Shadows on the Wall Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Vengeance Like A Machine

By Nicky

 Voiceover by Alexandra Moltke: "My name is Victoria Winters.  Except that it

isn't.  And everything about my life has been a lie.  Tonight I will define

myself.  Tonight I will become what I was meant to be.  Tonight I accept my

destiny."

1

 

There was no black garden.  She knew this now, knew that it was a place of

fantasy.  Something that the Leviathans created inside of her.  No, Vicki

thought - the woman who had once been Vicki thought - nothing that simple.  I

created it for myself.  A place where I could go, where I could grow ...  where

I could become.

Like she was becoming now.

She had watched her son die in front of her.  Her beautiful son, her boy, her

child.  They were going to change the world, the two of them.  She had promised

him that.  They were going to make everything better, to save, to change,

because that was what Victoria Winters had always wanted.  To learn, the

discover, to help. 

None of that mattered anymore, because Jeb was dead.

Victoria Winters was dead. 

"And so will you be," Victoria hissed, and watched as Barnabas' already pale

face blanched.  She had plucked him from the air after he vanished; it was easy, too, too easy.  And Dr. Hoffman too.  She was responsible, she was part of this, and she should be ...  "Dead," she said, and threw back her head and laughed.  "Dead!" and she howled.  She was sobbing, and she didn't realize it.  Tears streaked her face.

"Vicki -" Julia began, but Barnabas held her back.  A wise move indeed.

"Did you enjoy yourself, Barnabas?" Vicki asked, polite in her own ears.  "Did

it alleviate that guilt you've been carrying around all these years?  Did it

help?"

Barnabas' face was set and drawn.  "It had to be done," he said carefully.

Each word was particularly chosen and controlled.  "Jeb was dangerous.  To you.

To us.  To the world."

"He was my son," she snarled.

"He was a monster," Barnabas said.  She recoiled as if slapped.  He nodded

coldly.  "He wasn't your son.  Not really.  He was a Leviathan, Victoria.  The

leader of them all.  He was going to destroy the world.  I couldn't - and I'm

sorry, Victoria, I'm sorry to hurt you - but I couldn't let that happen."

"Vicki," Julia said again, soft and tender, just like always, good ol' Julia

Hoffman, always coming through with her kindness and her sedatives, "Vicki,

Barnabas is right.  Jeb tried to hurt me.  He would've killed me, if Professor

Stokes hadn't called upon Laura Collins."

Vicki stared at her without a word, and Julia backed off.  She shot a look at

Barnabas, heavy with concern and worry, but Barnabas couldn't take his eyes

from Vicki.

She felt the blackness inside her, swirling around, alive, waiting ...  and

patient.

 

"I love you, Victoria," Barnabas said.  "I have always loved you.  You are

powerful, and you are strong, and you don't need me to protect you.  But I

think you need my love.  I think you need it very much."

For a moment she didn't say anything.  She could feel the panic growing inside

Julia, like a small caged animal clawing at her chest cavity with tiny claws.

"He changed," Vicki said.  "Do you get that?  Do you understand?  Jeb changed,

Barnabas."

"I don't know what you mean," Barnabas said.

Dull fury pulsed behind her eyes, and she closed them.  I am in control, she

thought, and in a forced, level voice, she said, "He wanted to become human.

He rejected the Leviathans, and their promises, and their schemes.  He rejected

it all, because he knew what it meant to me, and he wanted to become human

himself.  That is what I mean by 'change'.  And he was going to."

"He may have told you that he did, that he wanted -"

Vicki threw back her head and barked harsh laughter.  Thunder rumbled

menacingly in the distance.  "Do you think he could lie to me?  Do you think

anyone could?  I knew Barnabas.  I felt it.  I could tell.  And I knew it was

true.

"And you killed him.  Before he even had a chance.  You ended him."

The box in his hand exploded, and Barnabas gave a convulsive cry.  The Shard of

Medusa had been reduced to a small puff of dust that was torn away by the wind

that constantly whipped around Widow's Hill.

He was shocked, and she was glad to see it.  His mouth had dropped open, and

then closed again with a snap.  He hadn't considered that, Vicki thought; he

forgot about the powers inside me, and what I know.  I know everything.

"So you see," she said, "it doesn't matter in the end how much you love me.

Because I blame you for this.  For destroying my son.  And I will never forgive

you, Barnabas Collins." Her eyes flicked, serpent-like, and settled on the

woman who quailed beside him.  The fool.  "Or you either, Julia Hoffman.  You

are as responsible for Jeb's death as if you'd struck the blow yourself."

"Vicki, I beg you -"

"Shut up," Vicki hissed.  "I don't want to hear anymore.  There is nothing you

can say to me that will make this any better."

"We want to help," Julia said, "Vicki, that's all we want to do -"

Vicki screamed.  It came from inside her, from the deepest pit of herself, from

that place where the black garden had existed. 

All we want to do is help.

No more.  Never again.

She closed her eyes as the scream echoed around them, growing louder instead of

dissipating, and she was dimly aware that there was a part of her that wailed

at the loss of her particular identity, everything that made up the woman who

had become Victoria Winters, even as the darkness opened inside of her,

spreading like a blot of ink.  Every door thrown open wide, every bridge

burned, every defense or guard against the dark she had ever erected blown away

by the wind inside her, the power that bloomed great and huge as it infused

her.

She felt the moment when the last spark of Victoria Winters winked out forever.

When she opened her eyes they were black and empty.  She saw herself as she

must look to Barnabas and Julia; the white dress she wore was regal, as

befitted a queen; her face was white as salt, as white as the majestic mane of

hair that streamed out behind her.  She could feel everything around her; the

worms turning in the earth, the grass growing stunted towards its own death,

even the rocks that composed the cliff crumbling slowly beneath them.

"Oh my god," Barnabas Collins said.

The woman before him smiled, and her teeth were long and sharp as needles.

"Indeed," she said.

2

"We've got to get up there," Sky said, and his voice was grim.  Angelique,

cursing her humanity for the first time since she had become Charity Trask's

slave, lagged slightly behind him.  She stumbled once over a stone and fell to

her hands and knees, and cried out miserably as the stones that lined the path

leading to Widow's Hill dug into her sensitive skin.  Sky stopped at once, and

turned to help her.  "Oh my poor darling," he said, and kissed at her cheeks,

smoothing away the tears, and she clung to him greedily.

"We don't have to do this," she whispered.  "Oh Sky, do we?  Can't we just go

away?  Can't we just leave them to fight for themselves?"

He looked at her calmly, his eyes wide and kind and without judgement or

reproof, until she looked away. 

"No," she said bitterly, "I suppose not."

"We could do that," he said, and she looked up at him, unable to tell herself

that the spark of hope kindled momentarily within her breast was selfish, a

reminder of the days when she had been the most powerful witch in this

hemisphere.  "We could leave Barnabas and Julia to fight this battle alone.  We

could go back to Little Windward and pack up our bags and leave forever,

because you know that even Little Windward is too close.  We could leave all

this behind.  Forever.  All you have to do is say the word."

"I know," she said, and more tears balanced on her eyelids, but she wouldn't

let them fall.  She wouldn't cry anymore.  What good did it do?

"Is that really what you want?"

"Yes," she hissed.  He smiled, and she seized his hand.  "Of course that's what

I want.  I've been alive for so long that I can't even conceive of death, real

death, now.  And that's what will happen to us if we stay here.  We'll die.

The Leviathans are too strong.  Barnabas and Julia don't have a chance."

"No," Sky said.  "They don't."

"But the world doesn't either," she whispered.  "If Barnabas falls, then so

does the world.  And we're in this stupid world, like it or not.  And even with

all your powers, you can't stand alone against them."

He squeezed her hand briefly.  "I'm not alone," he said, and smiled his

beautiful smile.

Angelique sighed gustily, slapped her bruised and scraped knees, then rose

gracefully to her feet.  "So I guess we'll stay.  We'll stay here and we'll

fight until the end.  Whatever it turns out to be." She laughed.  "I can't

believe I'm saying this.  Barnabas told me once that I am incapable of change,

as incapable of that as I am of human feeling.  How very wrong he turned out to

be."

"I love you, Angelique," Sky said, and cupped her chin in his hand.  "All my

life, I have never felt this way about another human being."

"Some human being."

"My human being." He kissed her.  She was crying again, couldn't stop the

tears, couldn't stop the fear that roared and whimpered alternately inside her.

Couldn't stop her love for this man and her love - god, so hard to admit that,

even now - for Barnabas and Julia (her friend, her first real friend), and for

the entire Collins family.

She wiped the tears away with a brusque and shaking hand.  They were foolish.

"All right," she said, all brisk manner and trembling resolution.  "Let's go."

3

"Where is she?" David wailed.  He paced up and down the drawing room, raging;

he wept and railed; he ran his hand along the mantle and lay waste to the

knick-knacks that Mrs.  Johnson had dusted only that morning.  They struck the

floor and shattered, and their pieces lay mutely there after.

Carolyn watched him helplessly.  Julia administered her a shot every morning

after sunrise (but why?  was a question she was hard-pressed to ask; whenever

she opened her mouth, she was assaulted by images, terrible, disturbing images,

where Tony Trask lay before her with his throat gaping red and black and white

like a grinning mouth, or her own father gurgled on the floor while his

lifeblood pumped and gouted all over the drawing room floor; and her mouth

would close and a dim fog would descend over her), and they left her feeling

groggy and vaguely helpless.  "I'm not sure, David," she said now, uncertain of

what else there was to say, what was safe. 

"She was here, she was here," David screamed, and a vase that Ivy Collins had

brought to Collinwood in 1865 joined its shattered cousins on the floor.  "I

felt her, and she was here, and now she's gone away again."

"David, that isn't possible," Carolyn said.  She forced her voice not to

tremble, but her hands wrestled and warred in her lap.  Tony, she thought

obscurely, and sorrow gored her, oh Tony, I'm so, so -

"It is, it is, you shouldn't say that, you shouldn't!" More glass shattered.

Carolyn wanted to cover her ears, wouldn't allow it.

"Your mother is gone.  She isn't coming back." Carolyn had wondered since

Laura's disappearance about a year ago, after a mysterious - and thankfully

brief - return to claim ...  what?  David?  No one was really certain, but it

was around the time that Roger had married that hellcat Cassandra, also

regrettably absent.  Laura had been an alcoholic and a gold-digger, but she had

never been a good mother.  So if she really had re-appeared ...  for what

reason?

"I felt her, Carolyn." David stopped, panting, and dropped his head for a

moment.  Minute drops of sweat fell from his forehead and pattered soundlessly

to the carpet.  "You don't understand.  I know my mother, and I know when she's

here.  She's back.  She's back, and she's come for me."

Carolyn couldn't think of another thing to say.  David was not stable, that was

certain, and she wasn't exactly certain where to place the blame.  Vicki had

certainly been shirking her duties as governess, but she was going through

something, as Carolyn herself was, as nearly everyone on the damned estate was,

and who was she to place blame?  Not everyone can be a murderess, she thought,

and placed a hand to her forehead as a shivering blade of pain slid neatly

across her brain.  "David please," she said to quiet her own thoughts.  "We

haven't heard from your mother since she -"

"SHE'S HERE!" David roared, and lifted a heavy vase to heft at her.  Carolyn

felt only numbness settle over her like a heavy mantle, and closed her eyes.

Let him do it, she thought, and felt distant relief; let him end it.

"David!" The voice of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard cracked across the room like a

rifle shot, and David froze where he stood.  "Put that vase down this instant,"

the matriarch of Collinwood commanded, and strode across the room, her heels

clicking sensibly against the tiles laid across the floor.  "It's priceless,

and I think you've done just about enough damage this evening."

"Aunt Elizabeth," David said, and suddenly he sounded like exactly what he was:

a scared twelve year-old boy.

"Hand it to me," Elizabeth said, and held out her hand.  "Now." Numbly, with

slow, dream-like movements, he gave her the vase.  Satisfied, Elizabeth

returned it to the mantle, then turned to face her nephew and daughter, both

who watched her with drugged expressions.  "Someone tell me what is going on

here."

"My mother has come back," David said, but now his voice trembled with

uncertainty.  He glanced to Carolyn to confirm this, but she could only shrug.

"Have you seen her?"

David thought for a moment, bit his lip, and then shook his head.

"Has she called you?  Written you?"

Another shake of the head.

"But you know," Elizabeth said.  "You ...  sense her."

"Yes," David said.  He sounded more certain.

Elizabeth glanced at Carolyn.  "Laura was always a woman more in tune with a

power the rest of us couldn't comprehend," she said.  "Perhaps she's found

another way to communicate with David." She frowned, and in a low voice added,

"That thought terrifies me."

"She's coming for me," David said from behind them.

"Where is Victoria?" Elizabeth asked him.  He shrugged, and she turned to

Carolyn.

"I haven't seen her since yesterday," she said.  "She hasn't been ...  very

available recently."

"I'm worried about her," Elizabeth said.

"Isn't that touching." The voice was loud, dry and sarcastic and full of rage,

but mostly it was terrifying, inhumanely loud, and echoed throughout the room;

behind them, the windows of the drawing room shattered.  "But I'm afraid," the

woman that had been Victoria Winters told them, grinning where she stood in the

doorway, "that it's really too little, too late."

4

"Get out of here, Julia," Barnabas commanded, and held one arm up before her

protectively.  The woman that stood before them both was a stranger, someone

Barnabas hadn't ever seen before.

Oh yes you have, he whispered to himself.  In 1897, the night that Vicki used

her powers to undo the mind-switch that Petofi performed on Quentin.  It was

only a glimpse - those empty black eyes, those needle-teeth - but this was her.

This was what she was afraid of rousing all the times she used her powers,

even when she was helping.  This ...  this monster.  It had consumed her now.

Victoria Winters was gone.

But maybe reachable.  Maybe it wasn't too late, even now.

Julia's chin jutted out, and her eyebrows drew together.  "I won't leave you,

Barnabas," she said firmly.

"Dear Julia," the woman said.  Her skin and hair were white together, and

seamless somehow; only her eyes, like black pools of oil, marred that blank

wasteland.  "Dear, sweet, loyal Julia.  Right to the very end." She laughed,

and those awful piranha teeth flashed in the light of the moon, now waning.

"Always standing by him, right by his side.  Never leaving." The humor, never

real to begin with, faded away, and she stared at them without emotion.  "Do

you really think that he'll ever love you?  With your medicines and your

potions and your undying devotion?  You fool."

"Shut up," Julia hissed; Barnabas took her hand and squeezed it, and she

squeezed it back gratefully.

"Incompetent fool," Vicki said, and laughed her empty laugh.  "Incompetent

bungler.  Chris Jennings has gone off to lick his wounds because you made him

more of a monster than he ever was before.  You couldn't cure Barnabas and you

couldn't make him love you.  You're a failure.  As a doctor.  As a woman.

Killing you now will be doing you a favor."

Julia's eyes narrowed; her mouth opened, then closed again.

"Julia, run," Barnabas whispered.  His eyes seared hers, she searched his, then

swallowed once.  She bit her lip; her eyes filled with tears, and she nodded.

Her chest hitched.  He squeezed her hand again, then released it.  She turned

and bolted away from the cliff.

"Don't go far," Vicki called sweetly.  "I'm not finished with you yet." She

turned back to Barnabas, and cocked her head.  It was oddly animalistic.  She

was beautiful, but she was a monster as well.  Barnabas felt something inside

him begin to break.  He had loved her for so long, and still he was unable to

protect her.  From Petofi.  From the Leviathans.  From herself.  "Alone at

last," she purred.  Her body undulated beneath the white dress she wore that

hugged her figure so lovingly.  Every trace of her pregnancy had vanished.

"Victoria," Barnabas said despairingly, "Victoria, what's happened to you?"

"I would think that's pretty obvious.  I am what you made me.  You, Barnabas.

You and your plots.  Was it Professor Stokes?" She grinned.  "It was, wasn't

it.  A scroll of some sort, I have no doubt.  Or was it a book?  Something he

had conveniently stored away in his library?  Something for a rainy day?" The

smile vanished.  "I'll settle him when I'm done with the both of you."

"You have a choice," Barnabas said.  His voice was beginning to tremble with

desperation.  "You always have a choice.  You don't have to do this."

"Oh," she said, "I think I really, really do."

"You don't.  If there's any part of Victoria Winters left inside -"

"There isn't."

"- then you'll listen to me.  You have to understand.  We were trying to save

the world -"

"You'll forgive me if I can't quite bring myself to care." She drew herself up.

 "Jeb was my son.  My son, Barnabas.  All these years I've searched for some

link to my past, and when I finally found something that was truly mine, that

loved me, that came from me, that would accept me and grow and learn, you came

and took it away.  You took it away from me, Barnabas.  That is why I can't

forgive you.  Not this time.  Not ever again.  This is the end.  The end of

everything."

"What have you become?  The Leviathans -"

She barked that harsh laughter.  "The Leviathans are over.  I never cared for

them, or whatever pathetic scheme they wanted to use me for.  They were nothing

compared to me in the end.  And now they're gone.  There is only me.  And

that's enough."

"Victoria, we just want to help -"

"Oh," she said, and her eyes darkened, "that.  Is.  It." Vicki threw her hands

in the air, and the sky split open at her silent command.  Lightning shredded

air, rending it open like a bloodless wound, leaving the electric stench of

ozone in its wake.  When she dropped her arms and faced him, the blackness

inside her crackled in her eyes and in her hair; Barnabas, sick with horror,

saw the power in the veins on her face and her neck and her arms.  They

throbbed and twitched like dark living things.  "Now -" she began, and her

voice rumbled and echoed around the cliffs. 

"Victoria ..." Barnabas moaned.

Then her black eyes widened, and she held up her hands in a warding off

gesture.  "No!" she whimpered.  "Not now ...  not here!"

Barnabas blinked; the air before him wavered as tiny particles drew together,

coalescing into a human form.  After a few seconds it became a young woman with

dark bobbed hair.  Vicki fell backwards and scrabbled backwards like a crab.

The young woman, quivering with intensity, sending out wave after wave of

nauseating cold, advanced toward her. 

"You can't be here," Vicki said.  She stumbled to her feet, weaving drunkenly,

and held out one hand.  Black energy crackled between her fingers.  "Not now.

You can't do this to me -"

The ghost didn't stop moving, said nothing.  It held its hands out imploringly.

"I can make you stop," Vicki moaned, quivering.  "I can make you go away.  I

can -"

"Vicki," Barnabas cried, "Vicki, don't -"

Vicki seemed not to hear him, but the ghost glanced over her shoulder, and

Barnabas saw at once the resemblance to the former governess, just as he had

the first time she had appeared to them, on this same cliff, a year before.

Louise Collins, Vicki's mother, glowered at him, her face contracting with

anger, then she turned back to her daughter.

"No," Vicki said, sobbing in terror, but there were no tears.  Barnabas

wondered if she would ever cry again.  "You don't know, you don't understand,

you don't understand anything.  YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!"

But the ghost was implacable. 

"You were never there," Vicki said, on her feet now.  She trembled like a tree

in a high wind, but her eyes still glittered like the eyes of a snake.  "You

were never there for me, so how can you know?  How can you know me?  You have

no idea what I'm going through.

"Don't you get it?  Don't you see?

"YOU WERE NEVER THERE FOR ME."

The ghost reached out, and Vicki recoiled.  Its fingers, less substantial than

smoke, passed through her daughter's skin.  Vicki screamed and thrashed

backwards, her arms twitching and pinwheeling. 

"Victoria!" Barnabas cried out; his love for her crashed against him like an

icy wave of the water below them, searing him, blinding him, that need to

protect and defend her, and he rushed forward.

"NO!" Vicki roared, and thrust out her hand.  The black energy crackling

between her fingers tore through the spirit, shredding it, evaporating it;

before it vanished completely, Barnabas saw that Louise threw her head

backwards and screamed silently.

Then the energy struck him and lifted him high.  He saw Vicki's furious face

beneath him, her fanged teeth gnashing, her eyes blaring darkness at him.  He

saw the ocean, gray and hungry, miles away, and the rocks like jagged teeth

jutting up to him. 

"None of you matter," Vicki raged beneath him.  "Not even her.  Not even her.

And not you, Barnabas.  The time has come, the time has come, the time has -"

Then she was knocked aside by a bolt of energy, and Barnabas fell to the

ground.  He groaned, writhing, and curled into a fetal position.  The black

fire crackling around him dissipated, leaving him weak, his muscles throbbing

and screaming.  He lifted his head and blinked blearily, trying to clear his

vision.

Sky Rumson stood over him, but his eyes were locked on Victoria's - and they

were as black as hers, as black as the sky above them, as black as the waves

that roared endlessly against the cliffs.

5

Angelique and Sky had nearly reached the crest of the hill when they found

Julia Hoffman darting down the path towards them.  "Barnabas," she gasped.

"Barnabas ..." She was trembling, and her eyes were too wide in the pallid

moonscape of her face.

Sky placed an arm over her shoulder.  "Tell us what happened," he said.

Julia was trembling beneath Sky's arm, and Angelique struggled valiantly to

quash the jealousy rising inside her.  Breathe, she told herself, breathe; end

of the world, end of the world, no time to be jealous, end of the world.

"Vicki," Julia said.  "She's changed.  Barnabas destroyed Jeb, knocked him over

Widow's Hill ...  we didn't know." Her eyes filled with tears, and she began to

tremble again.  "Vicki knew.  He was going to change.  Going to give up the

Leviathans.  Going to b-become human." She shook her head, unable to continue.

Angelique felt a sinking in her breast.  Vicki had access to some very

unpleasant powers, she realized, and if she felt threatened ...  if she thought

that someone was going to harm the people she loved -

Sky's face was grim.  "She's gone, isn't she.  She's embraced the darkness

inside her."

"It's even worse than that," Julia whispered.  "She isn't the Vicki we knew.

She's different.  Inhuman.  It's like there's nothing there.  Nothing we knew.

Vicki's gone.  She's just ...  gone."

"If Jeb is dead, then there's nothing to keep her from the darkness," Sky said.

"Nothing to keep her from plunging over that edge.  Forever."

"Is there anything we can do to bring her back?" Angelique asked.  Doom pressed

down on her, heavy and oppressive, making it difficult to breathe; her heart

thundered painfully in her chest.  Black spots threatened to swarm before her

eyes, and a voice inside her mind, the voice of the child she was two hundred

years ago, chanted, Run away, run away, run away, run away -

"It isn't too late," Sky said.  "Someone has to reach her.  It won't be easy.

Someone has to go inside to bring her out.  Find the real Vicki inside the

darkness.  She's there, I'm sure."

Understanding filled Angelique like icy water.  "Sky, no," she cried, and

clutched at him.  She could hear the whining in her voice, and despised it, as

she had always despised those insufferable whining humans all these years.

"It's too dangerous.  There has to be another way.  A spell ..  something else

-"

"Perhaps Eliot could find something," Julia said.  "A talisman, or an amulet of

some sort." Her eyes widened.  "Sky!  The Mask of Ba'al!  If we could -"

But Sky was already shaking his head.  "No," he said.  "It's too dangerous,

Julia.  Bad news all around.  There's no controlling it."

"Sky is right, Julia," Angelique said, but she heard the lack of conviction in

her own voice, and wondered at it.  Was it because the idea of reclaiming that

power, now lost for good, was such a tantalizing one?  No limits, she thought,

no being bound to Nicholas or the Dark Spirit ..  tempting ...  very tempting

...

"The Mask of Ba'al grants its wearer more power than anything else in this

universe," Sky said.  "But, as far as I know, no one has ever been strong

enough to wear it and survive.  Nicholas Blair was a fool to think he could

control it.  Even with a purpose specific enough - and I doubt that world

domination counts - there's no telling what the mask might do.  But we know for

sure that the power corrupts the wearer.  Perhaps irrevocably."

"I just think we should keep our options open," Julia said.  The lines beneath

her eyes were more pronounced that normal.  Angelique wondered, with a pang of

sympathy, when the good doctor last had slept.

"Go to Stokes," Sky told her.  "Hit him up for everything he's got.  I'll keep

her busy.  Try to stop her from doing anything to hurt anyone.  Or herself."

"Please, Sky," Angelique whispered.  She wanted to cry, to find a release for

the terror roaring inside her, but she felt frozen.  Numb.  Helpless, human at

last, she could only clutch onto him.  "Come with us.  We can find something

together.  Please.  Sky.  Please."

He only looked at her.  He didn't say nothing.  He didn't touch her.

"Dammit," she hissed, and dropped her head.  "Fine.  We'll go." She grabbed the

doctor's arm.  "Come on, Julia." And began to drag her down the path back

towards Collinwood.

"Angelique!" Sky called.  She turned to look at him over her shoulder.  He was

smiling.  He lifted his hand and waved.  She smiled.  Waved back.

The tears wanted to fall.  She bit them back.  And bit them back.  And bit them

back. 

She looked over her shoulder again.  Sky was gone.

Julia touched her hand, cautiously, kindly.  "Angelique," she said softly.

"We'd better go."

That old familiar steel - cold, like ice - rose up inside her again.  Her eyes

narrowed, and her nostrils flared.  "You go on, Julia," she said.  "Go to

Stokes.  I'll be all right."

Julia opened her mouth to protest, thought better, and closed it.  She nodded

instead, squeezed Angelique's hand, and took off.

Angelique didn't watch her go.  She began to walk back up the hill instead.

6

Roger downed another snifter of whiskey without pause after his - fourth?

Fifth?  Quentin had lost track.  Roger sat calmly on Quentin's bed while

Quentin himself paced back and forth before the door.

"They're gone," Quentin said.  "I mean, you don't feel them anymore, do you?

Those voices?  Like snakes in your mind?"

Roger considered this, then glanced at his empty snifter thoughtfully.  After a

moment he refilled it.  "No," he said at last, "I do believe they're gone." He

smiled wearily.  "Silence.  At last.  At long, long last.  Did you know I've

been hearing those damned voices since October?  That's a long time, Quentin.

A long, bloody time." He downed the snifter and poured himself another glass.

"But they're gone now," Quentin said.  "I don't hear them either.  And that

necklace ...  it just disintegrated.  Fell apart into nothing."

"Yes," Roger said politely.  "I imagine it did."

"Where is Vicki?  Something must have happened to Jeb.  The voices stopped

because he's been ...  dealt with.  Which means the Leviathans are gone too.

But if something happened to Jeb - where is Victoria?"

Roger shrugged.  "Who can say?  She's not the woman we thought she was,

evidently."

"What does that mean?" Quentin snarled.

"That power inside her. Has it consumed her yet, do you suppose? Because it's

been gnawing at her steadily for months. Who knows for how long? Since she

saved Dr. Hoffman and me from my dear, departed ex-wife, at least. Since then

I've been able to feel her. Or the darkness growing inside her. Whatever it is,

it goes beyond the Leviathans. Beyond her father. Even beyond Victoria herself,

I'd wager."

Quentin's eyes were wide blue skies. "And you can feel this?"

"Not anymore," Roger said.  "Not anymore than anybody else, that is.  I think

everyone can feel it now, whether they're a regular person or not.  Don't you

think?" Roger chuckled dryly.  "Shall we drop the pretense?  You're not exactly

a normal man, are you, Quentin."

Quentin opened his mouth to deny his cousin's - his grand-nephew's -

accusation, but no words would come.  He dropped his shaggy head, then shook

it. 

"I thought not," Roger said.  "Well, it doesn't matter in the end.  We

Collinses have always been a long way from ordinary.  So I suppose it doesn't

really matter what you are.  You can feel her.  It's a tugging, I think, here

-" And he tapped his heart and his forehead.  "- and here.  A little pull.

It's almost like she needs us now.  Like maybe she's draining a little of us to

maintain her powers." His hand trembled minutely as he filled his glass again.

"And whatever she needs those powers for ...  well, I shudder to think."

"I have to find her," Quentin said.  "She needs me.  I have to be with her, to

fight or to stand, or just to grieve ...  god, I don't know, but I have to find

her.  I have to -"

The floorboards beneath them squealed, as if in pain, and a tremor knocked them

both to the ground.  Below them, glass shattered in what sounded like every

room of the house. 

"I think," Roger said, and looked with one raised eyebrow at the shattered

snifter and the whiskey soaking into the carpet before him, "you won't have to

look very far after all."

7

"I think you need to back down," Sky said as Victoria bared her fangs and

hissed at him like a scalded cat, "just back down for a second and think."

"About what?" Vicki laughed.  "About how good it's going to feel to finally do

the world a favor and destroy Barnabas Collins?  He's a vampire, Sky.  He's

evil.  Not as evil as me, granted, and maybe someone's going to try to take me

down, and it'll be funny when they do, but for now - it's just me and Barnabas.

We have a score to settle.  Which means you -" and her black eyes glowed again

as she thrust out her hands - "need to butt out."

The energy that flew from her hands was black, but Sky raised a hand and calmly

said, "Solutum." The energy dissipated, fell apart, disintegrated.

Vicki stared at him, open-mouthed for a moment, but only a moment.  Then she

began to smile.  The effect, with her black lips and the jagged teeth that lay

smoothly over them, was horrific.  "I see you've embraced the dark arts once

again," she said.  "That can't be good for your poor tortured soul, Sky."

"Maybe," Sky said.  His eyes had returned to their ordinary blue.  "Vicki, I

want to help you."

"Thanks," Vicki said, "but I think I can destroy the Collins family and one

reluctant vampire all by myself."

"Maybe," Sky said again, "but Vicki ...  is this really what you want?"

She blinked, placed one black-tipped finger to her mouth, then smiled and

nodded brightly.  "Oh yes," she said, "I really, really think it is."

"They've hurt you, I know.  I can feel your pain.  Your rage.  It isn't fair,

and you're right.  But this isn't the way."

"Then what is?  Sitting back?  Taking it?  I've tried that, Mr.

High-and-Mighty Magnate Guy.  Didn't work so well.  The sad fact about being a

doormat is that, pretty soon, you get tired of people walking all over you.

Someone said that the meek shall inherit the earth.  I'm about to prove them

wrong."

"These powers will destroy you," Sky said.  "Believe me, I know."

For a moment Vicki hesitated, and it was that moment that Angelique came over

the hill.  Her heart stopped for a moment in her chest when she laid eyes on

the transformed thing that had once upon a time been the milquetoast governess

for bratty David Collins.  Angelique could remember the night about a year ago

when, still in incorporeal spirit form, she had lured David to the graveyard to

complete the witch's circle and the ceremony that would raise her from the dead

and give her new life as Cassandra Collins.  That had been her first real

glimpse of Victoria Winters.  How different she had been back then.  Pretty,

not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but the same dark eyes, the

same dark hair and fair skin as that ninny cow, Ma'amoiselle Josette.

Angelique had hated her on sight.  And now she feared her as well.  The very

air around her writhed and crackled with black veins of electricity.

"Nothing can hurt me now," Vicki said, composure regained.  Behind her,

Barnabas groaned and sat up, blinking and rubbing his head.  "You just don't

get it, do you.  Not even the Leviathans could stop me, and they were the ones

that gave me this power to begin with!" She shook her fall of gorgeous white

hair.  "No, that isn't entirely correct.  These powers come from me."

"Or do they come from Petofi?"

Her face darkened.  "Petofi was a fool.  A weak, simpering fool with designs

grander than his capabilities would allow him to achieve.  All that power in

one hand.  Easily severed." Her grin widened, impossibly.  "I am the power."

"You're strong," Sky said, "no one denies that.  But are you strong enough to

stop?  To use your powers for the right purpose?"

She laughed at him scornfully.  "And what purpose is that?  To save the

Collinses ...  again?  Now why on this earth would I want to do that?"

"Because you're a good person," he said quietly.  "Or at least, Victoria

Winters is a good person."

"Victoria has left the building," she said.  "And you're beginning to bore me.

Blah blah, you're a good person, blah blah.  Like a broken record.  All of

you."

Angelique felt terror stab her heart.  She wanted to cry out a warning, but

there were no words.  They stuck in her throat like trapped black birds.  She

was frozen in place, utterly unable to move.

"Vicki -" Sky began, and he sounded just the least bit alarmed.

Vicki's black lips twitched.  She took a step closer to him.  "All that power," she said,

and shook her head, "all the potential, and you're not maximizing it, Sky.

It's sad really." She looked into his eyes with her empty black orbs, and

reached out her hand.  "Here," she said, and pressed it against his chest,

"lemme help with that."

Sky Rumson began to scream.  Streams of red and green and gold magic crackled

around him; in his eyes, in his hair, in his hands, even in his ears; it pulsed

and throbbed and began to stream out of him as Vicki threw back her head and

screamed in ecstasy.  The energy began to turn black as she absorbed it into

her body.

Angelique could only watch - helpless, silent, and damningly, frustratingly

mortal - as Victoria Winters killed the man she loved.  She watched as his hair

turned white, thinned, and fell from his scalp in drifts; as his eyes rolled

back in his head and then fell into sockets which began to grow and expand; as

the skin withered and wrinkled and then turned completely to dust; as his

clothes shuddered, unraveled, fell into nothing; and then only his skeleton

danced before the monster draining him, and the bones twisted and writhed and

turned like soft plastic until there was nothing left, and Vicki fell

backwards, still alive with the black magic sparking and crackling around her,

and she opened her mouth and screamed her diseased laughter.  And all Angelique

could do was watch.

She couldn't move.  Couldn't cry.  There was fire inside her - it flared up

brightly for a moment - but then the ice came, and it was so familiar, a

blessed relief, and it quenched the fire, dowsing it to ashes, and then she was

all over cold and numb.  She felt nothing.  It was better that way.

Vicki hadn't seen her yet.  And that was good.  Better.  Easier.

Angelique turned, slowly, with great precision, and began to walk, very

carefully and with deliberate, calm strides, back down the hill.

8

"Oh.  My.  God," Vicki exhaled, turning to Barnabas, who had risen to his feet,

and held his cane out before him as if it could save him.  "Oh Barnabas, what a

feeling.  What a feeling.  A total rush.  You have no idea.  I'd recommend a

trip like this to Carolyn if I wasn't about to kill the bitch."

Vicki's face was gaunter now, the cheekbones hollow, those black eyes glaring

madly from darkened sockets.  Her hair, it seemed, thrived on the dark power

inside her; it had become a full and lustrous white mane, and it blew all

around her skeletal face.  Her hands had become long, twisted claws, and

electricity crackled continuously around her fingertips. 

"You can't understand this feeling, Barnabas," Vicki told him.  "It's really

quite.  Mmm.  Spectacular.  Wow.  If I'd known Sky Rumson tasted so yummy, I

would've sucked him dry weeks ago."

Barnabas could say nothing.  He was numb with horror and rage and loss.  He

hadn't known Sky Rumson particularly well, but he knew that Angelique had loved

him.  This would destroy her.  But Sky had overcome the darkness inside him,

had risen above it, and had proved to them all that he was a good man.  And he

had just paid the price.

"Don't mourn him too much," Vicki said, her cracked lips puckering in a moue of

distaste.  "For all his goody-goody intentions now, Sky really had a long list

of sins to account for.  Just think of me as the auditor.  Or the collection

service come knocking."

Barnabas couldn't speak.  He willed his mind to be blank, and began to

concentrate.  This situation had spun dangerously out of control; Vicki was

probably lost forever, and he was worried about Julia.

Vicki cocked her head like a curious mongrel.  "What's the matter?" she purred.

"Cat got your tongue?"

One, Barnabas thought, two ...  three ...

And then he disappeared.

Vicki's eyes widened, and her face twisted into a black grimace of hate.  "No!"

she shrieked.  "Not fair!  Not fair, not fair, not fair, not fair!  Come back,

come back!" But he had gone.  Vicki threw back her head and roared, and a part

of the cliff began to crumble away.  After a moment she stopped.  It didn't

matter.  He couldn't hide from her forever, she supposed.  If she really wanted

to, she could find him right now, and slap him out of the air like a bug.

Squish him like one too.

But she had other fish to fry.  Or flay.  Or gut.  Or dismember.

"So many Collinses," she purred, "so little time."

With a satisfied grin leering on her face, Vicki began to make her way down the

hill and back towards Collinwood.

9

Stokes held up the Mask of Ba'al; it glinted gold in the light of the fire in

the grate, and Julia reached out to touch it, but the Professor pulled it back.

"Be careful, Julia," he said, and she saw for the first time that he wore

gloves.  He set the mask delicately back in the lead box where he'd taken it

from a few moments ago, then closed the lid.  "It isn't safe to touch it for

long, even wearing these."

Julia itched for a cigarette, but remembered what Dave had told her the last

time she'd seen him, and settled for gnawing on her thumbnail instead.  "Can't

you think of anything, Eliot?  Besides that Mask of Ba'al, I mean.  Anything at

all?"

Stokes shook his head.  "We learned how to stop the Leviathans from the scroll

I found, but we're not dealing with the Leviathans anymore, Julia.  What we're

facing now is someone - something - far more potent." He stroked his chin

thoughtfully.  "Perhaps the Mask is our only option after all."

"I don't understand," Julia said wearily, and laughed.  "That's what Vicki used

to say.  That she didn't understand."

"That was a long time ago," Stokes said reproachfully, and Julia sank into his

easy chair and drummed her fingernails impatiently along its arm.  "Miss

Winters has grown a lot since her arrival here last summer.  Perhaps," he said

sadly, "too much.  She is nowhere near the idiotic ingenue people once believed

her to be."

"I'd trade her in a heartbeat," Julia said.  "You've only caught a glimpse of

her before, Eliot, but this ...  this is worse than any nightmare.  She's ...

she's feral now.  Out of control.  And she means to destroy the Collins

family."

"Others have tried and failed."

"No one had this much power before.  Not even Petofi."

"Do you think she may still be reachable?"

Julia hesitated.  "I don't know," she admitted.  "I'd like to think so.  She

hasn't done anything irrevocable yet ...  nothing that we know about."

"Do you still feel ...  it?" Stokes asked, and tapped his forehead.  Julia

nodded.  "So do I.  Which means that Rumson is still facing her.  She remains

undefeated."

"I hope that's all it means," Julia said bleakly.  "Otherwise -"

But the words died in her throat as Barnabas materialized before them.  His

face was even paler and more drawn than she'd ever seen it before, and his eyes

were haunted.  "She's gone to Collinwood," Barnabas said, and the words emerged

thinly, almost a keening, like the wind through denuded trees.  "She's killed

Sky Rumson.  Took his power.  Now she's going to Collinwood."

"Oh my god," Julia said through numb lips.  "We have to go there now, Eliot.

They're dead if we don't."

"There's no time," Stokes said.  "She's probably there by now.  Don't you see?

There is simply no time."

Julia leaped to her feet, outrage in every angle and plane of her face and in

the snapping of her eyes.  "We can't just sit around while -"

"A binding spell," Stokes said.  "It may be our one chance left.  If I contain

Vicki and her powers in a binding field, we may be able to reach her before she

-"

Every light in the house went out as the lightbulbs burst, one by one.

The door to Stokes' cottage slammed open, and Angelique walked in.  Her face

was calm and serene, and she walked briskly and with purpose. 

"Angelique," Julia whispered, surprised, and rather gratified, to find that her

heart ached for the other woman.  Who would tell her how?

Then she looked into Angelique's eyes - those wide, deceptively placid blue

seas - and realized that such a question was unnecessary now.

Angelique already knew.

"I'm so sorry," Barnabas whispered.  "Angelique, please believe me.  If I

could've done anything to stop her -"

She said nothing.  She merely moved forward, and Julia wondered if she wasn't

in shock.  She crossed the room in that efficient and yet strangely dreamlike

manner.  Her eyes seemed to focus for a moment, and settled on Stokes.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.  He knew what she had come for.

"No," he managed to croak.

She smiled a little, and held out her hands.  "Give me the Mask," she said.

"Give me the Mask of Ba'al."

10

Elizabeth's face was blanched white, and her fingers clutched nervously at the

pearls around her neck.  She swallowed once, convulsively, and said,

"V-Victoria?"

"Once upon a time," Vicki said, and grinned her piranha-grin.  "That's what

your sister named me.  After my father." Elizabeth gasped; Vicki trilled gay

laughter.  David and Carolyn exchanged confused glances.  "But Louise is dead,

and so is Victor Fenn-Gibbon.  I'm the only one that matters now, Elizabeth."

She sneered.  "Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, so mighty, so proud.  Doesn't really

matter that, once upon a time, you were a common murderess, but thanks to me

you don't have to worry about that any longer.  And what thanks do I get?  What

thanks do I ever get?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Liz said, "but Vicki - please - can't

we just sit down for a moment and talk this over?"

"What exactly do you want to talk about?" Vicki asked.  "Could it be your

disgusting decision to hand me over to an orphanage?  Or no, wait, it must be

your idiotic insistence on hiring me back to work as a governess - to work as

hired help, as slave labor - to my own cousin.  Yes, that must be it.  How you

brought me back but kept me from knowing my own family.  How you lied to me for

a year, even after I saved all your sorry asses!" She was shrieking now, and

her voice had taken on that unholy reverberation again; around them, every

window on the ground level blew out, coughing their glass onto the lawn.  Black

energy began to crackle between Vicki's fingers.  "No one's here to save you

now," she said in a low, throaty purr.  "Just me, and I think my days as hired

help are over."

"Vicki please," Liz said.  "We love you.  We all love you."

"Oh please," Vicki said, disgust flashing in her inhuman eyes.  "You love me so

much you paid me to work for you.  What consideration!  Now that's the sort of

familial loving I lacked all those years I spent in the orphanage.  Golly, I'm

sorry I missed out!"

"I did what I had to do," Liz said, and behind her, Carolyn sucked in her

breath.  Vicki glared at her.  "I'm sorry you feel this way, Victoria, and I'm

sorry for whatever part I may have played in hurting you, but you have to

understand, I did it -"

"- for my own good," Vicki sneered.  "I've heard that one before.  It couldn't

possibly be because you were embarrassed, oh no, heaven forbid!  It simply

wouldn't do to have the Collins name dragged through the mud, because we all

know how that never happens!  No one's ever been cursed to become a vampire, or

a werewolf, or married their own grandmother, or killed their wife, or stole,

or cheated, or ...  should I go on?  Because I think that might take awhile."

"What happened to you?" Liz whispered.  "Where's the Vicki that I love?"

"This is getting excruciatingly dull," Vicki said.  She seemed taller and

thinner than ever; a gaunt, starving scarecrow with ivory skin and black,

bulging eyes.  Her teeth jutted from her mouth like knitting needles.  Her eyes ranged over the three frightened sheep before her. "Eeny meeny miney mo," she incanted, lobbing her index finger, tipped with a

wicked bony claw, back and forth, back and forth.  After a moment she threw up

both her hands, and said, "Ah, dammit, why waste my time.  I'll start with the

littlest bastard.  C'mere, Davie.  Vicki's got a present for you."

David back up into Carolyn, who held him firmly by the shoulders.  "Leave me

alone!" he cried, his voice frightened but defiant.  "You're not Vicki, you're

not!  You're not!"

For a moment, the Vicki-thing faltered, then she smiled and cooed, "Of course I

am.  I'm everything Victoria Winters was, and more.  Much, much more.  This is

a great privilege for you, boy, a great privilege indeed.  It's a shame you

won't have more time to bask in my greatness before I kill you, because

honestly -"

"Vicki," Quentin Collins said from the doorway, and Vicki froze, then turned

slowly to face him.

"Darling," she purred.  "How nice.  My little party is just beginning."

Quentin stared at her, then shook his head sadly.  "Oh Vicki," he whispered.

"What's happened to you?"

"A radical makeover," she laughed.  "Darling, can't you tell?  Surely you of

all people should be able to feel my power.  It's coursing through me; I feel

more alive than I ever have in all my life.  Because now I finally understand.

I know why I'm here.  I know what I've got to do.  I saved this miserable

family time and time again, but I was just waiting.  Biding my time until I was

strong enough.  And now I am.  Powerful enough to destroy you all myself." The

energy shot from her fingers before the words were out of her mouth, and it

struck Quentin and knocked him up against the wall.  He sank down it, blinking

blearily, and then tried to stand up.  Behind him, Roger froze, paralyzed, the

snifter still in his hand.

"Please don't hurt us," Carolyn whimpered.

"The Collins family has spent generations of their time destroying the lives of

other people," Vicki said.  "This is payback, and it's a bitch."

"He was my son too," Quentin said through what felt like a mouth full of blood.

 Vicki looked back at him, and he saw - or thought he saw - a flash of

uncertainty and desperate unhappiness.  Then it was gone, if it had ever really

been there, and Vicki was staring at him with those incurious shark's eyes.

"Jeb was my son too, Vicki.  Do you think I didn't want to love him?  I can't

help it.  I'm his father."

Those terrible black eyes narrowed, and she spat, "You have no idea what I'm

feeling, Quentin.  He wasn't a part of you.  He didn't grow inside of you.  He

didn't need you to survive.  He was all I really had in this world.  He was a

part of me, so don't you dare try to sell me your platitudes.  Don't give me

your bullshit anymore, Quentin Collins.  Not ever again." Her mouth trembled

like a little girl's, and she said in a small voice far less impressive than

the demonic warble that had been issuing from her mouth since her

transformation, "He was all I had."

"That isn't true," Quentin said, and shook his shaggy head.  "You had me."

"Did I?" Vicki purred with deliberate sweetness.  The little girl was gone in

the blink of an eye.  "Did I really?  What about Jenny?  Or Beth?  Or even

Angelique?  You've used women for over a century Quentin, and then spit them

out in the morning.  How was I supposed to know that you wouldn't grow tired of

me one day and throw me aside like every other girl ever?" She shook her long

white tresses with disgust.  "You're still a little boy, after all these years.

You haven't changed.  You're just like the rest of the Collinses." She beamed.

"But don't worry.  I'll let you watch while I kill them all.  Just so you can

have an idea - just an idea, now - of what I'm going to do to you.  And to

Barnabas.  And to Julia.  And to Angelique.  And to anyone else that dares to

get in my way." She turned back to David, and her hands contorted.  The black

energy crackled and sang.  "Just like this little whelp," she hissed, and

lifted her hands -

"STOP!" Quentin roared; the energy dissipated, and Vicki turned to face him

furiously.

"You can't save him," Vicki said.  "He's doomed.  They're all doomed.  The

future of the Collins family rests with David Collins.  Once he's gone, the

line will be ended.  The curse on this place will be lifted.  And then I can

ascend to a higher plane." Her eyelids closed, blessedly hiding those mad black

orbs for just a moment as she smiled beatifically.  "The black garden," she

sighed, "where I am the queen." She opened her eyes, and they glowed with that

hellish black light, then she turned back to David, opened her hands, the black

power crackled, Quentin opened his mouth to scream -

And even as it flew it began to fade away, and what little remain bounced off

David harmlessly.

Vicki stared open-mouthed, then whipped around furiously to glare at Quentin.

His mouth was agape with shock and disbelief, just like the others.  "I don't

know how you did that," she hissed, her voice cheated and accusing and buzzing

furiously like a wasp, "but it doesn't matter.  You can't stop me for long.

And just for trying -" She threw out her hands again, and Quentin ducked, but

he needn't have minded.  The crackling death that flew through the air wasn't

for him.

It enveloped Roger Collins instead.

Roger had a moment to contemplate the snifter as it exploded in his hands.  A

breath later and he joined it.  David, Carolyn, Elizabeth, Quentin; staring,

mouths agape; pain and horror and sorrow; and a wound opened, bleeding despair,

that would never close; as they watched the flesh blow back from his bones,

leaving the skeleton, which dissolved under the onslaught of Vicki's dark power.

After a second nothing earthly remained of Roger Collins. 

For a moment no one said a word.  Even Vicki seemed startled.  They remained in

their little tableau, frozen, for nearly three seconds before anyone moved. 

And then:

"Vicki," Quentin said, and covered his face with his hands.  "Oh god.  Oh

Vicki."

11

The Dark Spirit had been whispering to her since she left Widow's Hill, for the

first time since she had become a vampire, almost a year ago.  She had caught

only a glimpse of him through the shades of bleeding red that had enveloped the

world in the aftermath of Sky's destruction, but she recognized him.  A flash

of horn; a glint of one enormous orange eye.  "Oh my angel," he purred in her

ear, "oh my darling one, I'm so sorry you had to see that, sorry, sorry my

darling one, but now you know."

She didn't respond.  Her mouth felt iced over.  Her fingers dangled limply from

her hands.

"Now you know what the human world is like.  You had to learn; that's why

Nicholas made you human.  At my command.  Why else would I allow it?  You

needed to appreciate your powers, angel of mine.  And now I believe that you

truly do."

She remembered how, in 1897, she had craved the magic, desired it more than any

mortal desired any number of inane and impotent drugs; and the magic, as she

had always been taught, came from the Dark One.

The source of my power is me.

Nicholas had laughed at her when she'd told him that.  The Dark One too.  He

had sustained her existence, allowed her to return from death ...  but didn't

she give him form, ultimately?  Without her will, without her imagination, he

was nothing but a harmless irritant, a gnat. 

The source of my power

"You need me, angel.  Let me help you.  Let me help you avenge him."

is me.

She felt it begin to glow inside herself, hot, burning in the pit of her

stomach and the folds of her sex; blazing in her fingertips, roiling in her

blood; she felt the moment when her eyes begin to darken.  The moment that the

air around her froze and crystallized.

And she felt something inside the Dark Spirit.  Something she'd never felt

before.

Fear.

"Get away from here," she said, and her voice was toneless and dead.  "Leave me

alone."

"Angel, I -"

"Can you bring him back?"

"You know the spells -"

"Can you bring him back the way that he was?  Without some terrible price?  Can

he come back and not be a zombie or a vampire or a werewolf?  Can Sky come back

to me the way -" She felt the emotion begin to bubble to the surface, and she

quashed it immediately.  Emotion, as Nicholas had once told her, was useless.

A true witch felt nothing. 

"You know that I cannot."

"Then it is done."

"Angel -"

"IT IS DONE!" she roared, and the power flared up inside her, and the Dark

Spirit screamed as it was assailed by a power alien to itself, screamed as it

was rent and shredded and driven, not destroyed, but begging, without form or

voice, far away.

When she approached Stokes' cottage, she realized that the power had faded away

almost entirely, leaving her weak and trembling in the knees.  Nevertheless,

the door to the cottage slammed open of its own accord, and the lightbulbs in

all the lamps and above the door exploded simultaneously, showering glass over

the others in the room.  Angelique didn't see them.  She saw only the box on

the table.  The lead-lined box that Stokes had procured to contain the Mask of

Ba'al.

The Mask of Ba'al.

The source of my power is -

Too late for that.  Too late for anything, for any moralizing, for any debate.

Sky was dead.  The only man who had ever truly loved her, without a price,

without any arm-twisting.  And now he was dead.  And he would never return.

Why shouldn't she be dead too?

It made everything else seem a little less important.  Things like her soul, so

newly acquired, and what would become of it after -

"I'm so sorry," she heard Barnabas whisper.  "Angelique, please believe me.  If

I could've done anything to stop her -"

Didn't matter now.  Not even Barnabas mattered, and hadn't he once been the

center of her universe?

Never again.

She looked at Stokes with her flat, dead eyes, and said, "Give me the Mask.

Give me the Mask of Ba'al."

Stokes merely shook his head sadly.  "You know that I can't," he said.

"Angelique, nothing is worth that.  You know what you stand to lose if you don

the Mask.  It will corrupt you.  That's what it does.  It gives ...  but it

takes away too."

"Please Angelique," Julia said, "you've come so far -"

She said nothing.  Instead she held out her hand, and felt the last of her own

power spark forward, and Professor Stokes was shoved out of her way.  He

stumbled to the floor with a cry, but she was already past him.

"Angelique!" Barnabas roared, but even he, with all his preternatural vampire

abilities, was unable to stop her.

For a heart-stopping moment her fingers paused over the mask, tracing aimless

patterns in the air.  She held her breath; the world held its breath.

Then her fingers were brushing the icy metal, were folding around it, were

pulling it out of the box.

She glanced at it - all that power - incuriously.

"Angelique," Barnabas whispered.

And pressed it against her face.

TO BE CONTINUED ...