Shadows on the Wall Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter 69: Angelique (The Devil Need Not Own You)

by Nicky

(Voiceover by Lara Parker): “Darkness has reigned triumphant over the little town of

Collinsport since its inception three hundred years ago, and its foothold is

   perhaps stronger now than it has ever been.  Something is rising, something from the sea and from a world beyond the one we know.  And while the Collins family struggles to understand the darkness they are only now beginning to realize has lurked around them time out mind, one woman who has lived with that same darkness inside of her just as long as the town makes her return ...

and she knows that the darkness that has lain within her for three centuries may yet rise to consume her.”

1 (Angelique Rumson — Now)

No snow tonight, just rain pounding on the windshield with a million tiny

fists, and the damnable wipers streaking them into un-breachable blurs, and she

was crying, and the tears were hot rivers in her eyes, burning in her eyes, but

it was nothing compared to the fire that raged in her breast.  She had pulled

over after crossing over the bridge that led from Little Windward to the

mainland, and had slumped across the wheel and allowed her face to burn hot and

wet against the cold flesh of her arms.  She hadn’t even stopped to grab a coat

after fleeing from her new house.  Just her purse.  Her stupid purse, but it

held the keys to the Lexus, and she needed that now.  Badly. 

Angelique Rumson sniffled once, miserably.  This isn’t possible, she told

herself for the millionth time, it simply isn’t possible.  Sky loves me, he’s

human, he isn’t what Nicholas said, not possible, not possible, not POSSIBLE

GOD DAMMIT —

The money.  The business.  The house.  Everything.  Everything he’d given her.

She felt all her miserable defenses collapse, and she began to cry again.  Was

it all magic?  Was none of it real? 

Was his love for her unreal? 

Of course it isn’t, she thought, and for the first time felt that tiny spark of

anger that she hadn’t felt in such a long time, but was oh-so-familiar, that

tiny spark like a flame in the dark emptiness inside her.  You heard Nicholas,

she thought.  The most powerful and deadly warlock he’d ever known — inventive,

depraved, evil ...  how could you have ever loved someone like that?  How could

you have ever thought he loved you? 

The anger disappeared, and she only felt tired.  The porcine squealing of the

windshield wipers sounded only dimly in her ears.  This is how it has to be,

she thought.  How it’s always been, across three centuries and several

incarnations.  Why did I become a witch to begin with?  Why didn’t I just

ignore these powers inside me? 

Because, she thought, and smiled thinly, I thought they could bring me love.

But they have nothing to do with love.  These powers are only capable of

corruption, of twisting real human feeling into nothing, or worse, a darkness

that could destroy so easily.  I don’t deserve real love, Angelique thought,

after all I’ve done.  All the destruction I’ve courted and caused.  How could I

think that anyone could possibly love me?  What I am?  The loathsome thing I’ve

become? 

Miranda DuVal.  As far back as Miranda DuVal. 

On my way to the Old House to see Barnabas.  On her way to the Old House to see

Barnabas.  Only it wasn’t called the Old House then, and his name wasn’t

Barnabas. 

And it wasn’t raining, it was —

2 (Miranda DuVal — 1692)

— bright.  Blindingly bright; the spears of sunlight, even filtered as they

were through the emerald foliage surrounding her, still pierced at her

crystalline eyes. 

Miranda DuVal had a spark within her (“There’s good and bad in everything,”

Mama had told her, time and again, “good and bad, like dark and light.  Strive

for the light, my baby.  Shun the darkness.  There’s something in thy breast

and in thine eyes that has a power.  ‘Tis thy choice, Miranda, how you use it.

For helping ...  or otherwise,” and Miranda had never forgotten it).  Her long

hair, uncurled and unfettered by cap or ribbon, flowed down her back in

white-blonde wave, so brilliant beneath the spring sun that glowed cheerily

above the small Massachusetts town of Collinsport that it was nearly blinding

in its intensity.  But it was nothing compared to her eyes.  They sparkled with

a vitality and exuberance that had been sadly lacking ever since her final

encounter with Nicholas Blair. 

Miranda paused for a moment on her journey up the walk to Collins House and

placed a hand to her forehead. 

“Don’t just stand there, Miranda,” Nicholas Blair had snarled (not so long ago;

only a few days; but Lord and Savior bear witness, it felt like years); the

wide brim of his hat nearly obscured his features in the near darkness of the

abandoned fishing shack.  Only the flickering black candles, nearly guttered

out yet expelling thick plumes of thick, greasy smoke, cast enough light so

that he was recognizable.  “Tell me why you have come to this place!”

If she thought about that time almost two months ago strongly enough, the

corrupt, pervasive odor of charred and stinking flesh would return in full

force until she gagged with the nausea that roiled within her stomach.  His

screams danced in her ears, as did the flames that consumed him until all that

remained of Nicholas Blair was a rapidly disintegrating pile of ash. 

Miranda opened her crystalline eyes, icy blue highlighted with tints of

green-gray, like the placid surface of the Atlantic Ocean that lapped gently at

the shores of the small fishing village barely three years old.  She

straightened the dark gray fabric of the dress she wore at the waste firmly and

soundly.  “That’s all over now,” she breathed.  “Nicholas Blair will never harm

me again.”

Birds twittered deeper in the environs of the woods surrounding Collins House,

the home that Isaac Collins, eldest son of old Amadeus, had chosen as his home.

He had been joined there by Aidan Collins, and it was Aidan whom Miranda

wished to see more than anything on earth. 

She found it nearly impossible to believe that it had been almost three years

since she had first crossed the threshold of his father’s house and first set

eyes on him, handsome, debonair, with deep set hazel eyes that seemed to spark

with youth, vibrancy, and a simple humanity that she found deeply touching even

on first glance.  His dark chestnut hair, casually swept over his forehead,

gleamed with an inner fire, and even now she longed to run her fingers through

it.  She craved it.  She NEEDED it.  He had taken her hand in his enormous paw

and brought it delicately to his lips, his eyes on hers all along, and

delicately brushed his lips against the skin, sending tingles of sensation

running up and down her body until goosebumps danced in sheets along the skin

of her arms. 

“Miss DuVal,” he had murmured in his rumbling baritone.  “So we meet at last.”

His eyes sparkled with mirth.  “Or is it mademoiselle?”

She had blushed, dropping her eyes.  This was not how servants were generally

treated.  She’d been born in England to a wealthy shipbuilder, but his

unexpected death of a stroke at age forty-three had forced her mother to

abandon the London townhouse and everything she knew and loved and make her

way, with eight year old Miranda in tow, to the foreign, barren shores of

Massachusetts.  She recalled how depressed she’d been upon first glimpsing the

rocky, jagged coast on a fog-shrouded morning in late September.  This is where

they want me to LIVE, she had thought incredulously; this is where they want me

to GROW.  But since her father’s money had run out shortly after they’d

departed for the colonies, Miranda had been forced to become a chambermaid.

Her mother, a tired, shriveled woman by the age of fifty, had moved them both

to Bedford in November of 1691, and only three months later Miranda was servant

to the Collins family, the most influential dynasty in Massachusetts.  Paid

handsomely, as was accorded a member of her station serving the rich and

influential, she had been content with her mother’s intentions ...  until that

first day, and her first meeting with Aidan. 

“Just miss,” she had murmured, the blush staining her porcelain cheeks crimson.

“I’m English, really.”

“What a coincidence,” Aidan had chuckled.  “So are we.” He shrugged.  “For the

most part.  My father’s brother is Irish, and in Ireland he remains to this

day.” His smile was pleasant and open.  “I am his namesake.”

“An unusual name, ‘tis true,” Miranda had remarked carelessly.  Her blush

deepened when she realized what she’d said, and added quickly, “but a fair one

as well.  A ring there is to it, and it rolls so easily off the tongue.”

He pealed merry laughter then, and took her hand.  “Welcome, Miss DuVal.”

She smiled and nodded, her confusion deepening, like the tiny, diverting cracks

that appear in the icy surface of a pond one late January afternoon after a day

of unusual sun and a night of plunging temperatures.  I don’t understand, she’d

thought; I have served in over five households, and never have I been treated

in such a pleasant, accommodating fashion.  What manner of people are these

Collinses?  A smug smile crossed her features, distorting the beauty and

simplicity in the lines of her face.  Perhaps I shall stay here for awhile, she

thought, if all the family are as pleasant as this. 

But she was proven incorrect almost immediately.  Judge Amadeus Collins was a

harsh, unforgiving man, with a snowfall of powder-white hair, and fierce,

glaring blue eyes that gleamed at her from lined pockets of flesh.  His mouth

seemed set in a permanent sneer.  “You’ll do, Miss DuVal,” he had said curtly,

then gestured towards the kitchen with one finger gnarled by arthritis.  “You

can start your duties in the kitchen.” He’d dismissed her then with a nod, and

she felt something akin to anger rise in her breast.  From one extreme to

another, she’d thought; the father is nothing like the son. 

Yet there was nothing she could DO, and this powerless, helpless feeling would

creep over her late at night, as she lay in her narrow servant’s bed in

quarters far separated from the main house.  She loathed it, rising in her

throat like blackest bile, coloring her every thought the dark maroon of

depression.  Sometimes she found herself alarmingly close to tears, and that

was bad, very bad indeed.  What would old Amadeus think if he found her weeping

into her apron when she had been ordered to wipe the spots from the windows

near to the piano? 

The lack of a Mrs.  Collins was also a point of contention in the household.

Though nearing sixty, Amadeus was determined to marry again, and Miranda

eavesdropped on many a heated argument between Aidan, his brother Isaac, and

their stubborn, iron-willed father.  “I will find myself a bride worthy of the

name Collins,” Amadeus had roared one early morning just after the stroke of

one, “and God help those who stand in my way.” Less than two months after

Miranda came to work for the Collinses, Amadeus took a bride. 

Her name had been Laura Pendleton, and it was rumored in the village that she

was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from London, but no one knew for sure.

It didn’t matter in the long run; Amadeus was happy, his sons seemed to

tolerate the new bride (at least they did in the beginning), and few tongues

wagged. 

For the first few weeks. 

But in early January 1692 the Reverend Bale, new to Bedford even after two

years, died suddenly and tragically in his home.  He was severely burned, so

badly in fact that his parishioners were unable to recognize him.  He was

buried, and the talk began.  People recalled the reluctance and disdain Laura

Collins had shown for the church in Bedford, and although she and Amadeus

visited at least once a month, everyone knew she wasn’t REALLY a part of the

congregation, and never would be.  Bale had raised a few eyebrows when he had

casually, anonymously mentioned her during the course of a sermon.  Two days

later he was dead.  Two days after that and the village was buzzing, and one

word graced every pair of lips, whether with scorn or honest fear. 

And that word, naturally enough, was “witch”. 

It was a word that Miranda was acquainted with.  A diversion, she had been told

as a girl, for bored women of the aristocracy.  Of course the Church frowned on

it (and no one forgot the millions of women scorched and tortured in the flames

in the dark centuries thankfully now past), but what the Church didn’t know

didn’t hurt them.  Miranda herself had never bore witness to any true acts of

witchery, although she and her girlhood friends had enjoyed divining with an

egg in a cup simple questions about love and luck.  Games, really, but

dangerous ones should they be caught.  Which, of course, they never were. 

Word of the witch-craze in Salem had reached the village around the time of the

Reverend Bale’s mysterious death.  Miranda was intrigued, albeit disgusted, by

the simple ignorance of the country folk who populated both villages.  The

women on trial weren’t real witches, even she knew that ...  but of Laura

Collins she wasn’t completely certain.  It wasn’t difficult to snoop through

the belongings of the Collins family, and yet had found nothing incriminating

in the bedroom Laura shared with Amadeus.  Laura was a cold, proud beauty, with

a full head of goldenrod hair that she refused to cover with a cap, and eyes of

the palest cornflower.  Her cheeks were high and proud, and her lips, more

often than not, were wreathed in an arrogant sneer.  She did not love her

husband, and for this Miranda did not blame her.  But was it true what the

villagers were whispering near the chimney on cold nights?  Was Laura Collins a

witch? 

Miranda could find no evidence.  But still, she could not deny ...  there was

something strange about her. 

But it ceased to matter than cold February night, with the wind wailing and

gibbering outside the eaves of her narrow servant’s bedroom and snow piled high

on her windowsill, when the door had opened a crack, sending a thin ray of

light to cross the thick quilt her mother sewed her only child before her

death.  Miranda had known instantly who it was, wearing only a nightshirt,

despite his features hidden in silhouette.  But his voice — his strong, husky

voice, now made low with passion — was utterly unmistakable.  “I’ve come to

you,” he whispered, as though ashamed.  “I came as you knew I would.”

And she had opened her arms as he lowered himself into them, into her, his lips

on her lips, so fierce and strong, and he was fumbling with the ribbons that

laced her gown tight ‘round her throat, and his scent was everywhere, hot and

coppery and so heavy, and he was straining against her and a moment later his

nightshirt was gone and her gown was gone and they were together in her bed,

and she was sated and happy. 

Love in the dark, love to spite the scream of the wind without the house, but

too short a time, alas, too short.  He was gone when she opened her eyes to the

harsh, white light of morning, a day when no sun would shine.  She had groaned

aloud and pressed her palms against her eyes until purple stars bloomed in the

blackness that now enveloped her. 

But it was love, not as pure as the poets proclaimed, she thought, but love

nevertheless.  She saw it in his eyes as well, when he passed her in the hall

that day and brushed his hand lightly against her arm.  And perhaps she would

have reciprocated if she dared, but she did not. 

For she knew her master was watching her. 

Miranda hadn’t been well acquainted with witchcraft until she came to Bedford,

but the possibilities fascinated her.  She loathed her status, just as she

loathed the woman to whom her Aidan was betrothed.  Samantha Good was a tall,

willowy creature with a fall of chestnut hair and huge, round brown eyes that

exemplified — glorified!  — innocence. 

Miranda hated her. 

She was impossibly wealthy, as were the Collinses, and a perfect match for

Aidan. 

Save that he didn’t love her in return. 

“They want me to marry her,” Aidan murmured one night, his bare arms supporting

her and his lips pressed against the hollow between her shoulder and neck.  She

smiled, cat-like, as tiny arrows of sensation trilled up and down her spine.

“How can I?  She means nothing to me.”

“You don’t love her,” Miranda had whispered, and her smile grew as she felt him

nod against her.  “You love me,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.  Just as I

don’t love Nicholas Blair, she wanted to add, but forced herself to be still.

True, she knew that Amadeus’ lawyer wished her to warm his bed, but even he

couldn’t see the cold, appraising way with which she watched his face grimace

like a weasel when he visited the house, nor did he know about the rumors of

witchery and enchantment she had heard from his own servants. 

Aidan had nodded in answer to her statement, and she was satisfied. 

Unfortunately, Judge Collins didn’t see it her way.  Aidan was to marry this

wretch and that was all there was to it.  “Have some sense, boy,” he’d snarled

more than once.  “The Goods are one of the most prosperous families in the

territories.  And Samantha is far from homely.” His shining old eyes had

gleamed slyly.  “You can stop trifling with mere servant girls, boy,” he said,

then nodded happily as the color had drained from Aidan’s face.  His

stepmother, prim and perfect with hands folded placidly in her lap, had beamed

at him from the settee where she rested, watching the exchange between father

and son.  Aidan felt a black hate envelop him and, from her hiding place

outside the door, Miranda felt the same.  “Didn’t realize your old father was

so clever, did you, boy,” Amadeus continued.  “I’m not blind, you know.  I see

things ...  hear things ...” His smile became huge and filthy.  “Marry Samantha

Good, Aidan.  Don’t be a fool.  Don’t throw your life away like your brother

Isaac.”

No answer to that, and no answer and no answer and no answer.  Instead, a wall

of hurt and angry silences, and outside the great house the trouble in the

village grew.  Goodman Sibber, the baker in Bedford, had died in an explosion

in his kitchen early one afternoon, shortly after a visit from Laura Collins,

and his hysterical wife was certain that she was utterly responsible.  Miranda,

meanwhile, had her own fish to fry. 

It was an easy enough feat to conjure Samantha Good away from Bedford in the

middle of the night, taking with her only the bare necessities and her father’s

horse.  Where she had gone was a mystery to all, including Miranda, and she

somehow felt more at ease that way.  I didn’t need to make Aidan love me with

tricks and spells, she would think with a great deal of satisfaction as he lay

in her arms after love, all I needed to do was erase the competition. 

Shortly after the departure of Samantha Good, three things happened to disrupt

the Collins household, and Miranda’s life. 

The first happened the night old Amadeus snuck into Miranda’s bedchamber, just

as his son had, and forced himself upon her, forced himself into her, invading

her body, ripping into her, staining her.  Hurting her. 

The second was the arrest of Laura Collins by a mob composed of the angry

citizens of Bedford. 

The third was the disappearance of Aidan. 

It had crushed her, especially since he left no note or any form of goodbye.

She made no connection to the disappearance of Samantha Good, and so was

perplexed and heartsick.  He hadn’t even told his father where he’d gone.

There was no one to hold her, no one she could cry to.  She was alone, refused

even by Nicholas Blair, who denied her his help to conjure up enough power to

blast Amadeus into oblivion. 

So, despondent and depressed, Miranda had made her way down to the pavilion in

the center of the village.  She had made no connection between her own spell on

Samantha and the disappearance of her beloved, but she had realized that there

was another strange creature in the household, and one that might be put to

death for the supernatural murders of two men in the village.  But what motive,

Miranda agonized as she pawed her way through the crowd, could Laura have for

sending Aidan away from me?  What? 

The Bedford mob had burned Laura that night, their suspected witch, and Amadeus

along with her.  Miranda had been most satisfied.  She had learned just before

their twin deaths that it had been Amadeus all along who had sent Aidan away.

He had told her so earlier in the day.  “Why have you spoken out again my

wife?” he had hissed at her, shaking his arthritic claws in her strangely

impassive face.  “After I offered you safe passage from this country, and yet

you continue to wreak your misery upon my family.”

“She is a witch,” Miranda declared, “and responsible for sending Aidan away.”

His face had cramped and twisted until it was nothing but ugly, ugly and cruel

and vicious.  “Aidan never loved you,” he spat.  “He never loved any of those

servant girls, and he knew many.”

“You lie!” she had cried. 

“Do I?” he chortled.  “You don’t sound so certain.”

She had thrust out her chin, her lips quivering with fury.  “I am,” she

declared. 

“Perhaps you are at that,” he had murmured.  “I had to send him away from you.

It was the only way.  I couldn’t chance the fact that he may have after all —”

Her eyes had widened until they threatened to consume her face.  “YOU sent

Aidan away?” she had whispered.  “YOU were responsible?”

“Of course,” he said querulously.  “Who else would hold that much power over

him?”

“Tell me where you sent him,” Miranda screamed, her fists clenched into

quivering knots of rage.  Twin hectic spots of rouge stained her cheeks, and

her eyes blazed with icy blue rage. 

“Never,” Amadeus said nonchalantly. 

“You refuse to tell me?”

He nodded, his fine, baby-white hair drifting across his lined forehead like

sheaves of straw. 

“Then you can rot in the hell that awaits you this night!” Miranda cried, and,

spinning on her heel, left the cell in which he was bound.  She didn’t wait

around to see him burned.  She had, instead, an appointment with Nicholas

Blair. 

It had never occurred to her that Aidan’s best friend was having an affair with

the wife of Judge Collins, or that he blamed her specifically for her death,

but indeed he did. 

“What’s the matter, girl?” Nicholas had sneered at her as she stood before him,

speechless.  “Come to me for another spell?  Another petty attempt at revenge?”

 Miranda bowed her head.  “I have renounced the powers of darkness,” she said.

“I am no longer bound to Satan.”

Nicholas threw back his head and roared laughter.  “Oh, my dear Miranda,” he

tittered after the blaring gouts of laughter had subsided, “you amuse me.  I

have only been a novice for a short time by his standards, but in that time I

have realized that when the Devil owns you, he owns you for eternity.” His

smile vanished utterly, leaving only his cold, glittering eyes to sparkle at

her venomously from across the darkened room.  The alter in the center of the

room, draped as it was in a sheath of black cloth, seemed to point at her like

an accusing finger.  “There is no reneging, my dear.”

She tossed her head defiantly.  “That remains to be seen,” she declared, then

raised an amused eyebrow and indicated towards the alter with one out-raised

hand.  “And what little ritual are we conducting tonight, my dear apprentice?”

“I don’t think it really concerns you, Miranda,” Nicholas said with one eyebrow

raised slyly, then rubbed his bare palms together briskly.  “But because it

pleases me so much, I do believe I will tell you anyway.” He smiled sublimely.

“It is brilliant.”

“I’m certain that it is,” she said, bored. 

“But first you tell me why you’ve come to here tonight.”

“You are the last person in Bedford who would know,” Miranda said, trying to

shake away the vestiges of darkness that still clung to her like fine grains of

dirt, the scarred remnants of her psyche even after the small spells she had

woven to send away her competition.  “Where has Amadeus Collins sent Aidan?

Where, Nicholas, you must tell me!”

Nicholas stared disdainfully at the fingernails on one outstretched hand, long

and thin, like a spider.  “I don’t think I should tell you,” he said finally. 

“You will,” Miranda replied, fury sending tremors into her voice, “or I will go

into Bedford and turn you over to the authorities myself.”

“And will they believe you?” he shot back.  “Will they believe your wild tales

about the most respected lawyer in Bedford, dear Miranda?  Conducting heathen

ceremonies by the edge of the sea?” He chuckled infernally again, then stroked

the beginnings of his mustache.  “No, my dear, I think you are wrong.”

She glared icicles at him.  “But you are afraid to find out,” she said, “and

you will — when they bring their dogs after you ...  when they force you from

the woods, screaming, disheveled and dirty, and burn you right here on the

beach.” She smiled almost pleasantly.  “And it will happen Nicholas.  I can

MAKE it happen.”

His smile faltered.  “You — you don’t have that kind of power."

“You know that I do!” she retorted.  “You will tell me where Aidan Collins has

been sent, and I will be reunited with him.”

“It would be so easy just to use your powers,” Nicholas purred, his voice

crushed velvet.  “You could find him yourself, Miranda.” He lifted one of the

candles from the alter and held it up to his face.  The shadows highlighted the

contours and canyons of his features, transforming him into a ghastly demon.

“Go on my dear.  Give it a try.”

“I will destroy you if you don’t tell me what I want to know!” Miranda

shrieked. 

Nicholas waved a hand at her.  “All right, Miranda, all right,” he sighed.  “I

grow weary of our constant bickering.” He beamed broadly.  “Aidan is where I

told you he would be all those weeks ago.  His father sent him to Boston ...

but he traveled instead to Collinsport, the fishing village his brother Isaac

founded.  He is there right now.”

“And does he know of your ‘hobby’?” Miranda hissed. 

Nicholas shook his head.  “Sadly, no,” he said, then gripped her arm fiercely

and snarled, “And you’re not going to tell him.”

She jerked away and slapped him across the face, at the same moment crying,

“And what’s to stop me?  YOU?  You are nothing, Nicholas Blair.  Nothing but a

puny, puling excuse for a magician.”

“You will pay for that,” Nicholas whispered, bringing a startled hand to his

cheek, which now glowed a dull, angry red. 

“I most sincerely doubt that,” Miranda gloated.  Giving him a slight bow, she

said, “Now if you don’t mind, Mr.  Blair, I’ll be departing these premises.

Your secret is safe with me.  Good —”

“Wait!” Nicholas exclaimed, momentarily forgetting his battle scar.  “You

haven’t heard my plans yet, darling Miranda, for they involve you most

thoroughly.”

She paused, one hand frozen on the door of the shack, and a shudder ran down

the length of her spine before she whirled back around to face him.  “And what

do you mean by that?” she hissed. 

He leered at her craftily.  “Because of you, my beloved Laura was burned,”

Nicholas said, “sent to a world of darkness for the rest of time.  But I have

discovered a ceremony that will resurrect her.”

“Impossible,” Miranda declared.  “Laura Collins is dead.  She will never return

to this earth.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Nicholas said.  “She will not return to

this earth in the form by which we knew her.  Oh no ...” He rubbed his palms

together again, greedily.  “She needs a body to inhabit.  A body in which to

survive.” His eyebrows arched above his head; his teeth seemed sharp and ferret

like, and his eyes impaled her.  “That, my dear,” he said, “is where you come

in.”

“No!” Miranda whispered.  I don’t have any powers, her mind gibbered, not

really, not anything, not enough to stop him, not enough to save myself —

“Oh, yes,” he purred, stepping towards her, the candle still clutched in one

hand.  “I was going to recruit a pretty girl from the village, but you’ll do

nicely.” He had her backed against the wall now, and, reaching out with one

loathsome hand, idly twirled one of her golden curls.  “I’ve always held a

certain fondness for you, Miranda,” he purred in her ear.  “You’ve always been

such a pretty little thing.  And once the ceremony is over, you will become my

bride.  Through you, Laura Collins will live again.” He raised one hand and

chanted, “I call upon the Powers of Darkness to do my bidding.  Grant me a soul

from the outer darkness ...  draw into this world —”

“NO!” Miranda screamed, and with one deft movement knocked the candle from

Nicholas’ hand.  The flame immediately caught on the lapel of the long, gray

coat he wore and spread eagerly, the flames crackling and popping with a hunger

utterly unknown to humans. 

“This cannot be!” he roared, slapping at the flames even as they spread.

Miranda watched, horrified, and yet she was filled with a surge of exhilaration

that bloomed within her, causing her to gasp for breath, as Nicholas reared

backwards and plunged into the alter.  The bowl of whatever dreadful substance

had sat upon its ebony surface splashed onto him, and the flames from the other

candles licked at it eagerly.  His shrieks had become indistinguishable from

the rest of the crackling of the flames as they spread throughout the shack. 

Miranda forced herself to look away, and threw open the door of the shack and

flung herself into the chill of the late winter eve.  Fascinated, she watched

as the shack was quickly consumed in flames, taking with it whatever dark

powers Nicholas Blair possessed. 

“Good riddance,” she had whispered then, and she said it again into the

darkness, smart with satisfaction. 

She wiped the thin sheet of sweat from her brow, blinking rapidly in the bright

light from the sun, and continued her trek up the path.  Just ahead she could

see the bone-white glint of the Collins Manor through the trees, dappled with

the sun and painted with the cool green shadows of the forest.  Excitement

bloomed in her chest, hot and heavy, and she hastened her steps. 

She brought her fist to the door, then paused, her heart lodged in her throat.

I’ll never use my powers again, Miranda thought firmly, then rapped soundly

against the door, three times, a magic number. 

I swear it. 

“Aidan!” she exclaimed as the door swung open and her beloved was facing her,

but there was something wrong after all.  “Aidan?” she asked again.  “Why don’t

you —”

She stopped short, the words choking and dying in her throat.  Aidan wasn’t

alone in the doorway. 

There was someone beside him after all.  A woman. 

She tossed her dark hair and her cow eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “So,”

Samantha Good Collins hissed, “you have found us after all.”

 

Miranda’s drilling shriek of horror echoed through the forest —

           

3 (Angelique Rumson — Now)

— but she bit down on it now until she thought her lower lip would bleed.

Angelique licked them a moment later; they were dry and cracked, and she could

taste copper blooming on her tongue.  They were bleeding after all, dammit.

The rose lipstick she’d pressed against them briefly had worn off long ago; her

eyes were streaked black with smeared mascara.  The rain had turned her hair

into a tangled rat’s nest.  He’ll never help me, she thought, disgusted with

herself; he’ll never even look at me.  And why should he?  The last time I saw

him in this room, I threatened to kill him.  It’s not likely he’s forgotten

that little exchange. 

I begged him to kill me. 

That was true too.  The soul Nicholas had restored to her had sent up tremors —

more than mere tremors, more than mere rumblings, more than an earthquake or an

explosion — of feeling in her, the first time she’d felt things in ...  oh,

more time than she could remember.  And the memories — oh god, the horrible

things she’d done, the horrible thing she’d become —

Don’t think about that now.  Knock on the goddamned door. 

She licked her lips again, but obeyed.  Her hand trembled, but she forced it

into a fist, and knocked timidly against the door.  A crash of thunder drowned

it out, and she yelped in sudden terror. 

Don’t be such a wimp. 

Sound advice.  She tried again, more forcefully this time. 

Footsteps inside, approaching the door, and she was suddenly swept by a cold

terror and sense of deja vu so potent that she nearly turned and ran.  But fear

held her a frozen prisoner, locked in place.  She could only wait. 

Then the door opened, and the face inside went white and blank with shock, then

the emerald eyes narrowed with an unconcealed hatred. 

 

“You!” Julia Hoffman cried, then spat, “What are you doing here?”

4 (Angelique Bouchard — 1794)

There is darkness in this world, Angelique Bouchard reminded herself; a kind of

chasm lurking beneath what the world sees, a vast black hole that no one ever

really knows about.  They can only sense it.  And here it is, opening before

me.  A door into the underworld, into that places that lies beneath us all.  A

door into hell. 

And it’s going to swallow me whole. 

 

The man beside her was a man she had only just met, but a man, nevertheless,

who held her rapt, with a face so familiar — and so hated — that she must have

met him before.  The humidity of the island, even this close to midnight, had

condensed on his face, and streaming rivers trickled over his forehead and

veered dangerously near to his eyes, which were, at this moment anyway, closed.

That was a relief.  The eyes of Nicholas Blair filled her with an inexplicable

dread, and a loathing so deep it seemed to chill in her bones or to circulate

in her blood. 

The night around them pressed close and hot, even under the thick, leafy canopy

of trees that broke only a little so Angelique could see the round white face

of the moon floating in the black above them.  It seemed a giant eye to her, a

huge glowing eye that had opened and found her and marked her forever. 

Nicholas was chanting something quietly under his breath.  As she watched, he

opened one gloved fist and sprinkled a combination of herbs into the empty air

before him.  They floated and circled as they flitted down to the earth and

entered the charmed circle he had drawn in the earth before them.  This same

earth was already stained black with the blood of the goat Angelique had stolen

from the slave quarters.  The goat was black as well.  That was important,

Nicholas had impressed upon her, and Angelique had questioned nothing. 

She was quite used to asking no questions.  She had been indentured to the

DuPres family on the island of Martinique since her sixteenth birthday, when

her beloved Maman had died of a fever which she had never recovered from.  Poor

Maman, convinced until the end that it was a spell put upon her, and that

Angelique must make certain that she was never exposed to such virulent magics,

that she must learn to defend herself.  “Someone will come for you soon,” Maman

had sworn; her eyes had been large and unfocused and more than a little crazy,

but Angelique had listened raptly, and a serpent of fear had wound its way down

her spine until she was shivering uncontrollably.  Maman was dead before

Angelique could inquire about this mysterious “someone”.  She knew what they

whispered on the island, how Angelique’s Maman was a priestess of something

even darker than the Vodou, that she had never been able to conceive, and so

had called upon an entire roster of fiends and demons to bring her a baby.  And

what of the girl-child she bore nine months later?  What of the changeling

being?  What would it become? 

But I can do nothing, Angelique always told herself, whispering essential

truths like prayers in the empty black of the morning while she lay in her

narrow servant’s bed in the house of the DuPres.  I don’t have Maman’s powers.

I can’t snap my fingers and make flowers sprout from the earth fully grown, or

call to the sky for rain to come, or heal a wound by running my fingers over

the cut even as it gushes a torrent of blood.  I can’t do any of the things

that she was so good at —

— except she could.  She knew it, had sensed it all along.  I am Angelique, she

thought now, and I am more than the fools on this island, more than mortal.  I

know it.  I feel it.  I have power. 

She had known after she met Barnabas Collins and knew that she could never have

him.  She knew the night she had called out to the universe for help, for the

ability to change things.  She had known when Nicholas Blair had appeared to

her in the dark of the night, in the secret and still of the night, and he had

shown her what she could already do, even without his help. 

So she had reached her mind into the darkness outside and felt an entire world

at her fingertips, a vast reservoir of energy — of power — that she could tap.

It wasn’t such a new thing; it had always been there, always available to her,

if only she had known ...  if only Maman had shown her. 

But maybe Maman hadn’t known.  Maybe not even Maman had suspected that there

was something like this, something outside of all of us.  Power all around us,

just waiting.  Waiting for someone like me. 

She had plunged into it without hesitation.  She explored the power, allowing

it to bloom inside her like the flowers Maman had plucked from the earth,

blooming like black night-roses; it hummed inside her in a kind of golden thrum

that rose in the pit of her stomach and glowed in her sex; it sang in her

fingers and in her eyes until she was suffused, consumed with the power inside

her.  But it lacked a focus. 

“And that’s not all,” Nicholas had promised her, and offered her his hand, and

despite the twinge of nausea she felt at the thought of touching (and thank god

he wears gloves, thank god his skin is covered) this man before her, she had

taken his hand. 

And so here she was. 

In the so secret and so still of the night. 

“We will help you, Angelique,” Nicholas had told her.  His smile was like steel

shavings, and his sharp teeth glittered at her under the moonlight.  “We have

heard your call.  But know that this is to be a bargain.  Everything comes with

a price, and yours will come, we promise you.  Can you accept that?”

The power, blossoming inside her, twining inside her, golden, silver, hot red

and hot black —

A price.  Always a price. 

The face of Barnabas Collins; his eyes, so deep and so sad, always so sad, and

the curve of his mouth, the spill of his hair, wild over his forehead, his hand

in the sweet, tiny hand of Ma’amselle —

“Yes,” Angelique had said, and now there was a steel in her as well, like wet

iron in her mouth, new and exciting.  “I can accept that.  Anything.”

Now the moon glowed above them and spilled silver through the cracks in the

trees, and Nicholas was chanting (Latin, Angelique thought, it must be the

Latin he told me about, Latin, a tongue of power), and as his hands passed

through the air, her eyes widened.  They left in their wake trails of what

seemed to be fire, but it glowed a deep venomous emerald that fell into

complicated patterns before fading away completely.  (Witchfire, a voice

whispered deep in her mind, and you’ve seen it before.)

“As the worm slithered fresh from the mud,” Nicholas intoned, his eyes closed

tight and his hand burning through the air, “as the serpent wise called forth

like a clarion from the bowels of the earth, as the charred and blackened stars

rained over this world at your beginning, let that call be heard again.  Let

the fire come.  Hear us, Dark One, and be here now.  We have consecrated a

place for thee.  In your name and in the name of the Nameless Ones you serve,

appear to us ...  now!”

When Nicholas opened his eyes, Angelique bit back a scream.  They were flawless

and obsidian, like the black eyes of a serpent.  Emerald fire crackled between

his outstretched hands. 

His eyes, she thought sickly, oh dear god in heaven, look at his eyes —

Her breath caught in her throat. 

Something was coming. 

The air reeked of ozone, split open by the magic Nicholas had invoked; the

world was aflame around her, and she could feel the power brewing inside her,

turbulent storm clouds ready to split and release. 

Fire erupted all around the perimeter of the charmed circle, red and alive and

crackling with hunger, and then ... 

...  oh, and then ... 

She saw something.  Something inside the circle. 

Only a hint, just a suggestion, but there was a great shaggy head, and eyes the

size of footballs, enormous sparks that glowed a hot orange, and a cruel mouth

twisted in a smile —

My darling.  My angel.  You have come home at last. 

“Who are you?” she whispered.  “What are you?”

You know me.  You have heard my voice before, whispering to you.  You have seen

me, walked with me, in your dreams.  You are my child, my most beloved, the

most beautiful one of all.  I have been with you through oceans of time,

guiding your hand, your steps, my will intertwined with your life, with all

your lives —

“My lives?” Horror caught in her throat like black water. 

Those great orange eyes glared into her, pierced her, and knew her.

Intimately.  It was a look beyond recognition.  The gaze of the thing in the

circle of fire glowed hot inside her.  Into her soul. 

Dance with me, angel.  Join the dance. 

The fire flared up, and she felt something respond inside her, like a caged

animal straining in her breast for freedom.  The power danced around in her the

air, and she felt the fine blonde hair on her arms stir and rise. 

Dance —

“Dark One,” Angelique breathed, and Nicholas glanced at her, annoyed. 

“That is who we’re trying to contact, yes,” he snipped. 

She felt as if all the breath were sucked from her body. 

Nicholas, beaming at the circle, as the witchfire glowed between his fingers

...  but he didn’t hear.  And he didn’t see. 

He couldn’t see the Dark One at all. 

What did that mean? 

It means that he is a fool, my darling one.  He is a tool.  A convenience.

Through him you have come to me. 

“Because I called to you,” she whispered. 

Words.  Trifling.  None of it matters.  You are here now.  Blair has served me

well, but you — you will give me form and substance. 

“Form,” she repeated.  The power crackled in the air around her.  There was a

heat in her breast, and when she held out her hands, the power answered her,

and the witchfire — red now instead of emerald — crackled minutely between her

fingers.  “Substance,” she said, pleased. 

You matter now, my angelic one.  Great things are in store for you.  I can see

them.  The world will tremble at your feet.  And that is how it should be. 

“The power,” Angelique said.  “I have the power inside me.”

But do you have enough? 

“Help me,” she said.  “I beg of you.  Grant me your power.  I can be what you

want me to be.  I’ll prove it to you, for all eternity.”

I will come to you when you need me the most, angel. 

“Show me your power!” she cried out, and thrust her hands into the circle of

fire. 

She was galvanized instantly as a black tide swept over her, into her, through

her, and filled her utterly.  Her eyes flew open, and they were jet black and

crackled with dark energy.  The pool of energy around her — emitted from every

being in nature, from the earth itself — turned black as she drew it into her

body.  The being in the fire was a conduit for that energy, and it was as black

as the secret night whispering around them.  She was lost in a luxurious

garden, an ebony paradise where the power roared and sang around her, and she

was the power, she was the magic, and she was the entire world. 

And oh, but that world was a vast chasm, and it was all dark, dark, darkness. 

And, nearly a year later, as she lay dying, her eyes burning into the murderous

bastard before her, the man she would have given up everything for, even her

powers, she was also in the garden, in the secret and still garden, and she

felt its power nourishing her.  And she wasn’t alone.  The Dark One had come to

her, as he had promised her he would. 

You think you are dying, my angel.  You are wrong.  You can never die.  You

will exist throughout eternity at my side, like a shadow beside me.  You will

ride the night with me. 

Join the dance. 

“You think I’m dying,” she spat at Barnabas, and her teeth were flecked with

bloody foam, “but a true witch can never die.  The Master protects his

handmaidens well.  But mark well my face, for you will see it again.”

The power was around her, and hung over her in a shroud.  It was hard to

breathe.  The world was dark because she was dark, and it was so very, very

cold. 

“I set a curse on you, Barnabas Collins,” Angelique said, and in that moment

she was a witch as she had never been a witch before.  The power flared up

around her, as black as her heart, as cold as the soul that flitted away as her

heart pumped out her lifeblood all over the floor of her old room in the

servants’ quarters; it flared up, and it answered her call.  With her spectral

eyes, from the tomb where her body lay but her essence could leave at will, she

watched as the bat conjured from the dark garden tore at her husband’s throat.

She had lost her soul (forever, she thought, and good riddance), and the Dark

One was there with her, his paw in hers, his eyes hers, black and cold and

evil, and she would haunt this house and this estate and this family for two

hundred years until she was torn from the garden, torn from the Dark One, and

he didn’t whisper to her anymore, and she was just another mortal human being.

Until the day she would die.  For real. 

5 (Angelique Rumson — Now)

She didn’t wait for an invitation, but instead swept — or tried to sweep — into

the room as if she owned it.  I was the mistress of this house once, she

thought petulantly; that gives me a right to come here, doesn’t it?  Then she

remembered how her fangs had slid so easily through the layers of skin on Julia

Hoffman’s tender throat like paper, and how her blood, hot and sweet, had

spurted into her mouth and ran in a scalding river down her throat, and how

their minds had been instantly linked, master and slave.  Hot shame burst over

her like a caesura. 

“Get out,” Julia said flatly. 

Angelique turned to face her.  “Why Julia,” she tried to purr, trying to

capture that old tone, that old fire again, “is that any way to greet an old

friend?”

“You are no friend of mine,” Julia hissed.  “Get out of this house this

instant.”

“I can’t do that, Julia,” Angelique said, and shrugged simply.  “There’s

nowhere else for me to.”

“A pity.  It’s also a pity that I can’t quite bring myself to care.  Get out,

Angelique.  Now.”

“I need to see Barnabas.” I must have patience, she told herself, and tried to

quash the irritation with her old rival that was rising in her like bile.  I

enslaved her; I nearly killed her; she had to burn herself with crucifix beads

to cleanse my mark from her throat; I took her body; I turned her boyfriend

into a vampire; I ...  I ... 

Oh, screw it, Angelique thought.  She narrowed her eyes.  “I mean it, Julia.  I

need to see Barnabas.  This minute.”

Julia barked harsh laughter, and Angelique’s eyes widened.  “Or what?” she

said.  “You’ll turn me into a doormat?  Send me back in time two hundred years?

Sic a vampire bat on me?  What can you possibly do to me that you’ve never

done before?”

Angelique said nothing. 

“I think we both know the answer to that,” Julia continued, and now her smile

was positively venomous.  Angelique began to be nervous again.  “You can’t do

anything to me.  You don’t have your powers anymore.  You’re a mortal woman,

and I don’t think I care to be threatened by something as pathetic as what

you’ve become.” Her nose wrinkled.  “And you’re dripping all over the rug.  Get

out of this house, Angelique.  Get out of this town.  There’s nothing for you

here, and there never will be.  Leave.  Now.  And forever.”

Angelique felt impotent tears of rage and shame and utter despair burn her eyes

again.  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. 

“How nice,” Julia said dryly, “to see you speechless for once.  I never thought

I’d live to see the day.  Neither, I suppose, did you.”

“Julia —” Angelique began, but tears choked her off. 

And then she heard his voice.  Only it wasn’t his voice at all. 

“Angelique,” Barnabas Collins said in a voice like the dry whisper of leaves

against concrete, but the man before her wasn’t Barnabas Collins.  Couldn’t be

Barnabas Collins.  This man was ancient, so withered and lined that he couldn’t

possibly be alive.  His eyes had sunk far back into his skull, and glared like

sullen red coals at her.  His mouth was crosshatched with a million wrinkles,

and the teeth revealed when he spoke were jagged and yellow.  His hair was a

white drift scarcely covering his scalp, which she could see was speckled with

brown spots. 

“Oh, Barnabas,” she whispered.  Her horror would allow her say nothing else. 

“Angelique,” he said again.  “Are you a witch again?  Have you used yours

powers to bring this upon me?  This curse again, and with it, the hunger that

has eaten me away?  Turned me into something more loathsome than the monster I

have already become?” He was advancing on her, and his hands were opening and

closing, opening and closing, withered monkey paws, and they were reaching for

her, and she couldn’t move.  “Have you done this to me, witch?” he roared.

“Have you?  HAVE YOU?”

           

6 (Cassandra Collins — 1967)

She smoothed out the wrinkles in the gorgeous caftan Roger had purchased for

her in Brewster’s that afternoon, the one strewn across with a delightful

pattern of circling purple butterflies, and smiled a tiny feline smile to

herself.  It was the end of her second day at Collinwood, and she was quite

enjoying her role as the new bride.  And, she told herself as she patted her

helmet of bobbed black hair and beamed at her reflection in the mirror, it is

rather agreeable possessing a body once again.  She wrinkled her nose.  She

wasn’t wild about her new hairstyle, but keeping up appearances was important,

and she knew that damned portrait Nicholas commissioned was floating around

somewhere.  I’ll have to find that as soon as possible, she promised herself as

she ran lipstick over her mouth, then smacked her lips appreciatively. 

A pair of hands settled on her shoulders, and she stiffened, then forced

herself to relax.  Roger was nibbling on her neck, and she made herself purr

aloud with contrived happiness, and patted him on the hand.  “Darling,” she

said. 

“Darling yourself,” he told her, and smiled at her.  The simpleton.  “It’s a

gorgeous summer evening, Cassandra.  Would you care for a walk around the

estate?  The horizon is still golden and shades of red and pink.  It’s

breathtaking, and I ...” He paused uncertainly.  “I want to share it all with

you,” he finished, and smiled at her proudly. 

“Darling Roger,” she said, and tried in vain to catch his gaze with her own

venomous stare, but he was nuzzling her neck again.  “I’m afraid I’m a little

worn out.  Your sister has been so kind as to show me about the estate, and

then I helped David with his homework —”

Roger raised an eyebrow.  “You did?”

“I was going to be a teacher,” Cassandra explained, and willed her patience not

to fray with more effort than she thought was necessary.  “I figured it would

...  I don’t know.  Put him more at ease with me.” She shrugged.  “That’s all.”

“It was a brilliant idea.  The more time you two spend together, the better.”

“That’s what I thought.  Why, I was telling myself that only —” But Roger’s

hand had suddenly and quite inconveniently dropped directly onto her left

breast, and she gasped, a quick, sharp intake of breath that he mistook for a

moan of passion. 

That, she thought, rips it. 

“Roger,” she said through gritted teeth, “darling — look into my eyes.”

He squeezed her breast playfully.  How Laura ever put up with this, Cassandra

told herself, and for three centuries at least, I’ll never understand.

“Certainly, darling,” he said.  “Your eyes are the most fascinating I think

I’ve ever seen.  They’re so blue — like water.  Like icy water you can ...” He

swallowed, and Cassandra saw his pupils contract minutely.  “...  you can drown

in.  Almost ...  almost lose yourself in —” He swallowed again, and his mouth

hung slack.  “...  f-forever.”

“Excellent,” Cassandra purred, and turned away from her vanity to face him.

She stroked his cheek with one finger.  His hand fell away from her breast and

hung limply at his side.  “You want to take a walk Roger.  You want to enjoy

the sunset.  But I have a fearful headache, you see, so you’re going to take it

by yourself.”

“You have a fearful headache,” Roger intoned.  He didn’t blink, and he didn’t

move again.  “I want to take a way.  I want to enjoy the sunset.”

“By yourself.”

“By myself.”

“Lovely.” Cassandra waved a hand in the direction of the bedroom door.  “You

may leave me now.  And when you walk outside, you’ll forget that you ever came

here.  I have a headache.  I told you after dinner.  That’s all you remember.”

“That’s all I remember,” Roger said, and nodded eagerly.  He turned to the

door, and shuffled towards it, zombie-like, until he disappeared outside,

leaving it ajar.  Cassandra sighed, then made a small but intricate gesture

with her hand, and the door closed of its own accord.  She twisted her index

finger in the air, and it locked with a satisfying click. 

Alone at last, she thought, and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Which escaped her mouth in a twining white plume. 

Her eyes widened.  The temperature of the room had plummeted nearly twenty

degrees in the two or three seconds since she had magically locked the door. 

She was not alone in the room. 

As Angelique, and then again as Miranda DuVal in 1897, she had been exposed to

hauntings or spectral activity.  The air around her was deadly calm, but

Cassandra felt sheathed in a shell of glass.  Yes, she decided with a shake of

her newly darkened head, this indeed had all the earmarks of a spiritual

visitation. 

“Who is in this room?” she called bravely, not expecting an answer, and not

receiving one.  The wisest course of action, she had learned the hard way, was

to deal with ghosts without even a modicum of fear.  Ghosts could sense it, and

a witch could lose the most minute control of a spirit if she expressed even a

tiny sliver of apprehension.  “I demand that you show yourself to me,” she

continued, and felt color rise high and red in her cheeks.  “ Appear to me!

Now!”

Mocking laughter was her only response, and cold fury welled up inside her.  I

am in control, she thought angrily; I am in control. 

“Appear to me,” she snarled, “or I will constrain you, tie you to the earth,

and you will wander this world for an eternity in an agony of loneliness if I

will it to be so!”

The face of the spirit as it materialized wore a smile as mocking as its

laughter, and for a moment she thought the lined and sunken face belonged to

her nascent husband.  No such luck, she thought gloomily; at least I can handle

Roger. 

Joshua Collins — or, rather, the ghost of Joshua Collins — was wreathed in a

green, spectral light, and Cassandra was aware that the light in her boudoir

had grown dim, and was all but extinguished.  “If it isn’t my dear

daughter-in-law,” he sneered.  “My dear, even if I can’t say it’s good to see

you, I can say it certainly has been a long time.  And how well you look.”

“I don’t know you,” Cassandra said patiently.  “Leave this place — now.”

The smirk faded from the spirit’s face.  “How banal,” he growled.  “Did you

really think that you could fool me?  I remember you so well, Angelique.” She

stiffened as he pronounced her name, and then railed at herself because it was

certain that he had noticed.  “I remember that first day you came into my

house.  I dismissed you then as a simple servant girl.  How much tragedy I

could have averted if I knew then what I know now.  You aren’t simple at all,

are you.”

“Leave this place,” she hissed. 

He ignored her.  “And yet you’re a servant still, aren’t you.” She rose to her

feet, her mouth open in a silent snarl of fury.  “I see I’ve touched you,

Angelique.  Isn’t it true?  Aren’t you bound to these powers that have restored

you to life?  Given you a new body?  Aren’t you indebted to the Dark One for

all eternity?” The spirit shrugged.  “Perhaps you’ve traded classes — risen

above the station you inhabited when you first came to my house — but you’re

nothing more than a servant.  A slave to whoever wields the power, and for one

simple reason.  You have no power for yourself.”

“That isn’t true!”

“And I’ve touched you again.  How exquisite.  I do wish I could have said these

things to you the day the Countess brought that foul portrait of you into the

Old House for an exorcism.” His voice grew bitter and melancholy by turns.

“You destroyed her that day.  Sent her up in a column of flames.  I often asked

myself why you didn’t kill me when you had the chance.”

“Because,” Cassandra said, her face suddenly wreathed in a bilious, poisonous

smirk, “I knew that your punishment would be more fitting if I allowed you to

live, knowing that you were alone in this world, and that you had condemned

your son to an eternity of night, of starvation in the coffin wherein you

imprisoned him.”

The air before her grew hazy, and Joshua Collins shimmered like heat ...  and

wasn’t Joshua Collins anymore.  Cassandra withdrew with a cheated scream, and

placed a hand to her cheek as if she’d been slapped. 

The doelike visage of Josette Collins (Samantha Good, an unknown voice

whispered in her mind, but she didn’t understand, didn’t have time to

understand) blinked at her with dewy eyes from behind a gauzy wedding veil.

Her pouting lips trembled.  “But Barnabas is free,” Josette said reprovingly,

and Cassandra could almost believe she saw the hint of tears in her former

mistresses’ eyes, and felt that old hatred well up inside her again, cold and

biting.  “And you had a hand in that, didn’t you.  You brought him back.  Like

you brought him back before.  It was you.  It was all you.”

“What do you want?” Cassandra whispered through gritted teeth. 

“I wanted Barnabas,” Josette said, and there was no recrimination in her voice,

just the statement of fact.  She didn’t seem angry or hateful at all, and this

infuriated Cassandra unutterably.  “I loved him.  From the moment our eyes met,

from the moment I felt a heat inside of me rise to answer his — he was the only

man in the world I saw.  The only man I could ever truly desire.”

“But I wanted him too,” Cassandra said, and, horribly, felt tears begin to

settle on her eyelashes, poised there, waiting to fall.  She bit them back with

a snarl. 

“Of course you did,” Josette said gently.  “I understand that now.” She nodded,

and smiled, and said, “But he didn’t want you back, did he?  Not really.”

Cassandra gaped at her.  “Not in the way you wanted him too.”

“You shut your mouth,” she whispered. 

Josette appeared not to hear.  “You were my friend,” she said and, horribly, a

tear slipped down her cheek and ran, leaving a glittering trail in its wake.

“Ma petit Angelique.  My friend, my friend, and you killed me.  How could you

do that, Angelique?  How could you hurt me like that?”

“I was your servant!” Cassandra shrieked.  “I was never — never — your friend,

I was your servant!”

But Josette was gone. 

Cassandra felt all the blood fall from her head, and in a tide of numb

wooziness she thought she would faint. 

Jeremiah Collins stood before her, the rotted corpse with his head swathed in

bandages, one eye dislodged from its socket and staring crazily at some space

about a foot above her head; the other glared at her balefully.  The bullet

wound that had struck him in the face, the bullet that Barnabas had fired, was

black with gore and pus. 

“Your fault,” the horror said in a wheezing, bubbling voice.  “All your fault.

Witch.  Sorceress.  Demon.  All ...  your ...  fault.”

Cassandra rose to her feet as if shot, and thrust out one hand in a warding off

gesture.  She could recall, though two centuries had passed, the ice of his

arms, the rotten stench of the grave that hung over him in a cloud; she could

taste the sour earth in her mouth as he had buried her alive in his grave.

Fear rose in her like a tide of midnight black water.  “In the name of every

evil spirit,” she intoned, and her voice wavered and cracked,“in the name of

Beelzebub who will consume you in righteous fire, in the name of the earth of

which you are a part, Jeremiah Collins, I command that you return to your

grave.” The spirit blinked at her.  Her voice rose another octave, and warbled

hysterically.  “With every power at my command, I order you to return!  In

excilium mitto, pello, relego!”

The witchfire crackled in emerald streaks before her hands, and the ghost of

Jeremiah Collins winked out like a candle flame. 

Cassandra sagged against her vanity, and placed one hand to her breast, where

her heart fluttered about like a crazed, chittering bat.  Impossible, she told

herself, not possible at all.  Why did they appear?  Why did they appear to me

like that?  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.  Someone, she thought, someone

summoned them here — but who?  And why?  Her eyes scanned the room. 

“Looking for someone?” That voice, so mocking, so hateful now in her ears, rang

out from the window, and she spun around. 

“Mr.  Collins!” she exclaimed, and tried to keep her voice neutral, to wipe

away the fear the specters had roused inside her.  “How did you get in here?  I

...  I didn’t see you standing there.”

Barnabas Collins stared at her with burning, red-rimmed eyes.  His skin was

like paper, and Cassandra thought she could see blue veins just below the

surface.  A witch is powerless against a vampire, she recalled.  That sliver of

fear pierced at her again, and she took a shambling step away from him before

she even realized she had moved. 

He grinned.  “I have been told I am the possessor of a very silent step,” he

said, and grinned at her wolfishly.  His teeth were very, very ...  sharp. 

Cassandra’s hands fluttered before her breasts.  “I ...  I ...  uh —” She

swallowed.  The power, she told herself, it’s all around you, like dark water —

use it!  She closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate, and felt it fill her

like a vessel, that blessed, unholy coldness, and willed with all her might

that Barnabas Collins would disappear.  She didn’t care where she teleported

him too, or if her cover would be blown.  Her life was in danger.  And if she

was interested in nothing else, Angelique — Cassandra, that is — cared about

her own well being. 

So she opened her eyes. 

Barnabas Collins grinned his feral grin.  And he was closer to her than he had

been a moment ago. 

Gulp. 

“You ...  ah ...  you shouldn’t be here,” she faltered.  “With me.  Here.

Alone.”

“And why not?” He took another step forward, and Cassandra realized that he was

right.  She couldn’t hear his tread on the carpet at all.  He was like a big

jungle cat.  And she knew what he wanted.  What he could do to her.  Her blood

would sheath the walls of her room in scarlet splashes, he would tear her

throat to ribbons, and there was nothing she could do. 

“It’s not ... we must think of ...” She groped for the word.  “Propriety!”

He stared at her, and then chuckled dryly.  “No,” he grinned, “I suppose I haven't thought of that.” His hands closed into fists, then opened.  And then closed.  And then

opened.  She stared at them as if fascinated.  “But then again, you never

really have been all that interested in propriety ...  Angelique.”

Her head whipped up so that her eyes could glare into his, and her nostrils

flared.  “Why did you call me that?”

“It is a name that you used once.  Long, long ago.”

“No.” Her voice cracked.  “It isn’t.”

“You needn’t lie to me.  I knew you from the moment you first set foot in this

house again.” He sneered at her.  “Wife of Roger Collins.  Bah.  You’re playing

Roger for a fool.  You put a spell on him, didn’t you?  Using David.  I

overheard Miss Winters and Quentin Collins discussing your portrait,

Angelique.”

“Stop calling me that!”

He ignored her.  “They found it in the graveyard, where David had arranged a

circle of items belonging to certain members of this family.” He snarled at her

now like an animal, and she flinched.  “You sent him to do that, didn’t you!

You’ve worked your magics on this family again, haven’t you!  You sent David

Collins to make a witches’ circle so you could return from the dead to torment

me once again!”

“You’re insane!” Terror nearly strangled the words in her throat. 

He pressed up against her now, his face scant inches from her own, his foul,

dead breath icy in her face.  His red eyes scanned hers, and she knew he could

smell her terror.  He grinned and grinned, and his teeth were long fangs.

“Perhaps,” he purred.  “Insane enough to deal with you.”

She bared her own teeth in one final token attempt at defiance.  “Don’t try,”

she snarled. 

His icy fingers caressed the tender skin of her throat, and a parade of

goosebumps swathed her arms, her back, her breasts.  She shuddered with horror,

with fear ...  and with something like desire. 

Oh god, she thought, oh Dark One, help your maidservant in her hour of —

Barnabas’ fingers closed around her throat ...  and squeezed. 

And all she could do in the world was stare into those hate-filled, animal

eyes. 

7 (Angelique Rumson — Now)

“No, Barnabas!” Julia’s cry startled them both, and Barnabas froze, his hands

locked around Angelique’s throat.  Julia’s face was red and hectic with fear

and a wrath that Angelique saw wasn’t for her.  At least not this time.  “Let

her go, Barnabas,” Julia commanded, and the vampire was so startled that his

hands loosened, and Angelique slipped from his grasp and sank to the floor.

She tried to sit up, and the world swam before her.  Black dots swarmed like a

cloud of flies before her, darkening her vision. 

“Is she real, Julia?” Barnabas’ voice, as if heard from the end of a long

tunnel, was weak and querulous.  “I feel that she must be an illusion.”

“Oh, she’s real enough, Barnabas.” Julia’s voice was grim. 

“Why has she come here?”

“I don’t really know,” Julia said, then, to Angelique, “Suppose she tells us.”

“Danger,” Angelique managed, rubbing her throat.  She opened her eyes, then

turned them away instantly.  She couldn’t stand to see Barnabas like that, in

such a condition.  Her stomach roiled with nausea.  “Terrible ...  terrible

danger.”

“Mm-hm,” Julia said.  “We gathered as much.  But from whom?”

“Nicholas,” Angelique said, and managed to stand to her feet.  The world swam

before her, and Julia surprised her yet again by offering her a hand to steady

her.  “Nicholas Blair.  He came to my house on Little Windward.  To talk to my

...  my husband.” Angelique hung her head; the memory of Sky’s conversation

with Nicholas dug at her like shards of glass. 

“You’re married?” Julia said, surprised. 

“Yes,” Angelique said forlornly.  “But for how long, I’m not sure.”

“Your marriage,” Barnabas growled.  “Am I in danger from Sky Rumson?”

“I don’t know,” Angelique said.  “Nicholas came to the island tonight.  Sky is

a friend of his.  A warlock, Nicholas said.  I didn’t know, Barnabas, I swear I

didn’t know.  When I married him, I thought he was a normal man.  A mortal.  I

thought ...” Bitterness welled up inside of her, like almonds, like vomit.  “I

thought he loved me,” she whispered. 

“Karma,” Julia said, and nodded wisely.  Angelique could have cheerfully shot

her. 

“Nicholas came to see Sky,” Barnabas pressed.  “Did they do this to me?” He

held out one claw and shook it at her balefully.  “Did they turn me into this

...  this monster?”

“I don’t know,” she said again.  “Nicholas asked for Sky’s help.  That was the

last thing I heard before I ...  before I left.”

“Before you ran,” Julia said. 

“All right then,” Angelique snapped at the doctor, “yes.  Before I ran.  I

couldn’t believe it.  But when I heard Nicholas ...  I knew it had to be true.

Sky has been lying to me the entire time we’ve been married.”

“And of course you’ve been open and forthright with him,” Julia said. 

“I couldn’t,” Angelique said.  Julia laughed.  “How could I?  He wouldn’t

believe the truth, and even if he did, he’d hate me.”

“And no one would blame him,” Julia said. 

“Julia,” Barnabas growled.  Julia shot him a dark look that Angelique didn’t

miss. 

“Barnabas, I need your help,” Angelique said.  “And I want to help you too.

Whatever I can do.  Something terrible is happening here, and whether Nicholas

is responsible or not, I still want to help.  Please.  I ...  I need to do

something.  To help.”

“You can do nothing,” Julia said. 

“Look,” Angelique flared, “this has nothing to do with —”

“You can stay,” Barnabas said quietly. 

Both women stared at him in shock. 

“You can stay here,” he reiterated.  His voice was soft now, barely audible,

but the madness and the rage had faded out of it like morning dew. 

“Oh, Barnabas, no,” Julia whispered.  “No.”

“She’s human now, Julia,” Barnabas said.  His voice trembled and shook.  “And

she has a soul.  I think she can help us.”

“She’s powerless!” Julia cried.  Her rage both sharpened her voice and raised

it several decibels.  “Even if we needed magic — which we do not — we wouldn’t

ask her for help.  Her powers are evil, Barnabas.  Harmful.  Nothing good can

come from them.  Nothing good can come from her.” Her voice rose even higher.

“She destroys everything she touches!”

“She has helped me in the past,” Barnabas said, and his yellow eyes locked on

Angelique’s.  Angelique nodded fervently, weak with relief.  “I believe she can

do good here.  Her knowledge of the occult is extensive, even without her

powers.  She is going to stay, Julia.”

Julia shook her head, wordless with fury.  Her face blazed, and Angelique

realized she was practically choking now.  Finally she dropped her head, but

her hands remained in tightly clenched fists.  “All right, Barnabas,” Julia

said.  “All right.  But I warn you.  Nothing good will come of this.” Her eyes

flashed with anger.  “And whatever happens after this — if she hurts anyone,

kills anyone, or turns anyone else into a vampire — then it’s going to be on

your head.  It will be your responsibility.” Julia Hoffman didn’t say another

word.  She stalked to the open door, her head held high, and whipped her coat

from the hanger by the door and shrugged herself into it, then tied a bright

blue scarf over her titian hair.  The door slammed in her wake. 

Barnabas slumped.  “I don’t understand any of this,” he whispered, and stumbled

over to the chair by the fire, then sank into it.  She was at his side in an

instant. 

“Oh, Barnabas,” she said, and sniffled as her tears spattered against the arm

of the chair.  “I’m so sorry.  About everything.”

“You don’t have to say it,” he wheezed. 

“This is all my fault,” she said.  “Everything.  All of this.” She couldn’t

quite bring herself to touch the withered skin of his hand.  “Even this.  What

you’ve become.  All my fault.”

“Stop it, Angelique,” he said.  She looked up at him, pain sharp and fresh in

her breast.  “This isn’t your fault.  Not this time.  I don’t know why I’ve

become a vampire again, but it wasn’t you.  As for my ...  condition ...  that

remains to be seen.  But we’ll find out.  And we’ll stop it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“You can leave me alone.” Her mouth fell open, but he turned and pierced her

with his stare.  “The hunger is overwhelming, Angelique.  I am able to restrain

its malignancy at this moment, but I don’t know how long I’ll be capable of

such restraint.  I want to attack you right now.” His eyes flashed a momentary

crimson, and she rose to her feet in a hurry and scuttled away from him.  “Go

to Josette’s room,” he said.  “Lock the door.  I am too weak right now to

attempt any transformations, including dematerialization.  You’ll be safe.  Go

to her room, and lock the door.  Talk to Julia tomorrow.  Maybe you can help

her.  I’m ...  I’m afraid that I’ve been rather cruel to her in recent days.”

“I’ll try,” Angelique said.  “Barnabas, I’ll try anything.  I want to help you.

 I’m going to help you.  I swear it.”

“Good night, Angelique.” Barnabas sounded exhausted. 

She opened her mouth to reply, but found that tears threatened to overwhelm

her.  She turned and ran up the stairs without another word. 

8 (Miranda DuVal — 1897)

She was bloodied, but far from beaten. 

Petofi had taken her power, stolen her lifeforce, and forced her to watch as

the magical energy flowed from her body and into his, disgusting and corpulent,

renewing flesh and bone that had already begun to slough off his body.  That

energy had come from her master a entury ago, and was what held her aloft in

this world now, since she had been condemned to darkness in 1796, and had

remained there until Jamison Collins released her from her prison, and that

imbecile Evan Hanley gave her form. 

There was, of course, a price. 

She shambled through the forest, tears of indignation and rage burning in her

eyes.  She had just left the Old House and Barnabas behind, and his words

remained with her, hauntingly gentle for a man who’s life she had attempted to

destroy time and time again.  “Be careful,” he had told her as she stared at

him stone-faced and miserable with those frustratingly human tears streaking

her face.  “Please don’t go up against Petofi again alone.  You’re ...  you’re

not strong enough.”

Was that true?  She had told him that she would get her powers back at any

cost.  I need them, she had told him.  “I’m nothing without them.”

Was that true? 

Think back. 

Even when she had been Miranda the first time, a slave, or as good as a slave,

to the Collins family of Bedford, wasn’t it power that she craved? 

Think back. 

No, she thought, and the idea dawned on her like sunrise.  It wasn’t power.

Not at first.  No, at first, all I craved was the love of Aidan Collins.

Before he became Barnabas and before I became Angelique, I wanted his love.

That was all I asked for. 

The power came later. 

“That was then,” she said to the air.  “This is now.  I need the power.  I need

the magic.” Her tongue felt huge and swollen in her mouth.  “I ...  I need it.”

“Do you?  Do you indeed?”

The air shimmered before her, and a cloud sailed over the moon, and the shadows

of the trees grew longer around her ...  and it was in those shadows that he

dwelled, her true and only lover, the rider of the night and the black.  The

Dark One.  Mysterious, savage and sweet, and the source of her power. 

The source of my power is me. 

She had believed this all along ...  but if that were true, why did she rely on

him ...  on it? 

“Ah, my darling one,” the voice spoke to her, a sibilant hissing, like the

escaping of steam from a teakettle, “you disappoint me so.”

“I need your help,” she said, and hated the desperation in her voice.  I am

nothing but a slave, she thought, and if she hadn’t been so weak, blood would

have rushed with hot shame to her cheeks.  “Desperately.”

The being before her, almost unseen, fluttered like the ebony wings of a

million bats, yet remained as insubstantial as a black tail of smoke.  “Why?”

it said. 

She stared for a moment, completely confounded.  No, she moaned to herself, I

can’t defend myself now, I don’t have the time.  “Because,” and she said the

first words to come into her head, “I need to find Petofi now, and destroy

him.”

“Petofi,” that voice mused.  “Such an ...  eager creature.  So independent.  He

has no need of someone like me, you know.  Not like you, angel.  You do need

me.  You always have.  I feel you calling me, you know.  I feel you singing out

to me, strong as anything I’ve ever felt before.  You need me, angel.  You

always need me.”

“I need you,” she said hoarsely, and hung her head. 

“As I need you.” The voice of the being before her became harsh as metal

filings.  “I need Quentin Collins.  He is promised to me — you promised him to

me — and I need him.  I need the Collins family.”

Her head flashed up.  “Why?” she asked, throwing its question back. 

The blackness in the air before her lashed about like the midnight tail of an

angry fish.  “I need them,” it hissed, and the air about her roiled, but it was

cold, always so, so cold.  “Quentin Collins is a tool.  I have felt him in this

world for a great while, but he ...  he wavers.  You will steady him, and with

your hand guide his to mine.  Keep him away from the Petofi creature.  Bring

Quentin Collins to me ...  and the rest of the family will follow.”

“I cannot,” Miranda said, then added hastily, “not as I am now.  Petofi has —”

“I know what he has done.  He has taken your power.”

“It will come back, I just need time —”

“And you’ve almost run out.” The voice was soft now, purring.  “And you want my

help.”

“I need you.” Her eyes flashed. 

“Always.” The blackness paused before her, as if weighing its options,

considering.  She waited patiently, but she clutched her hands together so

tightly that tiny droplets of blood began to patter against the floor of the

forest. 

At last it spoke. 

“I will help you,” it said, empty as desolate, but not without humor.  If

nothing else, the Dark One knew humor, vicious and sadistic as it was.  “I will

restore a portion of your powers.” Hope flared within her chest.  “Enough for

you to deal with Petofi.  After that, the full restoration will be up to you.

They will return naturally, of course, given time, but if you can destroy

Petofi ...  well, we’ll just have to see.”

“I won’t fail you.”

“You can’t afford to, my angel.”

It reached for her then with its icy not-hands, and she was consumed again as

she had been back on Martinique all those years ago, consumed by the darkness;

it was inside her, burning inside her, cold but so hot, filling her, and when

she opened her eyes the Dark One was gone, and she was alone. 

Full of purpose. 

She charged off in Petofi’s direction.  Scarlet witchfire blazed between her

outstretched fingers, and her eyes crackled black. 

I don’t need love, she told herself as the tree branches bent back for her and

the darkness blazed inside of her, quenching the light, sucking it away into

nothing.  I don’t need love at all. 

The power is enough for me. 

9 (Angelique Rumson — Now)

She awoke an incomprehensible amount of time later.  She sat up and stared

around wildly, but she could see no one in the dimness of Josette’s room.

Blackness pressed heavily against the glass of the window, and she could still

hear the dull pounding of the rain.  But there was something, she thought

blearily, some noise —

The door.  The door downstairs.  Opening and closing.  Barnabas going out ...

or someone coming in? 

She climbed out of bed.  She had fallen asleep in the dress she was wearing

when she had fled Little Windward.  It was still damp, and clung to her

unpleasantly.  She scowled, and crept to the door of her — of Josette’s — room,

and listened.  Voices, she thought ...  a woman? 

She pulled the door open a crack. 

“Cousin Barnabas?  Are you at home?”

Definitely a woman.  Carolyn Stoddard?  What in the hell was she doing here

just before dawn? 

Angelique figured it would be in everyone’s best interest if she found out. 

When she reached the first floor of the Old House, dread filled her like ice

water.  The door to the cellar was standing open, and a light burned below.

Maybe they’ve moved his coffin, Angelique thought, maybe he’s gone out, maybe

he’s hiding somewhere else —

Carolyn’s gasp, audible even from where Angelique stood at the head of the

stairs, was enough to dissolve even that tentative hope. 

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw the other blonde woman

standing next to Barnabas’ grotesquely over-sized coffin, her hands between her

breasts, warring with each other.  Then she turned, and cried out when she saw

Angelique.  “Who are you?” she whimpered. 

“Never mind,” Angelique said gruffly.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see C-cousin Barnabas,” she said.  The girl was too pale, and had

lost several pounds since Angelique had last set eyes on her.  But she couldn’t

concern herself with Carolyn Stoddard just now. 

“Barnabas isn’t here,” Angelique said.  “You have to leave.  Now.”

“I have to see him,” Carolyn said.  Color had come back into her cheeks, and

her voice sounded stronger.  “Who are you?  What are you doing here?”

“My name is Angelique Rumson,” she said wearily.  Terror had ignited within

her; if Barnabas wasn’t in his coffin, she asked herself, where was he?  “I’m a

friend of Mr.  Collins, and I arrived very late last night in the middle of the

storm.  Mr.  Collins had to ...  had to go out.  I’m not sure when he’ll be

back.”

“I’ll wait for him,” Carolyn said.  Her own terror seemed to have evaporated.

She tossed her blonde flip haughtily.  “I think you’re lying to me.  I don’t

know who you are or what you want here, but I am very curious about the fact

that you apparently have no reaction at all to this coffin, which is sitting

for some reason I can’t understand in the middle of Cousin Barnabas’ basement.

Very curious indeed.”

“I do not have time for this!” Angelique nearly shrieked.  “You need to leave,

Carolyn, before it’s too late!”

Carolyn’s face filled with a terrible suspicion, and with a sinking sensation,

Angelique realized her mistake.  “How did you know my —” the blonde began, but

then her voice was cut off. 

“It is already too late.”

Both women whipped their heads around, but Angelique already knew who she would

see. 

Barnabas Collins had aged an impossible amount of years, more than Angelique

could have guessed.  He was barely human now; hunched, his arms dangled between

his knees, and his hands had lengthened into monstrous, yellow-tipped claws.

His scalp was almost completely bald, and only a few strands of snow-white hair

stood up in wiry twists.  His eyes were blood-red orbs, and they seemed to emit

their own crimson light.  “Carolyn,” he croaked, “what are you doing here?”

Carolyn’s eyes, cornflower blue, were wide with disbelief and the beginnings of

fear.  “I came to see Cousin Barnabas,” she whispered.  She stared at him as if

hypnotized. 

“And now you see him.”

“But ...  but you c-can’t be Barnabas!”

“But I am.” He was nearly upon her now, and Angelique could do nothing ...

absolutely nothing.  For the first time she realized just how human — just how

helpless — she really was. 

“But your face,” Carolyn breathed, and reached out to brush the withered,

sunken countenance with her fingetips, as if that would make him more real.

“It’s so ...  so old.”

“It won’t be old much longer,” he snarled suddenly, as human as a rabid dog,

and seized her.  She shrieked, and he spun her around and crushed her against

him, and began to instantly knead her shoulders with those hideous claws.  She

was trembling uncontrollably in his arms, nearly mad with fear. 

Angelique felt her gorge rise.  “Barnabas —” she tried to say, but the word

stuck in her throat. 

Barnabas ignored her.  He was stroking Carolyn’s hair now, pulling it away from

her throat, leaving it long, white, and exposed.  “You mustn’t be afraid of me,

my dear,” he said, his non-existent lips very close her earlobe.  She was

shuddering now, and her eyes had rolled back in her head.  She was swallowing

over and over in a dreadful sort of anticipation.  “I wouldn’t do anything to

hurt you.  I would never do anything to hurt my own flesh and blood —” And then

his mouth opened wide, hideously wide, so wide it seemed to swallow his entire

face, and his face was all mouth, lined and sharp with the animal fangs that

had grown as large as butcher knives, and Angelique heard herself screaming,

heard Carolyn screaming, and they were both screaming as Barnabas lunged

forward and buried those massive, dripping fangs into Carolyn’s throat. 

(“There’s good and bad in everything,” Mama had told her, time and again, “good

and bad, like dark and light.  Strive for the light, my baby.  Shun the

darkness.  There’s something in thy breast and in thine eyes that has a power.

‘Tis thy choice, Miranda, how you use it.  For helping ...  or otherwise,” and

Miranda had never forgotten it).
 

TO BE CONTINUED ...