Shadows on the Wall Chapter 110

CHAPTER 110:  Humans

 by Nicky

Voiceover by Lara Parker:  “Tragedy has struck at Collinwood, for on this night, Barnabas Collins has been gravely injured by fellow vampire Roxanne Drew.  And while Julia struggles to put the pieces together again, two other souls will likewise struggle … with the darkness inside them …and one will lose.”

1

1693 – Collinsport

 

            She lived in the biggest house Collinsport offered, besides the Collins mansion, of course.  It was new, as all the houses were new, and built to her specifications; money, as she assured the architect and builders with a tight smile, was no object.  They own this town, Miranda thought as the house came together, but I own this land, and they do not – never will – own me.

            And there they were, Isaac, his brother Aidan, and Aidan’s bride Samantha Collins, the three of them in that enormous house (though not, Miranda would think, smirking, as enormous as mine), and Isaac went into the village every day to ensure their fortunes would continue to thrive, but of Aidan and Samantha there was no sight.  They rarely, if ever, left Collins House.

            The villagers talked.  Mostly employed by the Collins Fishing Fleet, they couldn’t afford to criticize, but as the town grew, so did the talk.

            Miranda DuVal, meanwhile, didn’t have to work.  Once upon a time she had labored as a servant in the Collins household in Bedford.  That was, of course, before she met Nicholas Blair.  Before she exchanged secrets with Judah Zachery.  Since then, her coin purse was never empty.  There were whispers of that phenomenon in the village as well, and Miranda allowed such whispers.  Judah Zachery was dead.  His followers, his coven was destroyed as well.  Collinsport was cleansed of witches; everyone knew it.  And the talk gave Miranda an aura of mystery that allowed her to do most anything she desired. 

            But Miranda, they said, could predict the future.  Miranda could heal or curse with a glance, depending on her mood.  Miranda possessed a magic purse, and if she handed out coins, they disappeared once spent, returning, inevitably, to the purse.  Miranda could fly; fishwives swore they saw her silhouette passing before the moon on nights when hoarfrost lefts it rime on window.  They feared her; they left her alone.

            Gossip in that vein made her smile, though of course it was all true.  Fishwives.  Her lips would curl into a smirk.  For the majority of the town, the people that mattered, she was Miranda DuVal, wealthiest woman in Collinsport, besides the Collinses themselves, of course.  An  heiress, they said, from England, and the Collinses, who knew better, did not correct their perceptions.  They knew better about that aspect of her life as well.

            I am a chambermaid, she thought now, standing at the edge of the woods, staring at Collins House, which reared itself like white proud bones from the ground.  I am a chambermaid still, only none of them really knows.

 

There’s something in thy breast and in thine eyes that has a power.  ‘Tis thy choice, Miranda, how you use it.  For helping ...  or otherwise.

Her mother’s voice, her poor lost mother.  And her words – were they true, really?  Could she help?

            Aidan is married, she thought, and that reminder filled her with that familiar fury, the one that knotted her hands into fists, that sent cold shivers down her spine and into the pit of her stomach.  But he loved me, she thought miserably; he left Collinsport because old Amadeus sent him away; he never would have looked twice at Samantha Good unless …

            … unless …

            Unless thou art not the only witch in Collinsport.

            Perhaps, Miranda thought, perhaps Collinsport is not as cleansed of its sorceresses as the villagers think.

            She could still remember that day a year ago when, heart filled with hope and love at finally finding her beloved Aidan again, Miranda traipsed up the steps to this very house before her, knocked on the door, a fool, only to find Samantha Collins glaring at her, her face twisted into a snarl, and the snarling woman said, “So, you have finally found us after all.”  I used my powers, Miranda thought now, all my art to send her away.  And yet Aidan found her again. 

 

Or she found Aidan.

            Did he know what she was?  Did he know all she had done?  Had Samantha told him?  Ah, but if Samantha was also a witch, it wasn’t exactly in her best interest to alert Aidan to her knowledge of the arcane.

            It matters not, Miranda thought, and allowed herself a tiny, cold smile.  After today, it will not matter a whit.

            “Thou wilt be caught someday,” a voice said from behind her, and she stiffened, “and clapped in the stocks, mark me.”  Amused.  Familiar.

            Beloved.

            “Aidan,” she whispered, and flew to him, snaked her arms around him, pulled him to her.  All too soon she pulled back, staring at him with her wide blue eyes full of tears.  “Thou art a tree, a stone,” she sobbed, “firm and inflexible.  Has she caught you in so powerful a snare that you must be hard and cold in my arms?  You were never before such as this.”

            “I know thee, Miranda DuVal,” Aidan said.  His voice was firm, not cold, not stony, but firm, and he didn’t blink as his eyes caught hers.  “I know a bit of thy soul, methinks.  And … and of thy powers.”

 

            She was filled with ice in that moment, and looked away, as guilty as if he’d caught her looking at herself naked in a mirror.  The world went on around them; a bird passed overhead, crying joyously; she wished it dead.  But, ah, there it was inside her:  that spark, that flare, a flame that made her different, in some fundamental way, than almost everyone else she had ever encountered, including Aidan himself.  It rose up and glimmered in her eyes, which she lifted and focused on Aidan.  “So,” she said, “you know.”

            He hesitated, then drew a speedy breath.  “I do,” he said at last.  “I think … I think I have always known.”

            Her smile grew wider and colder.  “And who wilt thou tell, Aidan Collins?  Wilt thou see me burnt at the stake?”

            Alarm widened his eyes.  “You misunderstand me, Miranda,” he said.  “I have come seeking thee!”

            “To what purpose?”  She couldn’t force the suspicion from her voice.

            “To tell you … to try to explain ...”  He closed his eyes and shivered.  When he opened them again, they were agonized.  “I cannot.  The words will not come.”

            “Thou art bewitched.”  Ice floes inside collided; she wanted to shiver, but she felt paralyzed.  It was true, then.  Someone had cast a spell over Aidan.

            “I do not know,” he whispered.  “It is always the same.  For the past two years.  I have held my suspicions, but I dare not – cannot – speak them in words.  I know only that I want to leave this place, Miranda.

            “And … and I want thee at my side when I go.”

 

            The breath caught in her throat.  “She will not let thee go so easily,” Miranda said.  A tear slid down her cheek.   

            They were together suddenly, his mouth pressed to hers, her face pressed against his chest, and he was whispering, “It comes in like the tide, the waves pulling me out, and I never know when it will happen, dearest, I never know … at any second …”

            She pushed him away, her hands gripping his shoulders.  Her eyes blazed into his.  “One more spell,” she said from between gritted teeth.  “One more, and then no more.  Ever again, my darling.  After I free thee from Samantha’s enchantment, I will give up my powers forever.”

2

            “There’s someone out there,” Audrey said.  She stood at the window that looked out over the Old House’s portico, the curtains parted only the slightest bit.  She leaned forward so that her forehead pressed against the glass.  Julia, in the midst of her administrations, noticed that she did not fog up the window with her breath, because she had no breath.  When would the injections begin to take hold? she growled to herself.  Dammit.  At this rate, Audrey would stay a vampire forever. 

            Or until she was staked.

            That was a grim thought.  She pushed it away.

            “We’ll deal with them later,” Julia said.  Her teeth were gritted.  Barnabas, below her, stared up at her with his one good eye.  Clinical, she thought, clinical, and allowed her fingers to brush gently against the new scar tissue that formed already over the place where his eye used to be.  “Sensation?  Any pain?”

 

            “None,” he said.  His eyes skated over to Angelique, who stood in the corner by the fireplace, gazing up steadily at the portrait of Barnabas circa 1967.  “It’s just … gone.  There is nothing there but darkness.”  He didn’t sound mournful or angry or much of anything.  Simple, matter-of-fact.

            She swallowed back the pain.  “Angelique’s spell was successful, then.”

            “You should see to her,” Barnabas said quietly.  “I tell you that I’m fine, Julia.”  She nodded curtly, began to move away, then stopped as she felt his fingers, icy, curl around her wrist.  But gently.  Tenderly.  She turned back to him and he was looking up at her.  “Thank you,” he said.  “You saved my life once again.  I will never be able to repay you.  Never.”

            She nodded, unable to actually form any words that would have made any kind of sense, then pulled away from him and briskly crossed the room.

            Angelique still wore the simple green servant’s dress that had materialized after … after whatever it was Roxanne Drew had done to her.  The separation or whatever you wanted to call it she performed using that weird dagger thingie.  “Angelique,” Julia said softly, and the other woman jumped and spun around.  She seems so young, Julia thought, startled, as if she hasn’t lived yet.  As if none of these terrible events have occurred yet to touch her.  “Are you all right?”

 

            “I don’t know,” Angelique said softly.  “Honestly, Julia.  I have no idea.  It’s as if I feel … nothing.”

            “And you don’t know exactly what happened.”

            “The Dagger of Erishkegal,” Angelique said.  Her voice grew bitter.  “I thought it was a myth.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Roxanne got ahold of it.  Or used Edith Collins to get it for her.”

            Julia edged closer to her.  “Besides the loss of your powers,” she said carefully, “are there any other ramifications you’ve noticed?”

            “No.”  She sounds tired, Julia thought.  She touched her face, then rubbed her temples.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know why I look like this, Julia.  Erishkegal is a death goddess.  There’s no indication that she – it – would be used to cause mystical divisions.  The knife is rumored to have certain powers, but I never expected that it could do … could do …”  She turned away, back to the portrait of Barnabas.  Her shoulders quaked.  Julia reached out for her, then pulled her hand back at the last second. 

            “He’s gone, whoever he was,” Audrey said, still at the window.

            “The other … the other you,” Julia said, gesturing helplessly in the air.  “Who – what – is she, exactly?”

            “She’s me,” Angelique said with a jagged laugh.  “But she isn’t me at all.  The powers of the Mask of Ba’al, if I had to hazard a guess.  Personified.”

            “That’s insane.”

            “What isn’t, these days?”  All her fury collapsed, and Angelique’s eyes filled with tears.  “Julia, I’m terrified.  Without my powers, we’re easy pickings for Roxanne and her merry band of monsters.  Or for the Enemy.”  She took a deep, hitching breath.  “Or … or for me.  The other me.”

 

            “We’ll figure out a way to get your powers back, Angelique,” Julia said.  “And as for Roxanne … you – or the other you – seem to have taken care of her and her followers fairly efficiently.  Seaview was destroyed, certainly.”

            “We can’t assume that any of them were destroyed with it,” Angelique said miserably.  “They’re all too clever to let a little fire stop them for long.”

            Which was the moment the doors to the Old House opened and a figure stood there for a moment, framed against the night sky, still stained orange with the glow of the flames that continued to consume Seaview.  Then the figure toppled forward and collapsed onto the floor.

            They ran to him, Julia, Audrey, and Barnabas; only Angelique remained in her place, watching, seemingly unperturbed by this turn of events.

           

            The man below him gazed up at them with bleary eyes.  He was all over soot, but his face was red with fever.  He groaned.  Julia’s eyes narrowed, and she made a hissing sound as she saw the ugly slash across his chest, where something sharp, perhaps a piece of the wall or ceiling as it collapsed around them back at Seaview, had slashed through his Mickey Mouse tee-shirt and cut him, and deeply. 

“Nathan Forbes,” Barnabas growled.

 

            His eyelashes fluttered; his tongue flickered out of his mouth to moisten his lips, which were cracked and dry.  “Help me,” he murmured.

3

            The werewolves were just ahead of her, loping through the open field with what she was shocked to find was unabandoned joy; I suppose, Alex thought, it makes some kind of sense, since they don’t know I’m behind them, and they certainly don’t know I’m carrying this. 

            The silver sword in her hand, a gift from Mr. Best (she continued to have a difficult time thinking of him as simply her uncle anymore, even after their come to Jesus talk a few weeks before), sang against her fingers, said, Find, find, slash, kill, kill, kill, mystical vibrations urging her on.  And the cloak, another gift from her benefactor, magically concealed her features from her prey.

            They were her prey.  She would not fail this time as she had before.

            You’ve met them.  As humans.  You talked to them; you even liked one of them, that Christopher Jennings.  You liked him, Alex, and now you’re going to kill him?

            I have to, though, she whispered to herself.  It’s my duty.

            It’s for the greater good.

 

            For humanity.

            The werewolves, one’s man-like body nearly eight feet tall and covered in dark brown fur, the other nearly as tall but shaggily, glowingly white, were playing, it seemed to her.  Frolicking.  The white one pounced on the other, knocked him to the ground, and they rolled around, snarling and snapping, but it wasn’t vicious; it was playful.  They were, she thought, like a couple of overgrown puppies, frisking the way that dogs did.

            Her fingers tightened around the grip of the sword.  I have to do this, she told herself.

            They’re not always monsters.

            She stopped again mid-stride.  Her fingers relaxed a bit.  That was true, she supposed.  Most of the time they were men, ordinary men.  It was a curse they suffered from, one that compelled them to kill. 

            But they have killed, a little voice whispered in her ear.  Both of them.  Does it matter if they feel compelled or not?  A killer is a killer.  And they will kill again.  Shaw nearly killed you, and he would have, if you hadn’t wounded him with the sword. 

            Take them.  Take them out.  Both of them.  Do it now.

            And what am I?  she wondered again, as she had wondered so often in recent days, especially in the light of the revelations Mr. Best had presented her.  I am the daughter of Petofi, she thought, a creature of the most intense darkness this world – any of the worlds – has ever known.  I carry his blood.  My powers comes from him, my powers comes from darkness.  So what am I?  Am I any better than the monsters I have slain all my life?

            Do you even need the sword?

            That was a new voice.  Seductive.  It didn’t sound like Best, it didn’t sound like her, it sounded …

            Serpentine.  Hissing.  A sibilant, cold little whisper, like a snake’s tongue tickling her ear.

            Do you even need the sword?  You have powers.  Many powers.  You haven’t even begun to explore them all.  Do you even need the sword?

 

            She made a strangled gasping sound and dropped the sword; it thumped into the grass and lay there, glittering silver under the light of the moon.  That voice, she thought, horror-stricken, that voice … I know that voice …

            It was Petofi’s.  Of course.  The voice of the serpent, the Naga, the voice of the Leviathan, but they were all the same:  his voice.  The voice of her father, her true father.

            And he was right.  There was power inside her, dark power, rising up, something terrible; she felt her teeth sharpen and her eyes darken as she thought, It would be easy, terribly easy; I wouldn’t even need the sword; I could burn them to an ash right this moment, wouldn’t even need to think about it; I could just do it …

            She knew how they would smell:  the acrid odor of burning fur, the sick-sweet smell of cooking meat.  She could almost hear their cries, high-pitched yipping and howling …

            Do it.  Take them out.  Do it now.

            “I don’t think you should do that.”

            She froze. 

            Quentin Collins stood before her.

 

            He can’t see me, she thought desperately, and reached down to retrieve the sword.

            “Excudo,” Quentin said casually, and the sword flew away, disappeared somewhere into the grass.

            She snarled at him, and turned to run.

            “Congelo,” Quentin said, and Alex snarled again, frozen in an invisible mire.

            He walked toward her, the dew-frozen grass crunching under his boots.  He was smiling a little.  The collar of his dark navy peacoat was drawn up, and his hands were crammed into his pockets.  “Cold night,” he said, “which is why I’m so surprised you’re out and about, Miss March.  Wouldn’t you be more comfortable all safe and warm in your little beddy bye at the Collinsport Inn?”

            Terror unfurled inside her on tenebrous wings.  “You … you can see me?” she whispered.

            “Old trick,” he said.  “I learned it from a Gypsy acquaintance of mine.”  He passed his hands through the air.  “A few Latin incantations, a little waving of the arms, and …”  He snapped his fingers.  “Poof!  Allows me to see through all kinds of hoodoo.”

            “What are you going to do with me?”

            He raised his eyebrows.  “My dear, I know I have a reputation with the ladies, but I have never, never, been reduced to applying force when my companion was unwilling.”

            “You know what I am.”

            “I have only the faintest idea of what you are.  I know that you have injured friends of mine, and that it seems likely you were just about to try again.”  His smile faded, and as it went, so did some of the good-humored jollity she heard in his voice.  “And one of those gentlemen out there you’ve been scrutinizing with such intensity happens to be my great-grandson.  So I hope you can understand,” and he removed his hands from his peacoat so she saw how they were clenched into very sizable fists, “that there’s no way in hell I’m letting you anywhere near him.”

            “I have powers,” she said with more confidence than she actually felt.

            “I suppose you do,” Quentin said.  “As you have no doubt noticed by now, I am not without my own particular arsenal.”

            “They’re monsters,” she barked.  “Don’t you understand that?  They’re killers.”

 

            “Everyone has problems.”

            “I’m going to destroy them,” she said.  “And if you get in my way again, I’ll destroy you as well.”

            “I don’t think you understand the name of the game,” Quentin said, sighing.  “Your timing, dear heart, is just a wee bit off.  We don’t have time to deal with you, these days, dearest, none of us do.  In the grand scheme of things, you don’t matter.  You’re a nuisance.  We have bigger problems than a magically endowed vigilante with a werewolf grudge.”

            “I don’t have a werewolf –”

            “You ever heard of the Enemy?”  He overrode her swiftly, maddeningly.  She wanted to slap him, punch him.  “Stupid name, I know, but that’s all we’ve got.  Now he’s a threat.  To every world in existence, apparently.  And you?  You’re just … annoying.”  He made a shooing gesture.  “Now why don’t you just take your little sword and go home.  Get some sleep.  And then tomorrow, after you’re all rested up, you can pack your bags and get the hell out of Collinsport.”

            She was shocked, embarrassed, and then furious to find that tears stung her eyes.  “You … you can’t talk to me like that!”

            “I can, and I can do a great deal more if you don’t follow my directions.”  He took a step closer to her.  “I will do anything to protect my family, you see.  Anything.”  He looked down into her eyes … and then paused.  She watched him, completely full of mistrust, as his eyes widened, his face softened.  “You have her eyes,” he whispered.  “My god, you don’t just look like her.  You are her, aren’t you.”

 

            “You’re talking about Victoria Winters,” Alex said.  She didn’t need to guess.

            “You’ve heard of her.”  She was surprised that he was surprised.

            “She was my sister.”  Well, why not? Alex thought distantly as he recoiled, took a stumbling half-step backward.  Why not let him in on the secret?  All cards on the table.  Besides, she thought, he was bound to find out eventually. 

            “That’s impossible.”

            “It isn’t.  She was my twin.  Our mother was adopted by –”

            “Adopted?”

            “—adopted by the Collins family, seduced by Count Petofi, and bore him twins.  I was taken away before anyone even knew I existed.  Since then I have waged war against the forces of darkness.”

            A sneer, flash of his very white teeth.  “The tiniest bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

            She refused to be taken in by him.  “Your family houses monsters, Mr. Collins.  Vampires, werewolves, witches.  Murderers.  And I am sworn to take them down, to protect the human race.”

 

            “Because you’re so human.”

            “And you are?”

            “Maybe not anymore.  But I was.  Once upon a time.  You’ve never known what it’s like, really, truly like, to be a human being.  How do you know these monsters, as you call them, very offensive, bad form; how do you know that they aren’t trying to change?  That they aren’t struggling with their baser natures, that they aren’t seeking redemption?”

            “How can they ever hope to redeem themselves for what they’ve done?”

            “What about you?”

            She dropped her eyes, refused to meet his.  “You don’t know anything about me.”

            “I know that you’ve done things you regret.  That you would like to atone for, perhaps.  If you are truly the daughter of Count Petofi, then you undoubtedly possess some of his powers.  And I’ve seen those powers at work.  They destroyed Victoria Winters.”

            Alex whipped her head back around to snarl some bitter retort, and then looked at him.  Really looked.  “You … you loved her,” she whispered, struck by the emotion she saw before, the depth of the feeling – the emptiness – she saw in his eyes.

            “I loved her more than any other woman I’ve known,” he said in a low voice.  “You have no idea how much.”

            “Until,” and she matched his tone, his sadness, “until Angelique destroyed her.”

 

            “She had to,” he whispered.  He grinned ruefully.  “Look, I’m the last person who’s going to defend Angelique.  But … but what she did was necessary.  Vicki wasn’t herself.  Lost in the darkness.  Out of control.  She would have killed us all.  Probably take the entire world out too while she was at it.  Angelique did the right thing.”

            “She was my sister.  I’ll never meet her.  Never talk to her.  Nothing.”  Something was opening inside her, beyond the dark place:  an ancient well, a hidden lake maybe, full of dark, fathomless water.  Green water, and it was beyond bitter, beyond painful.  Dark, dark, dark, and heavy, and full of despair.  She could lose herself there, she could feel it.  It would be so easy.

           

            “I’m sorry, Alexandra,” Quentin said.  “I really am.  But I can’t let you do this.  I don’t know why you’re on this misguided quest, but I can’t let you.”

            She felt herself hardening and turned away from him again.  “You don’t have a say.”

            “I’ll stop you, you know.”  His voice was soft, caressing.  Deadly.

            She began to walk away.  She stopped.  Glanced over her shoulder.  Showed him her grin, flash of white teeth.  “I’ll count on it,” she said, and slid, vanishing, into a beam of moonlight.

            Quentin watched after her for a long time, hands crammed into the pockets of his peacoat, head bowed.  After a time he looked over his shoulder, saw that Chris and Sebastian had disappeared as well, then began to move slowly, stiffly away, back toward Collinsport. 

            She isn’t Vicki, he told himself, over and over, she isn’t, she isn’t, she isn’t.

 

            Which begged the question: what exactly was she?

4

1795, December

            “This is it,” Nathan said, bowing, sweeping his arm out grandly, and then lifted his head and smiled at the visible astonishment on his companion’s face.  The foyer of Collinwood grew up around them in all its opulence:  the staircase, the chandelier, the portrait of Barnabas Collins glaring at them from its place on the wall.  Everything, he thought, the marble in the floor, the walnut paneling in the walls.  It will be mine.  It will all be mine.

 

            Todd Jennings, looking around, finally forced his mouth to close and then smiled sheepishly.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “It’s all so overwhelming.”

            Nathan laid a strong hand on the small of his back.  “It’s a lot to take in all at once,” he said, grinning his confident grin.  “Don’t try to get it all.”

            Todd leaned in, echoing Nathan’s grin.  “I’ve heard you say that,” he said softly, “before.”

            Nathan’s grin grew larger.  He leaned in so that his lips brushed against Todd’s earlobe.  “I have a room upstairs,” he purred.  “Mrs. Collins offered it to me whenever I wanted it.  No one needs to know, not even dear, mad Millicent.”

            “Lieutenant Forbes,” Todd whispered, squirming deliciously, “you are a scoundrel.”

            “I’m something,” he said, and turned Todd, pushing his lips against the other man’s.

            “Lieutenant Forbes!” 

 

            The two men broke apart, Todd sweating, stammering, head dropped, but Nathan didn’t move.  He smirked his finest smirk, and offered a mocking bow to the master of Collinwood as Joshua Collins descended the great staircase.  His face was a cloud that grew steadily darker by the moment.  “Mr. Collins,” Nathan nearly sang with as much cheer as he could muster.  “I’m here to see my fiancée!  Is she available?”

            “There are no words for you, sir,” Joshua growled.  “You dare to step foot in this house after all that you’ve done?  You dare to defile my house, my town, with your …  your …”  He began to bluster, so undone by what he had seen but had no words to describe that he became utterly unable to complete a sentence.  So gratifying, Nathan thought, something I’ve waited far, far too long to experience for myself.

            “Toddy,” Nathan purred, “why don’t you wait here?  Mr. Collins and I,” and his eyes flickered to the older man, “need to step into the drawing room for a bit.  Won’t take but a moment.”

            Todd’s eyes jumped back and forth from Joshua to Nathan and back again, then widened but slightly.  He began to smile.  “Oh,” he said his quiet, even tone, “yes.”

            “I have nothing to say to you,” Joshua said a moment later as Nathan closed the twin doors of the drawing room behind him.  “You are an abomination.”

 

            “Sticks and stones, Mr. Collins,” Nathan said.  His grin had faded slightly, but he allowed a tiny smile to quirk the corner of his mouth.  “Such an interesting word, ‘abomination,’ coming from you, what with all the … happenings this house has seen, and still in its infancy!” 

           

            Joshua’s eyes narrowed.  “I don’t have the slightest clue as to what you are referring,” and he sneered, “sir, but I am ordering you off the premises this moment, this very moment.  You are a cad and a liar and a cheat, and an abomination, something so foul and indescribably monstrous –”

            Nathan used the back of his hand to stifle a yawn.  “But I’m not a murderer, Mr. Collins.  I’m certainly not the Collinsport Strangler.”  He dropped his hand; his blue eyes flashed, and he focused them on those wide and astonished pair held by Mr. Joshua Collins.  “Because I know who he is.  We both know.”  Flash of teeth, sharp, shark-like.  “It’s Barnabas, Mr. Collins.  It’s your son.”

            Joshua’s face colored beyond scarlet, became purple and ferocious like a plum.  His mouth opened and closed; a freshet of foam collected at one corner.  “Get out,” he wheezed, “get out now.”

 

            “I’m very comfortable here, Joshua,” Nathan said, accenting the other man’s name.  “This house will prove to be a fine home for Millicent and me.”

            “Millicent?  Why, the nerve, the very suggestion –”

            “And of course we’ll want our friends to visit.  Frequently.  Starting right this very moment.  I think you can understand that,” Nathan said, and turned to the drawing doors.  He paused.  “I think you can understand that very well.”  And flung them open.

            Todd was waiting for him, as Todd always was and, Nathan knew, always would be; he led him upstairs, and Joshua Collins could do nothing, nothing; led him upstairs by the hand, down winding hallways, to a room in the East Wing he had scoped out a few days ago; through the door, onto the bed, where love waited. 

            Afterward, stroking Todd’s cheek with a tenderness he rarely showed to anyone, Nathan, nearly drowsing, said, “I’ve never had a house like this before.  Did you know that?”

            “I know so little about you,” Todd whispered back, watching him closely.

            “You will.”  Nathan smiled.  “You will know everything there is to know.  My father, his strap, my mother the whore, every ugly cliché.  Every moment I spent waiting,” and he swallowed, his smile fading, “every dirty moment I counted until I could run away, go to sea.  And then I went.”

            “And you met me.”  Todd’s fingers wound their way sinuously through the thicket of hair on Nathan’s chest.  He toyed languorously for a moment with one of Nathan’s nipples, and the other man made a contented purr.

            “Best thing,” and Nathan yawned, “best thing that ever happened to me.”  His eyelids fluttered.  “I love you, Toddy.”  It was the first time he’d said it.  Todd didn’t pause, didn’t stop.  His hand moved lower, down onto the soft pouch of Nathan’s stomach.  “No house, no money … nothing … nothing …”

            “What if we don’t need the money, Nathan?”

            His eyes flew open, then narrowed.  “What do you mean?”

 

            Todd didn’t back down, didn’t stop his ministrations.  “I mean, what if it really were just you and me?  What if we forgot all of this, the Collins family, everything, and just went?  And never looked back?”

            “Don’t joke, Toddy.”

            “I’m not joking.”

            Nathan thought for a moment, his blue eyes turning internal, looked to a place above Todd’s head.  “No,” he said at last.  “Go back to that other life?  With the rats and the filth, the seamen, the bilge rodents and the shit and the stench of piss, forever?  No, Toddy.  Not even for you.”

            “But I –”

            “Collinwood will be ours, Toddy, yours and mine.  All Miss Millicent Collins’ fortune at our disposal.”

            Todd took his hand away from Nathan’s stomach, and moved away, and looked at him.

             Nathan looked back.  “It’s all for you.  I’ve never … I’ve never cared for another human being like I care for you.  I mean that.  Do you believe me?”  The ball of his thumb stroked gentle circles beneath Todd’s chin.

            “Yes,” he whispered.

            “Everything,” Nathan said.  “For you.”  He moved forward, guided Todd’s mouth to his.  They kissed each other with growing passion until they broke apart, panting, both hard, both ready for another go.  Nathan reached down, found what he sought, and held it firmly.  “I’ll never go back to that other life, Toddy.  And neither will you.”  And his eyes closed as Todd moved to him and they came together again.

5

            He opened his eyes.  Angelique was looking down at him, her hair twisted into golden ringlets, wearing the green servant dress he recognized instantly.  For a moment panic gripped him with thin fingers; had he gone somehow back in time?

            Would that be so bad?  Really?

            “Todd?” he croaked.  “Where is Todd Jennings, wench?”

  

            Angelique’s eyes narrowed.  “I am no ‘wench,’ Lieutenant,” she said sharply, “and I would advise you to watch your foul tongue.”

            He tried to move, and groaned as the pain gouged at him again.  He looked down, saw that his shirt had been cut away, and that an enormous bandage of gauze and tape covered his chest.  His tongue flicked out and licked his lips, which felt cracked and dry.  He was thirsty … so thirsty.  Where am I? he wondered, glancing around the room, taking in the four poster, canopied bed he lay upon, the portrait of … good god, was that Josette Collins?  It was, wasn’t it?

            Have I gone back in time?

            Modern jeans.  Modern loafers.  He could see the band of the orange and blue striped jockey shorts rising above his jeans, the ones he knew Toddy liked and so he wore them special today. 

            He relaxed a bit.  He was in the twentieth century.  He was alive.

            Why is she dressed like that?

            “I’m thirsty,” he croaked again.

 

            Angelique, her face revealing nothing, poured him water from a silver pitcher and handed it to him wordlessly.  He drank it in three large gulps then handed her back the glass.  “More,” he said, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to do it, that she would strike him again, but she had been a servant, hadn’t she, he thought; why, taking orders must be just like riding a bicycle! 

            He drank the water again, more slowly this time.  The pain was subsiding, but it was still there, just beneath the surface, like the black bodies of sharks cruising through the glassy ocean he and Todd used to watch together from the ship.  Once or twice they harpooned one, laughing together.  Something at that house, he thought, remembering, something fell on me.  Smoke … fire … and Angelique …

            But Angelique was here.  So who was that other woman who destroyed Seaview?

            “You are lucky to be alive,” Angelique said, watching him.

            “Again,” he said.  “Fortune favors Forbes.  I’m harder to kill than a cat.”

            “Perhaps you used up another of your lives this evening, Lieutenant.”

            “Perhaps.”  He settled back against the comfortable pillows and stretched, but only a little; he didn’t want to upset whatever work dear Dr. Hoffman had performed while he was out.  He laced his fingers together and used them to support his head.  “How come you’re dressed like that?” he asked her.  “You guys holding an improperly timed costume party?  Felt like reminiscing about old times?”

 

            She ignored this.  “Why did you come to us?” she said.  “You are one of her party.”  She was gritting her teeth, barely maintaining her fury.  “You helped her.  Helped them with what they did to Barnabas.”

            “Barnabas,” Nathan said.  His good humor faded a bit.  “How is the old boy?  I imagine that he’ll take to sporting an eye patch, much like a gentleman I used to sail with once upon a time.  Quite the pirate look, arrrrr, matey,” and he began to laugh.

            She watched him carefully, expression free.  Then she slapped him.

            His laughter died instantly.  “No one touches me like that,” he snarled.  “Not ever.”  She smiled, then slapped him again.  “Ow!” he cried, touching his face, which burned red with the shape of her tiny hand.  “Jeez!  That hurts!”

            “Tell me what you know,” she said.  “Tell me Roxanne’s plan.”

            “You know it,” he said, suddenly tired of the whole thing.  “Look, I’m sorry about Barnabas, okay?  Even if he did kill me once upon a time, it isn’t like I’m holding a grudge.  I mean, look – I’m here, right?  So why not let bygones be bygones?”

 

            But Angelique was quaking, her blue eyes overly bright.  “Tell me,” she said furiously, “tell me why she did this to me.  What is her plan?”

            “Did what to you?” Nathan said.  “That biz with that knife thingie?  I have no idea.  I didn’t get a real clear looksee, see.  Why, what did she do?”

            “She took something away from me,” Angelique snarled.  “Cut away, quite literally.”

            Nathan’s eyes widened.  “So that’s why you look like you do,” he said.  “And that’s why there were two of you.  The knife thingie –”

            “The Dagger of Ereshkigal,” Angelique said, rolling her eyes.

            “Whatever.  The Dagger thingie cut you into two:  Angelique the mortal and Angelique the witch.”

            “Something,” Angelique whispered, “something like that.”

            He thought for a moment, then shrugged.  “I dunno,” he said at last.  “Roxanne isn’t incredibly forthcoming with her plans.  All I know is that she wanted to know how Dr. Hoffman made it back from the future.  Like, who helped her do it, who saved her from Gerard Stiles, who had the power to make a big change like that.  And she wanted to kill Barnabas.”  He cringed.  “Please don’t hit me again.”

            She seemed not to hear him.  “You don’t know anything,” she whispered.  A tear grew in the corner of one eye like a brilliant pearl, then spilled down her cheek, leaving a silver shimmer in its way.  “You are worthless.  Utterly worthless.”

 

            “I don’t think that’s completely true,” Nathan said grumpily, and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Ow,” he whispered as he disturbed Dr. Hoffman’s bandage work.  “I can have plenty of worth.  Listen, I didn’t ask Roxanne to bring me back.  I got no allegiance to her, really.  I care about one thing and one thing only.”

            “You’re human,” she said, “no powers, no magicks.  You’ll sell yourself to the highest bidder.  Why should we trust you?”

            “Because you have Toddy,” he said simply.  “Toddy is on your side.”

            She frowned.  “Toddy?”

            “Or Chris,” he said.  “Jennings.  Whatever he calls himself now.  You can dig reincarnation, can’t you?  It’s him.  He’s back.  And he’s mine.  And since he’s on your side, I’ll be on your side too.”

            “Sides,” she said, a sibilant sound between her clenched teeth.  “I am weary of sides.  I am weary of all of this.”  She put a trembling hand to her brow.  “Maybe we’re luckier, you and I.”

            “What do you mean?”  He tried to sit up, then fell back, wincing.

            “I’ve given up my powers before.  Tried to be human.  It never ended well.  Maybe this time …”  She frowned.  “No.  To lose one’s powers never ends well.  Humanity is a weakness.  Our enemies are far from human and they are stronger than we and they will overcome us and they will destroy us.”

            “Don’t freak out,” Nathan said.  “We’ll be all right.”  But suddenly he was frightened, really frightened for the first time since Roxanne and Count Petofi resurrected him, and he looked up at her with wide rabbit’s eyes.  “Won’t we?”

            She didn’t respond.

            The door to Josette’s room creaked open.  Chris Jennings stood there, Julia Hoffman just behind him.  “Oh Julia,” Chris said.  His voice cracked.  “You didn’t.  Not him.  Not here.”

 

            “Christopher!” Nathan cried, joy flooding over him, making him forget his fear and his pain.  “You came!  You really came!”

            Christopher ignored him.  He glared instead at the redheaded doctor at his side.  “How could you do this, Julia?  How could you help him?”

            Julia didn’t answer him.  She entered the room instead.  “How are you feeling, Lieutenant?” she asked, and lifted his wrist.  She looked to the ceiling while she took his pulse.

            “Still hurts,” Nathan said.  His eyes rested on Christopher.  “But not so bad.  Now.”

            “Julia, he’s one of them,” Chris said, striding up to her.  “He’s one of the bad guys, and you brought him here?”

            “It’s nice to see you too,” Nathan grumbled.

            “He was hurt, Christopher,” Julia snapped.  “He would have died.”

            “He’s already dead,” Chris snarled.  “Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

            “I couldn’t just let him die,” Julia said.  “And I don’t believe you would have let him die either.”  They glared at each other.  Finally Chris looked away.

            “No,” he said, and sounded very tired, “no, I suppose you’re right.  I wouldn’t.”

            “Besides,” Nathan said brightly, “I’m not one of them.  I’m here to help!”

 

            “Like hell you are,” Chris growled.  “You bastard, you selfish sonofabitch.  You’ll do anything to get what you want, and everyone else can screw themselves.  That’s true, isn’t it.”

            “It doesn’t have to be,” Nathan said in a small voice.

            “But it is.  You don’t care who you hurt, so long as you get what you want.”  Behind them, only Julia saw Angelique flinch and turn away.  “I could never love someone like you.”

            “Listen,” Nathan said, “I know you don’t remember, but I told you once, a long time ago, that everything I do is for you.  I love you.  I’ve never loved anyone before you.  That’s why I keep coming back, Toddy –”

            Chris bared his teeth.  “My name is –”

            “Doesn’t matter.  We’re still who we are.  We’ll always be.  All I want is for you to love me.  You’re right about one thing – I’ll do anything to get you to love me.”

            Chris shook his head.  “Never gonna happen.”  He swallowed, his face sad and disgusted at the same time, and then he turned to Julia.  “I’m going back to the cottage.  Sebastian is waiting for me.  Quentin called.  Says he has some news about our mystery attacker.”  He glanced one more time at Nathan, opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head again, then walked out the door.

            “I should go with him,” Julia sighed.  “Angelique, will you stay with Barnabas?  I want to make sure that nothing interfered with your healing spell.  We don’t know what other properties that Dagger might have.”  Angelique nodded, but she was staring up at the portrait of Josette.  Julia made a sound of exasperation and turned to Nathan.  “I’m leaving these,” and she set two pills down on the table beside his bed, “with you.  They’re for pain.”  She smiled tightly, touched him gently on the shoulder, then walked out of the room.

            For a moment, neither of them said a word.

 

            Then:  “He’s wrong,” Angelique said.  Her voice was quiet.  Gentle.  Nathan watched her carefully.  “People do change.  They change all the time.  I’ve seen it happen, Lieutenant.  If you love him – if you really do – it isn’t too late.  You can change.  I promise you that.”  And she swept out of the room.

            “People change,” Nathan murmured.  “People change all the time.”

            He thought for a moment, then stood and hobbled to the window and looked out over the lawn, painted silver by the cold, cold moon.  “Power,” he said.  “Humanity.  Weakness.”  And thought and thought.

6

1693

            The wind whipped her hair, free of its cursed bonnet, in a golden tide across her face.  Below her, a thousand feet, lay the jagged shards of rock.  Dimly, far away, she could just see Aidan’s body, torn and smashed.  She hoped fleetingly that his death had been quick.

            The woman before her was grinning wickedly.  The magic had blackened her eyes, stretched purple veins like branches across her face, now lightened so it glowed in the darkness, white as salt.  “You thought it would be so easy, didn’t you,” Samantha Good Collins purred.  “Both of you.  My lying husband … and his whore.”

 

            Miranda didn’t dare to even draw a breath.  I can escape this trap, she thought, there must be a way, some way …

            And yet – yet she remembered the night, only a week ago, when, beneath the moon, she and Aidan consummated their love under its silver-water light, and afterward, cleansed and baptized, she had forsaken her powers; she knew they were gone, had felt them fly from her, leaving her gasping and weak … and mortal. 

            A fool.  Nothing but a helpless fool.

            Aye, and she was helpless now.  She was human.  She could hear the mocking laughter of her former coven master, the sadly deposed Nicholas Blair, echoing in her ears. 

            “Hast thou no denial for me, Miranda DuVal?”  The witch before her was furious, Miranda could tell that much.  The wind howled around them, whipping the other’s auburn hair into a frenzy.  “Hast thou no words in thy own defense?”

            “You would not believe a word from my lips,” Miranda said.  “You have killed the only man I ever loved.  You bewitched him and then you murdered him.”

            “So I did,” Samantha, said smirking.  “But I haven’t lost, my darling.  Thou art even more of a fool than I thought thee if you believe that.  For I have bound him to me, darling Miranda – bound him to me with a curse.”

 

            Miranda’s eyes grew wide.

            “He will see my face again,” Samantha said, and lifted her head so that she smiled into the moon, “and he will find me.  For the love of Aidan Collins belongs only to me, as thou must know.”

            “I know no such thing,” Miranda snarled through clenched teeth.

            Samantha’s laughter was tinkling, the shattering of crystal.  “Idiot girl,” she said.  “Know thee nothing of the Collins family?  Where they have built their house, over the grave of a monster?  But that monster – that daemon – feeds us its magic, for I am a Collins now as surely as the others, and the Collins curse can be twisted and used for my purposes.”

            “Thou art mad!” Miranda gasped.  She glanced over shoulder.  Human, she thought, human, and doomed.  I should have held onto my powers; they could have saved me now …

            He will see my face again.  And he will find me.

            She drew herself up.  Steel rose up inside her, the same ice that came when she called upon the powers of darkness.  I am strong, she thought, and her eyes flashed silver; I will return as well; hear me, spirits that exist and that know, hear me and hear me well – this will never be over.

            Human or not, I will return to this place.

            “Aidan will be mine again,” Samantha said dreamily, “and you will be lost … lost … lost –”

            Miranda opened her mouth and shrieked, a bestial sound, a battle cry, and it had the exact effect she had hoped:  it caught the other witch off guard.

            Giving Miranda enough time to seize her rival with both hands full of that beautiful red hair, seize it and pull –

            – so that they both went over the edge of Widow’s Hill.

            She ignored the bitter shrieks of her rival as the rocks rushed up to greet them.  I will return, she thought firmly, that is all I know.  That is all I must know.

             I will return to this place.

            She closed her eyes and imagined Aidan, Aidan’s lips against hers, Aidan’s arms around her, Miranda DuVal, human at last, and in the moment before impact she found she was smiling.

7

            The light of the candle flame he cradled with both hands had glowed a serpentine, bitter green for the past few minutes, and Nathan figured that must mean it was working.  The spell, summons, incantation, whatever it was.  He really had no idea what he was doing – he was no witch, no sorcerer – but who cared?  Without Toddy, the world was meaningless.

 

            The green flame reflected itself in the shard of glass he discovered under the bed, pacing the room like a lion bored in its cage after the others left him behind with only his thoughts to tear at him.  It was nearly two inches long and needle sharp.  The back was painted silver.  Something expensive broke here once, he had thought as he picked it up; I wonder what it was … a goblet?  A mirror?

            Which was when it occurred to him – an idea.  The idea … the only idea that mattered.  It had unfolded in his mind like poisonous black petals.

            He shivered now.  The temperature in Josette’s room had plummeted suddenly.  The hair on his arms was standing up, he saw, and goosebumps trilled up and down every exposed inch of skin.

            I’m not alone.

            He smiled.

            People change all the time.

            Angelique had said that.

            “I should kill you for using that spell to summon me,” a toneless, deathless voice said from behind him, so familiar, yet so very different.

            Nathan turned around, already knowing full well what – who – he would see.

            The shadows in the farthest corner of the room clung thickly to each other, but suddenly they were scattered as a dull green light, the same color, Nathan saw, as the flame of his candle, began to glow there.

            Tom Jennings appeared.  His face was cast in that same greenish light, his sandy hair scattered across his forehead, his muscular arms bared beneath the sleeves he had rolled up.

            Nathan felt desire and fear rise up inside him in equal parts.

            “Perhaps you should,” he said with a bravado he didn’t really feel.

            Tom took a step toward him.  “You abandoned us,” he said.  “You went to them.”

            “Looks like,” Nathan said.

            Tom bared his fangs.  “Traitor,” he said.  “Roxanne wants to save us, and you throw it all away because of one little boo boo.”

            “That’s not why,” Nathan said lowly.

            Tom raised his eyebrows.  “Is it Christopher?”  He roared sudden laughter.  “Oh my god, it is, isn’t it.  You, of all people, giving it all of up for love.”

           

            “Wouldn’t you?” Nathan said.  “If Julia Hoffman came and offered herself to you?”

            “She won’t, though,” Tom growled.  “Just as Christopher will never come to you.”

            “I know he won’t.”

            Tom looked at him, surprised.  “Then what do you want of me?  Am I to be a courier, returning you to the fold?”

            “Not exactly.  When we’re done, I expect that I’ll be able to take care of myself quite efficiently, thank you.”

            “When we’re done?  I don’t …”  The vampire’s face registered shock.  Nathan was shimmying out of his tee-shirt.  “You’ve got to be kidding.”  Nathan stared at him stonily, bare-chested.  “Look,” Tom said, and held up two hands in a warding off gesture, “I’m not like you.  I’m not like my brother; I’m not my brother, and I won’t play the part, not for you, not for –”

            “Shut up,” Nathan said, and Tom did, though he continued to glare, his eyes a sullen, wolfish red.  “I’m not asking you to be Christopher.  I know better than that.  But I need you, Tom.  I need your power.”

            “You … you want to be like me.”  He cocked his head quizzically, genuinely puzzled.  “Why?”

            “I can’t be human,” Nathan whispered.  “Don’t you understand?  You have power.  You are power.  I need it.  You’re right – Chris will never come to me as I am. 

            “But I can change.  I can make him come to me.”

            Tom considered this.  “Yes,” he said at last.  “Yes, I suppose you could, at that.  If I do it.”

            “Why wouldn’t you?  You’re hungry.  I can tell. I can see it in your eyes.”

            Tom licked his fangs.  “The Undead are always hungry,” he whispered.  “This is a curse, Nathan.  You don’t know –”

            Nathan held up the sliver of glass, and wondered for a moment why Tom recoiled from it the moment he recognized it for what it was.  That couldn’t matter now.  With ruthless efficiency, Nathan ran the glass across his palm.  The mouth that opened there instantly ran black in the flickering candlelight with his blood.

            He rose from the bed and took a step toward the vampire.  “I don’t care,” he said, and tossed his head back, exposing the long, white curve of his neck.  He held out his palm.  Tom’s red eyes took it in, and his tongue flashed across his crimson lips.  Dime sized droplets of blood splashed black onto the ancient carpet Barnabas Collins had selected especially on a visit to Paris in 1795 for his bride-to-never-be.  “Do it,” Nathan said, taking another step.  He was trembling, stone inside his pants.  His breath came in sharp little gasps.  They were only inches apart now.  The vampire’s inhuman eyes watched him, watched him.  “Make me like you.  Do it now.”

 

            Tom’s tongue lashed out, snake-like and inhumanely long, settled on Nathan’s palm, then withdrew back into the cavern of his mouth.  He began to make a leonine growling sound.

            Nathan closed his eyes.  He felt Tom’s icy hands as his fingers sank into the meat of Nathan’s shoulders, pulled him nearer, nearer.  The charnel stink of the vampire’s breath fell over him like a shroud, and Nathan held his own breath.  He wouldn’t need it much longer anyway.  His erection throbbed against Tom’s lifeless body.  He wondered briefly if he hadn’t been anticipating this moment all his life.

            People change all the time.

            His eyes flew open as Tom’s mouth settled on his throat, the twin points denting Nathan’s sensitive skin, holding there, pausing, just waiting.

            Power.  Humanity.  Weakness.

            Ecstasy and a dark crimson pain exploded inside him as Tom’s fangs slid effortlessly into his neck, and Nathan’s mouth opened but he made no sound, and they sank together to the floor of Josette’s bedroom as Nathan descended into an emerald green water, and heard there in the sweet depths chiming voices singing silver of far away, and he thought, I’m coming Christopher, I’ll be there soon; and then the darkness swallowed him whole.

TO BE CONTINUED ...