Stalingrad in the late 70’s. And so he started trying to find a cure for her, and somehow, one of the experiments allowed her to conceive. And I was born.”

Angelique? She was the daughter of not only Barnabas Collins but Angelique Bouchard. “Another name from the Legends,” Rhyaad said, “Your parents. I didn’t know.” Nikki leaned her head back on the sofa, “About 8 months after I was born, they left on some mysterious trip to Alexandria. And, they were never heard from again.” Nikki says this as if she is repeating a story she had said oh so many times before, mere facts now with little emotion, “I was raised by Dr. Julia Hoffman, in England, where I was born.” Rhyaad nods thoughtfully: “Tragic . . . but they could still be alive.” Nikki, still looking up at the ceiling smiles, “I do so hope so.”

He leans forward, “So how did you become . . . a vampire?” Nikki lifted her head from the sofa to look at him, “Well, about 9 months ago it would be now, I was in Paris. I was with a companion; we had been to the ballet.” Rhyaad nods as he notes that her eyes now have turned a lighter shade of pale blue as she remembers: “We were just getting into a cab, when suddenly, the glass of the window beside the driver exploded. Glinting shards everywhere. Two gloves hands reached in and snapped his head off. Blood gushing from the stump of his neck. My companion, she tired to get out of the car, but she was violently grabbed and tossed across the street like a rag doll. Then, it came for me. I fought, but it grabbed my wrist in a grip, a grip so tight, I had never known anyone could be so strong, and it whipped me out of the car and drug me down the wet sidewalk.”

Rhyaad sat listening to the tale, far too violent and public.

“I know it was a woman. I felt her long wild hair against me as she viciously bit into my neck. Over and over again, letting me fall on the sidewalk to watch my blood pumping from the wounds, silently, just standing over me as she watched me bleed out. Only occasionally, would she kneeling down to bite me in order to drink from me, I was, I guess I was still alive, I don’t know, when she bit into her own wrist and then forcing my mouth open shoved the bloody wound past my numb lips, I tasted her. I drank from her. I sucked deep from her. The next thing I know, Dr. Hoffman, having apparently bribed an attendant at the morgue was wheeling me down a corridor toward an exit. They put me in the back of her car. She looked at me and said, ‘Trust me, I know what I am doing’.”

Rhyaad sat forward: “So you are 9 months old, so to speak, then?”

“More importantly to this day I do not know who attacked me, who turned me. The connection I should have, as I am told, is blocked.” Nikki explained.

Rhyaad takes a deep breath. “Miss Collins . . . Nikki . . . Please believe me. You need some sort of training. Many newly turned vampires turn madly ravenous, out of control. The Beast within you is powerful. The Lust. Did this Doctor Hoffman try to help you control yourself?” Nikki shook her head, “She and her best friend Dr. Stokes set out to investigate my assault, tried to find out who did this to me. For their efforts they were both killed. I am quite alone now.”

“Oh,” He frowns. “A conspiracy, then. Against your family. And you left alone.”

“All I have are my father’s old journals, which I found. Dr. Hoffman never knew I had them,” Nikki says.

“Barnabas? He left journals?” He was now very much intrigued.

“Julia believed that I was attacked either for revenge, or to draw my parents out. In the letter she left for me upon the event of her death, she told me to come here, home, Collinsport. She believed there maybe some answers here.”

“This may sound unduly forward, Miss Collins, but I do think you should allow me to . . . well . . ” “Yes,” Nikki asked expecting him to ask to read her father’s private thoughts. Only Rhyaad seemed to fumble for words: “I used to be . . . that is I am the last . . . of a certain Order. We had a code. We would take no blood from any human without their permission. Or unless it was from an enemy in battle. We had to learn means of control. I could help you to calm the desires you feel.”

“Oh, could you help me? There are those from the Ankh group, but they don’t seem to understand me, or, it’s not working.” “The Ankh group? You mean the Interfaith Ministries?” He asked. “They try to help me, they tried supplying me with blood.”

“Tried,” He asks, “Why the past tense?”

Nikki continues, “But they do not understand this feeling inside, it is so overwhelming at times, and I want to stop it and then, I don’t, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. That’s why I am concerned.”

“They were giving me donated blood, but then, I had a lapse and found myself at a club and…”

“Then you did attack those girls here in Collinsport?”

“Yes, but I did not kill anyone!”

Rhyaad’s concern continues to grow. “You can’t keep doing this Nikki. If their hunters don’t come after you, there are those of your own kind that will stop you. It simply can”t be allowed. It puts us all at risk. But the Monster, the one you say you believe yourself to be, no. You are not a monster. Don’t ever say that. The Monster lives within you. You must learn to see this. Only by recognizing the Beast can you control it.”

Nikki smiles, “In Sam’s eyes I saw that I wasn’t a monster — I have to get my life under control.” He nodded, “It is hard to separate one lust from another. One desire fades into another. It can be fatal.” Nikki agrees: “So, I need to start working on the mystery of who did this and what happened to my parents to get my mind off it.”

Rhyaad leans forward, “yes, you can get your life under control. There are ways. And yes, you should peruse the mystery of your parents and of your own making. But . . . you see what you are saying? You can’t afford to ‘get your mind off it.’ Not unless you want to kill her?”

“Kill her?”

“Sam.”

“Oh, God NO – – – I need Sam in my life.”

Rhyaad put a hand out to comfort her, “You are amazingly in control, actually, I was much worse than you.”

“Life?” Nikki shakes her head, “What am I saying . . . I’m dead. I don’t have a life.”

Rhyaad suddenly raises his voice, “Again, don’t ever say that. Dead.” He failed his arms, “Do the dead move? Do they dance? Do they fall in love? You are not dead.”

“I am so afraid Sam will find out how cold I am to touch, she will be so disgusted.”

“You just have a very different sort of life. And she might. That will happen to you many times. You must be prepared for it. But if she truly loves you, she will be able to accept it, in time. But you have to be prepared for the worst though. To control your desire to sink you fangs in and drink her in, uncontrolled. And to be ready to handle it if she should scream and run away from you. Everyone makes a horrible mess alone. Most of us have mentors. The one who made us. But your maker was a cruel woman, seeking some sort of revenge.”

Nikki looks at him with a sudden concerned expression, “Sam. Should I tell her what I am? I don’t want to hide this from her, I need someone who knows.”

Rhyaad frowns. “I can not say . . not until I get to know her better. For now I would advise that you do not. So many want you to ‘turn them’ and falsify their love for what they see as a reward. You must beware of these people.”

“This is no reward.”

He nods, “But mortals think anything is worth escaping death.”

“Until you wake up like this.”

“Or surrounded by blood and the bodies of your victims.” He adds.

Cue Music for end of Episode