Shadows on the Wall Chapter 99

CHAPTER 99:  All the Pretty Little Horses

by Nicky

Voiceover by Marie Wallace:  “Collinwood, in the fall of 1968 … a time when an ancient evil begins to manifest … and the curse that has haunted the Collins family for centuries battens down, not only on everyone who lives in the great house … but on even those who dare to visit the town of Collinsport itself.”

1

            I’m going to die.  I’m going to die.

            Audrey Jones was not a native citizen of Collinsport, Maine.  This was, in fact, her first night in the tiny town she had already written off as boring beyond all measure, a place long dead, peopled by zombies.  She meant this criticism to be metaphorical, of course.

            And of course she was wrong.

 

            The thing that called itself Gerard Stiles roared like a lion, his talons digging painfully into the soft meat of her shoulders, before he threw her bodily to the ground.  She cried out as she struck the concrete sidewalk and skidded, losing several inches of her own skin as she went.

            She didn’t want to die.  She didn’t want to be a statistic.  She didn’t want to lose out now, not after all the fights her mother and grandmother had endured to overcome segregation, racism, hatred, so that Audrey wouldn’t have to fight quite so hard as they. 

            And she especially didn’t want to die at the hands of this white bastard monster.

            He was chuckling above her.  He had become merely a silhouette with sunken, glowing eyes, looming above her in the fog.  His laughter was the grinding of earthen plates, an inhuman rumble.

            He would take her soon, and then he would –

            Oh, and then he would –

            The knife!

            She had forgotten the knife!

            “Nice girl,” he cooed above her in his monster’s voice, chortling, bubbling, inhuman, “nice girl, nice nice girl –”

            She fumbled for it, rolling over, but the strands of mist were so thick and they obscured enormous chunks of the sidewalk so that she couldn’t see –

            “Nice girl,” cooing, and he was leaning down now, “nice girl, so nice –”

            The fog, the fog, the goddamned fog –

            His fingers danced against her face and she screamed her disgust and frustration –

            And then her fingers closed over the knife.

            Which she promptly seized, despite the cuts she was inflicting to her own fingers, found the handle, ignored the canine panting of the beast above her, and struck out with the knife.  No time to aim, she thought, just have to pray to Mama’s god that my aim is true –

            And then Stiles was backing away again, spitting and coughing.  And she saw quite clearly that the knife protruded from his throat.  Black spurts of something more like gruel than blood exploded from the wound and spattered against the sidewalk at her side.

            “Son of a bitch,” she said again.

            Then he backhanded her.

            She had heard the expression “I saw stars” before, but she never realized until now how truly literal that could be.  Bright white fireworks exploded in her vision; her face struck the concrete and blood exploded from her nose.  She could hear Stiles’ inhuman snarling, but it was far away, distant.  Her head felt wrapped in cotton.  I am going to die after all, she thought, but it was a distant thought, unimportant.  She thought she would fall asleep.  It would happen then, and maybe she wouldn’t notice.  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt.

            Please god, don’t let it hurt.

            Something was happening.

            She tried to sit up, coughing, and spat blood onto the sidewalk.  There was a sound now, more snarling, but a different kind, a different variety.

            Someone else there?

            She squinted through the fog.  There was someone else, someone dark, with burning eyes, swinging something heavy through the air, something that connected solidly with Gerard Stiles’ face, something that hurt him so that he backed away, screaming like a wildcat –

            Her savior glanced down at her, and she saw that he was human after all, a tall, handsome man with dark hair and burning eyes.  He held a cane that ended in some kind of animal’s head in his hand, and then he turned away from her and swung the cane again.  She saw it connect with Stiles’ face this time, ripping it open, sending black strings of gruel flying; Stiles was whimpering now, not snarling, and he fell backward, into the fog; his body twisted –

            And he was gone.  As if the fog had swallowed him up.

            Or as if he’d become the fog itself.

            Audrey touched her head.  It throbbed.  She groaned, and when she brought her hand away, it was slick and dark with her own blood.

            “Let me help you, my dear,” the man above her said, her mystery savior.  He was holding out a hand.  A ring with a dark onyx stone encircled one finger.

            She wanted to speak, but no words would come.  Instead, she held out her own hand.  He took it, and pulled her to her feet where she stood, trembling like a tree in a high wind.

            “You’re quite safe now,” he said.  His eyes saw the blood, widened; his nostrils flared and, confused, she watched as his tongue flashed out and moistened, momentarily, his lips.  Then he glanced away, as if ashamed.  “How are you feeling, my dear?”

            “My head,” she said.  Her voice sounded thick.  “Hurts.  And I’m thirsty.”

            “Thirsty,” he repeated.

            “That man.”  She glanced around, sudden terror spiking through the thick, numbing shield surrounding her.  “He was going to hurt me.  Where did he go?”

            “He’s gone now.”

            “You stopped him.”

            “I did.”  That flash of guilt again.

            She held out a hand, despite the ridiculousness of this situation, despite the terror.  “You saved my life.  I’m Audrey.”

            He took her hand.  His was icy cold.  She shivered, and he removed it, that look of desperate unhappiness flashing over him again.  “My name is Barnabas Collins.”  And he began to walk away.

            “Wait!” she cried, and rushed to him.  A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she stumbled.  He turned just in time to catch her.  “My head,” she said again.  “I don’t feel so good.”

            He didn’t pause.  “You need a doctor.  A hospital.”

            She looked up at him with wide eyes.  His had captured her again, and all fear, all her terror, felt far away, unimportant.  “Will you help me?”

            He hesitated. 

            “Please,” she said, and nestled against him.  She pressed her face against his cloak.  “Please,” she said again.

 

            When his mouth settled on her throat and his teeth slid effortlessly into her throat, she didn’t scream.  She surrendered instead, as if what was happening – as if what was going to happen to her – was inevitable, as if this were the best possible end to her life.

2

            Stupid, stupid, stupid.

            He hadn’t brought a weapon.  Well, Quentin asked himself, why would I?  There’s no moon yet; the sun is still shining brightly, isn’t scheduled to set for another hour or two …

            The creature before him bared its saber teeth and snarled.

            … and your great-great-grandson is going to tear throat out.

            “Christopher,” Quentin said, and held out his big, blameless hands, “Christopher, you don’t want to hurt me –”

            An idiotic thing to say.  Everything about Chris Jennings in this form was designed to hurt.

            To kill.

            And who made him that way?

            It was too easy to blame Julia Hoffman.

            It’s me.  It’s always been me.

 

            “I want to help you,” Quentin said.

            The thing snarled again – and then it changed.  The fur that had sprouted in dark brown hanks all over its face receded with an audible slithering sound, only to be replaced by a sheath of dark greenish-gray reptilian armor            that covered his entire body, shredding his clothing as it went and sending them to the floor of the cabin in tattered rags.  Its mouth gaped widely and exploded with teeth like eight inch darning needles.  It raised its hands, and as Quentin watched, horrified, the fingers fused into a single chitinous digit, like the claw of a lobster.  These it snapped menacingly, cutting the air in front of his face and making snapping sounds, like castanets.

            “Offer not accepted, I guess,” Quentin said gloomily.  “Hell.”

3

            Cassandra Blair Collins – she was still working toward accepting that identity again, trying to convince herself that it was real, that she was real, that, possibly, none of those months with Sky had actually happened – stood amidst the tombstones in Eagle Hill Cemetery.  It wasn’t her favorite place in the world, obviously, and she wasn’t here by choice, but there was work to be done.  There was, she thought wearily, always work to be done.

            I have to find it.

            The moonlight glanced off the tombstones and created pools of shadows throughout the deserted graveyard.  Had she been mortal, Cassandra figured she might be deeply unsettled, perhaps even frightened.  Perhaps even terrified.  But she wasn’t a mortal any longer, was she.

            Never again.

            There was a certain melancholy attached to that thought, as there was melancholy she felt – and felt deeply – at even standing in this place again.  I knew too many of its residents, she thought, and knelt beside the first tombstone to her right.  She instantly recoiled with a furious, cheated cry.

           

            JOSETTE COLLINS, it read.  BORN 1774.  DIED 1796.  No designs or patterns, no engravings of cherubs or angels.  Just those words, nearly faded to gray nothing by two hundred years of rain and snow.

            Tears stung Cassandra’s eyes suddenly, and she bared her teeth.  It wasn’t fair that she should feel this way now, not after imbuing herself with the power of the Mask of Ba’al.  She should feel nothing, dammit.

            Only that wasn’t true.  Or possible, apparently.

            The tombstone stared at her mutely. 

            “I’m sorry,” she whispered suddenly, surprising herself.  But the words continued anyway.  “Is that what you want me to say?  I’ll say it then.  I’m sorry that you died.”

            An owl called somewhere in the woods.

            Cassandra’s brow furrowed.  “Fine,” she snarled.  “I’m sorry about my part in your death.  I’m sorry that I …”  She drew in a deep breath.  “… k-killed you.  I’m sorry.”

            No sound, not even the owl.  Just the autumn wind sighing through the branches of trees that were beginning to denude themselves of their fall splendor.

            No, it certainly wasn’t fair that she should be kneeling beside this tombstone now and actually crying real tears.  Nicholas would chide her, deriding her for her deep human feeling.  But in the wake following her embrace of her powers again and the transformations she had undergone after leaving her life and her identity as Angelique Rumson behind her, she was deeply startled to find that she did retain the trappings of humanity, human feeling, emotion:  all elements she associated with the soul.  And she had just assumed that she would lose her soul again once she placed the accursed Mask against her own face.

            Apparently she was wrong.

            “There is no such thing as the soul, you know,” a sardonic voice spoke clearly behind her, and she stiffened and rose, her hands curling into fists.

 

            The spirit of Josette Collins faced her, what Cassandra thought was probably a smile cracking across her ruined face.  One eyeball jutted forward, perched precariously at the end of a cone of flesh, the other glared from a shadowed cavern.  The teeth, set in that smile, were black and shattered.  “And I don’t accept your apology,” the thing said, and crossed its arms.

            “You aren’t Josette,” Cassandra said carefully. 

            The thing shook its russet curls that sopped with filthy water and seaweed.  “I suppose you’re right,” it sighed.  “What gave it away?”

            “We’ve met before.”

            It lifted a hand to its gaping mouth in mock-shock.  “We have?” it exclaimed.

            “You appeared to me,” Cassandra said, and tried to suppress her growing fury, “a year ago.  You showed yourself as Joshua Collins, as Josette, and as …”  She drew a ragged breath, and tasted thick, rotten earth in her mouth.  “… and as Jeremiah Collins.”

            “I rather liked that one,” the thing said, and shifted.  It showed itself now as Angelique herself, as she had appeared in that terrible winter of 1795.  She wore the simple white servant’s dress, speckled with blue flowers, and her hair was twisted into a thousand golden ringlets with a mop cap perched on top.  A hand-me-down from Ma’amselle.  Eventually she had burned it – incinerated it by hand, in the fireplace of the Old House, the morning after she and Barnabas were married.  “But he wasn’t nearly as affecting as appearing like this.  How does it make you feel to see yourself like this, Angelique?  Or is it Cassandra now?  Miranda, perhaps?  It’s always so hard to keep up.”

            “You are the Enemy,” Cassandra said.

            “I suppose you’re right.  I am an enemy,” and it smirked at her with her own face.  “But there will be more.  There are always more, my dear, you know that.  An endless army.  Chop the head off the hydra, and what do you have?”

            “I,” Cassandra declared, with more surety than she really felt, “am going to destroy you.”

            “Oh, I don’t think you will.  In this form I am not a tangible entity.  Or,” and it chuckled, “not always.”

            “Stop looking like that.”

 

            “Does it disturb you?  I am sorry.  I assumed you would have bolstered your self esteem by now.”  It idly toyed with one of its ringlets.  “What with your being one of the most powerful entities in the universe.  Or the most powerful entity.”

            Her smile grew wintery.  “Flattery,” she said, “will get you nowhere.”

            “And yet your self esteem continues to decline.”  It clucked its tongue at her.  “Poor, misunderstood Cassandra.  Don’t you know that you will always be this pathetic, drab girl you see before you?  A servant, mud-spattered, lowly?  You can marry all the Collinses you want, all the millionaires you can find, and you will always be nothing but a maid.”

            Cassandra thrust forward her right hand which flared suddenly with electric blue witchfire.  “Avaunt,” she spat, and threw it.

            But the mocking laughter of the Enemy – her own laughter, shattering, chiming, wicked – echoed in her ears even after it faded and was gone.

            The witch stood, panting, her head bowed.  A few blue sparks continued to dance against her fingertips, then fell into the night-black grass and vanished. 

            A sob grew in her chest.  After a moment it faded away, unvoiced.

            She lifted her head.  Her eyes were icy, blue and clear.  Her teeth were bared in a snarl.  “You have not won,” she said through gritted teeth.  “Whatever you are.  Enemy, creature, beast.  And you will fail.  Hear me, and hear me well.  You will –”

            Movement out of the corner of her eye froze the words in her mouth.  She whirled around, and her eyes widened.

            “You!” she gasped.

4

            Julia sat in the drawing room of the Old House, glancing up every few moments when a distant warning rumble of thunder met her ears, but otherwise she remained totally engrossed in the book she had finally discovered, after hours of searching, in the attic.  It was dusty, both the covers hung in flaps unless she pressed the book carefully, and some of the pages were torn and others were missing completely.  But it was, she was certain, the book she was looking for.

           

            THE DIARY OF FLORA COLLINS, the book proclaimed on the first page, NOVELIST AND HISTORIAN.  Oh yes, she thought at the time; when she was just Julia Hoffman, on a sabbatical from her practice at Windcliff to write a history of the Collins family, Elizabeth told her that one of her ancestors had been a “lady novelist” sometime in the mid-nineteenth century.  Turns out, Julia had just discovered, Flora was particularly active from 1830-1840, at which point she had come to live at Collinwood for a time.

            And brought with her two people.  At least one of them was essential to Julia’s quest.

            Flora, Julia was learning, had been a self-proclaimed mystic, a woman deeply engaged in the occult, an attendee of séances and sabbats (when she could find them).  The woman she brought with her was a psychic and dance-hall performer named Leticia Faye.  The man was also a psychic, but he was no performer.

            His name was Gerard Stiles.

            Even the man’s name sent literal chills down Julia’s spine.  She could still remember the smell of him, sour, like curdled milk, but dark too, as if something moldered and decayed into soft blackness just beneath his perfect skin.  She closed her eyes now and let the sound of the thunder roll over her, and tried not to recall the way his fingers had pressed into her throat, crushing her windpipe and trachea, pressing … pressing …

           

            “No,” she whispered, and rose too quickly from the chair.  A wave of darkness passed over her and the book fell to the floor with a clatter.

            Gerard Stiles.

           

            He was here somewhere; she felt it was true.  And he was dead.  He’d been dead for a long time.  “But he’s still a tool of the Enemy,” she said aloud.

             Willie Loomis entered the room with a feather duster.  “You say something, Julia?” he asked as he ran the feathers over the bookcase.

            “No, Willie,” she replied, then uttered a papery, unconvincing little chuckle.  She knelt down and retrieved the book.  “I just dropped this.”

           

            “You should oughtta be careful with them books,” Willie said, and shook a finger at her.  “Barnabas won’t like it if you hurt ‘em.”

           

            “I’ll be careful.  I promise.”  She wanted to laugh, but she knew it would hurt his feelings.  Willie took his job as caretaker of the Old House – and unofficial caretaker of Barnabas Collins – very seriously, especially since Barnabas had returned from Parallel Time.  Willie had publicly declared that he wasn’t letting Barnabas out of his sight again.

            So where was he right now?

            Julia’s eyes squinted.  That was a very good question.  She had thought that he was upstairs, packing up the last of Angelique’s belongings out of Josette’s room, but she realized suddenly that the witch herself had swept by her an hour or so ago and left the house without a word.  And Julia had been so engrossed in her research that she hadn’t paid much attention, much less taken any offense. 

             So where is Barnabas?

            “Willie,” Julia said carefully.  “Have you seen much of Barnabas since he … since he came back?”

            Willie stopped dusting and put one hand on his hip.  “That’s a good question.”  She watched him thinking as hard as he could, eyes lifted heavenward, teeth firmly planted in his lower lip.  She again resisted the urge to laugh.  “Jeez,” he said at last, “I guess I ain’t sure.”  He frowned, and his tone became heavy with concern.  “Why, Julia?  You think he’s …”  His tongue ran out and flashed across his lips.  “You think he’s going back to the way he used to be?  Even with them injections?”

            The injections weren’t having any real effect, as far as she could tell.  And there was also the problem of Chris Jennings, who had registered a quite extreme side effect as a result of her treatment for his lycanthropy.  She didn’t want that to happen to Barnabas.

            But if the thing she observed in the future, the thing Barnabas had become … if that was any indication of her treatments …

            “I … don’t know,” she admitted.  “I’m worried about him.”

            “Yeah,” Willie said quietly.  “Me too.”

            Which was, of course, when the doors of the Old House flew open.  Barnabas had kicked them because his arms were full.  And what they were full of was a girl, a beautiful young woman they had never seen before with her head flung back and her neck running red with blood that flowed from the two familiar puncture wounds.

            Barnabas’ face was a mask of misery.

            And guilt.  Oh, the guilt.  She recognized that expression all too well.

            “Oh, Barnabas,” Willie said, shaking his head.

            “Help me, Julia,” Barnabas said, voice breaking.  “Help her.”

 

5

            The werewolf – not that there was anything particular lupine about the monstrosity attacking him, not anything Quentin could observe – threw him to the ground and proceeded to mount him, its mouth snapping at his throat.  Quentin threw his arms up in an immediate warding-off gesture, but the strength of the thing was such that he knew he couldn’t hold it off for long.

            “Christopher,” Quentin managed to grunt, but he knew that his great-grandson was beyond understanding.  “Christopher, for god’s sake –”

            If he’d been thinking, Quentin thought desultorily, he would have brought along Barnabas’ silver-headed cane.  Then he remembered what Julia told him:  the werewolf-creature Christopher was evolving into exhibited not an iota of fear when confronted with silver.  Music, he remembered; Josette’s music box soothed him the last time.

            He didn’t have any music now.

            Quentin brought his knee up with savage strength, and grunted as it connected solidly with the jaw of the beast.  It roared its fury, but rolled off him.  Quentin took the opportunity to leap to his feet.  He wiped the sheen of sweat that collected on his forehead off with the back of his arm, then squared off against the beast, watching it warily.  “Christopher,” he said, as softly as he could manage, “hey, come on.  It’s me.”

            A smaller mouth, absurdly, attached to some kind of dark green stalk, emerged from the gaping hole in the monster’s face, lined with tiny, serrated fangs, and snapped at the air, squealing like a tiny pig as it did.

            “You have got to be kidding me,” Quentin groaned.

            The beast prepared to leap again …

            … and the air between them shimmered.

            Hushabye, don’t you cry, go to sleep my little baby …

            The air was alive with dancing crystals, what Quentin remembered seeing in the air on particularly chilly mornings as a boy. 

            A shape was taking form.

            The werewolfthing paused; the wee fanged mouth retreated inside its real mouth.

            … when you wake, you will find …

            “Jenny?” Quentin whispered.

 

            She appeared then, and it was his dear, dead wife, recently returned from the dead, and then summarily brought back to that mysterious land by her hag-sister Magda.  She was beautiful now, corporeal, Jenny Rakosi Collins, or so it seemed; her titian flame-hair was pulled back and tamed behind her head; her eyes glowed with motherly warmth.  “… all the pretty little horses,” she sang softly. 

            The werebeast whimpered and shrank back.  The lizard-plate retreated, but not completely; coils of hair like clocksprings sprang from between the cracks; its eyes were yellow and slitted like a cat’s.

            “Jenny,” Quentin said.  “Oh, Jenny.”

            “This is witchcraft,” the ghost of Jenny Collins said softly, sanely.  She shook her head and clucked her tongue.  “Witchcraft.  Dark magic.  Wicked and bad.”

            “Help him,” Quentin said.  “Please, Jenny.”

            But she wouldn’t look at him; perhaps she didn’t see him; perhaps she couldn’t.  She was beautiful though, and wore a pink dress he remembered buying her in a Collinsport storefront before everything went so terribly wrong. 

            She only had eyes for Christopher.  Her great-grandson as well, Quentin realize belatedly.

            “What are you wearing, sweet thing?” Jenny sang to the creature cowering before her.  “What is this?  What is this?”

            “Be careful –” Quentin started.

            She ignored him.  One hand reached out and stroked the beast behind its misshapen ears, naked and a white-pink, like a pig’s.  The slitted eyes looked up at her with – adoration?  Shame?  Fear? 

            Love?

            “Hushabye,” she crooned, “don’t you cry, go to sleep my little baby …”

            The creature’s eyes grew heavier – heavier –

            “When you wake, you will find …”

            … closed …

           

            “All the pretty little horses.”  Jenny stopped singing.  Chris Jennings lay before her, shuddering, his body curled into a comma, covered in a sheen of sweat.  “My darling, my poor darling,” she whispered, then straightened, and turned to Quentin.  Her expression was terrible:  pity, compassion, and a righteousness that was nearly impossible to behold.  Quentin could not bring himself to look away.  “He will not transform again,” Jenny said.  “Not like that.”

            “Thank god,” Quentin whispered.

            “But he will kill again.  And again.”  Jenny’s eyes flashed.  “Unless you help him.  Take him back to Collinwood.  Collinwood is the only place where he will be safe.  Take him to Collinwood.  Take him to Collinwood.”  She was fading, an optical illusion, here and then gone, her body as substantial as smoke. 

            Pain cut at him and he reached for her before he could stop himself.  “No!” he cried as his fingers passed through her.  She smiled at him, stroked his cheek with a finger he could not feel.  “No, don’t go!  Don’t leave me!  Not again!  Not again!”

            Collinwood, Quentin.  That is where he will be safe.  Where you will both be safe.

            And she was gone.

            Quentin closed his eyes.  “Jenny,” he whispered.  “Oh, my Jenny.”  His eyes stung.  He wanted to sink to his knees and let it out, just weep until he sobbed and lost himself in the wave of the past.

            Christopher made a sound; his hand reached up and brushed at Quentin’s pants cuff.  Quentin turned to him.  The younger man’s eyes were open, golden-brown, human. 

            He is alive, Quentin.  He is alive.

            Quentin knelt beside him.

            And enclosed him in his arms.

6

            “I beg your pardon?”  The young woman, modern, chic with her pixie-clipped flaming hair and dark blue Mary Quant coat with the smart buttons, lifted her hand from the tombstone she had been examining and turned to face Cassandra.  Her face was pale; her eyes flashed.  Her teeth were white and perfect.  “Do we know each other?”

            Cassandra froze.  Her mind raced as she attempted to analyze the situation and make the best decision how to move forward.  She had met the woman before her in Parallel Time only a week or so ago, watching her die as the Quentin of that world thrust a sword through her heart, and yet, here she was:  Roxanne Drew, exactly as Angelique knew her from that other place.  Her eyes were the same, cold and incurious.  She was entirely self-possessed.  And very much alive. 

 

            “No,” Cassandra said at last.  “No, I don’t suppose that we do.”

            Roxanne drew herself up and pressed her hands into the pockets of her coat.  The wind whistled around them, the chill of autumn in its breath, and, somewhere, thunder rumbled nearby.  “And yet,” Roxanne said coldly, “you look at me so strangely.  Your eyes –”

            “I am sorry,” Cassandra said, as swiftly as she could.  “My name is Cassandra Collins.”  She extended a hand.  The other woman hesitated, then took it.  Cassandra winced.  The grip was strong … and cold.

            A seed of suspicion took root immediately in her mind.

            “Roxanne Drew,” she said, and released Cassandra’s hand.  “I’m … new to Collinsport.”

            Cassandra offered her own, most wintery smile.  “And you begin your exploration here?  At Eagle Hill?”

            “I have family here,” Roxanne replied steadily.  “Dating back several generations.”

            “Oh?  Here?”  And she moved swiftly to the tombstone Roxanne stood before, causing the woman to move unexpectedly out of her way.  The flash of – could it be panic?  yes, she thought it might be – some expression that crossed Roxanne’s face was not lost on Cassandra. 

            “You shouldn’t –” Roxanne said, but Cassandra already trained her eyes on the engraving on the stone, weathered, as Josette’s had been, by over a century of storms.

            GERARD STILES, the stone said.  1811-1841.  IN DARKNESS HE DID LIVE AND DIE.

            “Curious,” Cassandra said, and straightened, wiping her hands on her own coat.  “Was he a relative?”

            “No,” Roxanne said.  “I’m … not sure who he was.  I was just struck by that inscription.”

            “Strange.” 

            “Very.”

           

            “What brings you to Collinsport, Miss Drew?”

            “I’m an historian, Miss Collins.”

            “Missus.”

            “Pardon me.  Mrs. Collins.  I’m researching the history of Collinsport for a journal.  I’m a freelance writer, you see.”

            She’s lying.

 

            Of course she was.  The Roxanne of Parallel Time must have had a counterpart in this world, Cassandra thought, and that Roxanne had become immortal during the time she lived:  in 1840.

            Cassandra cast another glance at Gerard’s tombstone.  “What a fascinating job,” she said.

            “It pays the bills.”  Roxanne shrugged again.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Collins –”

            “Please,” she said, mustering as much girlish enthusiasm as she could, “call me Cassandra.  I hope we shall be friends, Miss Drew.”

            “I hope so too.”

            “You must come up to Collinwood.  We have an extensive library that dates back to the founding of Collinsport in 1692.”

            Roxanne raised her eyebrows.  “You seem to know a lot about this town.”

            Cassandra batted her long lashes.  “Not really.  But when you marry into the family who founded an entire area …”  She laughed delicately.  “I pick things up.”

            “Perhaps I’ll take you up on your offer.”

            “Tomorrow afternoon?”

            Something flickered again in Roxanne’s eyes.  “I’m afraid I can’t tomorrow, Cassandra.  I have … an appointment.”

            “Some other time, then.”  There was something about Roxanne’s eyes, Cassandra thought, something that separated her from her Parallel Time counterpart.  She almost knew what it was …

            I can’t look away.

            She dragged her eyes away from Roxanne’s and forced herself to smile.  “Very nice to have met you, Roxanne.”

            “Good night, Cassandra.”

            Had Cassandra remained in the cemetery, she would have seen the pleasant, polite smile faded from Roxanne’s face, to be replaced instead by an expression that was nearly vulpine, predatory.  Her lips parted, and her perfect teeth glistened in the moonlight just before the stormclouds moved in and sheathed Eagle Hill Cemetery in darkness.

            Roxanne moved away from Gerard’s tombstone, a moue of disdain crossing her face like a shadow.  She turned her back on it, then raised both her arms into the air.  Her voice rang across the cemetery, strong and clear.  “I call upon a spirit from the darkness beyond.  My voice will pierce the veil, and my powers will draw you forth like a writhing mist from the pit of forgotten shadows.”  A wind rose, protesting, whining, ruffling her short red hair.  Her eyes narrowed; her teeth gnashed together with the force of her will.  “Return to this world which has known you – return, for there is an Enemy in our midst, and only your power is strong enough to combat it!”  Showers of golden leaves fell from the trees above her head; thunder cracked nearby, and the earth heaved beneath her feet.  Roxanne stood her ground; the forces she battled, though, took their toll.  Her jaw clenched; her skin twisted over the muscles as her veins pulsed and bulged; still, she stood her ground.  “You will return this night,” she commanded, and her voice rose over the shriek of the spectral wind.  “You will return as I have commanded that you do!”

            Her eyes stung like mad.  She knew that blood trickled from all four corners of her eyes and was even now staining her cheeks.  Her head throbbed, but that was part of it.  The summoning.  To draw back into this world a force so great, so terrible, she had made many sacrifices, dreadful, unspeakable.  The pain she felt, lancing her brain, impaling her heart, was nothing beside those sacrifices. 

            “Return!” she cried, and thunder drowned out her words, “In the name of the seven plagues, and of the false prophet, and of the beast – in the name of every evil spirit, and obedient only to you – I evoke you – appear to me!  Now!  Return, return, return!”

            And the earth quaked, cracking, and Roxanne’s eyes blazed with power, purpose, and glory; the earth cracked, belched a stream of white-hot steam into the autumnal air, released a sulfurous odor …

            … and a figure.

            Thick.  Slumped.  The skin running like tallow … slippery … but now solidifying, growing stronger –

            It made a sound.  It lifted its shaggy head.

            “You have returned,” Roxanne breathed. 

            The figure, shivering, watched her, unblinking.

            It raised one hand.

            “Wait!” she cried.  “Before you destroy me, allow me to show you the totem that I bear!”

            It froze, said nothing, but continued to watch her, enormous eyes glaring balefully.

She opened her palm and revealed a gaudy piece of jewelry that glittered and flashed with inner fire.

Slowly … slowly … it lowered its hand.

Roxanne Drew began to smile.

 

TO BE CONTINUED ...