Chapter 30: Moon and Devil Dance
by Nicky
“Collinwood, in October of the year 1967 ... a Collinwood besieged by the
forces of darkness. While Julia Hoffman has recovered from her ordeal at the
hands of a savage vampire, Roger Collins has not fared so well, and may succumb
to unknown forces that are as voracious as either of his late wives.
Meanwhile, two other supernatural beings struggle with their humanity ... and
both may gain it back as the sun rises over the great estate ...” (Lara Parker)
1
“It makes no sense, Julia,” Barnabas growled as he paced up and down the length
of the Old House drawing room. He clenched his silver wolf’s head cane in his
right hand so tightly that the knuckles were strained and white. Julia
reclined in Barnabas’ chair, nowhere near as exhausted as she had been the
previous evening, but not fully recuperated as of yet from her tenure as the
slave to yet another vampire. “Why is she biding her time? She’s fully
capable of returning the curse to me, forcing me to become that loathsome
night-thing; she’s obsessed about it for centuries. She’s plotted and schemed,
and now that she has her chance ...” He bowed his head; his eyes blazed with
frustration, as dry and brown as the autumn leaves slowly drifting from the
trees outside. It was very near Halloween, and outside the moon had begun to
rise, plump and orange, a full harvest moon.
Julia shrugged, and lit a cigarette. “Perhaps she’s trying to torture you,”
she said. The end of the cigarette glared at her like a fiery eye. “She’s
certainly had no qualms about inflicting pain on the rest of us.”
“I don’t know,” Barnabas said. “You didn’t see her face the night I offered
her my throat. She looked so torn — so indecisive.” His voice softened. “So
... so human ...”
“She isn’t,” Julia snapped, then paused, and watched him closely. “Barnabas,”
she said, “you don’t ... feel sorry for her.” She inhaled a drag from her
cigarette. “Do you?” The smoke encircled her head, winding around her like the
punctuation to her question.
“Of course not,” he said gruffly. “After everything she’s done to my family —
every trick, every cruelty — how could I love something like that?”
“She seems to think you did,” Julia said smoothly. “Once.”
“Perhaps I did ... once,” he said thoughtfully, but added quickly, “but
whatever feelings I had for her died when I did. When she did. When Josette
did ...” His voice trailed off, and he paused by the window. His face in the
fiery glow of the moon was rough and handsome. Julia felt the irritation that
arose in her, unbidden, that accompanied the subject of Josette, begin to
subside. He’s so sad, she thought, and traced the broad sweep of his back and
shoulders with trained eyes; she pressed her cheek against her hand and watched
him, and watched him, and watched him.
Did I ever love her? Barnabas wondered, forgetting Julia, forgetting the
present, fading rapidly into the past, a time when he knew nothing but warmth
and sunlight, and the cold finger of death that would press against him and all
those he loved was far off.
“I brought this to you,” Angelique told him, and laced the stem of the rose
through his buttonhole. It glowed a fierce crimson, cut delicately from the
bushes that the Countess Natalie tended with such care and precision. The
mistress would certainly disapprove of Angelique’s borrowing it, but there was
so much the Countess didn’t know, and would never know. Like Monsieur
Barnabas, for instance. She was running her fingers through his sleek brown
hair right now and neither the Countess, nor Josette, nor Josette’s fat and
ineffectual father, had any idea.
“It is beautiful,” Barnabas told her, and nuzzled the nape of her neck. “Like
you.”
They sank together onto the floor of the stables, so dirty, explosively hot,
but dangerous and romantic, and Angelique’s breath quickened; Barnabas could
feel her heart pounding fiercely against his. Their mouths met, and the flower
was crushed between them, and the cloying scent of the rose flooded their
nostrils, increased their ardor, and soon they groaned and thrashed against
each other; their blood boiled, their fingers interlaced, throbbing and
growling, lips on skin, tongues on skin, salt and sweet and sweat, passion
flaring and rising, fire coiling and curling, flame blazing up and out, and
they lay together, exhausted in each other’s arms.
“I love you, Monsieur Barnabas,” Angelique breathed against his chest. Her
hair, unfettered, flowed in a golden tide down her back, and her eyes gazed up
at him, utterly without guile, startling cornflower blue. “You are the only
man who can make me forget myself. I lose myself in you.”
“I can understand,” Barnabas said shortly, out of breath, suddenly feeling
inadequate and very naked; he rolled out of her arms and pulled on his
trousers. She watched him carefully, and lolled across the stable floor, her
breasts firm and round, her flesh pink and pliable. She caressed her nipples
slowly, and flicked at them until they stood erect, a dark and delicious brown.
He paused, and swallowed, and felt the heat rise in him again, that surge of
passion that rolled over him like the unceasing tide crashing on the beach far
away.
“Do you love me, M’sieur?” Angelique purred. One hand rubbed lazy circles
across her flat stomach, lazing lower and lower ...
“I love to be with you,” Barnabas whispered throatily, unable to remove his
eyes. He knelt beside her and pressed his lips against her breasts. She
pulled at his hair with an urgency born of lust. He hadn’t admitted his love
to her, but he would. It was just a matter of time. And he would take her
away from here, to America, and she would be the mistress of the house, HIS
house, and no one would question her or deny her anything. Of this she was
certain.
“... that awful sound?”
Barnabas started, and drew back from the window. I never told her that I loved
her, he thought, and turned to Julia. “What did you say?” he asked.
She smiled at him patiently. “I said, didn’t you hear that awful sound? From
the expression on your face, I gathered that you had.”
“No,” he said, brow furrowing. “What sound?”
“It sounded like the baying of some great hound,” Julia said, and shivered.
“After the experiences of these past few months, I don’t think I ever want to
hear a dog howling again.” She frowned. “Although it didn’t sound like a dog.
It was a fiercer sound ... deeper. And mournful. Almost ... almost human.”
Barnabas pulled on his Inverness cape and gripped his wolf’s head cane. “I’ll
escort you back to Collinwood, Julia,” Barnabas said, and helped her into her
own coat, a brown and green tweed monstrosity recommended, he recalled her
telling him, by that strange Pepe woman who did her hair. Modern women, he
thought, and his mind slipped back, for only a moment, to that blonde temptress
who had ridden him so strenuously those long ago afternoons and evenings,
screaming out his name again and again.
“Barnabas,” Julia said softly, “did you? Love her, I mean. Really?”
“No,” he said firmly, and closed the door of the Old House after them. “No,
Julia, I never loved Angelique. No matter what she’s deluded herself into
believing, that was one thing I never felt for her. Ever.” And I believe that,
he thought with a sort of relief as they began their moonlit walk to
Collinwood. I really, really do.
2
Nathan Forbes was bored. He had returned to Chris’ hotel room after sundown
only to find the place an absolute disaster — furniture thrown here and there,
Chris’ clothes piled on the floor — but no Chris. It was intensely
frustrating. He was trying his utter damndest to restrain himself, to keep his
hands to himself, to allow things to build and grow between them slowly, but it
was maddening to have Todd — Chris — so nearby, within his reach, night after
night, after ...
He must’ve groaned aloud, because the mustachioed man who had resurrected him
for god knows what reason glared at him. “Yes?” he asked in that sleek voice,
the sneering growl of a whippet. “Did you have something you’d like to add?”
Nathan stared at him resentfully. “I brought you back for a reason, Lieutenant
Forbes. I can just as easily return you to darkness, remember that.” Nicholas
Blair settled back and cracked his knuckles, hidden beneath teal gloves.
“I don’t understand,” Nathan said petulantly. “You haven’t explained anything
to me.”
The other man frowned. “That’s what I’m attempting to do at this moment,” he
said sternly, “except that your childish outbursts continue to interrupt me,
thus prolonging what should have been a decidely short explanation of your
current status and how you fit into my plan.” He settled back against the sofa.
“Besides,” he added, “it’s annoying.”
“Look,” Nathan said with as much pleasantness as he could muster, “I don’t care
about your damned plan. I only care about Todd.”
“Mr. Jennings is here, as I promised you he would be,” Nicholas said. “And as
for my plan — damned, as you so aptly phrased it — there is no real reason that
you should care anything about it. I conjured you back into this world for a
very simple reason.” He grinned his sharp, white ferret’s grin. “You are to
destroy Barnabas Collins.”
Nathan sat up. “Oh,” he said. He exhaled. “Him. I haven’t really thought of
him much.”
Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “How in the hell can you not have?” he asked,
genuinely puzzled. “This is the man who caused your murder, who snapped your
neck like a willow twig! This same man who has escaped his curse and walks in
the daylight, like a mortal man, while you have spent an eternity suffering in
darkness, deprived of the only thing you ever loved!”
“Well,” Nathan said, considering, “when you put it like that ...”
“Excellent,” Nicholas said, and rubbed his gloved palms together briskly; the
sound produced was uncomfortably serpentine. “I have detailed this plan. Your
part in it is relatively small.”
“I still don’t get why you need me,” Nathan said, bored again. “Why don’t you
just off Barnabas yourself?” He waggled his fingers with mock menace. “Why
don’t you just use your powers or whatever?”
Nicholas glared at him darkly. “Because, you fool,” he snarled, “they are all
suspicious of me already. Barnabas ... Quentin ... Stokes ... and they
won’t suspect you, or even have a chance. Not with the other surprises I have
in store for all of them. Not even Cassandra will be able to stop me after I
deal with her as I plan to do ... tonight.”
“You want to be master of Collinwood?” Nathan asked.
“Exactly,” Nicholas said. “And I have discovered that Barnabas and his friends
have an increasingly nasty habit of bumbling around in places that don’t
concern them. Once they’ve been disposed of, no one will stand in my way.
Collinwood will be mine. It’s all very simple.”
“I see,” Nathan said, and rose briskly to his feet. “Can I go now? I want to
find Todd.”
Nicholas rolled his eyes.
3
“Just because my aunt said you could live at Collinwood doesn’t mean that we’re
equals of any kind,” David Collins said imperiously, and the little girl
studying him with enormous doe-brown eyes turned away with a snort of contempt
and crossed her arms across her chest. David scowled. “What does that mean?”
he demanded.
Amy Jennings had only begun to recover after Quentin and Stokes persuaded her
only remaining relative to visit her in Windcliff about two weeks before, and
seeing as Chris was really unable to take care of the girl himself, Mrs.
Stoddard had magnanimously agreed to allow Amy a home at Collinwood for as long
as she wished. She had spoken for the first time yesterday afternoon, sending
David into an immediate fury. “I don’t want her around,” David said. “Girls
are stupid. Honestly. And now that she’s talking ...” He’d rolled his eyes and
attempted a screaming tantrum and when that failed, he put a spider in Vicki’s
bed, which she, in turn, calmly evicted. Amy had been allowed to stay, and
David had resigned himself to a life as warder to an inferior incompetent who,
worst of all, was a crummy girl. David’s experiences with girls in the past
few months could hardly be called encouraging.
“I don’t want to be equals,” Amy sniffed. “Your aunt said that I don’t have to
listen to a word you say. I’m a guest at Collinwood, and I guess that means
I’m better than you.” She forced her tongue from her mouth and waggled it at
him for good measure.
David’s face flushed an interesting shade of crimson. “Who wants a stupid girl
following him around anyway?” he said, and stomped haughtily up the stairs. A
deep frown creased Amy’s forehead, and she stomped her own way into the drawing
room and closed the doors behind her. Her lower lip began to tremble as
scalding tears cascaded down her face. Whimpering, she collapsed in a heap in
front of the fireplace and stared into the writhing tongues of scarlet and
orange and yellow, the same colors as the leaves outside the trees. Halloween
was a day away, and it only reminded Amy of Tom’s promise to take her
trick-or-treating. “I was going to be a fairy princess,” Amy whispered, and
knives sliced at her, reopening the wounds that had only just begun to heal.
She thought she heard him sometimes, shuffling his feet in the shadows that
clustered in the corner of her new bedroom, or crooning to her as she drifted
across the border of waking life into sleep. Sometimes she thought she saw his
shadow on the ground beside her, or his face in the mirror next to hers. But
in the end she knew that none of that was real. Tom was dead; he was gone
forever, and he was never coming back.
But she still had Chris.
She brightened at that thought, and scrubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her
blouse until the tears were gone and her eyes were raw and puffy. She sniffled
once. Yes, at least she still had Chris. He was living at the Collinsport Inn
right now, but she had overheard Mrs. Stoddard talking with Carolyn the other
day, and she knew that they were going to offer him a job at Collinwood.
Caretaker or something, Amy wasn’t certain, but she did know that it meant
Chris would be living on the property. Which meant that he could see her
anytime he wanted ... anytime SHE wanted.
She pulled back the curtains that protected the French windows and peered
solemnly up at the sky. The moon, harvest gold upon rising, had faded until it
was now starkly bone-white against the ebony sky that cradled it. Amy didn’t
like the moon, even though she wasn’t entirely sure why. It made her
uncomfortable. Chris didn’t like the moon either; that was one thing she
remembered about him before he had left her and Tom all alone. She had always
assumed that he had left because of the moon, but again, she wasn’t completely
sure why.
The long, drawn-out cry of a large animal reached her ears. It was a terrible
sound, mournful and savage and full of pain, drifting to her from the blackness
outside. It sounded nearby, and she dropped the curtains and took a shuddering
step backward, suddenly afraid. She’d heard that noise before, just before
Chris had left, after her parents’ deaths, after all their pigs had been
slaughtered, torn to pieces, ripped and chewed —
“What on earth are you doing in here all alone?”
Amy smothered a tiny scream, and turned around quickly, but it was only Mr.
Collins standing in the doorway, swaying slightly. His face was pale and
haggard, and she realized with a tiny shock that he was unshaven. He was
normally so meticulous about his appearance, but his face was shaded with a
fine stubbly shadow. “I’m sorry, Mr. Collins,” she said, and cast an
apprehensive glance over her shoulder. “David said he didn’t want to play with
me, and I couldn’t find anybody else —”
Roger’s brow furrowed. “You must excuse my son’s inhospitality, Amy,” he
growled. “I’m sure he means well, but he can be ... unruly. I shall have a
talk with him.”
Amy blanched. “Oh, please don’t on my account, Mr. Collins,” she said. “He’s
just not used to someone else in the house. And I’m a girl, and I’m sure that
bothers him too. He’ll come around, Mr. Collins, honest.”
Roger closed his eyes and pressed his hand to his forehead as thought it pained
him. “Run along now, Amy,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’d like to be
alone.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Collins,” she said, and scampered from the room.
Roger squeezed his eyes shut and collapsed to his knees. Great red spikes of
pain sank into his brain, clutching fingers, and he wanted to scream, but he
knew he dare not. THEY wouldn’t like it, whoever — whatever — they were. He
still had been unable to see them, but ever since this morning they whispered
at him constantly, and sometimes he felt great drilling pains behind his eyes,
slivers of glass razoring into his brain. His eyes were red-rimmed and hollow,
and when Julia had come to him shortly before sunset with a plan to find
Cassandra’s newest hiding place, he had been forced to send her away. Too bad.
She was a much more interesting woman than he gave her credit. This whole
ordeal involving the thing that had been his wife had drawn them together,
almost perversely ... but these awul beings who rode on his shoulders like he
was some kind of absurd bipedal pony would not allow him a moment’s rest.
There had been hurt in Julia’s round brown eyes, and confusion, and she had
gone off to visit Barnabas at the Old House and now he was alone ... with
THEM.
They whispered, oh yes they did. Horrible things.
“She opened the door, she opened the door, and you, and you belong, you belong
to ...”
“... us now, you belong to us, to us now, you ...”
“Find him, release him, bring him forth, loose him, find him, release ...”
“... him, release ... him, release ...”
“Release ... release ...”
“RELEASE ...”
Tears stained with blood trickled down Roger Collins’ face as he clutched his
knees to his chest and rocked back and forth, and back and forth, and back and
forth, but the cacophony of eager voices, dry and rustling like dead leaves or
a sly wind through autumn trees, never ended.
4
She had been forced to move her coffin again, dragging it — by herself! — down
the winding corridors of the East Wing, past room after vacant room, until she
found her current abode. The coffin itself lay behind a pile of trunks, not
easily discernible to the naked human eye, and for once she cursed herself for
giving into her whims. A glowing pink coffin was a difficult thing to hide,
she thought ruefully as she crawled without it and closed the lid behind her.
She scowled, and smoothed the wrinkles in the dress she had forced Roger to buy
for her in Brewster’s last weekend (when he was still under my control, she
thought darkly); made of crushed velvet, it was a rich bottle green so dark it
was almost black. It flowed from her breasts to the floor, and was adorned
above her cleavage with a foam of white lace and black ribbons; so too were the
cuffs of white lace, floating delicately above her wrists. She patted her
helmet of black hair, and decided that it needed a trim. Perhaps I could take
advantage of Julia’s dresser, she thought, and her fangs ached in her jaw.
That Pepe woman. I really ought to broaden my horizons, take a few victims in
town. She’d do nicely for a start. Besides, she thought wickedly, that way I
won’t have to tip her.
Perhaps being a vampire wasn’t as unutterably horrible as she had originally
surmised. She could not understand why Barnabas couldn’t — refused to — enjoy
it, to revel in the abilities and powers of the undead. She had hoped to burn
the humanity from him when he had stabbed her, force him to accept her in her
decidedly inhuman state. She had been pledged long ago to darkness, so long ago
that she’d forgotten what it was to be human. Her incarnation as Angelique
Bouchard on the golden shores of Martinique so many centuries ago had reminded
her, briefly, given her a taste of humanity, so that she was willing to
wantonly, heedlessly plunge into the love of a mortal man. But she’d been
deceiving herself. Even in those times, blissfully ignorant of her past
heritage as a witch, she had never really felt human. What was it like, she
wondered now, given into darkness as she was. Her hair, a product of
witchcraft, the fangs overhanging her bottom lip and the cold blood singing in
her veins the same, her very existence in this place, in this time! I am the
devil’s own, she thought with a surprising pang of melancholy, and wondered
what her future could have been had she given up her own powers instead of
attempting to force Barnabas to convert. Children? A beautiful home? Love?
Could she have loved and received love?
Humanity is a curse, another voice in her whispered. She knew that there was a
part of her that was cold and calculating and completely devious and without
moral, and when she gave herself over to the darkness — when she had become a
full-fledged witch upon her death at Barnabas’ hands — that was the part that
dominated her mind and her thoughts, controlling her every action. But I do
want to be loved, another part of her wailed, the tattered remains of her
humanity perhaps. Is it true that Barnabas will never love me? I tried so
hard to force him to admit his love to me, to want me as I wanted him, but I
bought my own death instead, and now I live only to torment him.
And if that’s true, that cold inner voice whispered, then why haven’t you
tasted him yet? Why haven’t you forced him to confront the darkness? Why
haven’t you brought him to knees and returned him to the barren wasteland that
is the wandering place of the undead? Why does Barnabas Collins still walk in
the sun?
Because I’m weak, she thought, and dropped her head, ashamed. Had enough blood
flowed in her veins, her cheeks would have blazed. That’s what I’ve always
been told. Why all my plans are doomed to failure. Because that one remaining
speck of humanity weakens my intent. Weakens my powers.
She raised her head, and her eyes burned a sullen, furious red. “Yessss,” she
hissed, and her tongue seemed long and pointed against her wolfen fangs. “I
must disavow my humanity forever. Only as a vampire will Barnabas Collins be
mine ... forever.” She threw back her head and cackled her old, familiar
witch’s cackle, and it was at that moment that the coffin beside her, Barbie
doll pink, suddenly burst into a blazing inferno. Cassandra screamed and
stumbled backwards, tripping over the hem of her gorgeous new dress, and
stumbled to her knees. She scuttled backwards like a crab with adder’s
swiftness, her eyes wide and terrified. The flames danced in their icy
centers.
“My poor sister Cassandra,” Nicholas cooed from the corner of the room. Green
witchlight glowed around him, shadowing his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks,
and as he materialized completely he stepped forward. With a wave of one
gloved hand the flames vanished, but left behind the charred remains of the
coffin, charred and smoking, and now utterly useless to its previous tenant.
Cassandra lept to her feet and bared her curved fangs. “You fool!” she
screamed, clenching her fists. “How dare you! I warned you, Nicholas —”
He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at her. “Warned me?” Nicholas
said, and chuckled. “Really, my dear, you are too priceless.” His teeth were
sharp and white. “I really wish I cherish keep this moment forever. Take it
out and gloat over it when I’m feeling blue. These are the days that make life
worth living.”
Cassandra’s eyes were black with hate. “I told you that you had no power over
me, Nicholas,” she spat, “and I think it was very foolish to confront me here.”
“Why?” he simpered, and waved a disinterested hand at the stinking remains of
the coffin. “I have deprived you of your resting place, my dear. When the sun
rises, you will have no shelter to house your pitiful remains. The light of
day will burn you until your bones are stinking and black. Of course, what I
have in store for you negates that pleasant scenario quite efficiently.”
She stared at him with slitted eyes. “What do you mean?” she growled.
“I have told you time and again, my dear Cassandra, that to meddle in my plans
is to incur my wrath, and thus ensure a punishment. I had thought that, by
forcing you to become one of the undead, I could instill in you a sense of
humbleness, but I see that I was wrong.” He cracked his knuckles. “I have
decided that there is a punishment far better for you, and the Master agrees.”
Cassandra drew in a sharp and hissing breath. “The ... the Master?” she
whispered, then tossed her head back loftily. “I am no longer a witch,” she
said. “Becoming a vampire deprived me of my powers, and now I am no longer
indebted to him.”
“You never were terribly bright, Cassandra,” Nicholas said, bored. He sighed.
“I suppose I’ll have to train myself not to refer to you by that name anymore.”
He snickered. “When I refer to you at all.”
“What do you mean?” she cried.
He ignored her. “You are no longer a witch,” Nicholas said, “but you are still
under the Master’s power and supervision. He and I spent quite a while
discussing you the other day, and He agrees that your recklessness and
singleminded obsession in regards to Barnabas Collins — and the love you
obviously still hold for him — has made you utterly useless to Him. To all of
us.” Cassandra blanched, and Nicholas waved a hand at her. “Don’t look so
frightened, my dear. I’m not going to kill you, or stake you, or deprive you
in any way of life. Quite the contrary.” His smile grew whiter and sharper and
more unpleasant. He took a step towards her, holding out his hands, and
Cassandra fell back.
“Stay away from me!” she cried, and she was overwhelmed by the icy grip of
fear. I’d forgotten what it’s like to be afraid, she thought numbly, utterly
unable to move; stupid, stupid, stupid —
His eyes swallowed hers. “I have been given an indulgence from the Master,”
Nicholas gloated, and placed both of his hands against her temples. “You are
no longer a witch, a member of our coven,” he growled, and the spikes of red
fire danced between his fingers and seared her skin. “Nor are you a member of
the living dead. The hand of my Master returns you to the lowly state from
whence you came. He burns from you the power, the glory of the Undead. Into
ashes are you thrown; ashes is what your powers have become. All of them.
Cold and dead.” Cassandra moaned, and her eyelashes fluttered as she struggled
to force her eyes to remain open. Her entire body was suffused with the
crimson witchfire; it glowed and throbbed around her, casting her into a
veritable cocoon.
“Nicholas,” she whispered through numb lips, “Nicholas, please —” This is too
soon, she thought; I haven’t had a chance to experience all the things I could
have. “You can’t make me human,” she wheezed, one last token of defiance.
“Oh but I can,” he grinned, “with the Master’s help I can do anything to you,
and this is the punishment I have chosen. You are to become human, absolutely
without power. You will live out your mortal life and die, as humans have
always died. You have been given chance after chance, my dear, and you have
wasted them all. No more.” His eyes blackened into a depthless, serpentine
obsidian. He seized her right hand in his; it flared with witchfire for just a
moment before it winked out. “This hand is no longer the servant of my
Master.” He dropped it and clutched at the other. “This hand is no longer the
recipient of my Master’s grace.” He cradled her face in hands with the delicacy
he would attend on a flower, frozen and thawing in the sun. “This mind is no
longer the property of my master.” His insistent hands pressed against her
breasts and the heart that no longer beat beneath them. “And this heart is no
longer our domain.” The witchfire flared up again, completely suffusing her,
and in that one horrible minute she felt her heart stutter, and then it began
to beat again, to thud out its eternal, relentless rhythm.
She slumped, and her cheeks pressed against the floor. Cold, she thought
distantly, the floor is cold. I can feel it, just like I can feel this filthy
heart pumping, pumping, pumping away in my chest. The blood in my veins is
warming. The blood —
The hot, coppery taste of blood writhed in her mouth, and her stomach convulsed
and she vomited a thick crimson mulch onto the dusty floor. She coughed, then
rose into a sitting position and rubbed weakly at her mouth where fangs no
longer grew. She could feel the blood, cold and dead after a day in her
stomach, smear across her lips. What have I done? she thought to herself. God
in heaven, what have I DONE?
“You are mortal now,” Nicholas gloated, and held out one hand. Unable to stop
herself she took it, and was pulled roughly to her feet, where she swayed.
Something is wrong, she thought; what has he done to me?
“I have broken the spells you have cast as well, in case you were wondering,”
Nicholas said. “No one would accept you at Collinwood now as Roger’s wife even
if you hadn’t alienated all of them and turned him into your personal snack
bar.” He tittered. “Care to see what the drastic treatment I’ve administered
has done to you?”
“No,” she said thickly, and coughed into her hand. When she removed it from
her mouth, she was horrified to find that it was spattered with blood. Her
stomach twisted and groaned with disgust. I ate that, she thought; I nearly
killed Julia Hoffman and I bit her neck and ate her blood, and oh god oh god oh
god, what have I DONE, what have I DONE, what have I ...
“You’re thinking something,” Nicholas said. “Share?”
“Leave me alone,” she moaned.
“Can’t,” he said with mock sorrow. He grinned. “It’s guilt, isn’t it? Along
with your humanity you’ve been granted a semblance of a conscience.” He rubbed
his hands together delightedly. “Oh, this is too delicious,” he purred. “All
those terrible things you did ... the deaths, the madness, the curses and
spells ... they’ll haunt you forever, you know. No way to shut them out. The
memories will begin to crowd, bustling and screaming inside the prison of your
mind, forcing you to recall over and over again ever atrocity you’ve ever
committed, every slight, every act of malice and hatred. You’ll watch yourself
age and wither and die, tormented by the evil you have wrought, and it will be
constant, and it will take years.” He leaned in close to her so that his cold,
foul breath flooded her nostrils, and her stomach lurched again. “Have you
ever considered suicide as an option?”
She pushed him away from her, and felt a sob welling up inside. No, she
thought concretely, I will not cry in front of him, no matter what he says, no
matter what he does, no matter what these horrors in my mind make me think —
“Tell me your name,” Nicholas whispered.
“You know it,” she said dully. “Cassandra Collins.”
“No,” he said immediately. “Angelique is who you are. Who you’ve always been.
Angelique is your real name now. Look, my dear.” He made a pass through the
air, and a mirror materialized before her face. She refused to lift her eyes.
“It’s quite all right,” he said. “You’ll reflect in it now.”
She raised her eyes unwillingly to its silvery depths, then gasped. She drew a
trembling hand along the planes and contours of her face — and her hair. It
fell to her shoulders in a golden, shimmering river. Her face was flooded with
color, and her eyes were wide and china blue. Mortal, she thought, wondering,
and dropped her hand to her side. Human. Impossible. Impossible —
"You must believe it,” Nicholas said, leaning over her shoulder. “You are
completely without power. No longer will you wander with us in the outer
darkness. No longer will you ride the night at the Master’s side, courting the
empty blackness of the night and calling down destruction and ruin on the heads
of mortal men. You are human now, my dear Angelique, and thus you are doomed.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and as he laughed he began to fade slowly
away. “Only sixty or seventy years left,” his voice whispered. “Your departure
from Collinwood has already been arranged. Try to leave without being seen ...
for your own good ...”
She covered her ears to drown out his wicked laughter until it faded away with
his body. She dropped her hands, and then the tears came, flowing down her
cheeks in freshets. It’s been so long since I cried, she thought, since I was
able to cry. Why shouldn’t I cry? Everything I’ve done has been for love, she
thought, but that doesn’t make it right. They hate me, and they hate me for
very good reasons. I’m a loathsome thing ... a mortal! A human!
She clutched her breasts, but still the foul thing pounded away in her chest,
leading her on, ever on to a death she knew awaited her, and only then would it
stop and force her back into the blackness of death. But this time there would
be no salvation, no reprieve from the abyss. Years, he said, she thought,
horrified. I’ll suffer as a mortal for years ... “No,” she whispered. “It
must stop. I can’t take it ... I can’t stand it much longer ... I’ll go mad
—”
She paused. Barnabas, she thought. He hates me ... he hates me, and he’ll
make this stop, as he did before ... he’ll end my torment — please, let him
end it for me —
Angelique clambered to her feet and fumbled eagerly with the doorknob before
she spilled out into the hall and began to run for the stairs.
5
Julia wanted to take Barnabas’ hand, but of course that wasn’t allowed, and so
she contented herself with shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her new
coat bought upon her beloved Pepe’s recommendation, and kept perfect time with
his long, imperious steps, pace for pace as they walked through the forest on
the path that led inexorably to Collinwood. She never should have brought up
his past with Angelique, she knew this now. As Cassandra the witch was fair
game; he despised no creature on earth more than she, this raven-haired
hell-harpy who had wrought so much misery on all of them since her return from
the dead. Her most RECENT return, Julia amended. But as Angelique ... ah,
now that was a different subject altogether. She was aware that he claimed he
had never loved her, but Julia wasn’t completely certain. She had witnessed
the pair as a married couple during her brief tenure in the 18th century (how
long ago that seemed!), but at that time Barnabas had known her secret, knew
her to be the threatening, malicious hag she really was underneath all that
blonde hair. But there had been a time when he had doted on her, had held him
to her as his dearest. No one bases a centuries old obsession on a one night
stand.
I want her dead, Julia thought, and it left her cold. I’ve never hated anyone
like this before, she realized; am I another casualty of her hateful campaign
after all? “Barnabas,” Julia said, “do you think we’ll find her coffin?” I
want to drive the stake in myself, she thought, but decided not to add.
“Doubtless she’s moved it now,” Barnabas said grimly. “She must realize that
you and Roger have been delivered from her power somehow —”
“— with Vicki as the agent,” Julia murmured. “Barnabas, I don’t understand.
She’s never shown any inclination for mysterious powers before. Why should
they begin to manifest themselves now?”
“Perhaps it has something to do with this ghost,” Barnabas said, “whoever she
is. Louise Collins,” he murmured.
Julia started, watching him with surprise. “You know her name?” she exclaimed.
“She told Vicki her name in a dream,” Barnabas said. “We’re still trying to
discover her connection to Vicki.”
“Elizabeth must know something,” Julia said. “A Collins dressed in clothing
belonging to the earlier part of this century ... a Collins who looks enough
like Vicki that they could be sisters —”
Barnabas’ eyes widened. “Or mother and daughter,” he whispered.
“She must be,” Julia said. “Wouldn’t that make sense? If this girl — this
Louise — were raised as a proper Collins and had the misfortune of conceiving a
child out of wedlock —”
“And she was so young,” Barnabas said, “so young when she died. You should’ve
seen her face when she appeared to us on the hill, Julia. She radiated fury —”
“— for you,” Julia said.
He glanced at her with mild reproach. “Perhaps she sees me as a threat,” he
conceded, “but I refuse to believe that. I want to help Vicki.”
“And perhaps this spirit resents that. Maybe she thinks Vicki doesn’t need
your help, or that it won’t be good for her somehow.”
“She was cold,” Barnabas said, and shivered with the memory. “She said
nothing. But her eyes ... she cared for Vicki, it was obvious.”
“But Vicki thought her a portent of her own death,” Julia said.
“I don’t think she really believes that,” Barnabas said. “Stokes has been
combing the family journals and old photo albums under the pretext of doing
research for his own book on the 18th century branch of the Collins family.
He’ll let us know when he finds something.”
Julia opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment the bestial howl she’d
heard from the Old House rose in an eerie glisade from the copse of trees to
their left. Julia fell back against Barnabas, clutching at him in terror, as
the bushes shook and rattled, and were forcibly parted by a monstrosity nearly
eight feel tall. It stood on two legs and was covered in shaggy gray hair; two
brilliant emerald eyes burned savagely in its lupine skull. Its pointed ears
twitched as though taking in every sound of the forest. Its black lips parted
to reveal enormous yellow teeth the size of piano keys that ran and dripped
with foul slaver. Its hands ended in five sharp talons, akin to human fingers
save for the fearsome black claws that tipped each one. It opened its mouth
and roared a challenge, then lumbered at them, grinning its terrible wolfen
grin.
“Get back, Julia!” Barnabas cried, and swung at the thing with his cane. It
struck the snarling beast above the left temple, and it fell back, shrieking in
a voice that was almost human, and clutching at its wounded forehead with its
twisted, almost-human claws. Shaking its enormous shaggy skull, the thing rose
to its feet and glared at Barnabas. It bared its fangs, then pawed the ground
threateningly.
“Barnabas, watch out!” Julia screamed. The beast circled him, growling, and he
swung at it with the cane, but it ducked.
“Run for the Old House, Julia!” Barnabas commanded, and as she took off he
followed her, backing away from the thing and swinging his cane. The beast
eyed it sullenly; the moonlight glinted off it in silver spikes of light, and
it backed away, growling in puzzlement. At last it tilted back its head and
howled again, a high and dreadful sound full of pain and loss that echoed about
the clearing until it lept swiftly back into the bushes and disappeared.
Gasping, Barnabas dashed off in Julia’s direction. Together they clambered up
the steps of the portico, then slammed the doors of the Old House behind then,
and locked them.
Then they turned around.
“You!” Barnabas groaned. “How ... how can this be?”
“Hello, Barnabas,” Angelique said from the chair by the fire. Her hair hung in
her face, and her cheeks were flushed.
“Barnabas!” Julia cried in horror. “Barnabas, look at her! Look at her!
What’s ... what’s happened?”
“You needn’t be afraid, Julia,” Angelique said softly. “I’m not a vampire any
longer.” Before they could open their mouths, she smiled, and said, “Nor am I a
witch. I am completely without power.”
“Then ... then you’re mortal,” Barnabas said, his voice soft with awe ... and
disbelief. His eyes hardened. “You expect us to believe you’ve become human?
This is some new trick!”
“No tricks, Barnabas,” she said, then turned her gaze to Julia, and the doctor
was startled to find something almost apologetic in those huge blue eyes.
“Could you leave us, Julia? I’d like to be alone with Barnabas.” Julia glared
at her, mouth small and trembling. “I was mistress of this house once,”
Angelique said. “Surely that gives me the right to come here.”
Barnabas took her hand and patted it, but never took his eyes off the blonde
woman. “Please do as she asks, Julia,” he whispered.
“No, Barnabas,” Julia said through gritted teeth and a throat full of gravel.
“What if this is a trick? What if she’s still a vampire, or ... or something
worse? What if she means to kill you now?”
“I’ll take that risk,” he said. “Please, Julia. Trust me just this once.”
She drew back as though slapped. “I have always trusted you, Barnabas,” she
said steadily, her voice cold, and flicked her eyes, hard, shiny pebbles, to
the sagging woman in the chair. “It’s HER I don’t trust.” She swept
imperiously from the room and up the stairs to the second floor, where she had
nearly died as a result of the witch’s meddling in all their lives. She threw
open the door to Josette’s room and dropped onto the bed, then covered her face
with her hands and sobbed silently until her palms ran salty with her tears.
When Julia had gone, Barnabas turned back to Angelique. She sat completely
still, her hands folded placidly in her lap. Her eyes were locked on the
floor, and he thought she looked pious, as though she were praying for her
salvation. How impossible that sounds, he mused, and said harshly, “What has
happened to you? Why have you abandoned your guise as Cassandra?”
“I did not abandon it,” she said, and her voice remained level and neutral.
“It was taken from me, as were my powers as a witch, as was my life as a
vampire. All gone. Ashes.” She laughed, but it tore from her like a sob.
“I don’t understand,” Barnabas said.
“Nicholas,” Angelique moaned, head bowed. “Nicholas did this to me, just as he
made me a vampire in the first place. This is his punishment. I am to live as
a human for the rest of my days, and then I will die.” She glanced around the
room, and sighed. “When I came back to this house — as Cassandra — I cried
when I left. Everything is so different ... but so much the same. Except
...” Her eyes drifted to the mantel. “... the portrait of Josette. Where
have you taken it?”
“Let us not speak of her,” Barnabas said gruffly.
She looked at him, and said simply, “Why not? I murdered her, didn’t I? I
remember it so well. So very, very well.” His mouth dropped open, and then he
closed it with a snap. She seemed not to notice. “I lured her to Widow’s
Hill, Barnabas. I conjured a vision of her, showed her what you would do to
her. I killed her, Barnabas. It was I that sent her over Widow’s Hill because
I couldn’t let her have you. Not ever.”
“I will not have you speak of this now,” he growled.
“And Sarah,” Angelique said. “Let us not forget poor little Sarah. How I
tortured her ... stuck pins into her until her face turned blue and she begged
for mercy ... how she stumbled upon you with your mouth smeared with crimson
foam, and you so terrified her that she disappeared into the chilly night and
was not found until it was far too late to save her ...”
“Stop!” Barnabas cried in agony. “I beg of you, stop!”
“I remember her face,” Angelique said, and her voice was almost sweet. “How
angelic she was as she died in your arms. I was watching from my place in the
wall, my tomb that you prepared for me, darling Barnabas. A darkness, a hell
that I deserved so much.”
“Angelique —” A sob now.
“And your mother,” she said, relentless as she was calm and passive. “It was
poison she took, wasn’t it? Deadly nightshade? I watched her die in the
tower, again in your arms, clutched to your breast, as her eyes bulged and her
body contorted and she bled from her mouth —”
“DON’T SPEAK SUCH THINGS, SUCH ABOMINATIONS! Witch! Sorceress!”
“I am a witch no longer,” Angelique cackled. “You forget.” She raised her eyes
to his, and he was lost in them, floating in their cerulean skies. “I was the
death of everyone you ever loved,” she said firmly, and rose and took both his
hands in hers, and they were warm, human hands. He’d forgotten how warm she
could be. “A witch I was, and a murderess too. I killed Tom Jennings, and I
would have killed Julia had she not been strong enough to survive me.” She
swallowed, and he realized with a shock that her eyes were brimming with tears.
“You understand pain, Barnabas,” she whispered, “I know you do. I can see it
in your eyes. You loathed yourself when I made you what you became. I
understand because I feel that way too.” She fell against him, clutching him to
her. “I know what a disgusting thing I am to you,” she said. “I know the
horrors I have caused, the despair, the deaths, and I ... I can’t live with
it.” She pulled away from him, clutching at his lapels, her face strained and
wild. “And I can’t live with it, Barnabas, I can’t! I can’t stand the
pounding of this hideous heart any longer!”
His brow furrowed. “What?” he whispered, confounded.
“Let me die,” she sobbed, then bared her teeth. “MAKE me die, Barnabas.” She
seized his hands and placed them around her throat. “Kill me as you did
before. End this miserable existence
, I beg of you.”
He drew back, horrified. “I cannot kill,” he said. “I can take no more lives.
Not now. Now that I’m —”
“I killed everyone you ever loved!” Angelique moaned, and her eyes were wide
with terror. “I saw to it that Josette hated you, that she loved your Uncle
Jeremiah! I forced her off the cliff at Widow’s Hill, Barnabas, and I came
back after you killed me and I killed you, then I killed anyone else you
loved!” Her eyes suddenly blazed with fury and she pressed his hands tightly
around her throat. “I made them die horribly and painfully and in blood, now
you kill me, do you hear me? Do it, Barnabas ... do it now! Kill me! KILL
ME!”
He pushed her away from him and fell back against the wall, panting. She
screamed, digging her fingers deep in new blonde hair and tore at it, baring
her teeth and screaming. “Angelique,” Barnabas moaned, “I cannot ... I cannot
do such a dreadful thing ... now that you have another chance —”
“Another chance,” she railed, then laughed hysterically. “Another chance at
what? At life? I will be haunted by every terrible thing I’ve done for the
rest of my life, Barnabas. There is no second chance for me.”
“I was given one,” he said quietly. “I have committed attrocities as well,
Angelique. You cannot accept the full blame for the monstrosities that I
perpetrated.”
“NO,” she cried. “You have to do it. You have to, Barnabas, please ...
because I can’t do it myself.” Tears streamed down her face. “Please,
Barnabas. If you ever loved me —”
“I loved Josette,” he said. “I ... I never loved you.”
She drew back from him as though scalded. Her eyes were very wide and very wet
and blue like the crashing of the ocean. “No,” she said, and swallowed. “No
... you can’t ... I mean, you don’t —”
“Angelique,” Barnabas said softly, “we cannot love at will. I have tried to
tell you that for centuries, so that you could understand how I —”
“I hate you,” she whispered, her voice crushed velvet sprinkled with shards of
glass. “I have been told that I wasted my time on you, and I think that is
true. You have never known what I was thinking or feeling.”
“Angelique —”
“NO MORE,” she hissed, and lept to her feet. “I never want to see your face
again, Barnabas Collins. I don’t care how I feel now, what guilt I’ve accrued
or what I’ll do to deal with it. I don’t care. If I see you again, I’ll kill
you.” Her mouth trembled minutely, and she gasped in pain. “This is your
fault. All your fault. And I will never forgive you.” Her eyes threw out
sparks of hellfire as she hissed, “NEVER.” She ran for the door, pushing past
him, and then she was gone.
Gasping for breath and unable to stop trembling, Barnabas collapsed into his
chair. The evening had taken its toll on him, and when Julia ventured back
downstairs, she found that his skin was gray and he was perspiring heavily. “I
wanted to help her, Julia,” he said. “I can’t understand it. After everything
she’s done ...” He shook his head. “But I still wanted to help her.”
Julia felt tears brimming in her eyes, and she forgave him his cruel words as
she always had, and always would. She took his hand in her own and squeezed.
“It’s because you’re a good man, Barnabas,” she said. “She can’t forgive you,
but I think you can forgive her. And yourself.”
“I don’t want to see her again,” Barnabas said, and shuddered. He closed his
eyes, and pressed his forehead against Julia’s shoulder. She rocked him
tenderly, and cursed the witch who had nearly destroyed this man Julia loved so
fiercely; and yet, she thought to herself, without Angelique and her curse, you
would never have known him. “She said she would kill me.”
“She couldn’t kill you,” Julia said. “She’d find a way to resurrect you
somehow even if she did. She can’t live without you.” And neither can I, she
thought.
“I hope she’s gone forever,” he said.
6
She wore a simple travelling suit, the most austere thing Cassandra had owned.
It was a royal blue, and brought out her eyes and the blonde hair she had tied
behind her head with a blue ribbon she’d found in her dresser drawer. She wore
black gloves and carried a black leather purse on her lap.
It had been simple to sneak from the house and take Roger’s car to the train
station in the evil hours of the morning, just before sunrise. All her clothes
were packed for her when she creeped into the house before dawn and made her
way into the bedroom she had shared with Roger before she’d fallen under the
shadow of the vampire. He was missing, strangely, but it didn’t concern her.
She didn’t care if she never saw his ugly face again. So she had taken her
bags and ran, but before she left — for forever, she most sincerely hoped — she
turned back to the house that held so many memories for her. I lived here, she
thought, loved ... for a time I was very happy. She had bowed her head then,
and thought, But those times are over now. The past is dead, and it will
remain that way. I swear it.
She watched her reflection in the window to her right, still amazed that it had
been restored to her. She hadn’t realized until now how much she missed it.
Collinwood, she thought. I should have burned you down before I left. She
shook her head, threatened again by a storm of tears that lurked behind her
eyes. She knew that she was incapable of such a terrible act now. Human, she
thought bitterly, for the first time in three hundred years, truly, honestly
human.
Barnabas had rejected her anyway. Again. It didn’t matter, she realized,
whether she was a witch or a mortal. He would never love her. She couldn’t
have him, and she couldn’t kill him no matter what she threatened.
I hurt, she thought, and pressed an unconscious hand to her breast. Is this
what being human is about? Feeling pain? Caring about the pain I’ve caused
others? Because I don’t want it ... not any of it. Not the caring, not the
loving, not the pain. It had always been so much simpler not to feel, but that
was impossible now.
Sniffling, she lifted her head and lolled against her seat, watching the
landscape outside slip by. She had no idea where she was going, or what she
would do when she got there.
“Barnabas,” she whispered, “I don’t really hate you. I never did.” He couldn’t
hear her, of course, but this didn’t make the words any less true.
Human, she thought, and closed her eyes.
And smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
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