by Lara Parker
“I don’t want you to teach me.” Jackie turned away from the mirror and fingered her brush. “I want to paint alone.”
“But you are my creation.”
“No. I am not yours.” She gritted her teeth and felt her body grow rigid. “Go away and leave me be. I don’t want you near me.”
There was a long moment before Angelique spoke. “Do you really believe you can capture Quentin’s aging face? Can you paint the eyes of the werewolf, Jackie?”
“Yes, I can. Of course I can.”
“Not without me. Not without me.”
Jackie felt something explode within her. She grimaced, screwing up her face and clenching her eyes, blotting out all light, and placed her hands over her ears. Then she screamed, squeezing the sides of her head and rocking back and forth, screamed until her throat was raw. “Get out! Get out! Get out of me!” She waited until the echoes of her cries died away and the room was silent again. Slowly she pulled her hands away.
Angelique had vanished. Far off Jackie heard the wail of the wolf already on the loose. Fear set its roots in her again and she turned to the window. The moon’s glow had brightened, and soon its rim would emerge.
She ran to the painting and took up her brush. Her heart racing, she mixed the colors still on her palette, all to a luminous brown, and lifted the tip to the irises. The camel hair bristles flashed fire, and the eyes came to life. A man with a seductive gaze looked out at her, his lips about to speak. But something was happening. The painting was undulating, the surface rippling and splitting as dark fur sprouted on the shifting surface of Quentin’s face. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ears swelled into points, and the mouth crawled out of the canvas.
Chills creeping over her skin, Jackie backed away—fearful but elated. She had done it! The painting had come to life and absorbed the curse, and Quentin would be saved. Jackie snatched the portrait from the easel and ran for her bedroom door. As she passed her vanity, she glanced in the mirror. It reflected the dark room in its quivering surface, but all it gave back was her own pallid face.
* * *
Emerging from his sanctuary Barnabas felt the ominous power of the rising moon burning his skin. It would be a Blue Moon, he remembered, the second full moon in January, and its hungry craters would loom in clear relief as it blazed in the sky. He flew over the graveyard on his way to Collinwood, and beneath him the tipping stones were like white sails in a dark sea.
His task was a melancholy one, but of the utmost necessity. Other than himself, there were many he needed to protect, Jacqueline and David most of all; however, everyone in the family was a potential victim—Elizabeth and Roger, even Carolyn, the servants, and the good people of Collinsport.
Barnabas laughed at the absurd hypocrisy of his thoughts. Wasn’t he a killer as well? And all that separated him from the werewolf was a modicum of self-control, a scrap of selectivity. The werewolf was a rapacious predator with no choice over his feeding. Barnabas shuddered to think of Jacqueline in the arms of the beast. He, instead, had made it his habit to seek out victims from the unfortunate population in the dissolute areas of town—those whose wretched habits made them dispensable, even deserving of death—and to never harm anyone in his family or anyone he loved. But even those killings left him wracked with guilt.
Had the vagrant curled in his own urine on Canal Street not once been a babe in his mother’s arms? Why was David any more precious? Was it his breeding, his education, his potential value to the community, the fact that he was a Collins? Barnabas felt his body weaken with these pangs of conscience, and he knew he would kill to survive, to preserve his wretched existence—as hideous as the werewolf’s. Had he not ruined Antoinette’s life to preserve his own?
But besides revenge for the werewolf’s attack—the agonizing wounds and his prolonged recovery—along with the danger that it might happen again, Barnabas had other motives for plotting Quentin’s demise. One evening, hovering outside the drawing room window at Collinwood, he had overheard Quentin’s bargain with the scientist—that despicable Dr. Blair.
“Take me back in time,” Quentin had said. “Take me to the past where I can find the painting, and I will tell you who the vampire is. I know him well. And you will have your cadaver for whatever experiments you desire.” Traitorous friend. Where was their unspoken contract? Quentin didn’t deserve to be called a Collins.
All he had to do was call to mind the horror of the monster gnawing his face to feel his resolve grow stronger, but his guilt was a heavy burden. If he had not stolen the painting—in a moment of reckless jealousy—none of this would have happened. Enamored of Antoinette, hoping to marry her when he had been human, he had twisted the hand of fate and sabotaged the spell that kept Quentin out of harm’s way. How he wished he could take back that single moment of weakness and leave the portrait in the basement of the Old House where he had found it.
Perhaps it had been the work of Angelique all along—possessing Antoinette, working her insidious wiles within the confines of Antoinette’s indifferent behavior? He would like to think that he had been manipulated once again by the witch who had stolen his life, but he could not believe he was not culpable as well.
What could he do? Was there any other choice? He searched for a way out and could find none; the enchanted portrait was lost, the full moon was on the rise, and the monster would wake with his demons.
Also, Quentin would be in the company of that obsequious bastard Blair conducting their damned séance. Blair, the false physician whose gruesome obsession was to open up a vampire. What presumptuous vanity. The doctor’s search would end in a fatal discovery.
On him he would feed.
Twenty-two
When David woke there was a light, brighter than any light he had ever seen, blinding his eyes, and a strong smell of antiseptic that made his nose tingle. Lying on his back, strapped to a table, he saw there was a huge round bulb above him shining down on him like the sun. Trying to rise up, he found his wrists and ankles were pinned, and he squirmed helplessly and jerked his head around to see where he was. It appeared to be a laboratory; there were white enameled counters with medical paraphernalia and a man with his back to David standing beside one of the tables, leaning over and sorting instruments that glimmered in the bright light: scalpels and tongs, steel tubs and glass bowls, cotton balls and gauze.
David lurched up again, but metal cuffs restrained his limbs. He was suddenly terrified. “Hey!” he cried out. “What’s going on?”
When the man turned, David could see that it was Blair, who was smiling feverishly, his face lit like a ghoulish mask by the overhead spotlight.
“Aha,” he said, “finally you are awake!”
David writhed in his bindings and yelled, “What are you doing? Untie me!”
“No, no, my boy. You belong to me now. I have waited too long for this delicious moment, and I am going to savor every second. The world is waiting. Together, we will make history.”
“What are you talking about? Untie me, you bastard!”
Blair shook his head, his black eyes darting about like loose marbles. “I know vampires have great powers, but I have made you fast. And if you become too difficult, I still have the needle.” He raised the hypodermic and it spewed a stream of liquid. “I can use it again.”
“But— You’re crazy. I’m not a vampire—”
“What? You deny it? Oh, but I have unmistakable proof, David. I caught you in the act of feeding, blood on your clothes, on your face, in your mouth—”
“But it’s not like that. You’re wrong.”
Blair simply chuckled and shook his head. He was lugging a black contraption over under the light, and then he attached a clumsy camera to a tripod and adjusted the lens.
“What’s that for?”
“A Super 8 video camera. I intend to film the process,” he explained in a nonchalant tone, but he had a crazed expression on his face, both diabolical and ecstatic, “so that I have a record of the operat
ion—or the autopsy, depending on your definition of living and dead.”
“Process? What kind of process?” David’s heart was racing.
Blair was bending over him now, close enough for David to see the grease in his black hair, his prickly mustache, and his small teeth clenched together.
“I would like so much for you to be awake, but it may not be necessary. Scientists will savor the treatise I will compose for centuries to come. I will see what is inside a monster that drinks blood to stay alive. Is there a liver? Is there a heart?”
He reached for David’s coat and began to undo the buttons. David’s body convulsed in terror. Hot tears swam over his pupils and his mouth became dry.
“Wait— Wait a minute! What are you doing? I’m telling you, you’ve got it all wrong! I’m just a teenage boy. I’m— I’m alive, God damn it! I’m not a vampire!”
Blair pulled David’s coat open and laid the sides back; then he began to undo the buttons of the shirt. He chuckled. “Of course you would say that. But I’m afraid your protestations fall on deaf ears. I saw with my own eyes—”
David bucked against the restraints and cried out, “No! I just found him lying there. I was checking to see if he was alive, feeling for a pulse—”
“With your mouth against his neck?”
David heart blasted against his ribs. He suddenly saw himself as Blair must have seen him, bending over the corpse, sucking blood. “That wasn’t it. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I would have thought a vampire would be more cautious. In broad daylight—my, my.” Blair threw his head back and laughed like a crazed hyena that has stolen a lion’s kill. “You are found out! Your victim was like all the others, drained to an empty shell, sucked dry. And what about all those others? You should be ashamed.”
David writhed on the table and wrenched his wrists until he could feel the skin split, but he could not free them.
Mumbling to himself now, Blair reached for the cart and wheeled it clattering over to David’s gurney; then he stopped and began to roll the cuffs of his sleeves. The bevy of instruments flashed.
David lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, wondering what building they were in. Where were they? In town? Maybe someone was around outside. He screamed.
Blair turned with a scalpel in his right hand and with his left pressed down on David’s chest. His eyes were like two shiny beetles as he drew the sharp edge over David’s breastbone and made a thin slice. David screamed again.
“Hold still,” said Blair somewhat peevishly, “or we will make a mess of it.” Then he took up a small mechanical saw with a circular blade and flipped the switch. The saw made the purring sound of a finely tuned motor, and the tiny ratchets reflected the dancing light.
David was growing hysterical with fear and he blubbered, “No, please no—,” as Blair leaned in with the saw in his hand.
“Shhhhh,” he whispered, “let’s see what you are made of.”
There was a loud pounding on the door. Blair cursed, threw down the saw, and reached for the hypodermic. He thrust the needle into David’s arm.
David screamed again, this time in agony, and before he could open his mouth to shout even louder, Blair had smacked a piece of tape across his lips and thrown a sheet over his body, blotting out the room. David heard him toss down the needle and walk unsteadily to the door, where he could hear Quentin’s angry voice, and he squirmed and moaned but could make no more noise than a grunting sound.
“Where the hell have you been?” Quentin cried. “I have been waiting for over an hour!”
“Yes, yes, I’m on my way. I was delayed, but I’m on my way.”
“It’s twilight. We’re running out of time!”
The drug was working, blurring David’s mind. Even the pumping of his terrified heart could not resist the substance entering his very human veins.
* * *
Hurriedly, and obviously distracted, Blair placed the velvet cloth on the table in the library, set some books and fountain pens about, and lit the candles. Muttering to himself, he took his seat and reached for Quentin’s hands. The scientist was nervous, and his fingers were moist when Quentin squeezed them and looked over with an encouraging nod.
“So,” said Blair officiously. “We are in pursuit of a painting, am I correct?”
“Yes, I’ve told you a dozen times! What’s wrong with you, man?” Quentin was tight-lipped and rigid. “The painter was here in this house in 1929, when I was … when I was young.”
Blair sat up in his chair—his blackened widow’s peak and pointed eyebrows prominent—closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began the incantation: “Power of Darkness, Dark of Night, Shadows of Memory, Memories Long Forgotten—open the mysterious portals that guard the years and let us enter. Here in this house that harbors a thousand secrets, here in this room where the family gathered, and here at this table where they dined, spoke together, and even prayed—unfasten the locks of time.”
Quentin became agitated. The incantation was arbitrary and absurd. He could not concentrate. The man was an imbecile. “Hurry up, you fool!” he said. “There is no more time!”
“Move through the years,” Blair continued in his nasal voice, “flying back in time to a moment in the past. Move through the ghosts, and let not them stay our journey. We seek the painted image of the man within our circle. We seek contact with a time when he and the artist were together…”
A sudden flash that blasted the window startled Quentin, and there was a far-off rumble as though an explosion had occurred in the channels of his ears. The room swirled, grew dark, and Quentin felt weightless, spinning above the table, loosening Blair’s grip. There was an odd smell, of gunpowder over water, and another odor of death.
The air was filled with smoke and Quentin was nauseated, his stomach clenching, and the ground beneath him rocked back and forth. He opened his eyes to find himself at sea in a boat approaching a gray shore, the surf pounding. His eyes glazed over as he tried to make out the place.
The strand they drew near was deserted and nothing moved on the beach. The sand was covered with debris, sunken craft and wrecked vehicles, and there were many bodies in the water. Horrified, Quentin saw himself leap into the chest-high surf and wade ashore where the beach was still arrayed with the bodies of American soldiers wearing the blue and gray patches of his division. Exasperated, he shook the memory from his mind. He wasn’t meant to be here. He had been swept back to the war! Normandy after D-day, when he had arrived with his companions. What had gone wrong? He clawed the air and screamed at Blair, “No! This is not the place! This is all a mistake, you idiot. I don’t want to go there! Take me away! Do you have any idea how to do this?”
Then there was darkness again, circling mist, and the absurd sound of a tinkly piano. A jukebox was playing the Andrews Sisters singing “Rum and Coca Cola.” Quentin teetered back in his chair when he saw himself in the back room of the Blue Whale, unloading a crate of whiskey. As he leaned over to lift the box he noticed that his wounds were almost healed—so quickly. His comrades in France had not been blessed with the same good fortune.
He struggled to place the year. He remembered he had not intended to stay long in Collinsport. The town was too filled with painful memories, but he had come back to see his family, most of all Jamison, who was ill; and a short stint as a bartender at his old haunt was a welcome distraction. The tavern had come up for sale at a fair price and he had grabbed it.
After the horrors of the war, Quentin remembered the smell of the sea air at Collinsport, the shadowed dust of the storage room, the cool shape of a bottle in his hand as he placed it on the shelf—all had soothed him.
He looked up when he heard the bell ring announcing customers, even though it was still early in the day, and Quentin saw himself reach for his apron. He was tying the strings when he heard a coin dropped in the jukebox and a song began to play that flooded him with nostalgia. It was “Stardust.”
Coming out to th
e barroom, Quentin was surprised to see a couple sitting at a corner table in a shadowed part of the tavern. The woman wore a soft felt hat over her brunette curls and her face was turned away, but she was familiar—in fact, too familiar. The shape of her shoulders, the tilt of her head were as lovely as ever, and he recognized her instantly although he had not seen her in many years and had never expected to see her again. He knew she was a movie star now, glamorous, rich and adored, her career on the rise, and living in Hollywood. Of all the taverns in all the towns in all the world, she had returned to Collinsport and walked into his. She looked over at him and her dark eyes softened.
“Quentin…”
He stood dumbfounded, not knowing what to say, but Elizabeth was more quietly gracious than he remembered, composed and utterly charming. She smiled and reached for his hand. “Quentin, this is my husband, Paul Stoddard, and Paul, this is Quentin Collins, an … old friend, and”—how well he remembered her mischievous smile—“a member of the family.”
As Quentin nodded to Stoddard, he struggled to reconnect with Blair and move back out of this place and time. He knew it was not where he wanted to be, but he could not take his eyes off Liz, and how beautiful she had become. Her hair was dark now, and it framed her heart-shaped face to perfection and shadowed her ravishing eyes as though they were lit from within. But when she lifted her lashes to look at him, he was sure he could see the wistful melancholy behind her smile.
Quentin watched himself bring them Scotches, a double for Stoddard, and he thought the glasses might slide off the tray, his hands were shaking so. He and Paul made small talk about the war but he had no memory an instant later of what they had said, while he watched Liz sip her whiskey, a smile playing on her lips. She wore a tailored suit of a fawn-colored wool, which clung to the curves of her body, and silk stockings with a dark seam up the back that revealed shapely ankles above her high-heeled shoes. Quentin tried to touch her with his mind.
