by Lara Parker
“But I have the feeling that you are the one in danger. That if I leave you now, I may never see you again.”
“The next time you see me I will no longer be married to Angelique. I cannot say any more.”
“Are you sure this is not good-bye?”
“Think of me and know that I love you. Very much.”
Then Angelique saw him take Josette in his arms and kiss her tenderly, and her blood raged with fire.
When Barnabas returned he was implacable and refused to respond to Angelique’s accusations. He ignored her smoldering anger and busied himself with a lacquered box which he kept inside his secretary, turning his back on her tirade.
“You have made a great mistake, Barnabas Collins. You have already betrayed me. You think if you send Josette away, she will be safe. Look behind you!”
Glancing up indifferently, he saw her pointing toward Josette’s portrait. He could not help but recoil in horror as the fresh demure image of the dark-haired girl was transformed before his eyes to a withered hag, the skin raveled and rotted, the mouth a bloody toothless grin. Angelique saw him start, then compose himself, and he turned back to her with an imperturbable stare. “Spare me your pitiful tricks,” he said coldly. “I will not be frightened.”
“You have already been unfaithful to me!”
“I have not,” he responded wearily.
“You have seen her alone. What treachery have the two of you devised?”
“None.”
“I don’t believe you! You are lying to me, just as you lied to me in Martinique, and you will go on lying to me.” The more passive Barnabas remained, the more Angelique raged inside. She felt herself losing control, as though she were in a treacherous undertow and the sand was slipping beneath her feet. “You sent her away so that you could go to her as soon as you have killed me!”
Barnabas turned, and she saw that his expression was one of such complete loathing that she felt as though he had slapped her across the face. Her cheeks flared with the heat from the imagined blow, and her eyes filled with hot tears.
“You think by sending her away you can prevent me from keeping you here? Josette may be safe. But no one else is!” She flew for the stairs and raced to the landing. She had stopped breathing, and her chest was in a vise. Running to her room and turning out a drawer, she grabbed Sarah’s doll, still hidden beneath her clothes. Black waves drowned her thinking.
The next thing she knew, she was standing before Barnabas, the doll and the hatpins in her fingers. “Sarah had a terrible pain, didn’t she? Here!” She jabbed the cotton shoulder of the little effigy with the wicked lance. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Barnabas flinch. “And here!” She pierced the doll again, feeling it quiver in her hand.
Her eyes burned and her vision blurred, as she hissed in a snake’s voice, “This pin is aimed at her heart. She will not die unless you deceive me again, but she will come close. Very close.”
By then Barnabas was begging her. She could hear the supplicating tone, the anguish. “Stop it! Please, please stop. Remove the pins, I beg you! I will do anything you want. I will never leave you!”
But she could no longer hear him. The blood was rushing through her ears and pounding in her head. She heard herself say, “I don’t believe you.”
He fumbled with something in the box in his secretary and wheeled on her. She saw him raise the gun and aim it, and she looked into the eye of the muzzle. She saw a flash of light and heard a barking retort. She reeled with the blow. The bullet ruptured her shoulder, which spurted blood, and she felt her body turn to water as she slid slowly to the floor. In a vague stupor she saw Barnabas, his blackened form, his wide stance, warp and fade, as her vision misted and she tasted blood. His towering shape reached for the doll, and his shaking fingers removed the pins one by one. Then he stood and backed away from her unsteadily.
She knew she was dying. Blood oozed between her fingers, and the wound was like a tentacled creature radiating pain through her body enveloped in a great swelling cloud of hatred. She searched deep within her for some curse, some irrevocable pronouncement of doom, before the end came. The Cata fluttered, arrhythmic, fading, but the huge Maman pumped stronger than ever, and she knew in her violent stupor that the Dark One had come to witness her prayer for revenge. The floor beneath her dissolved, and she felt as though she were floating upward into billowing clouds of smoke. Pain swept through her, and a voluminous ball of fire exploded in her deepest core, funneling out her mouth.
Barnabas wavered at the blast of her breath as though it were a wind of flame, and she could no longer see his face. He was floating on dark undulating waves, and she could hear the water rushing, rushing, as she strained to speak.
“You didn’t do the job well enough, Barnabas!” she gasped. “I am not dead yet! And while I can still breathe, I will have my revenge! I set a curse on you, Barnabas Collins! You wanted your Josette so much—well, you shall have her. But not in the way you have chosen. You will never rest. And you will never be able to love anyone. For whoever loves you will die. That is my curse! And you will live with it through all eternity!”
Somewhere in the dim recesses of the room, the casement slowly opened, and out of the darkness the bat fluttered, chattering, jerking, looping above Barnabas’s head, reeling in a gyre, diving for his neck. He saw the creature and lifted his hands in a feeble gesture, his expression one of confusion, then horror, as the beady eyes glittered crimson, and the sharp teeth gleamed like tiny daggers. He waved it away, but it came on, ducking from his blows, striking again and again, until it landed, flapping against his neck, clinging there, and his eyes widened in terror as he felt the teeth ripping his flesh. He screamed a gasping, wrenching howl that was the final cry of doom.
* * *
When Angelique regained consciousness, she was lying on the floor where she had fallen, in a pool of her own blood. She dragged herself to her feet, her head reeling from the pain, one leaden thought pulsing in her brain. She was not going to die. She knew that now. The wound was deep, but it was not fatal, and something had happened, something hideous and irreversible, that was her own doing, that she must find some way to prevent. Clinging to the banister, she slowly, with great effort, pulled herself up the stairs.
Outside the door to Barnabas’s room, she could hear Ben saying to him, “Anyone who’s lost as much blood as she has would have to be dead.” Somehow she managed to stagger into the room, clutching for the wall to keep from falling, and confront Ben’s astonished expression.
Barnabas lay on the bed in a sweating fever, his hollow eyes clouded with delirium. Two deep gashes on his neck streamed a dark stain. “How is he?” she said to Ben; and when she spoke, she felt she would swoon.
“He’s almost dead, thanks to you.”
“No! I don’t want him to die! If he does…”
Barnabas stirred at her voice, then stared at her, fiercely accusing, and rasped, “A curse … she put a curse on me … she made a bat appear…”
“He’s been rambling on about being bitten by a bat,” said Ben incredulously. “Did a bat do that to him?” He pointed to the fang marks, and she nodded slowly.
“What kind of a monster are you?” Ben asked, his face contorted with disbelief.
“You don’t know how sorry I am,” she said in a trembling voice. “I thought he had killed me—but I’m not going to die—and—I don’t want the curse to overpower him. I must care for him, nurse him, find some way to cure him, because if he dies, there will be no way to remove the curse, and…”
“What? What will happen to him?”
“Something … irreversible. If he dies, he won’t die completely … he will become … one of the living dead.”
“What? Dead people don’t come back to life!”
“Yes, they do, Ben. They return as monsters, and when they return, they are cursed with eternal life!”
* * *
Never had there been a potion she had made with such care. She
created an antidote as powerful as death itself, with ancient powders brought from Martinique. Then she went to the chimney and removed the loose brick. Reaching into the cavern, she felt for a sleeping bat and closed her hand around the struggling body; she drew it out and, holding it to her breast, carried it back to her room. There, as it clawed at her hand, she pierced its heart and milked its blood into the tankard.
Sitting by Barnabas’s bedside, she waited for him to wake. He was delirious, and mumbled, “Josette … wait for me … I am coming.…” Then his eyes fastened on Angelique, and in shuddering spasms, he cried out, “Get away from me! Witch! Murderess! Don’t touch me!”
Her heart aching, Angelique knew she would do anything now to save him, even send for Josette. She was drained of all desire for revenge, and, finally, her love was stronger even than her jealousy. She leaned in to him. “Tell me where she is,” she said, “and I will bring her to you.”
But his eyes flared, and he gasped, “No! You will never find her! She is safe from you now!” Then he fell back, exhausted, murmuring, “Josette … I’ll come to you … nothing will stop me.…” After a few moments of tortured breathing, he became limp, and whispered hoarsely, “Something terrible is happening to me, I can feel some horrible change.…”
Angelique spoke to him softly. “I am going to help you.”
“Can you stop it? Can you stop this dreadful thing?”
“Yes,” she said. “I won’t let it happen. I will save you. I promise.” She lifted the tankard to his lips. “Drink this. It will help you. I’ll hold it while you drink. Drink slowly.”
“Will it stop this … ripping … I feel through my body?”
“Yes. It must!” And as he drank, she said softly to herself, too softly for him to hear, “If only you had loved me, as you did once.”
She stroked his brow, and said, “Close your eyes.” She pressed her fingertips into his forehead and tried to lift the darkness into her hands. His skin was clammy, and the dark tendrils of hair were matted against his brow. She felt the strands of the curse beginning the metamorphosis, poisoning his blood, and she strained to draw them into herself. “Close your eyes,” she said, “and open them only when I tell you.”
“Let me sleep. If only I could sleep…” he murmured.
“Yes, sleep now. You are going to survive. Can you feel it now? The potion is working. Don’t open your eyes until I tell you to.”
“No, I don’t want to open my eyes.…”
Tremulously, with faint hope and sinking dread, Angelique walked to the window. She reached for the heavy scarlet drape and, taking a quick breath, heaved it back. Sunlight streamed into the room, flashing on all the surfaces, flowing across the bed.
“Open your eyes, Barnabas, now!”
He writhed, jerking his head back and forth. “I don’t want to open my eyes.…”
“Open them!”
He did, for only a moment, and when he saw the sunlight, he screamed in agony, the shriek of a creature in mortal pain, and covered his face with his hands.
“It’s too late,” she said, letting the curtain fall. “What’s done cannot be undone.”
Thirty-One
Angelique stayed with Barnabas all the day and listened with a heavy heart as he raged maniacally—calling over and over for Josette. At times panic would seize him, and he would stare as though mad. Once he found her hand and clung to it, not knowing whose hand it was, and squeezed her fingers until she gasped. It was after midnight when he finally lapsed into a fitful swoon. She left him and walked out into the night.
There was no moon, and the stars were hidden in a shroud of mist. Fog swirled at her feet, but she was no longer afraid when the Dark Spirit appeared before her, his flickering shape more distinct now, the planes of his face shifting from ebony to ivory. His voice was the hum of the wind, but the sounds were almost human.
“A vampire! What an interesting choice, my dear. I must admit even I am intrigued.”
“Don’t let him die.”
“But, Angelique, this is your doing. How many times have you said to me, ‘My powers belong to me. They come from me!’” He laughed a bitter barking laugh.
“I know that is not true. I could not have done it alone.”
“And now you are sorry.”
“I regret it with all my heart. I could not bear his anger and his contempt when I love him so deeply. I was not strong enough. If only I could take it back, begin again, I would let him have her and live with the heartbreak.”
“Why have you summoned me?”
“Please … let him live.”
“In human form he will always despise you.”
“I know that now. I accept that.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Yes…”
There was a long sigh, as if the trees all dipped their branches. “You forget, my darling, I am not the Lord of Creation. Death is my province. There is only one way he can remain alive now, and that is through your curse. He will then possess what I offer you: immortality.”
“Life?”
“Yes. Eternal life.”
She waited by Barnabas’s bedside, still hoping for a miracle, and she deplored her feeble powers. When he died that night, it was with Josette’s name on his lips. “Wait for me, Josette … I will come back.…”
He never knew he breathed his last breath in Angelique’s arms. She kissed his face, so still now, and the hollows of his eyes.
“I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. And I will love you forever.”
The Dark One was in the room.
“Forever…” he said.
“Always the same covenant, and the same lies,” she said, her tears falling.
“Not the same. Come with me and serve me, and someday, centuries from now, I will release you.”
“No. I will not.”
* * *
She found the caretaker, sitting on his bench, deep in mourning. Ben’s huge body heaved with sobs, but she felt that all his grief would fill only a small part of her own aching heart. She was like a sleepwalker, staring out with unseeing eyes, thinking only of what she must do.
“Ben. You must help me. Cut down a holly tree and fashion for me a small stake from the trunk, ten or twelve inches long, thick enough to be hit with a mallet. Make one end of it needle sharp.”
“What do you want it for?”
“Do as I say, or we will all die when dusk falls.”
* * *
Slowly, Angelique raised the lid of the coffin. The creaking of the hinges echoed in the secret room of the mausoleum, and the odor of bat guano rose to her nostrils. Barnabas lay there, even more beautiful in death, but there was a profound change in his countenance. There was a porcelain cast to his skin—translucent over the skull—and the sunken areas beneath the cheekbones and within the sockets of the eyes were darkly shadowed, as though he were the portrait of a god in a masterpiece. His soft locks curled at the hollowed temples, and the eyebrows were thicker now, and shaggy, as if the hair had grown in the grave. A reddish gleam lay along the insides of his lips, and his hands, the hands that had loved her, were folded over a waistcoat of crimson satin.
She was not afraid, but she trembled, for her breast flooded with pity as she placed the stake above his heart, aiming carefully. The mallet was heavy when she lifted it above her head, feeling her own heart pound, bracing herself for the final blow—the destruction of the vampire, the negation of negation, the end of all she loved.
She hesitated, feeling the mallet’s weight, one moment, another. And then she knew—she could not do it. She could not snuff out the one light that remained.
At that instant, Barnabas woke. His eyes flew open, and he stared up at her with pure malevolence. A growling sound came from his lips, and his hand was on her throat, crushing the small bones of her neck. She wrenched away, the stake and mallet clattering to the floor; but he sprang up, lightly, and was on his feet, lunging for her. He
caught her and crushed her shoulder in his grasp.
“What were you about to do?” he snarled, then looked around in astonishment. “Where are we?”
She answered in a tremulous voice. “In the Collins mausoleum.”
“A coffin! Why was I in a coffin?” His bewilderment only added to his menace, as he flung her away and paced the room like a caged panther. She saw at once that his body was more vigorous—agile, loose, and powerful. Gone was any check to his fury, any civilized restraint. He was all passion, and even as she was frozen in panic, she was dazzled by his power.
“Why?” He stared at her, his eyes smoldering, rimmed in scarlet. “Oh yes, I remember now—the bat—a fever—lying in bed—I knew something horrible was happening to me—I was afraid I would die.…”
She slipped toward the door, but he saw her move and snatched her to him, savagely, holding her as though she were a weightless thing that he could break at any moment. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? I was in the coffin, because … I was dead!”
She tried to remain resolute, but her bones felt like reeds. “Yes,” she said softly. “You are dead.”
“I’ve returned … from the dead! How? Why?” He looked at her, baffled, incredulous.
“You will know soon enough.”
Then his eyes narrowed. “You! You put a curse on me!” His voice was cold fury, ice scraping on ice.
“I tried to stop it!” she cried. “I tried to free you from it.”
“And you failed, didn’t you? That’s why you are here. You wanted to prevent it—my returning—” He stared at her, his rimmed eyes narrowing, and she smelled his hot breath. “You’re afraid, aren’t you? What are you afraid of? Is it what I have become?”
She backed away from him, trying to place the coffin between them, fear stabbing at her body like pieces of jagged glass.
“Are you afraid that you no longer have any powers over me? Damn you! Witch! Tell me what has happened to me!”
It took all her effort to answer him. “The curse … has made you … one of the living dead.”
