Chapter 36: Dancers in Darkness
by Nicky
"Night falls on Collinwood as the December days draw nearer and nearer to a
close ... time is running short, and an evil entity waits in the wings to
spread his blot over the Collins family yet again while, one by one, he
collects his minions, separating them from those they know and love." (Marie
Wallace)
1
Jenny Collins had been dancing for a long time, forever it seemed, sometimes.
She was aware of her hair, crimson and gold, the blazing tail of a star,
flaring around her in the limitless void wherein she dwelt. On occasion
there would be light, but she didn't care. She was content in her void,
content with her dancing. Other things had been important to her once - long
ago, as she would have told anyone with a coo in her voice and a sad, shy smile
- but not now. Perhaps there had been children, and a husband, and a vengeful
sister, but she couldn't recall. The steps of the dance, so complicated,
demanded her full attention, and so she danced, and thought very little.
But the dance had ended with the shattering of the void, and now she stood at
the edge of the woods surrounding the great house she had once known (but not
well, no time to get to know it, to love it, not with sister Judith lurking in
the dark, a hag, a hag) and watched a tall man lope towards her. He was
handsome, and she thought that she ought to know him, or perhaps she should
introduce herself. She smiled coquettishly, but spiders swam in her brain and
that made thinking very difficult sometimes. I remember that feeling, she
thought darkly, and felt nausea roil in the pit of her stomach; I remember the
dark, and how it itched and scratched, and how I whined at the door like a wolf
but no one would let me free. "Why wouldn't they let me free?" she asked him
plaintively as he approached her. His face was white, like powder, and she
thought of babies she hadn't held for an eternity.
"It is you," he whispered.
"Eyes like diamonds," she replied, and giggled, then touched her fingertip to
his cheek, and it came away wet. She sucked at the tear, marveling at its
saltiness, and moaned deep within her throat, a contented, luxurious purr. I'm
a great cat in my dress of green, she told herself, and soon I will roar and
soon I will pounce. Mice will scurry and women will bar their doors. I will
eat their babies when I find them. All the babies.
"This isn't possible," the man said, and gripped her shoulders. She smiled up
at him, dazzled by his eyes. "This ... just isn't possible. You're warm.
You're real. You're not dead."
She cocked her head. "Dead?" she whispered. "No," she said, and touched a
finger to her hair (was it wild? was it combed? was she wearing black? and
why had Beth stopped her visits?). "Not dead. Not dead at all."
"Jenny -" he choked.
She clapped her hands together, delighted. "Is that my name?" she laughed.
Her eyes danced merrily, and she wished she could join them. "I wondered. No
one has ever told me my name. Jenny," she pronounced carefully, and rolled her
eyes back in her head and pursed her mouth as though it were soured with
lemons, so exquisite was her pleasure.
"What am I going to do?" the man whispered to himself. He looked so small at
that moment, and so achingly sad, and Jenny ached with him.
"Poor babe," she said, and stroked his hair and sang to him, "Hushabye, don't
you cry, go to sleep my little baby. When you wake, you will find all the
pretty little -"
"Stop that," he growled, and pushed her away. "What are you? Why have you
come back? You're not a ghost. What are you?" He seized her and shook her now,
and growled, "Tell me what you are!"
Pain, a pain in her throat, not real pain but the ghost of pain, and it flared
now, and she recoiled. "Quentin!" she screamed, and dragged long red lines down
her face with her hands like pinwheels. "I remember you, you're Quentin!" She
pulled away from him, swinging her arms around and around her head, and the
snow flew in crazy patterns before her wild, animal eyes. "Quentin!" she
wailed. "Quentin! Quentin!"
He took a step towards her, and she threw back her head and shrieked like a
wounded beast, a voice full of terror and pain and fury. "Jenny -" he said.
"You're Quentin," she said, rational for a second only before the madness
descended again. "You're Quentin, and you killed me." Then she was gone like an
emerald sprite through the woods. He didn't even try to follow her. Instead
he pressed his face into his palms and rubbed furiously at his eyes until they
were raw and sore, then he blinked blearily at the world. Darkness was falling
swiftly, and soon a full moon would ride the sky above them.
Chris, he thought. Dammit. He was supposed to meet Eliot at Chris' cottage in
fifteen minutes. Eliot had a plan, a place, he had said, that might contain
Chris during the three nights of the full moon. There was no time to pursue
Jenny ... if, indeed, that was who she really was. He had his doubts.
Someone is doing this deliberately, he thought angrily. The ghost of Beth -
the ghost of Louise - and now Jenny. Something is very, very wrong.
He suppressed the guilt he felt (all my fault, he thought; I killed her, and
this really is all my fault) and began to run in the direction of Chris'
cottage. There was no time to go after Vicki either. Whatever was due to
happen between Vicki and her aunt - or Louise and her sister - was going to
have to occur without his interference. Chris was his top priority at the
moment, his heart be damned.
Just once, Quentin thought, and gritted his teeth, just once I'm going to do
the right thing.
2
"I conjure thee," Maggie Evans whispered intently, her eyes wide and lined with
kohl, her hands pale and ghostly as they passed back and forth over the liquid
that frothed and boiled in the pot before her, "by Satanas, by Barabbas, by the
Devil cursed be. I call on the Queen of Sard who ruleth Hell forever ... let
my voice ring through -" She paused, screwing up her forehead, then glanced
quickly at the enormous leather-bound volume spread out on the table beside
her. She had spirited it out of Nicholas' private chambers deep within Seaview
while he was out visiting with that ... that bitch. Now that she had
plundered it thoroughly, she knew exactly how to solve the problem. And
Nicholas would never know.
Hopefully.
"Er, let my voice ring through the empty corridors and the lone places," she
continued, and added a pinch of wolfsbane to the already murky mixture. It
hissed at her balefully and glowed a sinister green. She smiled, and her lips
seemed black with crusted blood. "Let the voices of the dead and the damned
bear my words to you," she chanted, and sprinkled in the hemlock. Serpent-green
patterns that she recognized from the book blazed momentarily in the air above
the pot, then faded away, leaving behind matching marks to tattoo her eyelids.
Maggie Evans had always been a patient woman. In her waking life - a life
before Nicholas, when she had barely existed as that uninteresting hashslinger
and sidekick to Quentin Collins - she had always tolerated her Pop's
alcoholism, Quentin's occasional hangovers and the snide, sarcastic remarks
that came with them, the insolence and the slaps on her ass administered by
some of the rowdier customers of the Diner, most of them itinerant fisherman.
But no more. That Maggie Evans was dead and gone. Buried. Forever. Just
like that insufferable Mrs. Stoddard will be when I'm through with her, Maggie
thought, and her smile was truly diabolical. Then I'll have Nicholas all to
myself and we can live forever in our castle by the sea.
She didn't understand his need to be master of Collinwood. It made no sense to
her. He was the most powerful man she had ever met. He conjured up money and
jewels from thin air (or possibly materialized them out of a bank account in
Switzerland, which was just as supernatural but made more sense to her
still-rather-provincial mentality); he lived in a gorgeous mansion that he
didn't really have to pay for; and best of all, he was going to marry Miss
Margaret Evans.
Wasn't he?
Don't you start thinking like that, Maggie scolded herself. You're not just a
warm-up to the main course. Nicholas loves you. He told you so. You believed
him.
But why did I believe him? Maggie thought. He's a warlock - he serves black
and unnameable beings that I probably don't ever want to see. The prince of
lies. What makes you think he'd be true to you?
"No," Maggie whispered, her mouth small and her jaw like iron. "Nicholas would
never hurt me. He's going to make me his queen. I'm going to rule with him
forever - and no one is going to stop me, not even Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou
Collins Stoddard."
With that in mind, Maggie reached for the photo of Elizabeth she'd stolen from
Nicholas' top dresser drawer. "Take this image, Sardian Queen," Maggie
continued, and held it above the frothing mixture, "and be satisfied. Let your
blackness boil beneath my skin. Take her and be -"
Nicholas' hand snaked out of the darkness behind her and seized her wrist,
grinding the bones together until she cried out her agony. The picture dropped
from her numb fingers and fluttered harmlessly to the ground. Maggie stumbled
backwards and fell to her knees. Her black hair hung in her face in sweaty
strands, but her eyes blazed with defiance.
"What in the name of HELL did you think you were doing?" Nicholas snarled, and
slammed the cover of his spellbook.
"What you taught me to do!" Maggie screamed up at him. "I hate her, Nicholas,
and I want her dead, and if you won't do it, then by god I'll do it myself!"
Her nostrils flared and her eyes seared him.
He knelt beside her and seized her chin in his hand. His voice was calm and
controlled and tight with fury. "You could have spoiled everything, you little
fool," he said evenly. "I warned you not to meddle in my affairs with the
Collins family."
Maggie thrust her chin out of his grip. "I'm not Cassandra," she snarled.
"I'm not some slave for you to order around. I'm my own woman, Nicholas, and I
can always dance by myself. Remember that."
"You need me, Maggie," Nicholas hissed. "I made you the woman you are, and I
can UNmake you just as easily. Don't make me do that." He stroked her ebony
hair between his gloved fingers. "I don't want to, my sweet," he said in a
voice of deceptive gentility. "But you'll force me to if you do anything to
hurt Elizabeth Collins Stoddard again."
"I want her dead," Maggie swore. "I don't care about the consequences. You
told me yourself - never care about the consequences!"
"But in this case, the consequences may well be the end of me," Nicholas
purred. "So for the moment Elizabeth must live."
"What do you mean?" Maggie asked, confusion steaming away some of her anger.
"Never mind, dear heart," Nicholas said. His voice was amused now, and his
eyes twinkled with merriment. He clasped both her hands in his, and they rose
together. Nicholas sniffed her brew, and chuckled heartily. "That's a very
dangerous spell you were attempting, my darling," he said, not without some
pride in his voice. "Not for novices at all."
"It was going to work," Maggie said. Her hand had crept out of his and found
its way to a very familiar spot. "I know it was."
"I believe you," Nicholas said. He was nearly panting now. He didn't struggle
as Maggie removed his tie, and then his shirt, and he watched appreciatively as
the violet miniskirt of which she was so fond lately puddled to the floor. She
stared at him with smoldering eyes, still so innocent despite all they had
done. That will change, he thought, his mouth gagging hers, and then they were
snarling and grunting and writhing on the floor, and as he thrust into her
again and again and again he knew how good it was, how good she was, and how he
would make her his queen for eternity. Just as he had promised.
Nicholas Blair always kept his promises.
3
Nathan Forbes peered through the glass of Todd's cottage and frowned. Barnabas
Collins was in there with three other people that Nathan didn't recognize, and
Toddy sat in the middle of them all looking miserable, and Nathan didn't like
it one bit. He didn't want Barnabas being that close to the man he loved
(well, perhaps "lusted after" was a more appropriate term, or maybe even
"obsessed about" but Nathan wasn't about to split hairs, not after two
centuries of oblivion). In fact, he pretty much wanted Barnabas dead. He just
couldn't find a way to do it. And Todd was always distracting him anyway.
Lots of whining. Nathan frowned. Todd whined an awful lot. He never did
before. Back in the past, the first time Nathan was alive, Todd had gloried
with Nathan in all his grandiose schemes about securing the Collins family
wealth by way of Miss Millicent Collins, a plan that was doomed from the outset
by the little neck-snapping administered Nathan one stormy night by a very
angry vampire. But Nathan had triumphed. He too had returned from beyond the
grave (so dramatic!) ... and now he was forced to listen to Chris - to Todd! -
as he bitched and bitched. "But Joe, what if David says something? But Joe,
do you really love me? But Joe, I'm not Tom!" Nathan had figured out that Tom
was Todd's brother - a twin, even - and had died in the recent past, and that
Todd for some reason assumed that Nathan - or, Joe, rather - wanted Todd to be
Tom. Which made his head throb horribly. I don't want you to be Tom at all,
my sweet, Nathan thought to himself. I want you to be my own little Toddy.
Forever and forever.
Blair had some sort of plan to secure Collinwood for himself. That piqued
Nathan's interest. The Collins fortune had grown substantially since last he
walked the earth, and he had begun to think that perhaps he was due a little
cut. Blair had mystical powers - he had to, to summon the dead back to life -
but he wasn't invincible. Surely not. And Nathan remembered the good Reverend
Trask from days of yore, and he wondered if a witch hunter at Collinwood might
not be such a bad idea. Like old times, you might say.
He was sure that Blair would tell him to deal with Barnabas first, and he would
- in good time. He had been lurking in the shadows when Barnabas and that woman
who looked like the Countess had breezed by him, and he thought they might be
arguing. "You can't just tell her outright, Barnabas," the woman had said, her
voice heavy with exasperation, but she seemed weak, a trifle unsteady on her
feet. Nathan had listened intently.
"I love her, Julia," Barnabas snapped, equally impatient. "I can't keep
something like this from her. Victoria Winters has to know the truth, and as
soon as possible."
Victoria Winters, Nathan had mused. Toddy had spoken of her. She was the
governess for the little brat who'd walked in on them awhile back. Nearly
scared Todd into screaming fits, Nathan thought, and snickered. Still, this
was interesting information. Barnabas loved her. Hmmm, Nathan thought. We'll
have to do something about that, won't we.
But all this was irrelevant for the moment, he decided, and resumed his stance
in the shadows by the window, where he could just hear their voices. Planning
could wait. Todd was his only concern now.
4
Julia was still pale, and willed herself not to cling to Barnabas. Memories of
her brother were already growing dim - I didn't really see him, she told
herself, not really, imagination working overtime - but there remained a
dreadful urgency to find something ... someone ... she couldn't remember, and
it was frustrating, but she figured it would come to her in time. For now, she
simply had to stand in place while Quentin and Stokes explained everything to
her, and she found that she couldn't quite believe it.
"This shouldn't come as that much of a shock, Barnabas," Quentin said. "All
these secrets finally out in the open, all equally terrible and destructive
should they reach the wrong ears." He shook his head with wry amusement. "Do
you want me to show you the portrait? It's at Collinwood. I can prove
everything I say."
"I believe you, Quentin," Barnabas said softly. "I just wish you had come to
me with your knowledge sooner."
"Why should I have?" Quentin snapped back. "I watched you kill a girl,
Barnabas. You were the family Secret passed down to me by my grandmother
before she died, and I kept it all these years. I figured you were too
terrible a thing to let loose, and that you would never escape, so I decided to
never let on to Roger and Elizabeth what really slept in a tomb on their
estate."
"Sporting of you," Stokes muttered under his breath.
"I didn't kill that girl," Barnabas protested. "I left her alive. Her body
disappeared -"
"Are you going to tell me that you had nothing to do with Sabrina Stuart's
death?" Quentin asked, incredulous. "Barnabas, I saw you -"
"I can't explain her disappearance," Barnabas said stubbornly. "I attacked
her, I'll admit it, but I never -"
"Stop, please," Chris said meekly from his chair. "I'm having a terrible time
digesting all this." They'd been discussing their secrets ever since Quentin
and Stokes had burst in on Barnabas and Julia's intervention (as if he were an
alcoholic or something!), presenting Chris with Barnabas' evidence proving (he
said) that Chris was, in fact, a werewolf. At least now I understand Barnabas'
interest in me, Chris thought with some relief. And I know he won't tell
anyone.
Julia patted him on the shoulder and looked at him with sympathy in her
almond-eyes. "Don't worry, hon," she said gently. "It's overwhelming, but it's
not your fault. We're all trying to sort things out."
Chris ran his hands through his tousled sandy hair and blinked. The moon was
going to rise in under an hour. They had to move quickly. "Barnabas is a
vampire," he said, testing the water.
"Was," Julia interjected. "He's been cured for almost three months now."
"And Quentin is a hundred years old."
Quentin nodded. "My hundredth birthday was in August," Quentin said. "The
portrait commissioned by Count Petofi and painted by Charles Delaware Tate
keeps my external appearance forever young. It's not as great as you might
think," he added as an afterthought.
Chris looked sharply at Professor Stokes, who was staring pensively out the
window as the sun sank lower and lower toward the horizon. "And what's your
stake in all this?" he asked, more harshly than he meant. "Where do you fit
into this puzzle? Are you a hundred years old too?"
Stokes started, tearing his gaze from the window, then chuckled, a rumble deep
in his chest. "Oh dear lord, no," he said. "I've been researching the occult
since my boyhood. It's always fascinated me, quests for magic, uncovering
ancient mysteries. I've often felt like St. George, though a dragonless St.
George. I had hoped to find my dragon abroad. I met Quentin in Romania while
searching for the moon poppy -"
" - that's a plant that's supposed to cure lycanthropy," Quentin said. "I've
never been able to find one. Not even sure if it exists."
"Quentin is very concerned about you, Chris," Stokes said. "We've been
alternately working on a cure and trying to find you for the past two years,
since you left Collinsport."
"My timing was terrible," Quentin said. "I hoped to arrive in time to catch
you, but Tom informed me that you'd left quite suddenly, without any
explanation, and I was sure I knew why."
"So you're responsible for this," Chris said, and looked up at his ancestor
with hollow eyes. "I'm not sure how to feel. Part of me wants to kill you
right now for what you've done to me."
Quentin knelt beside him. "I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to
you," he swore, and clutched Chris' hand to his chest. "I swear it,
Christopher. We will find a cure, for you, for your children -" Only Julia
noticed how Chris' face fell. "- and for Amy's children ..."
"Amy?" Chris cried, sitting up. "What has she got to do with this ... this
lunacy?"
Quentin bowed his head. "Magda's curse specified that all the sons of my
descendants would be marked with the pentagram," he said lowly. "Cursed to
become werewolves on nights of the full moon. But we're going to fight this
thing, and we're going to win."
"Why don't we just call up this Count Petofi guy and have him paint me a
portrait?" Chris asked, and noted the way that Quentin's eyes skittered away at
the mention of that name.
Quentin and Stokes exchanged looks. "Petofi is dead," Quentin said gruffly.
"He died in 1897. In a fire."
"Julia may be able to help with your cure, Chris," Barnabas said. He patted
her hand and smiled at her warmly. "She is a remarkable woman."
"I gathered that," Chris said, and Julia blushed.
"There remains the problem of where to put Chris during nights of the full
moon," Eliot said. "We tried to find you last month, Chris, but -"
"I was ... distracted," Chris said, and flushed momentarily. "I lost track of
the time. It's never happened before," he confessed to the others, and
thought, But you've never been as captivated with a person before as you are
with Joe Haskell, and this fixation nearly spelled death for someone. You're
lucky you didn't hurt anyone last time.
"You said you'd found a place, Eliot," Quentin said, but the Professor shook
his head.
"Not a place," he said gravely. "My basement, I'm afraid. I've tried to rig
up quite an interesting system. Chains," he said, with a knowing nod to
Quentin.
Chris buried his face in his hands. "It won't do any good!" he groaned, but
his voice was rough now, harsher, lower, deeper, and his brown eyes had begun
to lighten until they were almost emerald, flecked with gold. "I've tried
chains before. You don't know the animal's strength, Professor. I'll kill
again! I won't be able to help myself, and you might be the person I kill!"
For a moment, in the last rays of the setting sun, his face was nearly bestial;
his teeth seemed sharp and very white.
"You won't at all," Barnabas said suddenly, a finger stroking his chin
thoughtfully. "I've thought this all through. I think I may know the perfect
place for Chris to go these three nights a month."
5
The moment he closed the door of his cottage and turned the lock, sweat sprang
out on his brow and his face nearly spasmed with relief. Home at last, Eliot
Stokes thought, and dropped like a sack of grain into his favorite chair. It
had been an exhausting ordeal, trying to keep up a facade of interest in what
would have ordinarily been a fascinating conversation. The knowledge that
Barnabas Collins was the Secret Quentin had only hinted at during the entire
time he and Eliot had been friends was stunning enough, but to know that Julia
Hoffman had been responsible for his cure was mind shattering. And yet, all
the startling revelations that had occured this evening had barely registered
in his mind, because for the past month, Eliot Stokes continued to be haunted
by his daughter. His dead daughter. And because he had caught a glimpse of
her, peering in at them all and laughing soundlessly with green mold fouling
her teeth, he had been utterly unable to concentrate, and had foregone the trip
to Eagle Hill Cemetery that Barnabas deemed necessary.
"Alexis," he moaned, and was unable to stop the tears from trickling down his
cheek. He had cried almost every night since Halloween, the first time he'd
seen her, slipping down the halls of Rockport University with the hundreds of
other students. He hadn't seen her face clearly, not that time, but he knew it
was her. She'd been dead just a year. He couldn't quite believe that. A year
since the car accident that had claimed the life of his beautiful, talented,
extraordinary daughter. His beautiful Alexis, his delicate girl.
And now she followed him everywhere. He started seeing her everyday, sitting
at the very back of the class, a pencil clutched in one hand, her eyes as
bright and inquisitive as they were in life. Sometimes she breezed by his table
in the cafeteria with one backwards glance so he could see her face and mark
her features, her hair spun-gold, tied carelessly behind her with a blue
ribbon, as was her habit in life, her eyes a cool and appraising blue, her lips
pursed slightly in a half-smile. Then she would disappear into the crowd and he
would lose her again. And again. And again.
"I'm not losing my mind," he whispered, and sipped hastily from the glass of
wine he held in his trembling, arthritic hand. "I saw her. I saw her. I
did."
The truly frustrating thing was that he couldn't be sure if anyone else saw her
or not. She always looked so normal, so very NOT dead, passing him in a crowd
or watching him with quiet detachment from across the street; if anyone else
did see her, they didn't notice her. Not at the University in Rockport,
anyway, where she wouldn't be known. In Collinsport she'd stand out sorely.
Half the town had been at her funeral.
But if she was real — and he was determined to believe this, whether anyone
else saw her or not — then why had she returned? There was no reason for her
to haunt him that he could think of. Her sister, five minutes younger than she
and sadly unnamed, had died at birth; could that be the reason? Was Alexis
unsatisfied somehow? Was there some business with her adoptive father that she
had never dealt with in life?
"I married your mother because I loved her," he said to no one. "I didn't care
that she already had a child; I knew from the moment I saw you that I would
love you as my own."
He closed his eyes for a moment, then rose shakily to his feet. The joints in
his knees cracked, and his back ached dully. A bath was what he needed now, a
nice, hot, steamy bath to soak in, to stall the pain until the morrow, when it
would return again, inevitably, a snarling beast to put at bay with a little
bit of Percodan. Then he could deal with Chris Jennings and Barnabas Collins
and the rest of the skeletons dancing in a hundred closets at Collinwood.
As he hobbled to the bathroom, it occurred to him that he was distracted now.
He paused in the doorway of the bathroom, almost startled. This is the worst
possible time for Alexis' ghost to appear, he thought. What with Carolyn
acting strangely, a potentially deadly lycanthrope on our hands, and a warlock
seeking to marry his way into the Collins family ...
That was it. A warlock — Nicholas Blair, or Evan Hanley, as Quentin constantly
referred to him. A creature of darkness with the power to raise the dead. "To
raise the dead and send them after the unsuspecting living," Eliot murmured
through numb lips that quickly curled into a smile of triumph. Blair must be
aware that Stokes was able to provide any number of anti-witch talismans to
anyone threatened by black sorcery, and obviously the bastard had sought the
most underhanded way to deal with those who threatened him. "By god, I've
figured it out," he said, and snapped his fingers.
He was turning to the telephone when he remembered that Quentin was probably
still at Eagle Hill with Barnabas and Julia. That was perfectly all right.
He'd take his bath, and then he'd call up Quentin and let him know that soon
they'd have a warlock on the run. It was high time they dealt with Nicholas
Blair anyway. "We'll burn him ‘til his bones are black," Eliot said, and
pulled back the shower curtain.
Whistling, he turned his back on the tub and removed the heavy wool sweater
he'd donned when he had awakened that morning to find snow falling thunderously
from the sky. He loathed the cold, mostly because his bones tended to ache
more in the winter time. One day, he promised himself often, when I've
satisfied my curiosity to know more about the underworld and its fantastic
denizens, I'm moving myself and my aching bones straight to Miami.
He froze at a hissing sound that came from behind him, a rattling, a clatter.
He turned around, and his brow furrowed in consternation. The shower curtain
was drawn; the rattling had been the hooks that held the curtain up as they
were pulled across the bar.
Pulled by whom?
His skin prickled and knotted into gooseflesh. He was going to have to pull
the curtain back, and he didn't want to do that.
Water sloshed in the tub.
But it had been empty a moment before.
He swallowed, and his throat clicked dryly. The air seemed heavy now,
oppressive and cold, and he saw his breath plume whitely out of his mouth.
He put one hand on the curtain and paused, then closed his eyes. And pulled it
back.
His daughter lay in the bathtub, as though she had always existed there, her
skin purple and stretched tightly across the bones; her eyes were closed and
the lids withered; her hair, filthy and tangled, floated limply around her
shoulders like kelp; her hands were curled into claws that lay over her bloated
stomach; her breasts were cracked and scrawled across with veins dessicated and
empty.
Stokes opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Then she opened her eyes, and they were flat and obsidian. Her mouth stretched
into a bestial leer.
"Daddy," she said, and grinned and grinned.
6
"You're insane," Victoria Winters said carefully and deliberately, and shrugged
on her charcoal wool coat. She had found herself at the door of Collinwood
without any memory of coming there, and couldn't imagine where she had left
Quentin or how she had managed to make her way from the hidden treehouse she'd
discovered all the way to the great house. It left her rather shaken, and as
was her habit when she was confused or had questions, she decided to see if
Barnabas was at the Old House.
And now she had to face this lunatic, which she decided she wasn't going to do
as she pulled on her black gloves quickly and efficiently. Barnabas will know
what to do, she thought; he's already helped me so much with this
investigation. Maybe he can help me deal with this madman when I find him.
"You'll be making a big mistake if you ignore me, Miss Winters," Nathan Forbes
said conversationally. For once he was glad for these modern clothes; the
tights he had always worn as a Lieutenant were far too sheer. This green
peacoat he'd borrowed from Todd was much kinder to him against the New England
December elements. "He'll destroy you. He destroys everything he touches."
"Barnabas would never hurt me!" Vicki retorted angrily, already abandoning her
firm resolve to ignore him. But he was following her along the path to the Old
House, and managing to keep perfect time with her. The moon above them, white
and ghostly pale, cast silvery, shifting shadows along the road, and the trees
around them cracked and rustled mysteriously.
"The man is a walking corpse," Nathan said. "He drinks blood to survive, Miss
Winters. Who's to say he won't be sampling yours some night in the not too
distant future?"
"Barnabas is not a vampire," Vicki said. "We've all seen him in the day."
"NOW you have," Nathan said. "But what about when he first came around?"
Vicki paused and glared at him furiously. Her lips pressed together firmly
until her mouth was a small, colorless line, then she continued to stride
through the woods towards the Old House.
"Fine!" Nathan hollered after her. "But don't say I didn't try to warn you!"
He shook his head, and popped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. He
inhaled, then exhaled sharply, and shoved his numb hands into his pockets.
"All right, boss," he called to the empty air. "The floor's all yours."
Vicki didn't hear those last words. She was uncomfortable enough already
without listening to the ravings of an obviously unstable man. She hadn't
heard much about this "Joe Haskell" in the village, but she knew he was a
friend of Chris Jennings', and she thought she might try to warn the poor man
the next time she saw him, and advise him to be more selective when choosing
his friends.
But still, it was a disquieting thought. Barnabas did resemble the portrait of
his ancestor so much — but then again, Vicki countered, I look just like the
ghost that's been haunting me. And she's not me. Her name is Louise, whoever
she is.
And yet, we never saw him in the daylight until a few months after he arrived,
that suspicious, whispery voice continued, probing at her mind with a cold
finger. His story about having an "eye condition" was terribly convenient
don't you think?
"Stop it," Vicki hissed angrily under her breath. Barnabas has been kinder to
me than anyone at Collinwood since I arrived. I know he'd never do anything to
hurt me. Ever.
At that moment a cloud sailed over the moon, leaving Vicki in total blackness.
She stifled a scream, but forced herself to continue walking. She knew this
path very well by now, and she knew that she very close to the Old House.
A branch cracked underfoot just ahead of her, and she froze, waiting for her
eyes to adjust. She could just make out a figure ahead of her on the path, and
ice crystals materialized around her heart. It was a man, she could tell that
much, and suddenly the moon came out from behind a cloud, and she could see who
stood before her, and she relaxed with a sigh of relief.
"Barnabas!" she called, and began to walk swiftly towards him. "You scared me
for a moment. I wasn't sure who ..." Her voice trailed off. His eyes were
closed, and his head was bowed, as though he were praying. "Barnabas?" she
called, advancing more slowly now. "Barnabas, what is it? What's the matter?"
"VICTORIA WINTERS," a voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere, echoing around
her, and she screamed, and in that moment Barnabas Collins lifted his head and
opened his eyes, and Vicki screamed again. They were so deep a scarlet they
were almost black, and he grinned at her, and his teeth were sharp and
serrated, the fangs of a vicious animal. He snarled at her and, grinning
still, began to advance, brandishing his wolf's head cane.
She wanted to move, wanted to run away in terror, but she felt rooted to the
spot. I'm going to die, she thought; why is this happening? Why is this
happening now? It's impossible ... impossible!
"YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN, VICTORIA WINTERS," the voice boomed, and she thought she
almost recognized it, but she couldn't even tell if it were male or female.
"NOW YOU MUST PAY THE PRICE."
"Who are you?" Vicki shrieked as the monster that bore the stamp of Barnabas
Collins' face continued towards her, his face wreathed in an unholy grimace.
"What do you want?"
"HE WANTS YOU, VICTORIA," the voice continued. "HE WANTS YOU TO BE HIS BRIDE!"
"No!" Vicki screamed, but the thing was almost upon her now.
"THE BRIDE OF BARNABAS COLLINS," the voice continued, and Vicki realized sickly
that it was hearty with good cheer. "BRIDE ... OF DEATH!"
"Noooooooooo!" Vicki shrieked, and closed her eyes. She stood where she was,
panting, for several moments before she opened her eyes again.
The clearing before her was empty. She was alone.
"Oh my god," she whispered. It wasn't real — it couldn't have been real, and
yet ... yet, she believed it all.
Tears streaming down her face, she turned around and ran back towards
Collinwood.
7
"Well that was ... bracing," Quentin said, and stole one last glance over his
shoulder. The crypt at Eagle Hill Cemetery — the Collins Family Mausoleum —
where Barnabas had remained, chained in his coffin for two centuries, stared
back at him mutely, bathed in a silver glow of moonlight. Quentin had been
unaware of the existence of the secret room — Edith Collins had not seen fit to
clue him in on the location of the family vampire — but it was damned lucky
that Barnabas knew. It seemed the only place possible that could contain the
full fury of the werewolf locked within. Quentin shivered. Though the walls
were thick enough that they couldn't hear its frustrated gibbering and snarling
and howling, he knew that it would gibber and snarl and howl until the sun rose
the next morning. Fortunately for Chris he would remember none of it. And
just as fortunately there would be no victim to haunt him in the morning.
"Horrible," Julia shuddered as she slid into the passenger side of Quentin's
car. Barnabas took the back seat, mute, his face grim and stony. He held his
silver-headed cane tightly and pressed it against his knees. "I've never seen
anything so grotesque in all my life." Though both Barnabas and Julia had
crossed the beast's path during November's full moon, neither had ever
witnessed the transformation: the cracking of bones as they broke and reformed,
the flesh as it literally melted off the skin at the same time that patches of
coarse black hair burst from the mottled pores, the anguished screams that
deepened in register until they were the animal snarlings of a monster, the
eyes that flared a sullen emerald and the teeth that were suddenly jagged and
glistening with foul spittle in a wet snout that pressed longer and longer from
the ravaged face.
"I never remembered the transformations," Quentin said quietly. "I was always
blissfully ignorant of how I looked, thank god. But the results were always
too apparent in the morning."
"It's too bad that the secret room was occupied during your tenure as resident
werewolf," Barnabas remarked dryly from the backseat.
"Yes," Quentin said grimly, and gripped the wheel more tightly. "Much too
bad."
"One of us will have to release him in the morning," Julia said quickly, aware
of the suddenly stifling tension that filled the car.
"I'll do it," Quentin said immediately. "He's my responsibility. I'll let him
out."
"To think," Julia said faintly, "only six months ago I had no idea that there
were things like this in the world." She laughed, and her voice was high and
unnatural. "I almost think I'd prefer ignorance."
"No you wouldn't," Quentin said. "The ignorant, those who see nothing in the
darkness but shadows — those are the first to be ..." He swallowed painfully.
"To be eaten." Poor Jenny, Quentin thought suddenly, poor Mad Jenny Collins.
Would that I had never set eyes on her cursed face! Would that she and her
sister had strangled on their mothers milk! He sighed. He couldn't make
himself feel that way, even if it was easier. He couldn't hate Jenny. I
murdered her, he thought, and brought this all on myself. And now she's back
... but why? And how?
Collinwood reared out of the darkness before them, seeming to shimmer in the
moonlight like a mirage. The clouds had cleared, and the snow had ceased to
fall from the sky, but the lawn was covered in a vast plain of unbroken white.
"Home sweet home," Quentin breathed. "Are you sure you don't want me to drop
you at the Old House?"
"No, thank you, Quentin," Barnabas rumbled from the back seat. "Julia and I
have some research to do in the library."
"On Louise Collins?" Quentin asked. "Good luck. By now, I'm sure the entire
family is in an uproar."
"What do you mean?" Julia asked, startled.
"Vicki and I had an ... interesting experience this afternoon," Quentin said.
"She was possessed by Louise's spirit after she found a Valentine from Louise
to Elizabeth." He shifted the gear into park, and looked at both of them. "She
knows. Vicki knows that Louise is Roger and Elizabeth's sister."
"And you just let her go?" Barnabas exploded, and the sudden shift in his
emotions stunned them both, but Quentin's face immediately began to darken.
"I didn't ‘let' her do anything," he said quietly. "I would've gone after her,
but I knew that finding Chris was more important."
"You didn't know any such thing," Barnabas spat.
"Barnabas," Julia said nervously, "I don't think now is the time —"
"You know Vicki, Barnabas," Quentin said, striving to maintain a firm grip on
his temper. "Once she sets off on a quest, nothing will stop her.
"Coward! You let her —"
"Barnabas," Quentin said, and his voice was very even and very calm, "if you
don't stop talking right now, I am going to tear you from this car and shut you
up myself. Quickly and efficiently, but I will do it. It will be brutal and
it will be painful. Do you believe me?"
Julia gaped, but Barnabas only nodded weakly.
"Chris is the most important thing to me right now, no matter what I — or you —
feel for Vicki," he said. "I have to make sure that he is safe, and that
nothing will happen to him. What's done is done. If Vicki is going to learn
the truth behind her heritage, so be it. She is going to discover the truth,
whatever that may be, and there's nothing any of us can do to stop it."
Barnabas bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Quentin," he said. "But when it comes to
Vicki, I ... sometimes I lose control of myself. I apologize."
"I apologize too," Quentin said. "Vicki has the ability to make me a little
... moonstruck." He stepped out of the car, and stared up at the moon, cold
and dead and far away from them all, yet they all felt its sinister pull. "I'm
exhausted," he said. "Let's go inside and try to sort out —"
"Vicki!" Barnabas cried. The governess, running and gasping, sprinted from the
shadows of the woods, but froze when she saw the three of them. Her eyes
ranged, taking them all in, and she cringed backwards. "Vicki," Barnabas
began, "what's happened to you?"
All the color fell from her face, and her eyes opened wide, and she screamed,
"Stay away from me! Just stay away!" She fled, and disappeared into the house,
slamming the doors after her.
"I'll see to Vicki," Julia said and, clutching her medical bag, followed the
governess into the house.
"I don't understand," Barnabas said blankly, but Quentin knew that he was hurt.
Hurt and confused. "What could have happened to her? Why did she run from
me?"
"I don't know," Quentin said, and closed the doors after them. "But I think
you'd better stay away from her, at least until Julia's had a chance to sort
out what the matter is."
Barnabas stared at him with slitted eyes for a moment, then relaxed. "Perhaps
you're right," he said softly. "I don't want to alarm her anymore."
The phone trilled at that moment, and Quentin reached over and lifted the
receiver to his ear. "Hello?" he said, bemused by the way Barnabas stared
mournfully at the top of the stairs, and the way he wrang his hands. "Yes,
this Quentin Collins." He frowned. "What? Oh, no. Oh, of course. No, I can
come right now. Is he allowed visitors? No. No, thank you. Yes, I'll be
right down." He dropped the phone back into the cradle, and clutched the table
so that the weakness in his knees wouldn't send his lanky body toppling to the
floor.
"What is it, Quentin?" Barnabas asked. "What's happened?"
"That was the hospital," Quentin said numbly. "They've just admitted Eliot.
He's had a stroke, and he hasn't regained consciousness."
8
Nicholas congratulated himself. He was really quite clever. Of course, it was
almost too easy when the mortal herd around him allowed themselves to be played
like violins, but he worked with what he had. He'd always been very, very good
at what he did — with that one exception in
1840 that he didn't like to dwell on — and his Masters knew it. And once he
turned Collinwood into a shrine devoted to the Dark Ones, he could form a
gateway that would allow them to enter the world freely, to come and go as they
pleased, and he would be rewarded most handsomely.
And Maggie Evans will rule at my side, he thought as he turned down another
corridor in the East Wing. He frowned. For all his powers, he was discovering
that Elizabeth — the ticket to his reward and the gateway that would open at
Collinwood — was proving to be terribly difficult to discover this evening.
They'd had a date to read over some old journals kept by Judith Collins,
Elizabeth's aunt, and Nicholas was a bit late, but that was no excuse for the
old girl to go into hiding.
Damn Victoria Winters, he growled to himself. He was fifteen minutes late
because he'd been torturing the girl. Nathan had come to him with a wonderful
idea, Nicholas had to admit, and he himself was instrumental. Conjuring up an
image of Barnabas as a vampire to stalk Victoria Winters through the shadowy
forest had been too easy. Better left to amateurs in most circumstances. It's
a pity I disposed of poor Angelique, Nicholas thought, grinning. I could have
made her do it. Her specialty at one time, after all. And she's always had a
grudge against dear Miss Winters.
He expected that, any minute now, Victoria Winters was going to fly through the
house, shrieking shrilly at the top of her lungs, and soon the entire family
would know that Barnabas Collins was one of the living dead. Nathan wasn't
exactly the imbecile Nicholas had perceived him to be. Goody.
"Elizabeth?" Nicholas called softly, turning another corner. The East Wing
wasn't as neglected as its western counterpart, but there was no shortage of
dust and grime. And let's not forget the shadows. Some of the rooms were
furnished, but the majority weren't. Elizabeth had probably remembered another
cache of her aunt's letters and had come up here to find them. Which meant he
would be forced to poke through several of these old rooms to find her, and he
wasn't keen on that idea. Not when he could be at home poking around with
Maggie. He snickered. Oh Nicholas, he thought to himself, you are the living
end.
He paused before a door grander than the others, but so covered with dust and
cobwebs that it almost appeared to be part of the wall. The doorknob was
tarnished and dark, and Nicholas wouldn't have noticed it at all if there
hadn't been a razor-thin line of light beneath it. He listened closely, and
heard voices within. Gotcha, he thought, and threw the door open.
And stared, frozen. The room was not only occupied, it blazed with light, and
was furnished in a thoroughly modern fashion. An orange canopy billowed above
a grand bed, and silver candelabras adorned the walls. They were papered in
fine silver and blue silk, and a crystal chandelier that must have weighed
several hundred tons hung ponderously from the ceiling.
But that wasn't what made his breath stick in his throat. He found his eyes
locked on a portrait that hung gracefully on the wall ... a portrait of
Angelique. It was her, unmistakably. Her hair hung in soft golden ringlets
above her bare shoulders. She wore a sheer blue dress and white gloves, and
her hands were folded impeccably in her lap. Her full red lips were curled in
the slightest hint of a smile that was, for all her beauty, still rather cruel
looking. Her eyes were the same sapphire blue he recalled, and fixed him
malevolently.
This is impossible, he thought; why on earth would the Collins devote a room to
Angelique? They don't even know she exists outside of a few unfortunate
relations. What in the hell is going on?
He held his head, for he felt quite dizzy suddenly, and he seemed to hear music
tinkling around him, sweet and seductive.
"No, it's impossible, Alexis," a woman said, and damned if it wasn't Angelique
herself! She wore a long black gown that trailed on the floor, and her
unfettered hair cascaded in a golden stream down her back. Her face was sullen
and her eyes flashed angrily — and she was facing a woman who looked exactly
like her.
"I'm not asking much, Angelique," the other woman — Alexis, Nicholas thought
incredulously; but she's dead, and besides, she's supposed to be haunting her
Professor Stokes — said meekly. "Just a little bit of your time, that's all."
"You don't want my time at all, sister dear," Angelique said coldly. If it's
not my Angelique, Nicholas thought, she's a damned good actress, whoever she
is. That's my girl to a tee. "You want time with my family. My husband, to be
specific, and my darling son as well."
"Daniel is my nephew, Angelique," Alexis said, still calm, still contrite, her
hands folded nervously before her. Though they shared the same face, Alexis
was only a shadow of her sister. Thinner, paler, with her hair pulled back
severely and tied in a bun at the nape of her neck and her face gaunt and
shadowed. "My visits to Collinwood are few and far between, and I wish I could
spend more time with him. That's all."
"I'll bet you do," Angelique smirked. "Honestly, Alexis, haven't you anything
better to do? No statues to sculpt of handsome, brooding fishermen you'll
never bed, or more tacky paintings of the sea?" She laughed derisively. "You
disgust me sometimes, sister, you really do."
"Angelique, please," Alexis said softly. Her voice trembled. "I ... I only
meant —"
"Hoffman!" Angelique cried shrilly, and a mere second later the door across the
room opened, and Julia Hoffman entered. But a Julia Hoffman much different
from the one acquainted with Nicholas. Her hair too was yanked back from her
face, making it hard and strangely angled. Her eyes glittered like pointed
jewels, and her mouth was fixed and as cruel as her mistresses'.
"You called, madam?" Hoffman asked, and glanced at the other woman with a sneer
of distaste.
"My sister was just leaving," Angelique said. "Please show Miss Stokes to the
door."
"As you wish, madam," Hoffman said, and took Alexis firmly by the arm and began
to drag her from the room.
"Angelique, please!" Alexis cried shrilly. "Please, listen to me!"
"Goodbye, my dear sister," Angelique said sweetly and, horribly, blew her own
struggling image a kiss. Then the door slammed, and she was alone. She threw
back her head and trilled the same shattering laughter Nicholas' Angelique was
famous for. The woman swept majestically in a circle, and stood facing her
portrait, her head uptilted, her smile cold and mocking. "My dear Alexis,"
Angelique said, "it's a pity you had to come back here now. You could ruin
everything for me, and I can't have that. Not when I'm so close to my goal."
She folded her hands placidly before her, and ran one hand along the edge of
the portrait. "Only a few more ... just a few more ... and everything will
be complete. The circle will close — the stars will align — and ..." Her voice
faded off, and she cackled deviously again, then swept around the room in giddy
circles before seizing the doors Nicholas stood before and slammed them shut.
And he knew that she didn't see him.
He stroked his chin. Interesting. Obviously those women were not the
Angelique and Alexis Stokes he had come to know. And Julia Hoffman as a
housekeeper? How absurd! It all seemed horribly familiar, and he was reminded
of a theory once suggested to him by another warlock, something about alternate
dimensions. He'd thought it metaphysical humbuggery at the time, but now he
wasn't so certain. Could the supernatural practices in this house have opened
a dimensional portal in the East Wing? Would it be possible to enter that
other world, interact with its players? It was an amusing thought. He'd have
to explore it further when he had more time.
He was turning to go, to further his search for Elizabeth, when an unsteady
voice hissed from the blackness around him, "I know you. I do, I do. Coals
for eyes, black and heavy, and teeth like a rat."
"Who's there?" Nicholas cried, startled and infuriated instantly. No one snuck
up on him. Ever. It simply wasn't allowed.
"I sing sometimes," the woman, whoever she was, continued. "And I dance in the
blackness. It's like velvet, all peppered with stars like diamonds that burn
if you touch them, if you even brush against them. But the darkness is gone
now, and there's only you. And me." She stepped out of the shadows, and
Nicholas found himself looking at Jenny Collins. Her eyes were wide and rimmed
with red, and her hair was wild and matted. She had been stumbling through the
woods, obviously, for her dress was tattered in some places and caked with mud.
"What are you doing here?" Nicholas boomed, trying to sound powerful and
authoritative, but she never budged, and suddenly he began to feel quite
nervous.
"Have to sneak," Jenny said, and her eyes never left his. "Have to skulk.
Like old times. Shadows are sharp, and they whisper, pst pst pst." She grinned
humorlessly, and her skin was tight and pale, and Nicholas was reminded
horribly of a grinning skull.
Nicholas thrust out one arm. "I order you to leave this place," he said.
"Don't wanna," Jenny said, and began to sway like an immense serpent. "I know
you, I know you. You're back, just like him. Just like my Quentin, but you're
a lawyer of dark, bad things. You've helped him, haven't you. I've seen you.
Whispering like the shadows. Your eyes sharp, like spiders on my back, biting
and biting." She raised her arm, and Nicholas saw that she was brandishing a
pair of scissors. "But you won't bite me anymore." And she smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
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