Shadows on the Wall Chapter 104

CHAPTER 104:  Admissions

Voiceover by Alexandra Moltke: “The dark shadows that haunt the great estate of Collinwood grow ever thicker … and the shadows conceal secrets, as they have always done … but as, one by one, the shadows part and the secrets are revealed, will Barnabas Collins, his friends, and his family find strength …or at the mercy of their enemies?”

1

 

“Don’t you know me?” the Petofi-thing implored.  “My darling, my daughter, don’t you know me?”

            Alex froze, the stake still piercing the air.  “What?” she whispered.  “What did you call me?”

            The basement room of the house by the sea stank of gore, black rot, death.  A coffin gaped open in the far corner; a terrified young man hung suspended by invisible hands a good five feet off the air, and two wounds on his neck leaked copious, unchecked amounts of blood; the creature that had once called itself Count Petofi, leader of the Leviathans, dispatched first by Victoria Winters and again by the witch Angelique, now tried to collect itself, but found it a challenging prospect at best; and, against the wall, the vampire Roxanne Drew dragged herself, trembling uncontrollably, to her feet.  And Alexandra March, who could be the very twin of that same Victoria Winters who so terrified the Count, stood before them with a stake in her hand and an expression of utter astonishment on her face.

            “You are my daughter,” Petofi croaked.  “You have come back to me, just as I knew you would.  I can taste your power, my dear, as I always could before.  Why don’t you recognize me?”

            “Impossible,” Alex whispered.  “You can’t be my father … I don’t … you … you thing, you can’t possibly –”

            Roxanne, having existed happily as a vampire since one dark night in 1840, was no fool.  She saw her opportunity and she took it, springing forward with her claws drawn.  She shrieked, the ear-rending sound of an enormous bat.  Her tactic worked.  Alex was shaken, off her guard, and so took the full weight of the undead woman as Roxanne slammed into her with the force of a mack truck.  Both struck the ground hard, then rolled together.  The stake Alexandra clutched flew out of her hand and disappeared into the shadows.

 

            Roxanne grinned, showing her terrible fangs.  She had clambered atop her enemy and now held her down, her hands, with fingers grown long and freakish, wrapped around Alex’s throat.  She bore down, and Alex’s eyes popped.

            “Wait!” Petofi cried.

            Roxanne paused, and glared at him over her shoulder.  “Don’t interfere,” she snarled.  “This bitch was going to kill me.”

            “She is my daughter.  You must let her live.”

            Alex’s tongue was protruding from her lips, which began to lighten to an unpleasant blue.

            “She’ll try to kill me again,” Roxanne said, and leaned forward so that her weight drove her thumbs deeper into the meat of Alex’s throat.  “No dice.”

            “Unless you let her go,” Petofi thundered, “I will not help you.”  Roxanne froze.  “And you need my help, don’t you.  You can’t bring this new one back alone.”

            Alex’s eyes had rolled up to their whites.  She began to gurgle. 

            “Can you.”  His voice grated, impossible to ignore.  His eyes burned.

            Roxanne glared back at him, and for a moment they were both checked.  Then, “Dammit,” she spat, and leaped off of Alexandra March.  Human in appearance, she dusted herself off and strode over to the Count.  “You owe me your life, ‘Excellency,’” she said mockingly.  “Remember that.”

            “We mustn’t bicker, my dear Roxanne.  You have indeed brought me back from the dark borderline of death, and you have helped restore me as much as you could.  But you still require the services of this.”  And he held aloft his Hand, which glowed with spectral energy. 

 

            Roxanne bared her teeth.  “You win, Petofi,” she said.  “We must work together.  I’ve explained my reasons.  You’ve agreed.  We cannot afford to bicker over …”  And she glanced over at the unconscious woman behind them.  “… mortal animals.”

            “Whatever else she is, that girl is hardly mortal.”

            “I believe you.  She knocked me across the room with no effort at all.  What is she?”

            The Petofi-thing grinned.  “The daughter of Petofi, who else?”

            “I think you’re wrong about that.  Isn’t Victoria Winters dead?”

            “This is not Victoria Winters.”

            Roxanne raised an eyebrow. 

            “You will see in time, my dear.  All secrets will be revealed to you, I promise.”

            “We are on the same side,” Roxanne said carefully, “are we not?”

            Petofi’s chuckle was monstrous.  “For now, my dear Roxanne.  For now.  But there are many sides.  Always, so many sides.  Remember that.  Remember it well.”

2

 

            Cassandra collapsed to the foyer floor, screaming as the fire consumed her.  This is not possible, the part of her that was still capable of thinking told her; you are all-powerful, you contain all the magic of the Mask of Ba’al, you are a god, you you you –

            But she could smell herself burning.  The polyester from the Mary Quant, her hair sizzling, her flesh frying –

            Elizabeth Collins Stoddard stood over her, smiling crazily.  “Burn witch,” she said.  “Burn, burn, burn!”

           

            Because I never grow tired of hearing that, Cassandra thought wearily, then brightened for a moment, realizing that she could still think at all.  Which meant she wasn’t beaten, no matter what Nicholas said, or what the Enemy – for surely it had to be the Enemy behind this momentary setback – no matter what the Enemy thought. 

            She reached inside herself and found that old familiar spark, her powers, but now so heightened after the treatment administered her by the Mask of Ba’al.  She smiled, even though her lips were burned away, because she was a god, and the Enemy would feel the taste of her wrath soon enough.

           

            Her smile froze.

            Nothing happened.  Her skin did not rejuvenate, her hair did not return, and her clothes continued to stink and smolder.  She faltered, and for the first time in a long time, felt an icy spear of real fright pierce her heart.  This isn’t possible, she thought, not possible …

 

            “A bientot, my dear,” Nicholas whispered in her ear, which had already dissolved under the onslaught of Elizabeth’s fire so that it was now nothing but a hole in the rapidly dwindling skin and muscle tissue surrounding her skull.  “Maybe I’ll see you in hell after all.  Perhaps you’ll keep – dare I say? – a seat warm for me.”  And he laughed, and that was when Cassandra began to scream.

            The front doors of Collinwood flew open at that moment.  “Mother!” Carolyn Stoddard shrieked.  “My god, what are you doing?”

            “Stay out of this, darling,” Elizabeth said grimly.  Her eyes still danced with mad points of light, and her smile was grim and sharp.  “She’s had this coming for a long time, believe me.”

            “Cassandra,” Carolyn whispered, then dropped beside the woman who screamed like a rabbit in a snare, even as the flames consuming her grew ever brighter, ever hotter. 

            “Stay away from her,” Elizabeth commanded, but Carolyn ignored her, and held out both her hands over the blazing witch before her. 

            “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered, suddenly frightened, and pulled her hands away.  But Cassandra looked up at her in that moment, her eyes still enormous and blue, the only part of her untouched by the flames, and they were full of fear and despair.  Carolyn, hesitating, was overcome by a sudden rush of images – Angelique, her face a mask of passion and hatred, blood leaking from a wound in her chest, thrust out a hand at the man who murdered her, and her mouth writhed as she uttered the curse that would damn them all; Miranda, draining the lifeforce from little Jamison Collins to sustain herself, giggling as she did so like a madwoman; Angelique, her hair black as pitch, her eyes empty holes, summoning the tide of power that destroyed Victoria Winters before their eyes – but she forced them back.  I can do this, she thought; everyone deserves a second chance; and held out her hands.

 

            Take my power, she thought, praying that Cassandra would hear her somehow.  Take it.  I don’t have much, but there should be enough to help you.  Enough to beat this thing back.  Go ahead.  Take it.

            Cassandra’s big blue eyes grew even wider, and in that moment Carolyn felt an invisible hand – no, not a hand; what invaded her was too big, too inhuman to be any kind of hand – thrust inside her chest and seize her heart.  She reared backwards and screamed, unable to help herself, as she felt energy begin to run out of her, a hideous draining sensation, as if the life were pouring out of her.

            “No!” Elizabeth screamed, and beside her, the figure of Jamison Collins, glaring balefully, flickered into existence, and screamed, “No!” alongside his daughter.

            Because the flames were disappearing.  They shrank back, growing smaller, and as they faded, Cassandra’s flesh began to reknit itself, her hair grew back into a midnight helmet, even her beautiful red dress reclaimed its existence.  Finally she drew back, and Carolyn collapsed beside her, gasping like a fish.  Her face was pale and her eyes were bulging.

            Cassandra leaped to her feet, and spun back.  “That,” she snarled, “was absolutely uncalled for.”

            Jamison’s mouth twisted and writhed.  You’ll be sorry yet, it said silently, already fading away, each one of you, you’ll be sorry, I promise you that …

            But it was gone, and Elizabeth uttered one tortured scream, then dropped to her knees, fell over onto her side, and sank into unconsciousness.

            Cassandra stood over her, shaking her head.  “I thought she had more gumption in her than that,” she said.

            Carolyn moaned behind her, and Cassandra spun around.

            The young blonde woman looked up into Cassandra’s impassive face, her own twisted with pain and fear.  “Cassandra?” she whispered.

 

            Then Cassandra extended her hand again, and Carolyn was flooded with a sense of power, and she rose into the air unaided.  The feeling was nearly indescribable:  joy, warmth, safety, like nothing she’d felt since before Tony died, when he would hold her tightly after they finished making love.  For the first time since her freedom from the Danielle-thing, the thought of Tony didn’t bring a spike of nearly unbearable pain.  Perhaps it was whatever Cassandra was doing to her, but Carolyn thought better.  She thought that she was healing.  Finally, finally healing.  And it was glorious.

            Then it was over, and she floated slowly back down to the floor of the foyer, gasping.  “My god,” she whispered.  “Cassandra, my god!”

            “Not really,” the other woman laughed quietly.  She sobered suddenly.  “But I have you to thank for my life, Carolyn, and I will never forget this.  No, I will never forget it.  As long as either of us lives.”

            “I couldn’t just let you die,” Carolyn said in a small voice.  “My mother …”  Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew wide with horror.  “My mother!” she exclaimed, and ran to the place where Elizabeth lay, still unconscious.

            “We must have a conversation with your mother,” Cassandra said, unable to prevent the ice from filtering into her voice, but Carolyn didn’t seem to notice.  She was lightly patting Elizabeth’s cheeks, rubbing her wrists, and whispering her mother’s name.

            Cassandra rolled her eyes.  She simply couldn’t help herself.  Humans, she thought with an inner sniff of disdain, but then she remembered the sound of Nicholas’ laughter, and she knelt beside Carolyn, raised one finger, and said, “Let me.”  A brief burst of aqua witchfire appeared at the end of her finger and illuminated Elizabeth’s waxen features.  After a moment of anxious watching on Carolyn’s part, Elizabeth’s eyes began to flutter.  “Carolyn?” she whispered, and took her daughter’s hand.

            “Welcome back, Mrs. Stoddard,” Cassandra said amiably, offering the matriarch of Collinwood her biggest, brightest smile.  “We thought we lost you for a moment.  You fainted, you see, and –”

            “I know what happened to me,” Elizabeth snarled suddenly, retreating into Carolyn’s arms, “and I know who was responsible … you … you witch!”

3

 

            Barnabas turned the cane in his hand over, then over again, then over again.  The wolf head stared up at him, panting in its eternal fashion, its silvery eyes fixed on his.  The sun still rode the heavens outside, but here in Josette’s room, with the windows firmly covered by thick drapes over a hundred years old, he could sit with Julia and not burn to a crisp.  “I owe you so much,” he said suddenly, and Julia blinked.

            “Don’t say that,” she murmured, blushing.  “I promised to save you, Barnabas.  I keep my promises.”

            “You’ve risked your life for me,” he said, suddenly finding the words terribly difficult to string together, “so often.  I owe you my existence, Julia.  And I feel that I haven’t said ‘thank you’ nearly enough.”

            Her lips trembled into a half-smile.  “What’s brought this on now?” she said hesitantly. 

            “I fear,” he said, “I very much fear that we may not be able to succeed in our fight against the Enemy.”

            “Barnabas,” she said, but he held up a finger.

            “Your story of the future continues to trouble me,” he said.  “My … transformation.  The Enemy’s plan.  All the … all the death that is to come.”  Your own, he wanted to say, but wouldn’t allow the words to form on his lips.  “Ever since Audrey was … transformed, I’ve been pondering the events that will transpire here.  How they will occur … how the knowledge of what you went through will affect the future this time around.  And I’m afraid, Julia.  Terribly, terribly afraid.”

            She took a breath.  “We’ve faced danger before …”

 

            “Never like this,” he said with a quick shake of his head.  “You can feel it too, can’t you.”

            She hesitated, then nodded.  “Yes,” she admitted with a sigh, “yes, I suppose I can.”

           

            He hesitated then too, pausing, agonized, and wondered, Is this the right thing?  Is there anything that is right, that can be right, ever ever again? and decided in that moment that it had to be done, that the future could be changed, but only if he acted, if he proved that he was more man than monster.  But to do that, he would need to show his monstrous side now, this very minute, no matter what might happen next

            “Barnabas?” Julia’s brow was furrowed.  “Barnabas, what is it?”

            He swallowed, thought, Now, now, now or never, and held his hands up.  He dropped his cane as he did it, and it struck the carpeted floor of Josette’s room almost silently.

            Julia gasped, was unable to help herself, a tiny painful sound, guttering out as she held it. 

            His face was grim.  His hands, his monster’s hands, the triple knuckles, the pointed yellow talons, murderer’s hands.

            “Oh, Barnabas,” she whispered.

            “I had to show you,” he said, and tried to swallow the shame that rose up inside him like vicious bile.  “After what you told me of the future, I had to show you.”

            “May I?” she said and reached for him.  He nearly pulled back then, but she was tender, of course, Julia was nothing but tenderness when it came to his care, and she took one of his dreadful claws in her own hand and held it.  “They’re cold,” she said, then, a flash of smile, “but that’s nothing new, is it.”

           

            “Sadly, the transformation is new,” he said, and her smile faded.

            “How long?” she asked then.

            “Two weeks.  Maybe three.  Since our return from Parallel Time, but before you came back to us from your voyage to the future.”

            “You should have told me.”  Her words held no weight of accusation.

 

            He said nothing.

            “It’s my fault, isn’t it,” Julia said.  She laughed.  It was a jagged, bitter sound, and Barnabas winced.  “Just as with Chris Jennings.  The serum is destroying you.”

            “Not destroying,” Barnabas said with a swift shake of his head.  “And Julia, we have no idea if … if what’s happening to me is related to the serum.  Remember how I transformed into that ancient, hideous creature?”  She nodded, but slowly, as if she weren’t convinced.  “Perhaps this is a result of the Leviathans, or Petofi, or whatever happened to me after I was pulled out of 1897.  It may have nothing to do with the serum at all.”

            “But,” Julia said, her voice catching, “but Barnabas, if it has, then Audrey is in as much danger as you are.  And perhaps Carolyn as well.”

            “Carolyn is fine.”

            “But for how long?”  Julia rose swiftly to her feet and paced across the floor like an angry panther.  “How long before Audrey twists up and dissolves into dust, or before Carolyn wakes up with fangs and bat wings sticking out of her back?”

            “Julia, don’t –”

            “Don’t tell me not to be ridiculous!” she turned, screaming into his face with such vehemence that he recoiled, and the shame was back, pulsing and burning inside him.  “Not you, Barnabas!  Never you!  You more than anyone should understand how deadly serious I am, all of this!”

            “You’re right,” he said, bowing his head.  “I’m sorry, Julia.”

            “Angelique,” Julia said instantly.  “She can help us.  She can reverse the transformation.”

            “I don’t know if she can.”

            “If it’s the price, we’ll just have to –”

            “Not the price,” Barnabas said.  “I don’t know if she is capable of removing the curse.”

            “That’s absurd.  She’s the most powerful being in the world.  She has,” and Julia could not resist rolling her eyes, “told us all that exact fact time after time.”

            “Even her powers have their limits, I can only assume.  She has admitted to me that she has tried to lift the curse … and she has failed.”

            “Which means,” Julia said, chewing on her lower lip unconsciously, “that the curse is no longer hers.  And that her powers are limited.  An alarming discovery, to say the least.”

 

            “She has something up her sleeve,” Barnabas said.  “She helped cure Sebastian Shaw of a malady that might have killed him in exchange for a bit of blood from Quentin and from me.”

            Julia’s eyes narrowed, as they usually did during any discussion of Angelique’s motives.  “Did she tell you why she needed it?”

            “No,” Barnabas admitted.  “Only that it would help all of us, somehow.  I’m assuming she means for it to fight the Enemy somehow, and that the operation is delicate.”

            “I can’t help but remember her actions in the future,” Julia said, shivering.  “She turned me over to the Enemy with very little consideration, Barnabas.  I can’t forget that.”

            “I trust her,” Barnabas said quietly.  “She is different.  More than the changes that the powers of the Mask of Ba’al have wrought upon her, she is different somehow.”

            “We have to find her,” Julia said.  “Convince her to use her powers again.  It can’t hurt, can it?”

            Barnabas, staring miserably at his monster’s hands, could only say, “I don’t know, Julia.  I don’t know anything anymore.”

           

4

 Her hair was red again, and that was somehow comforting to him; Quentin, sitting on the very edge of the couch in the Evans cottage, squirmed a bit, so that, he decided, meant he wasn’t completely at ease, which was only to be expected. 

           

Maggie Evans stared at him wordlessly, as though considering carefully the words she might speak. 

He waited.

“Go to hell,” she said at last, and he blinked at that, and then laughed.  She watched him, expressionlessly, waiting.

            “Sorry,” Quentin said, still snorting a little, “sorry, sorry.  It’s just … it’s so funny!”  She said nothing still.  He wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye.  “I think I’ve already been there.  To hell, I mean.  A hundred years of hell.”

            “I was going to say,” Maggie spoke after a moment.  “But I thought better of it.”

            He stared at her.  “Yeah?” he said at last.  “What do you mean?”

            She stood up and stretched, then wandered over to the big picture window where her father, before his untimely death, used to paint sunrises over the sea.  “I’ve spent a lot of time hating you, Quentin,” she said.  Her voice was thoughtful, almost pensive.  “And I finally realized something.”  She sighed, then chuckled a little.  “We’re more alike than I ever realized.”

            “We are.”  It wasn’t a question.

            “Of course we are.  We both want power.  We both have lousy self esteem.  We’ve betrayed and killed those closest to us …”  She sat beside him.  “We have a lot to answer for, you and I.”

            “That brings me to the reason I’m here.”

            “I know why you’re here.”

            “Maggie,” he said carefully, “if you really do – if you really understand – then you know how dangerous what I’m about to ask you is for you.”

            She tossed back her hair.  “I’m not afraid.  I’m not that scared little girl who used to sling hash and pour coffee.  For you and for the entire town.  I’ve grown.”

            “So I’ve noticed,” he said wryly, unable to help himself, but she didn’t seem to mind.  Maybe she really had changed, he thought.  “Your powers may come in handy.”

            “My powers are nothing compared to Angelique’s,” Maggie said immediately, as if she had read his mind.  Who knows, he thought; maybe she did.  “What do you need me for?”

            “Something dark is rising,” Quentin said.  He was unable to keep the tremor out of his voice, and she must have caught it, because she looked him in the eye for the first time, and for the first time in a year Quentin saw Maggie Evans, everybody’s pal and no one’s friend, the girl he had, for a time, fallen in love with.  “Something evil, way more evil than either of us.  And I think we’re going to need all the help we can get to fight it.”

 

            “I assume Professor Stokes would have told you,” she said evenly.  “Maggie Evans is out of the magic business.”

            Quentin glanced around the room; the new carpets, the paintings that were distinctly not Sam Evans – one of those was a Monet, he would bet his immortality on it – objet d’dart, velvet drapes … then he glanced back at her.  He raised an eyebrow.  She shot him a fiery, defiant glance back.  “Let me guess,” he smiled.  “The Samantha Stephens-ing is a little harder than it looks on TV.”

            She lifted a hand, and Quentin flew off the couch and slammed against the ceiling.  Her face remained frozen, her eyes icy, and Quentin spun around three times and then fell back onto the couch.  He groaned, but he was still smiling.  “I suppose I deserved that,” he said.

            She kissed him then – of course, Maggie thought, of course I’m kissing him – and, worse, he was kissing her back, like old times, oh god, like old times …

            She broke away from him.  “I –” he said, but then they were in her bedroom – a travelling spell courtesy of one Mr. Nicholas Blair, now sadly defunct – and his hands were her hands, in the places she wanted them to go, and how much was the magic?  How much?

5

            Alexandra groaned, feeling the red pulsing behind her eyes that had been throbbing for god knows how long before she swam back into consciousness; she was also fairly certain that she’d been making this animal groaning sound for awhile as well.  She was lying down, and upon something that felt soft and comfortable; there was music, playing somewhere far away, a pleasant sound, soft and tinkling, like water running over rounded stones.  Her eyelashes fluttered, and though the pain in her head intensified as light pierced her, at last she opened her eyes.

            The man she knew as her uncle peered down at her, his bowler hat pushed back to reveal his receding hairline, his pleasant face cracking into a gentle smile when he saw that she was awake.  “Welcome back, my dear,” he said.  “You’ve been on quite an adventure.”

            “Where am I?” she groaned, rolling onto her side and peering around the room.  It was elegantly decorated in blues and golds, with a plush sky-blue carpet on the floor and paintings of landscapes adorning the walls.

            “Those are genuine Charles Delaware Tates,” he said, following her gaze.  “You’ve heard of Tate?”

            “Wasn’t he a painter?”  Her head gave another throb.  Why were they talking about art when all she wanted to know was where she was and what had happened to her?  But then, she discovered, it was starting to come back to her in bits and pieces:  the young man with the marks of the vampire scarring his throat, floating above the concrete basement floor of the House by the Sea; Roxanne Drew, her body shifting and transforming into something hideous, more akin to a gargoyle or dragon than a bat; and the worst horror of all, the lumpy, rotting thing that had called her … that had called her his …

            She couldn’t think of that now.  Her head gave another sickening lurch.

            “Charles Delaware Tate was, for a time in the late nineteenth century, a resident of Collinsport,” her uncle continued in his soft, even voice.  “Did you know that?”

            “No,” she whispered.

            “He was an associate of one Count Andreas Petofi.”  Her eyes widened and she sat up, or tried, despite the pain.  He smiled a little.  “I thought that might seize your attention.” 

            “Petofi died,” Alex said with more certainty than she truly felt.  “A long time ago.”

            “So it would seem,” he said smoothly.  “But the powers inherent in his Hand are formidable to say the least.”

            “Are?”  Panic began to flutter inside her like a frightened bird.  Petofi, in the centuries he walked the earth, had proven himself to be one of the most powerful – and the most vicious – sorcerers of all time, if not the most powerful.  “Is he alive?”

            “He has been dispatched many times,” her uncle with a weary little smile.  “Elizabeth Collins Stoddard stood against him once, it may surprise you to know, in a timeline that no longer exists.  The woman whom you so very much resemble stood against him later, trapping him in his own ring.  But he is crafty, as you have no doubt heard.  And strong.  As a wise gypsy woman once observed, he cannot be destroyed, only contained.  Suffice it to say, the container is broken, and Petofi is among the living once again.”

            All the color fell from her face.  Specks floated and danced in her vision.  She thought she might faint.  “That … that thing,” she said huskily.  “That thing in the basement of the House by the Sea …”

            Her uncle nodded, and his face was sad now, and a little grim.

            “He … he called me …”  The word twisted in her mouth, clutching at her tongue with spider’s legs, but she spat it out, had to, couldn’t let it curdle and fester inside her.  “… daughter!” she cried.  Her eyes bulged with terror.  “He called me his daughter, Uncle, and that can’t be right, that can’t be true, tell me it isn’t true …”

            “There is a great deal I must tell you,” the man who called himself her uncle said, the man who was known in many times and in many places by many different names, but who, when he passed Collinsport way, chose to refer to himself as “Mr. Best.”  He touched her face, and his expression was terrible with compassion.  Alexandra burst into tears, couldn’t help herself, couldn’t even muster the strength to feel embarrassed.  If only he would stop looking at her like that, she thought miserably, maybe she could staunch the tears, but he didn’t, he didn’t. 

    

            “You are powerful, Alexandra,” Best said, “as you must know by now.  But until now you have never understood the source of your power.  It is as you have guessed. 

            “You are Petofi’s daughter.”

            She felt the world fall away from her.

            “But there is so much more to it than that … much, much more …”

            Her eyes opened, and despite herself, she listened to him as he told her the story.

TO BE CONTINUED ...