Episode 1446

Aired: Monday January 10, 1972

In a replay of Friday's close, Harrison is searching in the woods, and instead of seeing Benjamin ahead of him, he sees the altar through the trees. Edward stands over Quentin with the large club. Kitty begins to chant and tells Quentin that his "sacrifice will serve to the greater immortality. Once your shell is crushed upon this altar, the blood will flow into my eternal flame..." Quentin struggles as Edward raises the club, but Harrison runs out of the woods and screams for Edward to stop. Edward seems jolted by this, but does not drop the club. Kitty looks at Harrison and snarls "You will not save him... and by coming here, you have only added to our sacrifice." Harrison steps forward and says "I know how to destroy you." Kitty laughs and says "And I know how to destroy you as well." She smiles as Benjamin grabs Harrison from behind. Quentin sees this and gasps "Benjamin! You've taken Benjamin too!" Benjamin growls "You will be destroyed, Harrison Collins!" as Harrison tries to break free. Kitty laughs.

After the titles, Harrison struggles against Benjamin's grip as Kitty cackles away. "He is completely under my control, something your death will spare you from," she says. "All the millenia I slept beneath the sands of the desert waiting for a human form to assume....and this one provided such rich memories and avenues to endless power...." she goes on, admiring herself. Harrison sees Benjamin is entranced by her, and uses the opportunity to break free from his grip. He takes off his coat and pounds it over the flame on the altar, putting it out. Kitty screams "Stop him! Stop him!" and then sees her hand has begun to deteriorate. Edward drops the club and seems to feel dizzy. "Where...where am I? he says. Benjamin has also weakened, leaning against a tree. "What is happening to me?" he says. Quentin rolls off the altar and tells Harrison "that was quick thinking" but Kitty slams them backwards with a wave of her hand. "I still have enough power left to defeat you all," she shouts. "And I will draw upon more...." she croaks as she slithers towards Edward and starts to wrap her decrepit hands around his neck. He begins to scream and the altar flame relights itself! Edward begins to age as Kitty begins to laugh again. Benjamin steps away from the tree past Quentin and Harrison and looks at Kitty. She commands "Benjamin, come here!" as life continues to drain from the groaning Edward. "No...no..." he says softly as he begins to gain his senses and his strength. He looks at her hands, which fade from old and rotting to young and beautiful as Edward begins to look like an aged old man. "NO!" Benjamin shouts. "You're not Kitty! You never were!" She drops Edward and holds her hands out to Benjamin, commanding "Come to me, Benjamin. Now!" He blinks a moment, but then picks up the club that Edward dropped. "NEVER!" he screams, and brings the club down on the flame and its basin, smashing it to pieces. "DIE, DEMON, DIE!" he screams as he pounds away with the club. Kitty screams as the altar begins to crumble around her. Harrison pulls Quentin away from the falling rocks as Benjamin continues to smash what's left of the altar with the club - and then a skeletal hand with only bits of flesh attached touches his sleeve - he turns to see the true face of the Succubus - a skull with bloody and rotten black clumps of flesh falling from it, with white wiry hair flailing in the wind. A gravely voice says "Benjamin.....kiss me....." as it approaches him. He is horrified, and pulls away in time as what was once the beautiful Kitty crumbles into nothing more than a mass of white dust. Benjamin drops the club and looks at the broken altar, and then at Harrison and Quentin. "It's over...." he says as the howling wind begins to blow the dust away. "It's over."

Carl frantically arrives at Charity's house and demands to come in. She asks him what's wrong, and he tells her how Gladstone is possessed by Peter Bradford and is coming for her. She is terrified, but Carl says he has the gun and will protect her. She's afraid to stay in her house, and he tells her that he could hide her at the Collinwood old house. "There's a secret panel in the living room" he says. "You could hide in there!" Charity wonders if it will be safe to even try going there, but Carl says "I'll get you there, I'll protect you. Bradford's already taken too many people I love away from me." He starts to leave, but she takes his arm and asks "You love me?" He looks at her a moment and tells her he does, and she throws her arms around him. He tells her how he never thought he would think his life was worth anything again until he found her. "And my Nora is crazy about you too," he adds. He takes her out of the house.

Back at the altar, Quentin asks Benjamin if he's all right, and Benjamin says he doesn't know how he'll "ever be able to forget what I've seen here tonight." They hear a groan from behind a pile of rubble, and Harrison says "Edward" He runs over to him, and then grimaces. "Quentin....Benjamin....you'd better come here," he says. They do, and see that Edward looks nearly a hundred years old and is dying under some of the rubble of the altar. "Quentin...." Edward weakly says. Quentin kneels down and says "Edward, don't talk, save your strength." Edward says "I am dying...I know that.....you must promise me...." he begins to cough, and Quentin asks "What? What must I promise?" Edward looks at Quentin and says "My son....Jamison....tell him...tell him he's a good boy.....look after him. He'd want you to. I want you to...." Edward closes his eyes and dies. Quentin is touched that Edward's last thoughts were of Jamison. Benjamin wails that "It's my fault he's dead! If only I had stopped her earlier...." Harrison tells Benjamin it's not his fault because "you could not fight against the unearthly power she held over you." Quentin puts his hand on Benjamin's shoulder and says "Harrison is right. And we should be grateful to you, Benjamin. We'd all be dead now if you didn't destroy that.....thing." Benjamin says "Perhaps its time I took more control of the things happening around me." Quentin somberly says "Let's get Edward out of this damned place." They begin to clear the rubble around Edward's body.

Carl and Charity are walking through another part of the woods, Carl's gun at the ready. He tells her they're almost to the old house. She clutches him close and tells him that once she's there "she may never leave." He smiles, but this is cut short by Gladstone, who suddenly leaps out of some nearby brush waving the scimitar. "Charity Trask!" he says. "Thou will taste the blade of Bradford!" He starts to lunge at her, but Carl fires the gun at him. "Get back!" Carl says. "Gladstone! If you're in there, fight him! Fight back!" Gladstone takes another step forward and says "Gladstone is under my control, completely. He cannot even hear your pathetic cries..." Carl says "He'll understand what I have to do...." Carl fires the gun, and Gladstone clutches his chest and flies back. Charity screams, but Carl says "I had to do that...it was the only way to stop him." Charity says "Is it?" and screams again - because Gladstone has gotten back up and is laughing as he waves the scimitar! "Bradford will make this body carry him!" he says. Carl starts firing again, but Gladstone continues to smile as the bullets hit him, coming closer and closer with the scimitar held high....