Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

by Lara Parker

  “Once again, I offer you an eternity of devotion, and you refuse me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though I have always been faithful?”

  “You ruined everything I loved.” He took a deep breath. “But I would rather you returned as the magnificent rival I once had than to torture this girl.”

  Her fire grew dim and she lowered her head. “Perhaps I could have come back as Angelique. But I knew you would always despise me, and that you would never forgive me. I could return again and again and you would never love me. Now Antoinette is gone, and the only way I have to reach you is through Jacqueline.” The edge of desperation in her voice caused him to look at her.

  “So I must despise her as well!”

  “But she does not know! Her motives are pure.”

  “Then she is not you, Angelique.”

  She was silent, fading, a small blue light. “Through her I could love you…”

  He shook his head, and the flame flared a little, flickered, and died.

  Twenty

  David stumbled away from the stairway and into the hall reeling from what he had heard. He thought she loved him—even if not in the same way—that they were friends—he believed they would escape, go off together, that he could save her, protect her. Instead, out of the blue, she was offering herself to someone else, someone old enough to be her father—said she wanted to live with him! Told him she knew he was—of all things—a vampire! How could she love a vampire?

  As he dragged himself through the kitchen, he could only think how he had planned for them to be together. Did this mean she rejected him completely? Why? What was wrong with him? He was prepared to make any sacrifice. He was a Collins, in line to inherit the estate, the business, about to enter a prestigious college—he would be wealthy, and she would live in the Great House. He could offer her anything, everything—most of all, his love forever. He was humbled to realize that this was not enough.

  He staggered through the drawing room, crashed into the armchair, and tugged open the front door. The icy air blasted him in the face with sleet. Almost tripping on the threshold, he stopped himself beside one of the tall columns, and he leaned against it, closing his eyes. He was caught in a whirlwind of swirling ice. His muscles felt weak, his breath was like a stone lodged in his throat, and his heart ached as though it had fallen to the bottom of the sea.

  The only thing that gave him hope was that Barnabas had not accepted her offer. Still, she had pleaded. How could he have believed so deeply—never questioned—that she would grow to love him? They had shared so many things—how could she not? He tried to swallow, but he could not dislodge the lump stopping his breath.

  He worshipped her—the shadows of her face, every movement of her body, her fingers, her wrists, the way she twisted a piece of her hair, her brightness, her melancholy—and he had not realized until this moment that he had been lying to himself. He felt faint and his stomach heaved as if he would throw up. The pressure in his chest was making him choke, and he was suddenly aware of the cuts on his hand and his forehead radiating pain, like burns from red-hot brands. He tried to walk but his legs gave way, and with a cry he toppled over and fell in the snow. He lay there with his face buried, smelling the frozen forest floor, and he dug his hand under the crust to ease the pain. Something was drumming on his back; it was hail falling like stones.

  She wanted Barnabas. Why? Barnabas was old, and not even—what? Not even alive? What did that mean? He had never really thought about it. He had sneered at Blair’s accusations, thinking only that he despised that man, a busybody who was snooping and meddling in the family secrets. He had never considered what a vampire really was. He sat up, his head clearing for an instant. All around, freezing rain tumbled out of the sky and the wind blew like daggers. Of course, Barnabas was immortal. The supernatural. The unexplained. She would have been swayed by enchantment. She was a witch—he was sure of that now—and he loved that about her, but she had incomprehensible powers that left him in the dark. She was bizarre, otherworldly, and their minds would never meet and think as one—they were completely different, like fire and water, and he would never really understand her because she was a mystery, and because of this he wanted her even more—a rare treasure, only once in a lifetime, beyond perfection. A fragile rose surrounded by thorns.

  He pulled himself to his feet and tried to get hold of himself. But he swayed as he walked back to the snowmobile and, after starting it up and climbing on, he drove it slowly down the road. He could not make himself press the throttle, and the sled was hard to steer where the snow was still deep but heavy, sticky in the freezing rain, not like it had been weeks ago when it had been as soft as air.

  Several times he stopped to rest, to catch his breath or to simply hang his head aching from his wound, as every minute took him farther away from her. He wanted to turn back, go to her to tell her loved her, but there was still a spark of pride inside him that prevented him from making the effort. As he sputtered through the splintered air, swerving the sled, he began to sweat under his clothes.

  How does a vampire come to be? Had Barnabas died and come back to life? But that didn’t make any sense. Barnabas didn’t seem dead. At least he hadn’t a few months ago when they had taken a trip to Salem together, driven the whole way. Was he immortal? Yes. But the thought was too confusing. Yet, she was a witch. He had not questioned it, admired it even, because he had wanted her so much. He thought of the gypsy and the tarot cards, the Jester standing on the precipice—but he could not accept losing Jackie. They had stood together on the cliff’s edge—they had jumped, risked their lives—and they had flown! How could he have done that without magical powers of his own?

  Again, as he had done so often, he thought of his mother. He could still see her standing in the burning shed. She had beckoned, called him into the flames, promised him immortality. He would die, she said, and be born again. A Phoenix rising out of the fire, its golden wings spread in the air. But he had been afraid. He had resisted her call. And he had lost her forever. Had this been his greatest mistake?

  Somewhere inside him was the determination to try again. There had to be a way to win Jackie back. He began to feel better and to steer with renewed confidence. The cut in his hand throbbed, but he could see Theseus entering the labyrinth, going to face the Minotaur, and the golden thread given him by Ariadne burning in his palm. He saw the monster, the giant man with the head of a bull, and he wondered how Theseus had been able to slay him. Great courage yielded great strength. There was the call to action, the challenge and the journey. The hero responded with courage because that was who he was. He didn’t surrender. The hero was skilled and gifted and it was his nature to be brave in the face of danger, and so he triumphed.

  He pressed on the throttle, new plans stirring in his head. He pulled his collar up against the frozen rain now icing his windshield. Somehow he would be worthy, transformed by some courageous gesture; he would embrace the call whatever the sacrifice. He imagined that he had lived in the golden age of Greece and that he had been the son of a king, his task to save the princess imprisoned in the castle. What must King Arthur have felt when he was but a boy and he pulled the sword from the stone? A fate determined by magic.

  He was approaching the place where he had fought with the boys when he saw the body lying in the snow and recognized the red plaid jacket. The boy lay spread-eagled on his back, his body twisted and his work boots pointing to the sky. David braked, eased the snowmobile to a stop, and hit the kill switch. Warily, he climbed off the sled, and when he drew closer he found blood-splattered snow all around the boy’s head. The throat was ripped open.

  David leaned over and shook the boy’s shoulder. There was no response, only a limp jostling. David had never been so close to anyone who had died. It was strange—he was so still, so cold, and his eyes were open and glazed as though whatever he had seen had stiffened him with terror. He tugged back the boy’s collar and sucked in his breath when hi
s fingers touched blood that was still warm. Disgusted, he wiped his fingers on his pants and gingerly inspected the gashes, still wondering whether there might be a pulse. Both repulsion and fascination battled in his brain when he found what he had been looking for—on the neck, just under the chin, sticky globs of blood all around—two deep puncture wounds.

  His whole body crawled with tremors, and he could feel sweat springing from his pores.

  It was Barnabas. It was the work of the vampire.

  Gasping, he pulled away, bewildered, and something glinted in the hand of the dead boy. He pried it open to find his mother’s locket, the chain wrapped around the boy’s fingers. After tugging it loose, he sat back with the twisted charm burning his palm and looked out into the snowy woods. Had it been left there for him? A talisman.

  Jackie had said she dreaded living an ordinary life. He understood the desire for something more transcendent. He ached for that romantic fate as well, the journey that would define his character. He thought of Barnabas as the monster in the cave, hovering at the center of the labyrinth, huge and hungry, his great curved horns ready to gore the life out of any intruder.

  David felt the earth spin and his thoughts were whirling in a slow gyre. The snow blotted out everything and formed a cave of sparkling diamonds. He had a bizarre idea. How was a vampire made? It was an unnatural creature that drank blood to survive. He put his head down near the corpse and reached out to brace himself before he came close to the boy’s neck. He could smell sweat and the odors of blood and death as he stared at the gaping wounds.

  He tried to imagine the vampire’s habits, his urges, and his hunger for blood. What was that like? Curious, but also disgusted, he leaned in and, fighting nausea rising in his throat, he placed his lips near the holes. Nothing came but the metallic taste that coated his tongue and made his gut clench. What was he doing? This was crazy! He was inventing foolish and ridiculous notions, imagining that if he were a vampire, she would love him. He gagged on the taste, his bile rising.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard the sound of a car. His first reaction was relief—someone had come to help him. Then there were footsteps, walking, crunching the snow, then running, and he tried to gather his wits, to sit up and look around, but he lost his balance, slipped, and fell again against the body.

  He heard a voice cry out, “Stop! Don’t try to get away!” and there were black shoes on the snow, trouser legs, and again he rose to his knees, tried to stand, but his sight was blurred by the blood which had leaked from the cut on his forehead and his palm was bleeding horribly, when someone, a man, leaned over him, placed a firm hand on his shoulder and he felt a prick in his neck and then a terrible pain, a piercing stab—his thoughts whirled—

  The vampire!

  He wrenched his body, struggled to pull away—something was jammed into his neck, like a giant wasp stinging him, and he swatted at it, but he could not tear it loose and he fell on his back in the snow and gasped. He was staring up into the face of Nathanial Blair—hot breaths panting down on him, dark eyes fierce and reproachful—and he was shaking him horribly and pressing him to the ground, one knee on his chest, saying through gritted teeth, “Don’t try to get away. I have you!” He looked around like a crazed maniac and shouted to the dappled sky, “I have the vampire!” He thrust harder on David’s chest, “I have caught you—drinking blood. You are discovered, and you are compromised! Monster! You are mine!”

  Astonished, David tried to free himself, shouting, “What? You’re crazy! I wasn’t doing that! Let me go, you idiot,” and he shoved against Blair’s shoulders with all his strength, but that strength was diminishing—a blur in his brain—the hypodermic—the needle in his neck, and even while he was flailing and kicking, his mind clouded over, grew dim, then the white world dissolved into darkness.

  * * *

  When Barnabas woke later, Jackie was still there, looking very pale, sitting before an easel. She saw him rise from his coffin, and she looked over and smiled wanly, as though she were immersed in melancholy, but herself again—a child who carried a heavy burden. Despite her tangled black hair, her beauty was enhanced by her deep concentration as she touched her brush to her palette and raised it to her canvas. He could not see what she was working on but he thought of Angelique, sacrificing herself, reaching up from the land of the dead, and violently ripped into two separate beings, Antoinette with her songs and Jacqueline with her paints, both aching to become whole—one the bright and the other the dark side of the moon.

  Twenty-one

  That which had been waiting to happen—inevitably, inexorably—was upon him, and Quentin had reached a state of madness. The moon had not yet risen, but its glow could be seen behind the house, a bluish aurora radiating into the dark sky, a luminous vacuum that would soon emerge huge and empty, swelling as it drew his flailing body like a magnet draws an iron filing.

  The time for procrastination had passed. Quentin was beyond despairing and, helpless to prevent the transformation, he was terrified of what he might do once the monster was unleashed, or whom he might harm. He had hit upon a desperate plan. Could he escape to the past—before the curse? Surely it would not follow him there. As he waited in the library for Blair, he became more and more agitated.

  The signs were unmistakable; shaving that morning had not removed his beard’s shadow, and now the hairs were coming in on his forehead as well as his chin. His skin itched and his odor was gamey as he dressed, pulling a silk shirt over a shrunken chest while the fur pushed out between the buttons. Bones elongated, and also shriveled; his voice was a hoarse growl, and his mouth so filled with teeth he had a vision of gnashing on some bloody flesh.

  With an unsteady hand, he knocked on Elizabeth’s door, and when she refused to open it to him, he pleaded at the crack, suppressing the canine whine with a whisper. “Blair has agreed. Please, my darling, come with me.”

  She undid the latch, and her face in the dim light seemed as beautiful as when he had first met her, her eyes a mossy green and her skin pale as cream. But when she looked at him closely, she sucked in her breath and her brow furrowed.

  “Quentin, what is it? Is something wrong?”

  Pushing the door aside with what he hoped was not brute force, he moved into her room and encircling her waist with his long arm, led her to the mirror above her dressing table. When she saw their two reflections, her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Quentin, have you been ill? You—you look so … so—”

  “So old? Yes, I have aged.” He chuckled. “We are the same age now, Elizabeth.”

  She stared at the mirror. It was true. They were at long last the elegant couple they dreamed of becoming, both past their prime but handsome and proud, with their dark hair and patrician features. Both were slender, but he towered over her, his body gaunt and slightly hunched whereas she was still softly rounded, her waist trim. They could have been long married, living together with a lifetime of memories. “This is what we should have been,” he said. He took her hand and held it to his lips a moment, gripping it so that she had to pull it away. He looked into her eyes. “Oh, but I am aging fast, Elizabeth. Soon I will be gray and feeble, barely able to walk, and then—”

  “What? What do you mean … aging?”

  Quentin staggered over to the bed, reached for the post, then turned an anguished face to Elizabeth. “The portrait is lost! My protection has disappeared, and the curse … the curse weighs on my soul. Elizabeth … I am dying.”

  Her hand fluttered to her throat. “Are you delirious? What are you talking about? What curse, Quentin?”

  He shook his head and groaned. “Come and sit down. I will tell you the story.” She looked at him anxiously, and frightened but compliant, she allowed him to lead her to the bed, and watched as he sat opposite her in a chair. She was trembling, searching his face for some clue, and she looked small in her dark robe, her body shrunken, her hands folded in her lap, and an expression of profound pity on her face.

 
After a long moment of hesitation and many false starts he began. “There is so much you never knew about me, Elizabeth. When you met me, I was already much older than you, some forty years.”

  Elizabeth gasped. “But how is that possible?”

  “Ah, how can I explain? I had found my way to the Dark Side; I lived under the spell of an enchanted portrait. Do you remember the painter who remained for a time at Collinwood, in the tower room? When we were … when you … were still young?”

  “I do. Charles Delaware Tate. A strange man. I sat for him once, but he never completed more than a sketch of me.”

  “You were fortunate because his portraits were dangerous. And I don’t think he was as … as interested in women. He had a talent that was unnatural, a skill that no mortal should possess. His brush could create life, still life, apples that could be tasted, lilies whose odor could be inhaled, a glass of wine that could be quaffed.”

  Elizabeth’s face was twisted with disbelief. “What are you saying? There is no such thing as a painting creating life.”

  “But it was true! His likenesses cried real tears and saliva escaped from their lips. When he saw what he could achieve, his vanity knew no restraint, and he began to think of himself as a kind of god. My picture was his masterpiece, and his months of tedious manipulation of paint and blood—yes, he mixed his own blood into the paint—cost him his sanity. But the image he created of me was so real that it claimed my life’s journey and left me an empty shell. It aged, as I stayed young. It grew scars and pockmarks, as my face remained unflawed. Nothing, no matter how depraved, was written on my cheeks but instead found habitation on the face of the man in the painting.”

  Elizabeth was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, “This is inconceivable. Ever since you returned to Collinsport, I have often wondered how you had remained so young. But I thought … I guess I didn’t really think. I simply believed that you were so handsome…” Elizabeth rose and reached up to Quentin’s face. She stroked the deep wrinkles with her fingertips. Then her eyes took a faraway look. “Eternal youth. One could wish for that.”