Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

by Lara Parker

  George kicked out with his heavy boot and nudged her shoe. She shrank back and he laughed. She looked over at him and then, holding very still, she bit out her words in a dry whisper.

  “I know things,” she said, and once again the boys quieted. “I know things I could tell the whole school. For instance I know, Paul, that your dad likes to dress up in your mom’s underwear and prance around in front of the mirror.”

  Paul’s face collapsed in shame and he couldn’t look at his friends until he laughed and threw up his hands like it was a joke. “Where’d she get that shit?”

  “And you, Ernie, you get under your bedclothes at night with a flashlight and a porn magazine, only it’s not Playboy, it’s naked men. And I know what you do.”

  Ernie glanced back and forth at his buddies, his face aflame, muttering, “That’s a lie. What? Are you gonna believe her?”

  “And you, George,” she whispered. “Oh, there are things I could tell everybody about you. You act like such a macho pig but what kinds of things do you do with those chickens your mom keeps in her back yard?” It was awful but she couldn’t resist. “Are those little snatches the right size for your tiny prick?” George’s face grew pale. “And Petey, what about your mom, who goes down to the Blue Whale every night and picks up guys—”

  George lunged for her and grabbed her hair, punched at her shoulder, missed, then tore the sleeve of her coat. She jerked away and ran to the front of the bus, her heart pounding as she slunk down behind the driver. Just as she had known he would, he yelled, “Hey, what’s going on back there? Stay in your damn seats or I’ll report every one of you creeps to detention!”

  She leaned into the cab. “I want to get off here.”

  “What, on the side of the road? No, it’s not a stop.”

  She looked back at the boys who were staring at her, and George was giving her what he thought was the evil eye along with the finger while he mouthed, “Bitch!”

  “Not a good idea to get out here,” continued the driver. “There’s been reports of wild animals in the woods.”

  “It’s a shortcut,” she said. “Over to my house.” She caught his eye in the rearview mirror and hissed a command. “Now.”

  When the bus roared then wheezed to a stop, she dashed out the whining door and jumped in the snow, happy to breathe in fresh cold air and to find herself among the trees.

  Four

  Collinwood seemed to float in the silvery light, a giant ghost of a house, its face wavering, its dark windows like tears. Every cornice and turret was softened and draped with a snowy mantle. One low window was brightly lit, the leaded window of the drawing room, and in an instant Barnabas was there, hovering at the casement, as in centuries past, always the distant relative lurking in the shadows.

  From his first night as a vampire two hundred years ago, Barnabas had come here to spy on members of his family. He had always been their anonymous guardian, watching over them in secret. Monster though he was—an object of contempt had they known the truth about him—he had managed, nevertheless, to circumvent for generations many misfortunes that might otherwise have befallen his family, and tonight he wondered what compassion still lingered in his heart.

  Standing by the window with thick flakes falling between him and the glass, it was as if he were peering into a Victorian snow globe at a scene captured out of memory. Elizabeth was seated by the fire, staring into the flames, and a look past dreaming on her face. Her dark hair was piled high, and her soft curls still possessed a shine that framed her delicate features, luminous eyes, and creamy complexion. Two emerald earrings encased in diamonds glittered at her jawline. Her dress was midnight blue, velvet, he decided, with a fitted bodice and long sleeves revealing hands somewhat lined, but adorned with rings that sparkled when she reached up to touch the pearls that were always nestled against her bare neckline. Pearls, he remembered, when worn often against the skin, grew more lustrous with time.

  She had been such a beauty when she was young, and even now her features possessed a perfection that suggested both gentleness and refinement. Her eyes were deep-set, the brows pronounced, her nose tipped with a charming little bulb; but, in contrast, her mouth seemed to be pulled down at the edges, revealing a hidden bitterness. Still, her demeanor was one of elegance and breeding, her posture imperious, and he remembered her voice was rich with the mid-Atlantic diction of finishing school girls.

  She was listening to her brother, Roger, expound on some subject Barnabas could not make out; only his droning, nasal tone came through the pane. As usual, Roger seemed to be pontificating, puffed up with an awareness of some ensuing misfortune. A handsome man, thought Barnabas, with his yellow, graying hair and square jaw, thin lips, and blue eyes that pinned any helpless antagonist to the wall should one be forced to endure his glare. A man of high standards, brooking no humor and no indulgence, he seemed to be threatened by the world and yet ready to take it on. How much he reminded Barnabas of his own father, who, to protect the family name, had chained him in his coffin and left him there—for almost two hundred years.

  Indeed, Roger and Elizabeth were flawless examples of the Collins family line. A heavy weight sagged in Barnabas’s chest as he gazed at them both. Often, when he looked at Elizabeth, he remembered his own mother with such tenderness. She, too, had possessed that patrician air and the same fine features.

  Curled up on the couch, looking up at Roger with her china blue eyes, Carolyn appeared transfixed by what she was hearing, her satiny, well-brushed hair in two waterfalls on either side of her petulant face. Elizabeth’s young daughter had always earned Barnabas’s sympathies. She was lovely, but bored with her life. Trapped in Collinsport, a small town without a movie theater or a shopping center and so little to entertain or distract her, she had developed no resources of her own. She seemed an unwilling victim of circumstance, her small existence doomed to dullness.

  But she was clever and precise, possessed a quick temper, and this evening especially, she appeared more irritable than usual. Barnabas stepped back, wary of being spotted—an obscene face looming behind the glass.

  And who was missing from the family portrait? David, he could see, was not present, and that may have been the problem. Perhaps they were discussing David and his new obsession with Antoinette’s daughter, Jacqueline. They thought she was a mysterious girl with troubling moods. As he was the heir to the family fortune, all hopes rested on David, now sixteen, and preparing to go to Princeton. There were fears, shared by Barnabas, that if the infatuation did not end this girl might jeopardize his future. A troubled child, David had grown into a young man of mettle, and of all the family, his welfare mattered most to Barnabas, who saw himself in the young man’s impetuous nature.

  And where was Quentin, the ne’er-do-well of the family? A distant relative recently materializing from abroad, he made no contribution other than to consume the brandy in the cellar and pursue whatever barmaid or cleaning girl was young and ripe enough to catch his eye. Barnabas shuddered, remembering the damaged portrait, and he was vaguely troubled by Quentin’s absence.

  Over the past year, during his time as a human, Barnabas had been part of this family as well, and he had become familiar with its petty problems. But since his transformation, he had stayed away, certain his change would be obvious and cause alarm. As he looked in on them, a painful lump in his throat would not dislodge, and his limbs felt powerful but weary. He was no longer one of them but instead hiding in the shadows, once again the stranger staring into the snow globe, always with the casement separating him from those he loved, able to trust no one with his secrets—they in the light, he on the side of darkness.

  And, of course, one more character did not appear on the scene, and Barnabas felt a twinge of shame. Julia was not there—Dr. Julia Hoffman, the family physician, had been missing for weeks. Barnabas lowered his head and thought of her lying in her coffin, abandoned, and trapped forever, facing eternity alone.

  To escape these guilty thou
ghts he rose into the air and soon he was a dark wing hovering against the bright moon whose hungry craters gaped as if to devour his shape. It was a flight so boundless and fierce that he ached with all his being to flee the despised world; but he descended again, slipped beneath the pearlescent shroud that enveloped the earth, and settled between the trees. Soon he was peering through a window of the Old House into his own parlor, a room so painfully familiar that he grasped the wolf’s head of his cane and forced the wooden tip into the snow.

  Here he had brought Josette, his young bride-to-be from Martinique. He could still see her stepping from the carriage, her mauve velvet coat skimming the ground as she playfully took his arm. Here he had rejected her maidservant Angelique, a bewitching girl who had come to his room and demanded his affections. Foolishly he had seduced her in Martinique, but back in America he wanted to be rid of her, never dreaming that she possessed otherworldly powers. It had been a dastardly mistake. Here, in this very room, he had fired the pistol that wounded but failed to kill her, and into this very window had flown the bat that attacked him as she flung out her curse and doomed him to life as one of the living dead.

  This was where it had all begun, the heartbreak and the ruin, and it was here that he had discovered the two sides of his nature. Toward Josette he had shown only devotion, toward Angelique contempt, and both emotions fought to shape his whole being. He was trapped by an insidious duality.

  Voices from far off broke his reverie, the shouts of boys, and he wondered how they came to be in the woods. Strange that children should be out in this weather, at this hour, children who should have been home in bed. He felt a vague inkling of menace, as though there were forces afoot he did not understand; the cries of boys were like those of wounded birds, floundering in the drifts.

  He turned again to the window and caught his breath. She was there! Antoinette—looking more like Angelique than ever—was standing by the fireplace where its flames cast a golden light into the room and painted trembling shadows on the floor. She was wearing green, as he remembered she so often did, and her robe was of a medieval style with long bell-shaped sleeves and a low-cut bodice that hugged her waist before the fabric fell in folds to the floor. Her golden hair was roped and twisted into knots.

  He had hoped to find her in her bed, deep in a dream, with moonlight shadowing her pale skin, her dressing gown open at the neck, her pulse fluttering. Even though he could feel a thrill vibrate through his body, he was not in the mood for a struggle. But so much did this woman who had scorned him in his human form resemble Angelique—they seemed to be one and the same—that he found himself despising her once again. Once he had desired to rid his life of her as quickly as possible. Centuries of indecision—it was time for them to end—and what better way than to enslave her, to destroy Angelique’s jealous rages and Antoinette’s poisonous indifference in one consummation of vampire lust.

  And this time, when he had her under his power, he would uncover the witch hidden in her heart, and he would force her to undo the curse. That more than anything was his goal.

  But he was disappointed to discover that she had a visitor, a tall man with a lean body and a well-cut dinner jacket that clung to his broad shoulders. Barnabas was confounded by his reaction. He expected to be weakened by the sight of her. He was also prepared to be confused, perhaps, or exasperated beyond reason, or to feel desire, at the very least a spasm in his loins or a sudden wrench in his heart. But seeing her standing there a few feet away, engaged in lively conversation with a man whose back was to the window—his dark head a mass of curls, one hand grasping a gold-rimmed goblet, a velvet sleeve, a snow white cuff, long and graceful fingers—aroused in Barnabas a rage more wrenching than a knife to the flesh. Antoinette moved toward the window, and the curve of the casement framed her face and upper body, like a painting of a Madonna.

  He was shaken by the force of a sudden impulse, to shatter the glass, tear open the frame, and fly into the room a screeching bat, ready to sink his teeth into her neck. Or to descend on his rival—he could see now that it was Quentin—breaking his body with a few vigorous blows. He was glad now that he had left the painting hidden, and the thought of the control it offered appeased his ire. But Antoinette’s expression as she gazed out into the moonlight made him curious. She was no longer smiling, and her face was now twisted in a grimace of confusion. She lifted her fingers to her eyes and pressed them there, then said in a shaking voice, “Please, Quentin, I don’t know where it is. I’ve searched for it, looked everywhere. It seems to have disappeared.”

  Even though Barnabas remembered Quentin’s volatile temperament, he was surprised at the depth of Quentin’s bitterness when he answered her. “Stupid woman! You are the last person who saw it. If you didn’t smoke that infernal substance, you might remember something! I left the painting in your care! How can I make you understand?”

  Hearing the word painting, Barnabas leaned into the glass and overheard Antoinette say in a gentle voice, “I am so sorry, Quentin. All I want is to make you happy again.”

  Quentin turned abruptly and glared down at her. “Do you honestly believe there is such a thing as happiness, Toni?” He chuckled in his mirthless way, a sneer on his lips. “Happiness does not exist.” He began to pace, his lanky frame agile within his loose-fitting clothes. A great shock of glossy black hair fell heavy on his brow, and he settled in a chair lazily, glowering at her with his deep-set eyes. “I had larger expectations than life has hitherto offered me. And now, thanks to your meddling, the one gift I had has been taken from me.”

  Antoinette was leaning over, and Barnabas could see that she had in her hand the end of a small flat cigarette. It was the marijuana she smoked. She inhaled and walked unsteadily to Quentin, offering it to him.

  “Here,” she said. “Try to get mellow. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “I have a conscience,” he said, ignoring her. “It goes to waste. What does it count in the long illustrious life of Quentin Collins, once a ghost and a tormentor of children, now threatened with a horrible fate?”

  “Take a hit,” she said, her voice shaking. “It will calm you. Quentin, it’s only a painting—”

  Lashing out, he smacked the small cigarette from her hand. “A painting that controls my whole existence!” Then he looked at her from under his shaggy brows. Still holding the goblet with the gold rim, he seemed to sway a moment before, grimacing, he crushed it, and the splintered shards sliced his fingers. In a savage gesture, he threw the glass against the table and, lurching off balance, he reached for her but missed her and grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself, his head lowered in a menacing scowl.

  “Damn you, wench! You have no idea what you have done!”

  Antoinette turned again to the window and looked out into the night, trembling and clearly distressed, and for an instant something flickered in her eyes as though she had seen a movement of some kind. Barnabas drew quickly into the shadows. Then he saw Quentin standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, his long fingers curling around her upper arms. She shrugged restlessly, as if to toss him off, but Quentin leaned over her, his black hair falling across his forehead, and he pressed his face against her braids. He murmured something that must have been an apology, since her expression softened, and she closed her eyes. As Barnabas watched, he thought he saw Quentin’s fingers circle her neck, the bones protrude, and the fingernails grow long and yellow. Quentin turned her to him and kissed her, and then, his arm about her waist, led her to the fire where they lay side by side beside the hearth.

  Barnabas forced himself to remain quiet, but his body trembled with rage. He despised himself in the role of a spectator, but he could not tear himself away. He looked up at the moon, risen now, and gleaming like a giant pearl. It pulsed with white fire.

  Antoinette reached for the cigarette on the floor and lit it. She lifted her lips to Quentin’s and breathed smoke into his mouth. Slowly, he relaxed, lay back, and, as they spoke, even though Ba
rnabas could not hear their words, he could see their conversation became more intimate. His vision blurring, Barnabas looked away from the window. He could not bear to watch them, and again his hand clenched the handle of his cane as if it were a sword. He knew he would not be able to control his anger, already unleashed once this evening, nor did he have any desire to suppress his lust. He could feel the moon beating down like a searchlight, burning his skin. Hearing a faint moan, he turned to look again.

  Quentin was sitting hunched in front of the fire, bent over and groaning. He grabbed at his stomach, and his eyes widened in surprise as his arms flew up and upset a crystal decanter that crashed to the floor. Antoinette cried out as he pushed her away and staggered to his feet.

  Quentin’s body tensed and grew rigid. His back arched and he howled in such agony the sound rattled the windowpane. He turned toward the window, his face contorted in a grimace, and Barnabas drew back, certain he had been observed, but Quentin’s view was focused on some inner turmoil. He convulsed in a doubled-over collapse, tensed again, then lurched through the door, growling like a wild animal, and flung himself across the porch, down the long colonnade of trees, and into the woods.

  Morbidly curious, Barnabas flew after the dark figure as it floundered through the snow, and he hovered just within the treetops. Quentin had stopped running and was now hunched in a clearing where the moon shone down like a pitiless beacon. There he began an uncanny transformation.

  His chest exploded from his shirt and thrust a furred mass out from his body, and his bony arms morphed into spindly legs with paws spread with yellow claws. As his head grew massive, a snout protruded, and black lips drew back to expose slimy teeth and a bloody tongue. His eyes were bloodred as well, slanted, and ringed in black; his ears lay flat on his broad head and gaseous clouds steamed from his jaws.