Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

by Lara Parker

  “Just a moment, darling,” said Elizabeth. “Go on, Dr. Blair.”

  “Yes, well, now that there have been a new series of inexplicable killings here in Collinsport, your family is being spoken of again, and not with kindness. It is most unjust. As a scientist and a physician, I seek your permission to investigate certain members of your family. I believe there is a vampire at large in the village of whom you have no knowledge but who may do you harm.”

  Roger groaned in irritation at the word vampire. But as Blair droned on David became more agitated, although he made an effort not to show it. Jackie had told him she was a witch, although he had thought she was teasing him, and, yes, he had seen what might have been fang marks on Antoinette’s throat the night before. Inexplicably, Barnabas had chosen to sleep in a casket. All that would never be spoken of normally, not in his family, but what if Blair was to discover these things?

  “You must not become alarmed about the vampire,” Blair was saying. “I mean to find him out and destroy him.”

  “Disgusting,” said Roger, rising and turning away. “And completely incomprehensible.”

  “Again. What does this have to do with us? No one here is a vampire,” said Carolyn, thoroughly exasperated.

  Nathanial smiled at her indulgently. “It’s very simple. I would like to uncover your secrets once and for all, rid the family of its curse, if you will, and restore it to its entitled place in history.”

  David felt deflated, as if he had known the answer to a question in a classroom and another student had yelled it out first. He had meant to make it his purpose to unearth the Collins mysteries, and he had begun the morning flush with curiosity and excitement. Now this Blair was stealing his fire, and threatening Barnabas at the same time.

  “But why should we share our family secrets with you, even if there were any?” said his young cousin in a petulant tone.

  Blair looked directly at Carolyn, and his appraisal of her in her short dress was more than obvious. His voice dropped an octave, almost as if he were flirting.

  “I understand why you are cautious. In fact, I expected it from the younger members of the family. But, my dear, I mean you no harm. On the contrary, I only want to bring a little excitement into your lives. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  He had struck home. “But why us?” she said with a note of defiance.

  Blair turned his attention back to the family.

  “Did it ever occur to you that these many misfortunes you have endured are no fault of your own, were precipitated by no misdeeds or miscalculations, but are the result of a curse placed on the family long ago?”

  “A curse? Whatever do you mean?” asked Elizabeth nervously.

  “A curse that manifests in various ways, but refuses to be dislodged. An illustrious ancestry such as yours deserves its place in the New England accounts of great families, rather than to be hidden away in shame.”

  “That’s all very well,” said Roger sternly, “but we have no intention of sharing our family history with a complete stranger. Our misfortunes, and I’m not saying we have any, are no business of yours.”

  “Even if I uncover evidence that could defame your name even further? The papers love scandals, especially among the elite.”

  Roger’s face grew red. “Exactly what are you threatening us with? Blackmail?”

  Blair continued, unabated. “I propose a trade. You allow me to investigate your family, cooperate with my inquiries, and I will do everything in my power to clear your name and release you from your unfortunate enchantment.”

  “How would you propose to do that?”

  “The first thing I would like to try is a séance. The dead have more to tell us than the living. Besides, they can be rather amusing.”

  “Oh my dear man, don’t be absurd.” Roger shrugged and turned away again.

  “Why do you say that? Do you deny that some of you have taken part in such mystical journeys in the past? The fact is, servants who worked in this house and witnessed the proceedings have found their tongues loosed at the local Blue Whale, and many a laugh has been had at your expense.” In the foyer Willie cast a worried look in Mrs. Johnson’s direction before staring at the floor.

  Quentin came forward. “Whom in the past would you try to contact?”

  “Stop it, Quentin! I refuse to hear any more of this gibberish.”

  “Come, come, Roger, you know as well as I do that there have been séances held in this very room. Why deny it? The man obviously knows a lot about us.”

  “To our disadvantage, I’m sure.”

  “For my own reasons,” Blair continued, “I would like to journey to the year 1929, where I might make contact with a certain Jamison Collins—your father, Roger.”

  “And may I ask why?”

  “Something occurred, during the Depression, that could clarify everything.”

  “Nineteen twenty-nine,” repeated Quentin, and David noticed that he was staring at Elizabeth. She caught his eye, stood, and turned away. Her reaction was so unusual that David thought there must be some secret between them and he studied her more closely, but her face was calm and without expression. Nathanial Blair spoke to him directly, jolting his musings.

  “So, David, do you accept the challenge? How would you like to help me find the vampire? You are young and strong and well suited to being a detective.”

  “A what?” He turned to look at Blair, who was now staring at him with a mischievous smile, more like a smirk, which gave David an uneasy feeling. Or maybe it was his high forehead and pronounced widow’s peak. There was nothing about the man on the surface that seemed suspicious; on the contrary, he was supremely pleasant, but David felt an odd distrust. Blair’s enthusiasm seemed forced, and there was a neediness about him that made David uncomfortable.

  “Surely you know of these valiant types,” Blair said in his flat voice, “young men with goodness and strength, who have an uncanny power to rid the world of evil. Heroes, I think they are called.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” said David. “You are completely wrong about us. There are no ghosts, goblins, or vampires in our family and you are insulting us to say so.”

  Blair raised his eyebrows. “Your anger surprises me. Perhaps you have something to hide. Someone you are trying to protect.”

  David’s heart jumped when he thought of Jackie. “I don’t. And I resent your accusations. Who do you think you are, bursting in here with no invitation and assuming gossip about us is true?”

  “Do you doubt my sincerity? Or my credentials?”

  “Yes. I think you are a fake.”

  “David, you mustn’t be rude.” Elizabeth spoke in calming tones. “Mr. Blair has only said he wanted to be of help.”

  “I can see what he wants. He wants to write a book about the supernatural and tell a lot of lies about us. He wants to portray us as weirdos in order to make money, and—”

  Quentin broke in. “David may have a point. You may be a charlatan taking advantage of a reclusive family, but we have a way to test your expertise. I will take part in your séance, Mr. Blair. When do you propose to stage it?” His face was bruised, David was certain, and his eyes bloodshot.

  “Why, this week, or next. At your convenience,” answered Blair, ignoring David’s cold stare.

  Quentin glowered back at him and said, “I would choose as soon as possible, and”—he drew closer to Blair and spoke in a low voice—“I have a question for you, Dr. Blair. If you discover this vampire you believe exists and manage to do whatever you do with him, trap him, arrest him—”

  “Stake him.”

  “Then what will you do? Turn his body over to the authorities?”

  Blair chuckled, a dry sound in his throat. “Hardly. Like the curious doctor that I am”—almost a whisper—“I will perform an autopsy.”

  * * *

  Roger led Blair out, and David was on his way to the stairs when he heard Quentin say something to Elizabeth. Curious, he drew back
and paused behind the door to listen. Through the crack he could see that everyone else had left the room and Quentin was standing behind Elizabeth, quite close to her, speaking to her in a quiet voice and in a tone that sounded oddly intimate. “A séance,” he said, leaning in toward her. “Back to 1929. Shall we take part, Elizabeth?” He reached for her hand, but, looking quickly around, she drew it away.

  Still, she smiled at him, a wistful expression tinged with humor, a warmth David had never seen before in her face. “A séance? What would that possibly mean to us?”

  “How can you ask that?” said Quentin, his tone still secretive. “Don’t you remember? A man and a girl who believed they had found the world when they found one another.”

  David had never heard any expression of love spoken in his family, so he was not sure he was hearing one now. He eased closer to the crack, hoping to hear more.

  “Would you come?” Quentin whispered.

  “But that’s foolish. The purpose of a séance—however absurd that is—is to make contact with the dead, not to escape into the past.”

  “But you know it can happen. We could slip through. Tell me you aren’t intrigued.”

  “Quentin, you must let all that go. Those … lovers disappeared into the pages of memory.”

  “On the contrary, they are as alive as yesterday.”

  “All changed.”

  “No, she is still here. The girl who ruined me forever for any other woman.”

  “Please. Don’t speak of it. There have been a hundred lovers since then.”

  Quentin’s voice was tender. “And only one I will never forget.”

  David was intrigued. Who did Elizabeth mean by lovers?

  He leaned in closer and watched Quentin walk to the window and stare out at the falling snow. “I remember that night, the excitement of it all. The trees in bloom,” he said, “the ground strewn with petals that had fallen like snow? The night of your nineteenth birthday after the ball in the east wing. That part of the house now shut away? Don’t you remember the music? That marvelous car?”

  David was startled when Elizabeth rose, her voice breaking into a sob. “I remember the heartbreak, the horrible things that happened, the sacrifice—” She took a breath as though it pained her. “You know I am old now.”

  “No older than I.”

  “But look at you! Whereas for me the years have taken their toll, you … you seem to remain always in the flower of youth—dashing, fit.” She looked at him helplessly, but then her expression clouded over. “Although this morning I must admit you seem exhausted. Are you ill?”

  Quentin turned to her, his features drawn. “Elizabeth, I must talk to you. I need your guidance. My life has taken a bad turn.”

  But Elizabeth, growing restless, looked over to see David standing in the foyer, and she rose and withdrew hurriedly, remarking in her formal manner, “I must go through my mail, Quentin. Please excuse me.”

  Eight

  It was after midnight and the flattened moon hovered outside David’s window when he was awakened by a soft knock on his door. It was his Aunt Elizabeth in a long white nightgown, her hair hanging down her back like a girl’s. She was carrying a candle and the flame’s pale glimmer flickered across her worried features.

  “David,” she said, “could you come with me? There is an odd noise downstairs.”

  Groggy, but pleased to have been called on to help, David followed her into the hall. He stood with her for a moment listening, and then he heard it, too.

  There was a pounding like a heartbeat deep within the house, as if someone or something was trying to break in. When all was silent, he waited, until he assumed the sound had been his imagination, but then a shudder passed through the walls, and the pounding began again.

  “Do you hear it?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “Yes.” David was only in his pajamas, and he began to shiver.

  “What do you think it could be?”

  “Perhaps someone at the door? Let’s go down.”

  David ventured into the dark hallway determined to find the source of the sound. His aunt followed him down the long corridor from her bedroom to the stair, her robe flowing about her ankles, her feet bare on the parquet floor.

  Someone was at the entrance; he thought it might be some stranger in need of shelter or aid, due to an accident perhaps. For some reason he was trembling, and he told himself not to be afraid as he tiptoed down the stair in the dark to the landing, and paused to listen again.

  The pounding continued, muffled but insistent.

  When his aunt descended to the landing, a blast of cold air whipped her robe away from her gown and extinguished her light.

  “Stay there,” said David, “and I’ll have a look.”

  The front door had been flung open by the wind, and snow had blown over the threshold and carpeted the foyer. It was like ice on his bare feet as David walked to the double doors and looked out. He waited for the pounding to begin again, but the air was blanketed in a deep silence. There was only the stillness of a winter night beneath a waning moon that seemed to vibrate as though some unseen hand turned a dial that made it brighten and grow dim.

  There was no one in the yard. Still shivering, David flipped on the outside light. A lone lamp poured a yellow beam across the snow, and far off he could hear the yapping of a coyote. He extinguished the light, bolted the door, turned, and made his way back to the stair where his aunt Elizabeth waited on the landing.

  “Everything seems to be fine,” he said. “I think we can go back to bed.”

  The house was quiet now and the only sounds were the ticking of the hall clock and his own heart tapping softly in his ears.

  * * *

  Several mornings later, Quentin stood at his bedroom window and looked out at the world. The moon, the sky, and the snow were all varied shades of deathly white: the moon like a dull misshapen shell was floating in a smoky dawn, and the melting snow on the lawn was the color of bleached bone. It was a gibbous moon, on its way to a crescent, and then, how many nights before it would swell again?

  He knew he was doomed, and what a cruel joke it was. Like the gambler at the roulette wheel who watches the last of his fortune spin down the vortex; the tightrope walker whose foot slips for the first and final time; the sailor who braves the storm only to discover he is not brave at all, but an impotent coward with no skills to save himself in the whirlwind. This was what he was now—a wolf in the forest, a rapacious brute. He was doomed. Tentacles of fear slithered though his body.

  He turned from the window and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above his dresser. He was startled by the tall, gaunt man who looked back at him. There were shadows under his eyes and a two-day stubble could not hide deepening lines in his face. He laughed bitterly. From lover of women to destroyer of women—oh, how the mighty have fallen! Once a romantic libertine, a gallant roué, he was now to become a groveling predator. He smiled ruefully. Perhaps the two had more in common than he cared to admit. For how many years had he traded on his manly charms? And if finally he were to become this Beast every full moon, where was his Beauty?

  Ah, she was near, but what was left of her glow was hidden away in a decaying house where she had been a recluse for twenty years, turned inward by guilt. He loved her still, loved the memory of the golden girl who had so dazzled him, who, when she walked into a room, had made it bright with sunlight and whose voice was musical as a flowing stream. He longed to return to those blissful days.

  But like a torch in the forest, a light moving among the leaves, he had begun to see the signs: his feet seemed elongated when he forced them into his leather boots, hair on the arches, and on his toes, the beginnings of claws. He could feel in his throat, at the back of his tongue, an extended row of teeth. His voice was a bark, harsh and vibrant. His tongue like a root.

  What was most surprising was a novel sense of canine loyalty, a reversal of his usual cool indifference. He thought of Toni, who was lovely, as
so many had been before her, sweetly intimate, yet skilled, conscious of his pleasure, but lately needy, suggesting something he had found repugnant, of all the most repulsive states in the human condition: marriage. And now he was surprised to discover that he longed for a mate, for a family, to hunt in his own pack, or even to curl up by her side by the fire, seeking her warmth. He shivered and shook away the image.

  Oh, the smells! His nostrils, black and quivering, drew in odors that aroused him in new ways. He was curious about every cranny of the world, of leaf mold and moss, bird droppings, slugs in their crevices, snails in their shells. The air reeked of tempting perfumes, and tendrils of smells drifted into the crannies of his nose and drove him mad—musky rabbit, dank squirrel, spicy quail.

  But what did all that matter? He had become a crime of nature, as absurd as a murderous clown. And this after he had remained young for over almost a hundred years. Youth longs for love, for the many chimes and charms that come with passion; old age longs only for youth. After all these years of decadence, a surface left unscarred. His handsome face! But, he thought grimly, unless wisdom were written in the creases of his cheeks, in the gray of his beard—was there wisdom? Did the blandness of his surface sink to his core? These thoughts made him restless; always the drifter, bored and irresolute, his mind wandered again into thoughts of a séance. He could escape, return to another time when life was rich with promise, music, dancing, and danger. He had been such a clever rake, and a slip of a girl had bewitched him. He wanted her again, wanted to hold her in his arms the very first time. He clung to the idea, to go back, before the curse, before the war. He would speak to that man Blair at the first opportunity. The séance could save him!

  But first he decided to visit Antoinette, to ply her mind once more. He had not spoken to her since that night, and he had tortured himself with wondering whether she had recognized him in his bestial state. He did not think she had. Barnabas had been distracting her, Barnabas, whom he had almost destroyed. Somehow, he had managed to stop himself. And whom had he killed? He had no idea! Some kid wandering in the woods alone, a pimply-faced schoolboy. And he had eaten him alive! His whole body convulsed at the thought. What contemptible thing had he become?