Collinsport. The Old House at Collinwood, having several years ago been destroyed by a mysterious fire, now stands anew. Renovated, constructed upon the foundations of the original family home, the somber and grey mansion now belongs to Nicole Collins, the daughter of Barnabas Collins . . . who had left the Old House and Collinsport in 1972 for England never to return. For most of those who lived in the small village of Collinsport, the news of Barnabas’s departure was greeted with the same elation and sighs of relief as the news much later of the flames destruction of the old mansion. The hopes that all the haunting history and malevolent ghosts had gone up in smoke. Only, once the work began on the renovation the news that Barnabas’ daughter was returning, trepidation and dread returned once more to Collinsport. The same emotions that Angelique Collins now finds herself feeling as she makes her way back to the home in which she was married.
Afternoon fading into twilight into evening as she has intentionally timed this so that she would arrive just as the sun would be beginning to set. She’s driving Catronia Kaye’s jaguar up long the narrow access road that supposedly leads to the recently renovated mansion which is still oddly called the Old House even though there was very little left of the old seeing as how the original structure had burned in a mysterious fire in the late autumn of 2006. The files are vague in that matter. There is a lot of redaction and references to a Dr. Warwick. But there is very little remaining that can be cross-referenced to the blaze.
She sees now the vast two-story mansion which looks more like a fortress through the trees.
The narrow road makes a hard right turn on uneven pavement not even a real tarmac. She fights the wheel to stay on the road and then through the windshield once more looks at the mansion ahead.
Just where had the Collins gotten all their good fortune and she curled her lip in an ironic smile as she was all too suddenly aware that she would have to amend that thought as in fact yes, they did certainly seem to have a way of accumulating wealth, of amassing fortunes but, were just as fated to lose one almost overnight. And as for the providence of a more personal nature? No they seemed somehow forever destined to some tragic misfortune something perhaps in these New England States, for it seems that far too many of these American aristocratic families were predestined to tragedy. The Astors, The Ushers, the Kennedys, the Collins, the Snows, Bishops.
She pulls the car off to the side of the road, easing it into a slight clearing. She could have easily just taken the winding road on up the mansion, but as she drew near, felt the trees overhead clinging to form a canopy, she felt the desire to approach the estate on foot to get a more accurate feel of the lay of the land. If it came down to a necessity to make an assault on this fortress like residence she would much rather have a better understanding of the logistics of undertaking such an endeavor. As the car door loses behind her as she looks around for a moment.
CAW!
It’s either a crow or a raven. She can’t tell which as she stares up into the nearly denuded tree limbs of an old oak tree but cannot see the corvid cawing at her. The wind stirs the branches in a eerie creak of wood as she stands surveying the road, the underbrush, the edge of the woods.
CAW!
A flock of birds suddenly take flight. An omen?
She pulls her overcoat closer, thinking to herself this isn’t Surrey and it’s not like the last time she had to confront a member of the Undead.
She strides across the road and moves off into the shrubbery. This Nicole Collins, she was going to have to be careful because based on her dossier she was not just a vampire, but she had also accrued an ungodly amount of arcane knowledge so not only was she a wizard’s daughter, but she herself could be considered one if she ever began to put to use all she knew which did seem rather odd, in the fact that she had not. Stiff underbrush pushed aside she stepped so that her boots made certain of the terrain before she steps over a leaf slicken ditch, which is still trickling the run-off from last night’s storms. The Old House occasionally coming into view through the breaks in the trees seemed more like some set from an old British horror film she remembered but could not recall the title of one she had seen as a little girl, sitting on the floor watching the Telly with her sister. The grey fortress of a house only made her wonder even more anxious. This Nicole Collins, did they have the dossier wrong? It certainly looked like a sorceress house. So, why would she have gathered such an extensive knowledge of the Old One’s grotesque magic and yet not to have been persuaded to use any of it. From her experience their knowledge was as seductive as it was addictive the slightest taste only making one desirous for even more.
CAW! CAW!
Upstairs, in her bedroom Esther sits on the edge of her bed cleaning her shotgun. She finds the methodical action of disassembling the weapon calms her, and she’s been a bit on the cranky side for most of the day. Being hauled into the Collinsport Police Station to be asked over and over again the whereabouts of Samantha Brook was not the best way to start off her day. Or to end one very long night. She had tried to get some rest earlier, but it was all useless, as restlessness she could not fall asleep. So instead, she had got up and spent the morning going over Professor Stokes’ translation of her grandfather’s journal. So many question and still no answers. The pacing and chain-smoking her cigarettes did little to alleviate the anxiety of having to wait for Nikki to arise and so she had taken her shotgun and began disassembling it even though she had cleaned it only the day before. She takes a clean rag now and runs it down along the smooth barrel of the shotgun as she looks over and out the window across the tops of the trees and she sighs as the sun, lowing into night, has yet to touch the horizon. Go down please, she whispers to the sun. She so wants to talk to Nik.
They had rushed home so quickly from the police interrogation as Nikki had to out run the sun; and so they had not been able to discuss very much about the situation concerning Sam who had finally gone over the deep end that Esther had always knew she had been teetering upon . . . She looks up again and out the window toward the edge of the woods as she has been expecting any moment for her to just suddenly show up with that what did I do look of hers.
The question is just what are they going to do when she does show up. She’s a fugitive now attacked a police officer and then escaped from police custody. She had possibly whacked Mills (who, well, did need a good whacking, but that was beside the point) with a two-by-four. And if they did try and help her what then. It had been way too damned close enough last night their getting out of the station with only the slimmest margins to get home to get Nikki to safety. Nik just cannot get locked up! First of all no one is going to understand that she has to be kept away from direct sunlight or that when she’s sleeping during the day she friggin’ looks dead. Is dead. Might be dead? She was never sure how that all worked. And then even more importantly, Esther thought, would she even let them lock her up? What would she do if she were confronted with the prospect of being arrested? What would they do when they found themselves confronting a real vampire not some nut job like that Silva.
Just what the f**k was Sam thinking?
Not thinking more like it just crazy, wild.
Drinking no doubt.
In the darkening foyer the knock upon the door resounds loudly.
If it’s that damned Lieutenant Mills again!
She carefully places her disassembled shotgun down and rises from the bed to step over and look out the window but does not see any patrol cars in the drive. She wished that Nik would let her put in some CCTV’s as she has never been able to see the front door from her window.
She really needs to fix this house’s security.
The knock resounds again as she opens her bedroom door, and walks over to the head of the stairs, glancing but a brief second at the closed door to Nikki’s bedroom. She begins to descend the stairs and there is yet another loud knock.
Damn!
She jaunts down the stairs and crosses the foyer, trying to see through the glass panels of the door. S**T! It can’t be Halloween yet she thinks as she sees the Gothic figure at the door.
Agent Nine at the front door of the Old House adjusts her hood against the wind. She had selected her wardrobe to try and “blend” as best she could with the local Goth scene and so to that end she had hit every point so perfectly so perfectly that she felt she stood out worse now than a hooker in church.
CAW!
The sun continues to lower as twilight soon will give way to dusk.
Collins will be rising now, she thought.
Esther cautiously approaches the door, unlocks the dead-bolt, and opens it a crack, Hey, can I help you?
Agent Nine turns and arches a brow curiously at the woman opening the door before regaining her composure, My apologies, but I was under the impression that a Miss Nicole Collins rests here?
Not at all missing the operative comment, “Rests here, Esther frowns. She is currently busy. And then she looks off past the Goth chick and toward the horizon and the sun setting, Who is asking?
I bring a message from my Mistress.
In the distance a lonely dog howls.
Both women look at one another, both aware of the possible significance of the howl.
So, you couldn’t just use the mailman? Esther asks sarcastically.
As I said, I do not wish to intrude upon you and your lover’s privacy, but it seems that I have done so.
Esther cocks her head and sighs, I’m more of the groundskeeper if anything.
Oh, I apologize. Sorry. But I must deliver this missive.
Missive? Esther looks at her and her lips tighten, Look, just give me the missive, and I will relay it to her.
The sun prepares to strike the horizon.
Yes, well, I am so sorry, but I am afraid I cannot trust you to do so.
Once again the forlorn dog howls a lament.
And I am afraid, with all the s**t that’s goin’ on around Collinsport, I can’t just trust that you’re not some Manson like Goth hick looking to just come in here and try to murder us all. Esther says, blocking the door, which she has only opened barely enough to be able to talk to the woman, So, you see, I’m afraid, that in the our line of work . . . there are times when we have to say things like, I don’t know who the h**l you are so I don’t really f**king trust you lady. Not that you don’t look particularly any less dangerous in all this Goth Chick get-up you are wearing but you see we’re a wee bit beyond just letting strangers in these days, and pouring them a drink, and telling them to wait here while I go and fetch the lady of the house . . . so you will have to excuse me, if I am more than just a bit cautious. And Esther feels like she’s talking way too much as she glances at the sunset, knowing that she’s only buying time until Nik is up, SO . . . If it is so all d**ned important, I’ll get her, but you? You stay here!
Upstairs in the darken bedroom, Nicole Collins’ lies on the bed.
Her eyes suddenly open.
Esther closes the door.
Agent Nine stands for a moment looking at the closed door. A bit rude even for a vampire’s thrall.
That lonely dog howls again where the hell is it?
Nikki Collins lies looking up at the ceiling.
She hears the door close.
Esther, shaking her head, moves back over toward the curved staircase. Missives?
Above, in her darkened bedroom, Nikki sits up and slides her legs over the edge of the bed she runs her fingers through her hair, with a brief thought about the special mirror Erzsbet had said she was going to get for her, but which has never arrived, as she listens to Esther ascend the stairs.
There is a knock upon her bedroom door it is Esther.
Nikki rises and crosses the room to open the door, Esther? Something the matter?”
The grey stone mansion is built like a fortress, only, as Agent Nine glances at the side of the door she immediately takes note of one of the simple point of entry, one of the window panels it is loose. Strange that! She bends and placing her gloved fingertips upon the pane pushes against the panel, it is loose and can be easily slipped inside after a slight dislodgment.
Matter? Esther sighs, There’s some red-headed Goth chick at the front door talkin’ about mistresses and missives and–
Esther stops in mid-sentence as she hears the sound of the scraping of the window pane against the wooden mullion she same sound she has heard too many times before, when Sam was slipping in the house through the window panel she had loosened. S**t! And Esther turns now to run back to her room, where she quickly grabs up pieces of her shotgun, to hurriedly begins to finish it’s assembly on the run.
Nikki raises an eyebrow as she watches Esther running down the hall to her room.
She exits the bedroom and silently glides down the curved stairs to the foyer and the source of the window glass being forced open.
She sees the tall-red-haired woman entering the foyer and cautiously beginning to look around the house.
Esther quickly continues fitting the pieces back together as she reaches the head of the stairs.
“May I help you?” Nikki asks slipping up suddenly upon the Agent, who has entered the sitting room and was beginning to look at the decanter of red liquid.
Agent Nine stops and turns, not having heard a single footstep: Good Evening Miss Collins, I hope you rested well, she replies courteously, and trying to appear unperturbed by Nikki’s preternatural movements well aware of what she is.
Esther snaps the gun together and stands now at the head of the stairs, her reassembled shotgun aiming down through the open foyer to the sitting room below. She has a perfect angle on the Miss-a-Goth.
Nikki hears Esther’s finger on the trigger and turns to look up at her leveling the gun upon the woman, “As I said, may I help you?”
I must say, you Americans have an odd way of treating house guests.
I told you to F**Kin’ wait, at th’ F**kin’ door! Esther yells down, British is English, so Just how F**king hard is that for you to f**kn’ understand!?
Then I would suggest you not leave the window unlocked, The agent replies rather nonchalantly as she indicates the loosen window that Sam normally uses.
Her first instinct had been to draw her own weapon but, here, confronted by a Vampire and a rather temperamental woman with a shotgun, she decided on discretion.
Nikki smiles, “Yes, it’s rather a very old custom, or so I am told, here in American. It seems they shoot first and then make inquiries later. Perhaps, it would be best if you took a moment and answered my question. Now how may I be of help to you?”
Esther looks down to see the loose window pane, d**mned Sam, no matter what security she tries to arrange that crazy woman is always trying to find ways to get around it, That’s it Nik, no more arguing! I’m taking care of security. Smaller windows, with bars, and steel shutters and CCTV’s. Starting now!
Agent Nine pivots slowly to face Nikki whom she finds to be rather demure for the undead, I have been sent to deliver a message from my Mistress.
“Your Mistress?”
Out along the winding back road, the rental car dips severely in then out of a pothole. The gloom of the grey stone mansion is just visible beyond the limbs of the trees as she navigates the serpentine curve, which at the end suddenly hooks to a sharp right. If one were to try and push through here too quickly there was more than a possibility of missing the curve and hitting one of the ancient oaks which was no doubt the intent. But once through the series of curves there is a break in the trees and there she can see the mansion. Of course, it is not the mansion as she remembers it. Not the mansion she was married in or the one she had been nearly destroyed in, several times. Yes, this new mansion was not her Old House.
It was now Nicole’s.
As she proceeds up the drive, she felt the odd sense of loss. The whole of the restoration of the Old House, with its professionally arranged accent lighting, was just as disconcerting to her as it was the first time she viewed it.
Esther is perhaps the last to hear the approaching car, as Nicole heard it out along the serpentine curves, and Agent Nine as it passed into the clearing.
The Agent, uncertain what this new arrival may mean, decides to conclude her mission, If I may. She indicates the message in her pocket.
“Certainly.” Nikki says, “But first I would like to know to whom you call mistress?”
Nik! Esther cautions.
A Miss Catronia Kaye.
The rental car slowly ascends the slight rise of the drive.
Agent Nine slowly inserts a hand into her pocket and retrieves a small envelope almost as if it were a formal invitation.
Nikki’s brow rises at the name as she watches now as the woman removes an envelope from her pocket, “Catronia Kaye, you say.
The Agent cannot help detecting the first indication of emotion in Nicole Collins’ voice animosity and irritation.
“She is in Collinsport? Or does she send you from London?”
Gone was the old portcullis, the Grecian columns, the ivy, the thick shrubbery Willie Loomis had allowed to grow up around the house, the neglected lawns and gardens of her memory. Although, Angelique was more than well aware of the broken, odd fragments of her memory, the brittle pieces of her recollections since her return this house. Or rather the Old House that this now only represented had seemed a fixed point for her a constant.
She has a residence here, The agent informs Nicole, Though she may not currently be there.
“And the message?” Nikki asks with a bit of impatience as she looks at the envelope.
In fact, she found it all very disturbing to know that this was not the same house that she and Barnabas had fought and conspired within.
The agent proffers the envelope, even as she is aware that Esther retains the shotgun on her.
Nikki takes it and with a sharp nail slits it open. She removes the heavy card from within and yes it was a formal invitation.
Why had she not restored the former structure? Restored it to his historical appearance? Out of Spite? How old was she when they had left for Egypt and left her with Hoffman 8 or 9 months old? No, it was 8 months and a day. A day full of rain. Grey and overcast in the morning turning into a storm by evening; the wind was blowing the heavy rain fall hard against the windows as she stood looking down into her crib. So quiet, so peaceful asleep. To soon awake in a huge townhouse all alone alone save Hoffman. She could have only grown up feeling abandoned unloved. Something she could certainly understand her own father the weak-willed treachery of her mother, all of which she knew full well had created what she became as a young woman. Vengeful, driven by purely selfish motivations her spite!
An invitation to tea 9:00 tonight: Nikki raises an eyebrow and looks at the agent, Miss Kaye expects me to tea?
Tea with Miss Kaye is always interesting, Miss Collins. She has some things she wishes to discuss. Things that may be of interest . . . to you.
And what, she couldn’t just come over with you. She couldn’t pick up the phone and just call? We have a phone you know, it’s a very nice one.
Agent Nine looks up the stairs at the woman with the shotgun, Dress coolly . . . her teas tend to get a bit . . . warm.
So much of what she had been so many of the terrible things she had done she would say evil, but she does not want to think of herself as evil because, she was not evil, she had not been born evil. It took being under the tutelage of Judah Zachery for that transformation to occur. It took watching as her father gave her over to Master Judah for The Book the dreadful book and then having to live with the abuse and the lessons and the harsh corrections to intonations, and the rapes by Judah . . . for her anger and secret desire for revenge to drive her to actively seek out the powers that gave her the abilities to do the terrible things the evil acts.
Nikki slips the invitation back into the small, cream envelope, “Please inform your Mistress, I will be more than happy to take tea with her.
Very good, The Agent replies and inclines her head slightly, as the headlights of the automobile pulling up to the front of the mansion washed over the front windows.
Angelique Collins takes a deep breath and tightens her hands upon the wheel.
She looks up at the vestige of Victorian Wren in the review mirror subterfuge and betrayal, lies and deceit. This goddamned game!
How she had hated her mother and how her daughter must now hate her. And she was her daughter even through all the pain and heartbreak of discovering she was really only the surrogate that she was really nothing more than a womb, which nourished her it was she who gave her life. Of course the discovery of their deceit had nearly crushed her but as she had done since that first night with Zachery, she refused to allow anyone to see just how deep her pain lies. That Barnabas could have done what he had and not told her from the start to have allowed her to think the child was hers. And then to discover her mother was really Erzsbet Bathory! That Hungarian Whore! It did little to know that it was all done so scientifically, as Praetorius explained. How she had raged that night she had found out Nicole was not flesh of her flesh, or blood of her blood how like the fairy tale evil witch of old, she had truly wanted to hate the child how she had gone up that night the long flight of stairs and into her nursery with all the fury and anger and power building up within her how with one quick spell, a summoning of the spirits of the night . . . or a pillow . . . . or reaching down and taking an ankle and with one swift and terrible surge snatching the infant up and swinging her body to slam her head into a wall, over and over and over and over . . . only upon seeing her looking down at the sleeping child, a fist to her mouth she had recoiled in the horror in realizing that rather than an being an angry witch, she was so close now to becoming an evil witch. Barnabas found her the next morning sitting in the darkness of a corner, a refuge from when she was a child, with Nicole cuddled in her arms, as she had sat all night vowing over and over again that she would never be the mother her own mother had been . . . and now! Now she had to play this game!
She’s going to hate me even more.
Nikki turns now to see the car driving up and coming to a stop.
Now, I must be off. It seems you have some company. Agent Nine says as she turns to look out the front windows.
Yes. And close the window on the way out. Esther tells her from the top of the stairs.
Nikki Collins, holding Kaye’s invitation in hand, steps over to look out the window. It appears to be that author staying with David Collins at Collinwood.
As Angelique peered through the spell to see her true countenance in the rearview mirror, she could hear her beloved’s voice, She must not be told anything! You must keep your distance from her. Angelique, you cannot! He had yelled to her as she was suddenly being pulled through the mysterious vortex, which had opened upon her and drew her away from him away from the city in the desert and brought her to Prague and now, eventually, here.
Angelique? What is she doing here? Agent Nine was not at all certain what her course of action should be Kaye had warned her about Angelique. Be very wary of her, Miss Collins.
Nikki smiles, I am ever wary. Tell Miss Kaye I will be there at nine.”
Agent Nine strides quickly over to the door but pauses before opening it, Be very careful of her.
If you know something perhaps you could be a bit more cryptic about it. Esther replies rather sharply as she begins now to descend the stairs.
Without a reply the agent opens the front door and slips outside, deliberately trying to cling to the shadows.
Esther hurries over and checks the window, tries to secure it, worried now about how many other windows Sam has compromised.
Angelique turns off the motor of the car and takes notes the woman who is just now slipping out the house she works for Kaye. She should have known. One of her Agents to do what? To tell Nicole? Tell Nicole what?
I have said that this building would be a good fortress, but not unless we can get these windows smaller and perhaps bulletproofed. Esther says with a frown, And what’s up with her out there in the car?
I am not sure, Nicole replies. “Esther, would you care to join me tonight for tea?” She drops the invitation on the antique table as she still watches the car outside the house.
“Tea? Sure. Why not. Guess I need to dress coolly then.
Angelique Collins gets out of the rental car, feeling the evening breeze as it sways through the trees, and closes the car door. She walks around the front of the car.
CAW!
A raven calls from atop the Old House.
As she walks closer she thinks this is but just one more cruel twist of fate in her accursed life, owing to her betrayal of Zachery and of curse his curse
She approached the front door and knocked.
And here is the person we should Be very careful of” Esther says rather mockingly. “It’s that author, Wren.”
“Let’s see what it is she wants.” Nicole tells her tapping the invitation upon the fingers of her left hand, wondering what Kaye wanted now.
Esther moves closer to the front door.
Desirous of a good long drink, Nikki looks at the decanter of blood.
Not opening the door more than necessary, Esther looks out, Yes? May we help you?
Stealthily, Agent Nine moves now along the darken shadows of the mansion and as she approaches some shrubbery she cautiously slips down to pause a moment just long enough to pull out a small, collapsible chrome tube, which she now extends, and then puts a blow dart into. With careful aim, she sends a tracker to magnetically attach just inside the wheel of the author’s rental car. She cannot help the feeling that it will become imperative to know precisely where Angelique Collins is at all times, if not tonight some night soon.
“Yes, I would like to see Nichole Collins please.” Victoria Wren tells Esther.
What for?
“Let’s say it is of a personal nature, Miss Friedman.” Angelique replies, and she removes her glasses and in so doing she drops the spell she has used to disguise herself.
Esther steps back and suddenly slams the door.
Nikki turns to look at her.
We’ve got an Imposter Nik!
“A what?” Nikki asks.
Esther locks the deadbolt, Took off her glasses and she’s suddenly someone completely different.
Esther makes a move as if she is thinking of sliding the side table over near the door in order to block the woman’s entrance.
Nikki drops the invitation on a side table and strides casually over toward the door, looking through the glass at the woman standing just outside and she suddenly stops short.
She seems to freeze for a moment and then hurriedly moves over to open the door.
Nik! No! Esther protests where is no way of knowing just who the h**l this woman is if she can change her appearances as easy as putting on or taking off her glasses.
M-mother . . .is . . . it . . . is it really you? Nikki says stands holding the door open, looking at Angelique Collins standing before her as she is certain that it is not merely an apparition that she is truly there at her door and she is all but overcome with a flood of emotions as her hand rises to her mouth. How she has so longed for this moment.
Esther looks at her sharply, Mother? This ain’t Bathory. Nik? Who is this? And she is already moving back toward the large, round table in the center of the foyer, where she has lain down her shotgun.
Angelique Collins takes a step into the house and looks at Nikki. Her eyes bright emerald, and she has a too wry smile on her lips Esther thinks.
Esther . . . this this is my mother. Angelique.” Nikki says with a voice about to crack.
Esther well aware of emotion in her friends voice, as well as the none too motherly smile, narrows her eyes to glare at Angelique Collins, Right and so what, you show up, just out of the f**kin’ blue, in a Clark f**kin’ Kent disguise, without even a letter or a phone call. It is the 21st century you know. We DO have a phone. Not that anyone ever freakin uses it!
Angelique looks at her and cocks an eyebrow, For all her attitude you would do well to listen to Miss Friedman; we both are well aware . . . who your mother is, Nicole. I am merely the one who gave birth to you but Erzsbet Bathory IS your mother.
Nikki looks at her and says softly, painfully No . . . no you are my mother.
Angelique enters and stops to look at the portrait that used to hang in the foyer of Collinwood, but now hangs in this renovation of the old house, You do have your father’s eyes.
Nikki stands in shock as she can feel the all too icy reserve.
She stands in the pain of her indifference.
And you have that bitch’s mouth.
Please. Don’t . . . Nicole struck now by a sorrowful disappointment of the most acutest kind as she reaches out a hand as if it to touch her, Please don’t do that . . . no.
There’s only one f**kin bitch in this house: Esther suddenly decides, HEY! Knock it off b***h. At least Bathory, for all the s**t, she is she’s at least been here. Has been there for Nik tried to make it up to her, whereas you? You? Well, you’re some piece of work that’s for sure. Some mother you are.
Angelique turns from the portrait of her beloved and steels herself she knew this would go badly.
Do you have any idea . . . how long I have waited, how long I have hoped what what I have gone through? The things that I have done. Nikki’s voice taunt, For this moment.
As she enters into the main portion of the foyer, under the steely gaze of Esther Friedman, and the very emotional glare of her daughter, she rubs her hands together, not nervously but rather habitually, and turns to look at Nicole, My dear, my intent is not to cause you pain and if I have for that I am truly sorry. For you my dear are as sinned against as I . . . and so you are really not to blame. The green eyes flash a cold glint, I am sorry that with so little regard you were but the result of their experiment.
Esther slips the sling of her shotgun over her shoulder and crosses her arms, as she is well aware of how that little statement is going to sit with Nik.
Experiment! Nicole feels as if she has been slapped in the face, her teeth clench, as she moves her head back, and she narrows her eyes, And that is what you think of me? A bloody god**med Experiment?
I am sure you must understand.
Understand? What? Your complete lack of regard for me. Sorrow and anger now all a mix within her.
It is not a lack of regard, Angelique says turning her green eyes back upon Nicole Collins.
Rather, then it is none at all, Nicole says, determined now that she will not let her see her cry.
Angelique steps across the foyer, her eyes still inspecting the refurbished home and finding nothing at all recognizable as she tires her best now to measure her words with care. If only she did not have to stand so like Bathory . . .. As I said, you have to have some understanding of how one feels when they discover that the child they have longed for, that they had hoped to have with the man they have loved for centuries, that they have carried felt inside them is not really their child at all. That they have been, for whatever the reason, whatever the intent, deceived.
And you mother have to understand what it feels like to be abandoned utterly. Nicole snaps back at her mother, coldly, as she retreats further into icy resolve and malevolent comfort of the vampire within her, seeking out and finding her own cruelty, To be totally forsaken by your mother deserted, abandoned with so little regard, which one would think is something you should certainly emphasize with seeking as how your mother gave you to your father who traded you for as I understand it a book?
Angelique’s eyes narrow as she turns to glare at her daughter as the remark hit just as hard as Nicole had intended: forcefully reminding her of the betrayal, the neglect, the cowardly desertion of her own mother, You seem to be well aware of my past.
I have read all there is to know of you and what I have inferred by what Dr. Hoffman didn’t say.
Oh I am sure Hoffman had quite a lot to say. Her green eyes flashing with anger.
In regards to you, very little. Nicole tells her coldly, Perhaps out of concern for me, seeing as in what low regard most hold you.
Oh I daresay, Angelique’s reputed temper flaring, and yet, here I find you all so sadden? Why? Because you were what expecting some reunion, some overflow of affection, a material hug and kiss after all the years! Well, I am more than certain that Hungarian Whore gave you all of those. Her chin now pointing with her icy resolve, And yet now, you find it all so surprising? My reaction? Which in and of itself is so surprising, Nicole, especially knowing what you know of me. I mean what else did you think? That I would feel some overwhelming maternal affection for a child that I carried, but did not conceive . . . a child whose conception was between my husband and another woman?
Who gives a flying crap whose set of genes are in ‘er. Esther says taking a step forward, You wanted a child. You got a child. BAM!
Nicole stands in silence listening to her heart breaking.
Angelique’s lips curl with her infamous temper as she turns her glaring hot emerald eyes upon Esther, her dainty, white teeth looking as if they could devour: I got a child my dear whose conception was but part of some grand scheme concocted in the middle of the night a plan that I was never, ever consulted upon . . . and only told about much, much later . . . and then only upon my chance discovery of the truth. . . else the deception would have continued and on that I can readily assure you. Deceived and lied to by one I loved the most. A victim of a conspiracy of a conception by deception. A deception by so many on so many levels.
And you know what you do? Esther replies, angrily, You get down off your cross and you GET OVER IT!
Esther, feels the flash of the woman’s temper still hot. Before she turns those eyes once more upon Nicole, And knowing all that you know of ME, you still want me be to be overjoyed at our meeting? Especially, when you walk like your mother. When you talk like your mother. You even move your hands like your mother?
Angelique sees beneath the cold vampiric glare, the flash of pain she has now inflicted. She can see just how deep her flash of anger and her long held disappointments have cut far, far deeper than she had ever intended.
Her fear in coming here . . .
As I said, you have to understand how I feel . . . but, then knowing in what little regard I am held by others, why? Why would you expect anything better of me? I am after all the coldhearted, selfish, vindictive bitch, who by all accounts . . . is the embodiment of evil.
And, you are my mother, her voice cracks.
I am sorry, I did not come here to cause you pain, Angelique looks down for a moment aware she has given in once again to her too quick temper if only it was not want she had intended, but then why does Nicole have be so much like Erzsbet.
It is so painful to think that for a while she was mine all mine until I was told the truth.
Then why did you come at all? Nikki snaps.
You have something I need. Her cold reserve still holding.
Esther takes a deep breath and rolls her eyes and mutters, F**kin’ figures.
“And what could that possibly be?”
The Orb of Solace that you took from the bookcase in Sam Evans’ room.
Nikki’s eyes narrow, You mean . . . the globe?
Yes, the globe.
Why? Why would you want a globe . . . And then Nikki suddenly raises an eyebrow and Angelique is quite aware of that look it is one of Barnabas. So it was you who had Peter Cairo bring it here.
“Yes.” Angelique admits.
For what possible reason could you have for putting that thing in Sam’s room.
Angelique Collins turns to her with a conciliatory glance, “It was never intended for Miss Evans.”
Nikki runs her fingers back through her hair, Collins. Perhaps you have not heard, but she is really Samantha Collins.
Yes. Angelique nods, I am aware, although I still cannot quite believe that she is Quentin’s daughter.
No more difficult I would imagine than in believing I am not yours.
Nicole. She states and for a brief moment the cold veneer she has used as effectively as the guise of Victoria Wren almost slips as she wants to step forward and embrace her child, has since the first moment she saw her for she remembers now the little girl she looked down upon as sat in the nursery, in the protection of the darken corner and she made her promises to be a good mother feeling now the sting of yet one more remnant of Zachery’s curse . . . I need the globe to help your father.
“My father? Nikki replies.
Oh, of all the things! Of all the things she could have said, could have used against Nik the b***h knew straight where to go. Her father! Of course, it was Nikki’s weakness. Esther cannot believe this woman and . . . there is something that is just not right about any of this. Why in God’s name should we believe anything you say?
Angelique looks at Miss Friedman, “Because I have come here to try and save him.”
“Save him? Why, what has happened to him?” Nikki asks suddenly.
He is trapped outside of this reality. Angelique says looking into Nikki’s eyes, My father . . . your grandfather, he devised a trap that we fell into in Alexandria over thirty years ago.
Edward Hutchinson? Nikki nearly hisses the name.
The Count I shot? Esther asks.
The same.
Well, we only have your word on that, and you seem to admit to not being the most upstanding of people. Do you have any proof for any of this?
We do not have the time Nicole. I must have the orb. Please. No matter what you may feel about me, or think of me, right now, you must, for your father’s sake give me the orb. There are others seeking it, for their own reasons. They will stop at nothing. You have no idea what is at stake.”
This orb, it has the ability to restore him to us?
Angelique shakes her head, No, but it will take me to something that can.
Before anyone gives anybody anything, can you clarify a bit more what the h**l you’re talking about? Esther demands.
“I know of something — something that should allow me . . . to . . . it should allow me to help him escape to bring him back. I know where it is and in what time it is.” Angelique says ignoring Esther’s protestations.
But you are not sure? Nikki asks.
We do what we have to do, Nicole. There are rules even for creatures like us.
Nicole looks at her for a long moment, and then she silently glides past her mother and crossing the carpet of the living room moves over toward the bookcase near the fireplace.
Esther watches now very uncertain, Nik, what are you doing?
“I have to help my father.” She replies as she activates the mechanism that engages the secret panel and the bookcase slides silently open.
Angelique follows her into the secret room.
Nik! That thing, Esther rushes in behind them, Think of the consequences. She wants to steal something from the past. She wants to change the past! I don’t know what it is. YOU don’t know what it is!
“I do know what I am doing, please,.” Angelique tells Esther.
But WE don’t know what you are doing. Nik, please! Stop, listen to me!
Nikki saunters down the room to an old oak door. She takes a key and opens it.
Angelique can see through the open door her daughter’s coffin, and looks away briefly and closes her eyes.
Nik, she switched her form once; this could be one huge elaborate set up!
Nikki walks into narrow confines of the small room.
Nik, you can’t just hand the globe over to this woman. Mother or no, you cannot trust her! Esther hurries to the door leading the small room that conceals Nikki’s coffin.
“There is only one great love in my life, Nicole’s father. I will do nothing to harm him.” Angelique tells Esther.
Nikki Collins opens her coffin and removes the odd snow globe and turns to her mother. “Here.”
Angelique steps forward to take it.
And does that love extend to his child? Eh? Esther demands, well aware that this woman is far too selective in whom or what she loves.
As her hand reaches out to take it, Nikki does not release the globe, but rather she holds it tightly as their fingers touch. “Mother, if you are lying to me — if you use this to do harm. I will promise you I will come for you.”
“As would your father.”
Nikki holds it tighter.
Give me the orb, Nicole. Angelique’s voice tight with restrained emotion.
Do you understand what I just told you?
Yes, Nicole, I understand. Her mother tells her.
Nikki releases the snow globe.
Angelique looks at the glass globe, the falling snow within and turns to leave, but stops for a moment and turns back, When this is over, Nicole. If we survive . . .
Nichole closes the door of the room that conceals her coffin and leans her head back on the wood. Red tears running down her cheeks. Just go mother. Do what you must do and do it quickly before I change my mind.
Angelique turns and hurries past Esther who glares at her as she leaves the room.
B***h, Esther mutters under her breath and she takes out a hanky and walks down to her friend. She understands how Nikki feels, but fears the consequences of letting THAT woman have the globe.
Angelique moves through the foyer and suddenly stops at the portrait of her husband, she looks at him, “You and Carter and this goddamned plan of yours, you have no idea the damage you have done.”
Cue Music End Of Episode