Shadows on the Wall Chapter 105

CHAPTER 105:  All You Need Is Love

by Nicky

Voiceover by Lara Parker:  “Though there is still much to fear on the great estate of Collinwood and in the little town that lies below it, the denizens of the house on the hill and those who dwell in Collinsport will forget their fears for this night and seek out those traces of warmth that will help sustain them … the warmth that burns against the cold and the terror of the darkness that rushes on and on.”

1

             “No,” Alexandra said; her stomach rose into her throat, burning, and it hurt; her head throbbed as if she’d been struck, and so she turned away from her uncle, this Best (and god, she thought, what is his real name?  do I know?  does he have one?  will I ever know?), and put her hands against her mouth.  Oh hell, she thought miserably, oh hell.

            “I’m afraid it’s true, my dear,” Mr. Best said, and the kindness in his voice only twisted the knife another savage turn.  “I haven’t been able to tell you until now.”

            “No,” Alex whispered, “no, I imagine you haven’t.”  She looked again at the paintings adorning the walls of this … this … wherever she was, the work of the late, great Charles Delaware Tate.  They were landscapes, mostly, and they weren’t even very good, like something she might find in a bargain bin at the local craft store, something a disillusioned housewife might buy to pass lonely hours as she painted by number.  How in the hell, she thought sourly, how in the hell did he become so famous?

            He was an associate of one Count Andreas Petofi.

            Of course, she thought, and brushed away dark strands of hair with fingers that trembled beyond the scope of her control.  Of course.  Count Petofi.  Of course.

            “Where am I?” she whispered.  She was thirsty.  It had been a million years since last she’d tasted liquid, water, beer, her own goddamn tears, but she was thirsty.

            There was a glass of water in her hand.  She stared at it without surprise.

            “You are in my domain,” Mr. Best said.  He sat on the comfortable bed beside her now.  “A way station.  A stopping off place.  You may drink that water, darling; unlike certain Greek legends, it won’t wipe away your memories or turn you into a goat.”

            She smiled at that, but only a tiny, trembling smile, and it disappeared as she sipped at the water.  “What’s a stopping off place?” she asked, and drank again, greedily.  The water was good, it really was.  The best water she had ever tasted.  She sucked at the glass, slurping it.  Cold, she thought, so deliciously cold.

            “A place some people come – some very special people, in most circumstances – before they pass out of the world.”

            Alex froze, and lifted her eyes in horror from the lip of the drinking glass.

           

            But Best only smiled his same old gentle smile, the one she had seen millions of times since she was a little girl, when he had appeared at the orphanage wearing that same old bowler hat, smiling, and saying those magic words, “I’m the girl’s uncle; here are my papers; I’ve come to take her home.”

            A lie.  All a lie.

 

            “Not a lie, my darling Alexandra,” Best said.  She sensed, as she could sometimes sense these things, that he wanted to touch her, lay a hand on her shoulder, comfort her somehow, but he knew better.  He knew that she would recoil from his touch.  He was a betrayer.  She wanted to shrink away, but she was afraid.  He was reading her thoughts as she was reading his feelings.  “Not a lie at all.  I am your family.  After all we’ve been through together, don’t you agree?”

            “You should have told me.”  She wanted to sound angry, to bark her fury at him, but the words sounded empty and hollow.

            “I couldn’t.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I need you.  The world needs you.”

            Her stomach flip-flopped, and for a moment the water rose up in her like bile and she thought that she might eject it, vomiting it all over the bed’s beautiful blue silk duvet.  But she held it back grimly.  “The world needs me,” she said bitterly.  “So you’ve been using me.  That’s the kind of family we are.”

            “If that’s how you wish to see it.”

            “Don’t patronize me!” she shrieked suddenly, and there was the anger, there was the pain and the acrimony that she sensed lay always beneath the surface, and which she was so terrified would emerge when she least expected it. 

            Above their heads, the lightbulb flashed and exploded in a shower of glass like dust.  Alex cried out – though, she thought, things like this always happen around me, always happen when I’m upset or excited, always happen, always always always, so why should I be surprised? – and she recoiled.

            Best held up one finger and the glass dust paused just above their heads, and then it faded away utterly.

            Above them, a new lightbulb pulsed into existence and shone its warm radiance down over their faces.

            Alex began to cry.  Her face burned with shame, but she couldn’t help it.  Her body still hurt from her run-in with that vampire bitch, and now this revelation …

            It was too much.

            Best put out an arm then, over her shoulders, and drew her to him tightly.  She let him do this.  Then she cried for a long time, her face pressed against his shoulder, her tears darkening his gray jacket.

            At last the wracking sobs lessened, became hiccups, and Alex lifted her face.  Best smiled down at her and brushed away sweat-soaked strands of hair out of her puffy eyes.  “There,” he said.  “There, my dear, my little bird.”

            “I don’t understand anything.”

            “Oh, you do.  I know you do, that you understand more than you even know.  Your powers … my powers …”

            “What are you?” she whispered.

            He chuckled.  “An agent,” he said.  “A manifestation.”

            “Are you death?” she sighed.

            “I have brought death to mortals,” he said sadly, and nodded, “when it was necessary – and, despite popular opinion, it is necessary, very often necessary – but I have also saved lives.  Like yours.”

            “You saved me.”  It wasn’t a question.  She felt drained … but also curious.  Her life had been a cypher for so long – always she was told to wait, to be patient, that all would be explained to her – and she had fought for him, killed for him, holding onto the faith that someday all the doors of her past would be opened to her and she would see so clearly …

            And that was here.  Now.  At last.

            “I am a creature of light and darkness,” Best explained, “the best, if you will, of both of those worlds.  I help maintain a balance between them.  Whenever that balance is disturbed and the world becomes endangered, I am there to restore it.  That has always been my role.”

            “And mine?  What is …”  She coughed bitterly.  “What is my role?”

            “You are the daughter of Count Petofi, as I have told you already,” he said.  “You are one of a set of twins.”

            Her eyes widened.  “My sister …”

            “You’ve guessed as much,” Best said, pleased, “good, good.  I thought you would.”

            “This … this Victoria Winters.  The girl I’m supposed to look like.”

            “You do look like her, my darling.  She is your twin sister.”

            Suddenly forlorn, Alex said, “And she’s dead, isn’t she.”

            Best nodded solemnly.

            Pain twisted inside her again.  Cruel, too, too cruel:  to discover that she wasn’t really alone in the world, that she had a sister, only to lose her immediately.  “How?” she said.

            Best thought for a moment.  At last, after what felt like an eternity, he said, “Count Petofi sought to lead the Leviathans in their quest to overtake humanity and populate the world with their own kind, demons, fiends.  You remember my lectures concerning the Leviathans?”  She nodded impatiently.  “Petofi returned to Collinwood during World War II and seduced the youngest Collins daughter because he sensed their power, the source of which is rooted in darkness.  Unfortunately, what Petofi did not know was that Louise Collins was not a Collins at all.”

            Alex frowned.  “Louise Collins?  My mother?”

            “Your mother,” Best said, nodding.  “Adopted by Jamison Collins.  She was young.  Too young.  Petofi’s love destroyed her.  He sought to tap into the dark power that lies in the very blood of the Collins family in order to create offspring that would help him complete his plans.  And it wasn’t there, of course.  What he could not foresee is that Louise’s adopted sister would try to kill him, trapping him for a time in the West Wing of Collinwood and forcing him to become a revenant living off scraps, compelling Elizabeth to feed him twice a year.”

            “Feed him,” Alex said, and forced herself to say the next word.  “Humans, you mean.”

            “Exactly.  Some of these were Leviathan followers, as Petofi hoped they would be.  He sought to live again in their ruined corpses.  Unfortunately for him, he was not strong enough.  After he possessed Quentin Collins and decimated the family, his daughter – your sister, Victoria – travelled back to the year 1897 to undo his evil deeds.  She was successful:  in undoing the damage, in destroying him, but in the process she destroyed herself as well.”

            “How?  How was she able to destroy him?  And how was he able to return?”

            “You are aware that you possess … special abilities.  So did your sister.  The power comes from Petofi, as you might guess.  While I am not always aware of what the future holds, sometimes I know enough to make … certain decisions that enable me, as I have already told you, to maintain a balance between the powers of darkness and light.  When Louise Collins gave birth, I swooped in to take her children away in order that they would be free of Petofi’s influence.  You were the eldest, and I took you before you even left Louise’s body; no one knew you existed.  Not even the Collins doctors were aware that she was pregnant with twins.”

            “How is that possible?”

            Best shrugged.  “You were tiny babies, strong, but small.  And Petofi would not allow the mother of his children to come too closely to other mortals.  They might suspect, you see. 

            “I managed to capture you, but I was too late for your sister.  She was born into this world screaming her rage, her eyes as black as the powers she inherited from Petofi, and those powers were too much for me, even then, and kept me away.  She was born, and Elizabeth Collins Stoddard sent her to a foundling home in Bangor.  And then, eighteen years later, Elizabeth brought her back.”

            “But why?  How could she do that to her own sister’s child?”

            “I haven’t asked her, of course,” Best said dryly, “but my guess is that Elizabeth was afraid.  And guilty.  Her fear kept Victoria away from Collinwood as she grew up, and her guilt finally brought her back to her rightful home.  It was a mistake, though, and a grave one.  Victoria saved the family, only to lose herself to the darkness.  She almost destroyed them all.  Only the witch Angelique was able to stop her.”

            “Angelique,” Alex said.  Her eyes widened.  “Cassandra!  Cassandra Collins!”

 

            Best was nodding again.  “Is Angelique Bouchard Collins, herself a malevolent force that has threatened the Collins family for centuries.”

            “And she killed my sister.”

            “An act of vengeance,” Best agreed, “but in the best interest of the world, as it turns out.  Victoria, unchecked, would have carried out her father’s scheme after all.  The world would have fallen.  But Angelique destroyed her.” 

            Alex let this sink in.  She felt confused, terrified, and, most horrifically of all, angry.  Furious, actually.  And her fury only continued to grow.  She wanted to find Cassandra Collins this minute and reduce her to an ash.

            “That might prove more difficult than you think, my dear,” Best said.  “Cassandra possesses all the powers of the Mask of Ba’al.”

            Alex blanched.  “I thought the Mask was a myth.”

            “Unfortunately, it is quite real.  Or was.  In the act of draining its powers, Cassandra destroyed the Mask.  It doesn’t matter.  The Mask merely held the powers for a time; Cassandra Collins is the power now.”

            “But why me?” Alex cried.  “Why did you take me?  Why have you used me like this, since I was a little girl?”  She was furious again, and the fury sharpened her words.  “I’ve wasted my life because of you!”

            “Have you?” Best asked quietly.

            She stared at him.  Her breath was tortured, her hands clenched into fists.

            “I have loved you all your life,” he said in that same rational, quite voice.  “You have been an instrument, that is true, but you have saved countless lives at my command, innocent lives that would have been destroyed by dark forces.  I have watched you grow into a strong, courageous hero, a woman I admire, and someone of whom I have never prouder in all my long, long existence.”

            She watched him carefully.

            “Do you believe me?  I can hide many things from you, darling Alexandra, and so I must ask you to trust me.  Do you believe me?”

            She didn’t have to tell him.  She did.  She believed him.

            Relief blanketed her, and she laid her head against his shoulder.

            He pushed her away then, gently, but with some force, and held her by her own shoulders, and stared into her eyes.

            “What I ask you now will prove to be, I fear, the most difficult ordeal you have ever faced.”

            “Cassandra Collins.”

            “No,” he said, his smile only slight now, amusement tempered with … what?  Fear?  Caution?  “You have met the Collins family and their friends.”

            “Yes, but –”

            “You’ve even liked some of them.  Barnabas.  Chris Jennings.  Quentin Collins.  Even Angelique.”

            “Barnabas Collins is one of the kindest men I’ve ever –”

            “Which is why,” he said, and he was sadder sounding than she had ever heard him, and he touched her cheek lightly, gently, as he spoke the next horrible words, “which is why it will be so hard for you to destroy them all.”

2

 

            The firelight played softly across the planes and angles of Chris Jennings’ face, and Sebastian thought, amused, I can almost not notice the purple bags beneath his eyes.  They were, he thought, incredibly sexy purple bags, but purple bags nonetheless.  Signs of depression?  Exhaustion?  Stress?  All of the above? 

            They were dining together at The Embers, Collinsport’s only halfway decent restaurant.  In Sebastian’s world, there had been nothing at all like The Embers; the space there was occupied, Sebastian recalled, by a burned out shell that used to be an antique store.  He felt a momentary stab of depression and, unexpectedly, homesickness, though he immediately reminded himself that his world was dying.  And silly as it sounded, the lack of something lovely and romantic like The Embers only proved what Sebastian had long understood:  what Barnabas and Julia referred to as “Parallel Time” was on its way out.

            And if we’re not careful, this world will be too.

            Chris was smiling at him.  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said in the gentle baritone Sebastian already knew so well.

            “I wish,” Sebastian said, wistful.  “I seem to have left my bank account back in the other Collinsport Bank.”

            “Barnabas –”

            “Barnabas,” Sebastian intercepted smoothly, “has been exceedingly generous.  It helps.”

            “He wants to help.”  A shadow flickered across Chris’ face for a moment, Sebastian noticed.  “He always wants to help.”

            “They all do.  Which I appreciate.  If it weren’t for friends like Quentin and … well, you,” and Chris smiled again, wider this time, “I’d be dead by now.”

            His smile faded a few notches.  Sebastian hated to see it go.  “Your mysterious assailant.  No leads.”

            “Not a one.  I’m blaming it on a mysterious super-ninja.  Isn’t Collinsport a breeding ground for werewolf-hating super-ninjas?”

            Chris sipped at his wine.  “Not the last time I checked.”

            “That’s my only lead.  Which is to say, no lead.  Which is to say, I’ve got squat.”

            “Professor Stokes and Carolyn Stoddard revisited the spot where you were attacked a few days ago.  Carolyn couldn’t pick anything up.”

            “On her psychic antenna?”  Sebastian sighed.  “Psychic powers would come in handy.  Unfortunately, I’m just a werewolf.”

 

            “You are,” Chris said, unsmiling now.  “Like no werewolf I’ve ever met.”

            Sebastian leaned forward.  He knew the firelight was sparkling in his eyes, making them bigger, making them bluer, turning his curls a dark russet.  “You meet lots of werewolves?”

            “Only Quentin.  And he’s been fur-free for almost a hundred years.”

            “And so you want to know my secrets?  Is that why we’re here?”  He gestured around the room:  the plush, wine-colored carpet, the dim lighting, the enormous fireplace, the stained glass windows that overlooked the angry autumn Atlantic.  “Do you always perform your interrogations in such a romantic atmosphere?”

            Chris was blushing, Sebastian was gratified to see.  The dining room was warm against the vicious chill outside; it was already mid-October, somehow, with a hint of snow in the air, but here at The Embers, everything felt lush.  They’d both put away an entire roast chicken between the two of them, garnished with little red potatoes and a garlic-butter sauce, with baked Alaska for dessert.  And two glasses of Merlot later, Sebastian was feeling very warm indeed.  And comfortable. 

            Maybe too comfortable.

            This isn’t real.

            He glanced around the dining room, but no one had spoken.  No one was even paying the slightest bit of attention to them.

            “Everything okay?”  He whipped his head around, back to Christopher.  “You looked … gosh, spooked for a second I guess.”

            “Nothing,” Sebastian said, and shrugged.  “Ghosts.  Not,” he added swiftly, “the literal kind.”  I hope. 

           

            But that thought – where had it come from?  What wasn’t real?

            This isn’t my Christopher.

            It wasn’t … but goddamnit, it was at the same time, it was!

            “I wish I understood,” Chris said suddenly, miserably, “I wish I knew.”

            “Knew?”

            “Yeah,” he sighed.  “How to control it.  You do, don’t you?”

            Sebastian considered this for a moment.  Then he said, “There’s nothing to control.  Not really.  I mean, it isn’t like the movies, where you turn when the moon is full or something.”

            “Actually,” Chris said, and he sounded so exhausted that Sebastian’s heart hurt for a moment, and then he thought, Not, not, not my Christopher, “actually, it’s just like that.  And it’s getting worse.”

           

            “You mean you turn when the moon is full?”

            “Not anymore.”  He bowed his head.  “Now it happens anytime.”

 

            Sebastian’s heart throbbed again, and this time he didn’t analyze the pain, didn’t try to analyze the differences he continued to spot that differentiated this Chris Jennings from the Christopher Collins he had known and loved in his own world.  The pain in those enormous eyes lanced at him, and he reached out without thinking and took the other man’s hand and squeezed it.

            He smiled, and the lines around his blue eyes crackled.  “C’mon,” he said.  “Let’s get out of here.”  He stood to his full height and rummaged around in the pocket of the nice slacks Julia had picked out for him and then threw a handful of Barnabas’ money onto the table.

            “Where are we going?”

            “You’ll see.”  Sebastian was grinning, and his eyes now held more than a hint of gold in their cool blue depths.  “I got an idea.”

3

 

             I should learn from my past mistakes, Cassandra thought as she made yet another ungainly step over yet another rotting tree that had fallen Hecate knew how many centuries ago and lay where it had fallen, obscured by the fog that swirled habitually over the grounds of Eagle Hill Cemetery.  I should just learn, she scolded herself furiously, and invest in a pair of hiking boots and leave the pumps at Collinwood. 

            But they were such gorgeous pumps, and now they were ruined.  Some goddess, she thought, even more furious that tears were pricking her eyes; same old Angelique, she could almost hear Nicholas Blair whispering in her ear, same foolish Angelique; do you never learn, my dear?

            Then she almost stumbled again, and surely she would have fallen into the fog, not hurting herself, but certainly ruining her newest green mini from Mary Quant and the matching gloves Julia had loaned her, maybe even skinning her knees and bruising her face in the process.

            She would have fallen … but a hand appeared at her side and gripped her shoulder, not too hard, enough to support her, and then Barnabas was saying, “You’re all right; I’ve got you; be careful, my dear, be careful.”

            She looked at him for a moment, frozen, then allowed herself a tight smile.  “Thank you,” she said, perhaps more curtly than she intended, then moved forward without him through the shreds of fog toward the landmark she sought.  He hesitated, brooding for a moment, his thumb rubbing at the silver wolf’s head of his cane, then, with a deep sigh, he followed her.

            “We’re very near,” Cassandra called over her shoulder.  Ahead of her, a tiny blue witchlight glowed – but not brightly enough, she thought sourly; its purpose was not to provide illumination, but to lead them to the Amulet of Caldys, finally at last – zipping and dipping through the air like Tinkerbell. 

            Barnabas was really behaving in quite a reasonable fashion she decided, considering that she had told him nearly nothing of her plan:  what they were seeking, why she needed his blood (and Quentin’s, and her own), and why they pilgrimaging into Eagle Hill in the dead of this crisp autumn eve.  Because he knows, she thought, that we will need every available weapon that we have, and it’s in his best interest – everyone’s best interest – if he can maintain his patience. 

            But he must trust me a little bit.  At least a little.  Otherwise, why …?

            She stalled that thought in its tracks.  It was a dangerous one at the very least, and self-defeating.  That part of my life is over, she thought firmly, and remembered what Julia had told her of the future.

            He will love me.  That’s all I want, all I’ve ever wanted.  His love.

            “No,” she whispered, her hands clenched into fists, tight tight tight.

            “Cassandra?” Barnabas called from behind him.  She glanced over her shoulder, saw that he was pointing, then followed his finger’s direction.

            She began to laugh.  She couldn’t help it.  It was just so funny. 

 

            The tiny blue witchlight she had conjured – and no easy conjuration either, though she hadn’t told Barnabas that – the tiny blue witchlight had paused in its journey, and by its light they could both see the familiar hulk of the Collins family mausoleum rising from the mist like a giant skull, divested of flesh, the rusty gate its teeth, but filled with a malignant kind of life.  They could both feel it, and despite their mutual, myriad encounters with internal and external darkness, both creatures of the supernatural shuddered.

            “What we seek,” Barnabas said slowly, “lies within?”

            “It must,” Cassandra agreed, nodding her black hair.  Now that they were suddenly so close, she could feel goosebumps rising all over her body; energy shivered and swirled over her skin in mini-tornadoes.  “In front of my face all along.  All these years.”

            “And what exactly are we seeking?” Barnabas asked quietly, but she didn’t hear him.  In her delight, in her triumph, she threw up one hand and barked the word, “REVEAL!” and the little light obeyed; it flew forward through the gates the yawned open, seemingly of their own accord, and Cassandra ran after the little orb, and Barnabas followed without hesitation.

            They paused in the main chamber.  Barnabas, she knew, didn’t like to come to this place.  She didn’t blame him.  It wasn’t her influence that caused Joshua and the lummox Ben Stokes to imprison Barnabas for eternity in the secret room, but now it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea.  It kept him safe, didn’t it? she thought, and then felt a stab of shame.  He was looking at the nameplates of his father and his mother and his beloved little sister.  She wished he wouldn’t.  She wanted him to be reminded as little as possible of their deaths, and of the part she played in causing them. 

            But the little witchlight wasn’t done.  It hovered for a moment, casting both their faces in its blue, effervescent glow, and then it simply … exploded.  Both Barnabas and Cassandra cried out at its little super-nova, but there was no heat, no repercussions.

            Nothing.

            Only … not quite nothing.

            “Oh,” Cassandra whispered.

            The witchlight left in its wake a trace, a hint of its former glow, but that was enough.

            The lion’s head, the fierce statuary that gripped a stone ring in its stone teeth, the one Willie Loomis had pulled (and at her own urging, she now recalled) and released the secret chamber’s long-time denizen:  the lion’s head glowed with a fierce blue fire.

 

            Cassandra, who had never seen the Amulet of Caldys with her own eyes, knew that she had found it.

            “What is it?” Barnabas whispered.

            She said nothing.  She walked forward instead, slowly, reverently, and carefully, oh so carefully, reached up to the lion’s head.  The glow was centered around the lion’s right eye, so small … yet, wasn’t there something … something there …?

            She waved her hand across the lion’s head, and whispered, “Let the barriers break, let the walls tumble, all wards are extinguished, and the only power here is mine.  It is my will that the Amulet of Caldys come forth.”

            The blue light vanished.

            The stone eye of the lion’s head widened, if that were at all possible, the mouth seemed to snarl …

            And a tiny piece of iron fell from the statue’s iris and dropped neatly into Cassandra’s gloved palm.

            Barnabas dared to approach now, and looked over her shoulder at what she now held.  “What is it?” he asked again.

            “The Amulet of Caldys,” Cassandra answered immediately.  The Amulet was constructed  of iron, a perfect circle quartered by crossing bands of iron.  Simple in design, but she could feel the power humming inside it.  She turned to face him, her face alight with joy and triumph.  “It’s the answer, Barnabas.”

            “To what?”

            She smiled.  “To ending your curse.”

4

            The sex had been fantastic, as Quentin figured it would be.  And of course Maggie used the not inconsiderable amount of powers at her command to heighten all the sensations; magical lubricant, Quentin thought at one point (while he was still capable of thought), and found that he was grinning at the memory. 

            She was nestled against his bare chest, and when he looked down at him, he found that her face was set and blank.  Her eyes showed no expression, not a trace of emotion.  At least they aren’t pitch black, he thought, but even that acknowledgment provided little relief.  “Maggie?” he said.

            “I don’t feel anything,” she said, unmoving.  She didn’t look to him; she didn’t sound angry or sad or … or anything.  “Isn’t that funny?  I thought I would feel something.  But I don’t.”

            “I’m … I’m sorry,” Quentin said.  Was he?  He wasn’t sure.

            “You shouldn’t be,” Maggie sighed.  “You don’t have anything to do with it.”

            That hurt.  He was surprised at how much.

            “I used to love you so much, you know?” Maggie said, and now she looked up at him.

            “I loved you too.”  The words were hard to say.  He was choking on them.  Stupid.  He took his arm away from her and sat up.  He wished he had one of Julia’s cigarettes to smoke.

            “Not enough.”

            “No.  I suppose not.”

            She accepted this with a nod.  “I’m not in love with you, Quentin.”

 

            Another wound, another slash.  He forced his face to remain without expression.  “Oh?” he said.

            “And you’re not in love with me.  I could tell if you were.  Even Nicholas loved me, in his own sick, twisted fashion.  But you … you don’t.  You still love her.”  She said the last word without rancor.

            “Vicki is dead.”

            “Not for you.”  Maggie rose naked from the bed and crossed the room.  She folded her arms over her bare breasts and looked out into the darkness.  “I’ll help you,” she said without turning.  “And Barnabas and Julia.  And Angelique.  I’ll help you all.”

            He wanted to join her.  He didn’t.  He lay in her bed and felt the cold of the bedroom pressing down against his bare flesh.  His nipples, he saw, had hardened into tight little knots.  There were purple marks beside each one, left behind in Maggie’s wake.  He was reminded again at the changes in her; when they were together before all the darkness had come into her life, they had done little more than passionately kiss in the back of her car.  And now … “Thank you,” he said awkwardly.

            She glanced over shoulder at him.  “It isn’t for you, Quentin,” she said, and smiled.  “If I love anything, it’s me.  And this world, because I exist here.  So it’s in my best interest to save this sorry world if I can.  But don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s for you.  It’s never, never for you.”

            He rose now and began to pull on his pants.  “Goodbye, Maggie,” he said.

 

            “Goodbye, Quentin,” she said, but she was looking out the window again.  The door to her bedroom swung open of its own accord and Quentin, who occasionally was capable of taking a hint, moved through it, his gray turtleneck clenched in one tight fist.  The cold outside burned him as he pulled it over his head.  He let it.  It was, he thought, the least he could do.  Under the circumstances.

5

            Audrey was still looking at him suspiciously.  Barnabas and Julia were out somewhere else, and they had the Old House all to themselves, which was, perhaps, the reason they were in Audrey’s room in the cellar – her own private coffin room – and the reason Willie was in the midst of removing his shirt.  But, it seemed, he had tangled himself up in it, fairly hopelessly.  “Oh Jesus,” Audrey grumbled after a half-amused moment of watching, and pulled at the sleeves until he was free.  He looked at her sheepishly. 

 

            “Thanks,” he said.  “That was embarrassing.”

            “I imagine it still is,” she said with a pert little toss of her head.  Her forehead wrinkled.  “Willie, why are you shirtless?”

            “I don’t want to get anything on my shirt,” he said immediately.

            She stared at him blankly.  “You don’t want to …”  The words trailed off.  Understanding filled her instead.  Her eyes widened, then she turned away from him.  “Oh Willie, no,” she whispered.  She crossed her arms over her breasts and walked swiftly across the room, away from him.

            “Why not?” he said from behind her.  “No, seriously, Audrey, why not?”

            She spun to face him.  “Because it’s wrong!” she burst out.  “And I could hurt you!”

            He shrugged.  “I been hurt before,” he said, grinning.  “So what?”

            “All right,” she growled.  “Then I could kill you.”

            He considered this, then, maddeningly, shrugged again.  “I suppose,” he drawled.  “I suppose.  But I think you can control yourself.”

            “What if I can’t?” she said, her voice thick and choked. 

            “Look,” he said, and went to her, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “look.  I been the victim of a vampire before, you know.  Two, actually, before you.”

            “Two?” she whispered, eyes wide.

            “Sure.  Barnabas and that … that Tom Jennings.”  He shuddered.  “I don’t remember much about that guy.  Besides, he’s dead now.”

            “I know.  Julia told me.”

            “Anyway, it don’t matter to me.  I … I like you, Audrey.”

           

            Tears filled her eyes.  “No you don’t,” she said, but she was unsure.  “That’s the … the spell or whatever.  When I bit you the first time.”

            “Nuh uh,” he said, shaking his sandy hair.  “Nuh uh.  Julia’s injections fixed me up.  Look.”  And he lifted his chin.  The marks – her marks – were gone.  “See?  All gone.  So is your spell or whatever.  This is all me.”

            “But why?” she whispered.

            “Like I said.”  He was close to her now.  His voice was soft.  Gentle.  He put a hand on her shoulder.  “I like you, Audrey.  You’re pretty and you’re smart.  And you’re nice.  You’re a nice girl.”

            “You don’t know that.”

            “Sure, sure I do.  I been watchin you, y’know.  And I know how hungry you are.  So …” and he lifted his chin again, “… so take it.  From me.  You did it before.”

            “Oh, Willie …”

            “Barnabas and Julia, they don’t have to know.  Just us.  This can be just for us.”

            Her mouth was wet with saliva.  And her fangs had descended.  She could feel them, sharp and deadly, inside her mouth.  She didn’t move away.  “I don’t want to hurt you …”

            “You won’t,” he said soothingly.  He closed his eyes.  “Please,” he whispered.  “Please, Audrey.  Take me.  I want you to.” 

            She closed her eyes and swallowed.

“Do it.  Just take me.”

           

She put her mouth on his throat.

            He took a deep breath.

            And she bit down.

6

 

            “The origin of the Amulet of Caldys is lost in the mists of time,” Cassandra explained as they crossed the lawn of the great house, the Amulet itself clutched tightly in her hand, “but that doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that we found it, that we possess it.” 

            “And it will end the curse.”  Barnabas sounded skeptical.  She didn’t blame him.

            “Oh yes,” Cassandra said.  She found that she couldn’t stop smiling.  “That’s why it was created, Barnabas.  The reason Edith Collins brought it Collinwood.”

            “Edith!”

            “Tricky witch,” Cassandra sneered.  “But yes, it was Edith.  I don’t know what her motives were, but I have no doubt it was her.  When we battled in 1897, I caught a trace of her thoughts, and I knew that she prided herself on collecting magical, shall we say, accoutrements?”  She tittered.  “I stumbled across a reference to dear Edith when I helped Julia with her research after she returned from the future.  After that, all I had to do was find her papers, which proved no challenge.  Your relatives have always hoarded their journals and diaries and letters, and Edith was no exception.  On the 18^th of December, 1889, Edith wrote to her lawyer, Evan Hanley, and asked him to procure this particular piece of the arcane for her.  I’m not sure why – and I have no desire to conjure her up to find out – but she never used it, if indeed she ever intended to.”

            “And this,” Barnabas said slowly, “this is what you’ve been searching for.  The reason you needed our blood.”

            “Yes.  The Amulet of Caldys breaks curses.  Even the most powerful.”

            “And you want to use it –”

           

            “To end your curse.”  The triumph vanished from her voice, the fierce joy she always took in overcoming an enemy’s interference.  She looked, Barnabas thought, shy, her eyes wide and unblinking, unguarded … human.

            “You would do that for me.”

            “It’s all I’ve wanted,” she whispered, “ever since you found me at Little Windward.  I know you all think I don’t have feelings, that I don’t care –” 

            “I know that isn’t true.”

            “—but I do, Barnabas.”  Tears sparkled in her eyes now.  “I thought that donning the Mask would kill them, all of them, but it didn’t.  It hurts,” and she thumped a fist against her chest, “it hurts as much as it ever did, as much as it did the night I begged you to kill me.  I want to change everything, Barnabas.  I want to make things different.  Starting …”  She took a deep breath.  “Starting with you.”

            “As if none of this ever happened.”

            “Back to the beginning.”

            “The beginning,” he said musingly, and he was holding her hands somehow, pressing the amulet almost painfully into the meat of her palm, but she didn’t care, she didn’t care because –

 

            “Angelique,” he whispered.

            She didn’t say anything.  She let him lean down, let him brush his lips against hers, then press them, then enfold her in his arms, and she did feel again, dangerous, she thought, remembering the Enemy’s promises to the future version of her, but all those thoughts were fading away, because here she was, right where she wanted to be, for the first time in two centuries, and it felt so good, it felt so right –

            Love.  Barnabas with her, in the shadows of the house where no one could see them.  Barnabas inside her, heat and delicious friction, heightened by his powers and by hers.  Love, and it was sweet, it was right, love and love and love –

            She had to leave him.  She told him when the love was over, straightening her clothes, watching him straighten his, both smiling, but hers was melancholy, and she said, “I have to secure this where no one will find it,” and she held the Amulet up so he could see it.  “And simply having it means nothing.  I must unlock its secrets, and I need to be alone when I do it.”

            He kissed her again, but she backed away.  “I must go now,” she said, and laughed at the distress on his face.  “Always so impatient.  What a little boy you are, Barnabas.”

            “Don’t be cruel.”

            “I won’t be,” she said.  “Not anymore,” and she was gone.

            Barnabas watched after her as she walked the last few yards to the front door of Collinwood and disappeared inside.  He felt a tumult of emotions inside him, expected, of course; Angelique had been his enemy for so long, and now …

            What now?

            What did she expect?  What did he expect?  What were they to each other?  And what would happen next?

            “Barnabas,” a dry voice said from his right, and he turned to face Julia Hoffman, watching him with familiar wide almond eyes, only now they were different.  He opened his mouth to welcome her, to bring her to him, and then he truly saw, and he understood:  her eyes were full of broken, shattered light.  Full of pain.  Because she knew.

            Oh my god, Barnabas thought.

            She had seen.

            “Oh, Barnabas,” she whispered, and then she turned and ran into the enveloping darkness of the woods.

            He watched her go, gnawing for a moment at the onyx ring on his finger.  Should he follow her?  Let her go?  He knew her feelings for him, had known for a long time; how could he not?  And, once again, his feelings for a woman were complicated.  He loved her, he did … but how did he love her?

            “Bastard,” he spat suddenly.  “Barnabas Collins, you bastard.”  His voice was taut and jagged with pain.  “You son of a bitch.”

 

             What do I do now? he wondered, looking at the place in the trees where Julia had disappeared.  What do I do now?         

7

            And the night ends with love, as it began, all that love, shadows, fires, burnt out embers, or ashes:

             Alexandra March thinks, How can I love this man? but Mr. Best watches her with his hawk’s eyes as he always has, and she knows that she will do what he asks, that she won’t be able to help herself, because he is the only family she has ever known, and that bond should be, is enough, and she is helpless against its power;

                

 

 

 and Chris and Sebastian, naked together now in a field outside town, far from prying eyes, come together finally like drops of water rolling, rolling side by side down a pane of glass; and Sebastian’s strong arms are wrapped around Chris’ chest, and he eases himself inside, and he whispers, “Slowly, slowly,” but his words become a growl, “Let it go, just let it all go,” and Chris’ response too is a growl; both their eyes have lightened to a beautiful emerald that glows under the half-moon in the sky above them; and they rock together as they transform, rocking together, pleasure and pain and then the pain is gone and there is nothing but pleasure and love love love;

             and Maggie Evans watches outside the window, looking out at the sea, and sadness and a terrible ache, a desire, come together and meet inside her, because she lied to Quentin, god or whatever help her, she lied, she lied, and she won’t sob – she won’t ever sob again, or cry, not even a little – but it hurts a bit, and so she watches the sea throughout the night;

 

            and Quentin Collins sits in his room at Collinwood and thinks about Maggie and Vicki and Beth and Jenny and he drinks and he drinks until their faces blur together into one face;

            and Willie Loomis moans as Audrey releases him, smiling down at him, his blood smearing her mouth and her beautiful fangs, and he smiles back at her because it was never like this with Barnabas or Tom, and he thinks, I love her, this monster girl, this terrible monster beast girl, I love her, I do, and so grabs her head, and pulls it back down, and she enters him again and this time he doesn’t just moan, he screams his pleasure;

             and Cassandra holds the Amulet of Caldys above a single black candle and feels the power rise inside her, and she thinks of Barnabas, and the power is STRONG, she is STRONG, and, “Barnabas,” she whispers, and this sustains her;

 

            and Julia Hoffman pauses in her flight, somewhere in the woods, halfway between Collinwood and the Old House, and she is gasping, and it hurts to breathe, everything hurts, because she knew, didn’t she, she knew all along that something like this would happen, and the tears burn so badly in her eyes that she lets them out, and whimpers become sobs, and she doesn’t care that she’s supposed to be strong, she doesn’t, because who can be strong all the time? she wonders, and she cries until a hand falls on her shoulder, a hand that burns with cold, so cold that it hurts, and this hand spins her around so she can look into a face whose familiar lines and planes fill her with mindless terror.

            “Oh Julia,” he drawls, and she is thrilled against her will, despite her sudden terror, “oh Julia, my darling, don’t cry.  Why should you cry?  I’ll stop your tears, my darling, and then we’ll dance together.”

            “No,” Julia whimpers, but he draws her to him, and she can smell him now, and he is dead, dead, dead.

            “Yes,” Tom Jennings replies, deliriously happy, he sounds, so happy to have her back in his arms, and he spins her around, and he grins as he does, “and you will love me, you will love me, because all you need is love, Julia, all you need,” and the moonlight glints off his savage and lovely vampire’s fangs.

 TO BE CONTINUED ...