Leonora

I met up with Leonora on the 19th at Greystone, as she specified. But surprisingly, she wasn't there herself. At least, not in person. I found an arrow show into a tree with a note attached to it (she always was a really good archer). The note read as follows:

"Cartaphilus, my love. I was unable to attend the meeting I had set for us. My Master had an important task for me to complete and it was imperative I took care of that before handling you. As for the deal I was prepared to offer you, here it is: kill your protege, Lucien. Do not allow him to regain his memories, and the Master shall let you live, for now. Refuse, and we will kill him for you, as well as destroy you and your research. You have one month to decide.
-Leonora"

Leonora, my former lover, wife, and mother to our son. She was never evil like this.

We met in 1878 in London. Very pretty woman with long brown hair, green eyes. Tall too, which I didn't see that often in women at that point. Needless to say, we fell in love almost instantly. Only woman I ever had these feelings for. After 6 years of courting her, I proposed to her and she said yes. We married on Christmas Day of 1884. It wasn't long after that she told me she was pregnant. September of 1885, our son Tobias was born.

We remained in London until 1891. During that time, as most of you know from history, there were the unexplained murders committed by one Jack The Ripper. These weren't just simple murders committed by one man for his own personal reasons. He was actually a minion of The Threat. Those that were killed were those who had discovered The Threat, purely by accident. I pursued the killer as much as I could, hoping that perhaps I could stop him and gain more information on The Threat. Unfortunately, doing this kept me away from Leonora and Tobias. I ended up leaving them behind in London as I followed The Ripper overseas to the United States. He continued to murder more people across the country, until eventually I caught up to him. When I did, he was in a fragile state of mind. He was fighting The Threat's control over him, and with my company to keep him away, he regained his sense of self. But at that point, it was too late. He couldn't make up for all the lives he had taken. I accompanied him back to England where he turned himself in. He was later found dead of "natural causes," but I know it was because The Threat finally silenced him before he could reveal the truth.

I returned to London, but found no trace of either my wife or my son. The few people there who remembered them had no idea what became of them. I thought I had lost them. I didn't know what to do then, other than return to the United States and continue my investigations of The Threat there.

I never thought that an important part of my past such as that would come back to haunt me. Now I have to face my past, and find a way to make peace with it.

-The Count