Shadows on the Wall Chapter 120

CHAPTER 120:  Purification 

by Nicky

Voiceover by Terry Crawford:  “Collinwood in the year 1840, a time of terror and intrigue for all who dwell on the great estate … because those travelers from a future year know well the impact that their existence in this foreign time may have on their own world.  But the warlock Nicholas Blair has discovered Julia Hoffman’s secret … and on this night, his actions may destroy everyone at Collinwood, past and present.”

1

 

            “I’ve never been so terrified,” Edith Collins gasped, her hand on her heart, her blonde hair snaked out of the coils she ordinarily kept, now frizzing about her face wildly.  Sheriff Danforth put out a comforting hand and laid it on her shoulder; her eyes, jade, he thought amazed, had utterly captured his, and held him.  Behind him, Jonathan Corwin, his deputy and best friend, stood at a desk, his fat fingers splayed out on the wood, his face a mask of horror and disbelief.  “Oh Sheriff Corwin, his face … his eyes.  They … they just changed!  You should’ve seen them.  They turned black as night, black as pitch!”

            “But there’s no such thing as witches,” Corwin said stupidly, and Danforth whipped around, glaring at him.

            “Shut your mouth,” he snapped.  “You are in the presence of a great lady, Jonny, and one thing you never do to a Collins is talk back!”

            Edith did not allow herself the pleasure of a tiny, feline smile.

            Corwin blinked, opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it.  But his eyes retained that puppy-like confusion.  Danforth was his best friend, or so he thought, and he had never spoken to Corwin in that way, not ever.  Witchcraft, he thought darkly, warlocks.  Nonsense.

            But Danforth had already turned back to Edith.  “It’s been a long time,” he said kindly, and took her hand, “since we had a witchcraft trial in Collinsport.”

            “My father-in-law talks about it to this day,” Edith sniffled.  She brushed at her eyes with a delicate white lace handkerchief that had once belonged, though she was not aware of this fact, to Josette Collins.  “The trial of Phyllis Wicke, his governess.  But he never believed she was a witch.  The real witch was Angelique Collins!”

            “I was too young to attend Wicke’s trial,” Danforth said grimly, “but my father knew the Reverend Trask, and would tell us on dark nights how he vanished from Collinwood while questioning witches.  Perhaps there was more than one witch at Collinwood.”

            “And perhaps there’s more than one there now!” Edith gasped.  “Oh Sheriff Danforth, please tell me you’ll help me!  Nicholas Blair terrifies me so!  His eyes … they turned black, like the fires of hell, black!”

            “Calm yourself, Mrs. Collins,” Danforth said, and touched her cheek with the back of his hand.  Corwin saw this and gasped, but Danforth didn’t hear him.  His eyes were locked on Edith’s.  Jade, he thought dreamily, jade pools, jade wade bade … pools, water, green and endless fathoms …

            “He must be burned,” Edith whispered, and Danforth nodded.  “You know that, don’t you, darling.  The warlock must be burned.”

            “The warlock,” Danforth whispered right back, “the warlock must be burned.”

            “Fire cleanses, don’t you think?”

            “It … cleanses.”

            “Purity.  Purifying.”

            “Oh, yes!”

            “Tonight,” Edith said, and now she allowed herself the pure pleasure of her largest, widest grin.  “Nicholas Blair will be burned … tonight.”

2

             “Angelique!” Barnabas roared, and Julia, reacting, felt the floor fall out from under her; she glanced down, and saw that her lower legs were utterly gone. 

            That can’t be good, she thought.

            The flames continued to flicker on the tips of Nicholas Blair’s gloved fingers, but the rest of the holocaust he summoned continued to engulf the body of Valerie Collins, occupied currently by the spirit of Angelique, 1969 vintage. 

            “Keep your temper, Mr. Collins,” Nicholas called cheerfully.  “Roaring requires energy, and I guarantee that you will need all your strength when your turn comes!”

            I want to help, Julia thought, I want to stop this, but I can’t, I can’t …

            “Poor Angelique,” Nicholas said, tutting, as Valerie collapsed to the ground, a blackened, shriveled mummy.  “One would think she had learned this lesson by now.  It takes fire to destroy a witch, particularly a witch of such little strength as she –”

 

            His words faded to nothing; Barnabas gasped; Julia closed her eyes and thought hard until her legs returned, but no one noticed, for Valerie was standing now, in the blink of an eye, and as she waved her hands, Blair’s flames flickered and went out, and she was standing before them triumphantly, whole and beautiful.  Her eyes flashed, and her lips curled into that familiar, poisonous smile.  “Fire is difficult, Nicholas, but not impossible,” she said.  “Particularly for a witch of such obviously little strength as I possess.”

            “Impossible,” Nicholas snarled.  “You don’t have that kind of power!   I know!  I brought you to the Dark One; it was I who –”

           

            “The power is inside me and has always been inside me,” Angelique declared, and raised a hand, and Nicholas was slammed backward as if by an enormous, invisible fist.  “That’s what you have never understood about me, and why you fail time after time in every pathetic quest you undertake.  The Master chooses me because my power gives him form.  I am the flame to which he is drawn.  My lifeforce, my imagination, my power sustains him.  You are just the wick after the flame is snuffed out.”

            “Ignorant bitch,” Nicholas snarled again, and threw out his hand.  Angelique froze, wide-eyed, as the skin of her hands, her face, every visible inch, turned a dead, leaden gray.  She was becoming petrified before their eyes, and, horrified, Julia realized the witch was turning to stone.  Even her eyes were glassed over, hard and unseeing.  Nicholas smiled, satisfied, but the smile was short lived, for Angelique’s eyes blinked, glowed, and the stone surrounding her shivered, cracked, and fell away into dust as she shook herself gently. 

            “Anything else?” she asked politely.

            Nicholas screamed like a panther and threw himself at her.

3

 

            Gabriel Collins retreated from the drawing room and rolled his wheelchair backward, praying the wheels wouldn’t squeak and give him away.  Though, he reasoned, it was unlikely that anyone would hear him.  So, he thought, Nicholas Blair, a friend of Quentin’s and a respected lawyer in town, sits at the right hand of Lucifer.  And my own stepmother, a bitch of darkness.  He was overwhelmed; his gorge rose in his throat; he had seen the red eyes and fangs that hung in the mouth of “Cousin” Barnabas, and he thought with a kind of righteous wildness, He is no cousin, he is no family of mine; then, The Secret, he recalled, the Secret that Father always spoke of but refused to yield.  Barnabas Collins never went to England, never founded an English branch of the family!  He’s been here, all along!  He is the Secret!

            Vampire!

            “Monsters,” Gabriel muttered, and wheeled himself into the shadows that led to the servant’s quarters.  “Witches, warlocks, demons.”

            I must rid this house of all of them.

            Yes.  Yes, he would.  With God’s purifying flame.  If he had to burn down all of Collinwood, by heaven, that’s what he would do.

            And, he thought as the front doors of Collinwood began to open, Jesus help anyone who tried to stand in my way.

4

 

            One moment she was watching the witches’ battle before her; the next, and she simply … wasn’t.

            Julia Hoffman had ceased to exist.

            It wasn’t that she now found herself in another place, a different world, or a vast empty plain filled with gray smoke and clouds.  There just wasn’t … anything anymore.

            But I’m aware, Julia thought, I’m awake, I can hear, I can feel.  She knew this to be true, because she was cold.  So dreadfully cold.

            “Is someone there?”

            Julia started (or tried to start; with no body and no physical mass of which to speak, “starting” at all was reduced to a concept, a theory which, bodiless, she could now not embody).  A voice, she thought, a voice out there.

            There is no there.

            “Hello?” she called, relieved that, somewhere, her body existed in some kind of form, enough, at least, to produce sound.

            “Who is that?  I don’t recognize your voice!”

            “Carolyn?” Julia called hesitantly.  But it couldn’t be Carolyn.  Not with that accent.

            “Carolyn … Stoddard?” the voice quavered.  “Are you looking for Carolyn Stoddard?  Because I’m looking for her too!”

            “Who are you?” Julia asked, but she thought she knew, and felt a spark of excitement ignite inside her.  Perhaps, she thought, perhaps all is not lost after all …

            The nothingness parted then as a light began to glow, dull at first, then brighter, a tiny star, glowing, glowing …

 

            … and by its light, Julia could make out a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair, and she could be the very twin of Carolyn, Julia marveled, and she moved through the darkness, the light glowing in her eyes and off the tips of her fingers and her very lips, and she said in her lilting accent, “My name is Leticia Faye.  Have you come to take me home?”

5

            “There!” Edith screamed hysterically, and leveled a trembling finger at the mustachioed man in the center of the drawing room.  His fingers were still crooked at strange angles, his hands continuing to make mystic passes through the air.  And all assembled – Sheriff Danforth, Corwin behind him, and a score of other Collinsport citizens they gathered on their way up the hill to the great house, torches blazing in their hands – all assembled could see the serpent-green witchfire that fell in streams and fitful sparks from those same hands, sizzling when they struck the carpet.  “There!” she screamed again.  “Do you see?  There is the monster!  There is the warlock!”

            Barnabas, looking for Julia, unnoticed by the crowd, willed more than he had ever willed before his fangs to withdraw.  But he couldn’t find her.  “Julia?” he whispered.

            Angelique whirled around and ran straight into Edith’s arms.  “Help me!” she gasped.  “Oh please, you must!  You must!  He’s the very devil!  He tried to kill us both!”

            Outside, Gabriel wheeled his chair into the foyer, and watched with slitted eyes the drama that played out in the drawing room only feet away.

            Blair’s eyes ranged over the assembled Collinsport mob, and they sparked and darkened and turned an inky, inhuman black.  The mob gasped collectively.  Nicholas leveled a finger at them.  “You will not take me,” he said in a voice like the cracking of earthen plates.  “Not you, not mortal dogs!”  The witchfire began to flicker and spark again as he began his incantation.  “Hear me, Lucifer!  Diabolum:  et interficiam eos obscenaeque canes importunaeque!”

 

            “Hold him,” Angelique whispered into Edith’s ear.  “If you value your life, you will hold him now.”

            “I don’t know who or what you really are,” Edith whispered back, “but I’m going to destroy you when this is over.  I swear it.”  Unnoticed by the others, she gently snapped her fingers.

            Nicholas’ black eyes flashed.  “As I will it, so mote it –”

            And then he froze, the words choked back in his throat.  His eyes bulged with his effort to move, to speak.

            Angelique relaxed, smiling.  Beside her, Edith did the same.

            “Get him!” Danforth roared, and the mob charged, swinging their torches.  One struck Blair upside the head, and he collapsed.  In that moment they were on him, and Barnabas, Angelique, and Edith drew back so the townspeople could drag him from the house.  Silently, they trailed behind and stopped at the front doors of the great house so they could watch as the mob, shouting, cajoling, celebrating, disappeared in the direction of the beach.

            “It’s what is meant to be,” Angelique whispered, and slid her hand into Barnabas’.  “I remember this.  Nicholas will be burned on the beach and his ashes scattered out over the ocean.”

            “But even that won’t stop him,” Barnabas replied grimly.

            “No,” Angelique said, troubled.  “No, it won’t.  Nothing stops him for long.”

            “I was right,” Edith said triumphantly, and they turned to face her, shocked.  “You are from the future.  You needn’t deny it; I know it is true.”

 

            “You know nothing, Edith Collins,” Angelique said and tossed her head.  “Leave us now if you know what’s good for you.”  Her eyes narrowed, and she allowed them to darken, so Edith could see her power.  “Or I will destroy you myself.”

            “You dare not,” Edith cackled.  “You don’t want to change your precious history.  Well, I’ll tell you something.  You have already changed it!  Nicholas is different because of you; so am I; so is dear Valerie!  What will happen to her when you finally leave her body … Angelique?”  Angelique recoiled, and Edith crowed.  “Or … if, I should say.  If you leave her body.  I am only a novice witch to be sure, but Nicholas schooled me well.  You have possessed her body, how I know not, but it is no simple process to exorcise a spirit from its host.  Even the spirit knows difficulty sometimes.”

            “Be quiet,” Angelique snapped.  “You don’t know what you speak of, Edith Collins.  I am older and wiser than you; when we meet again –”

            “And you just can’t stop, can you?” Edith chuckled.  “Oh, my poor, dear Angelique.  Don’t you see what you do?  Now I know we will see each other again.”  She rubbed her hands together briskly, eagerly.  “When?  How?  You must tell me!  I need to know!”

            “Tego,” Angelique growled, and Edith flew backward and landed in a heap in the foyer. 

            “Julia,” Barnabas said desperately.  He tugged at Angelique’s sleeve.  “She’s gone, Angelique!  We need to find what’s become of her!  I fear –”

            She took his hand in hers.  “We’ll find her, Barnabas,” she said, searching his face.  “I promise you that.  Come.”  And she pulled him out into the darkness.

            Edith sat up slowly, painfully.  Her teeth were bared; her eyes flashed with hatred.  “You are right, Angelique,” she hissed.  “You will see my face again.  And when you do … when you do, I swear –”

            She never finished the sentence.  Behind her, looming over her, her husband dropped his hands over her throat.  The thumbs pressed against her larynx and choked off any indignant spell she might have uttered.  Her eyes bulged; the flow of air was cut off immediately; her hands waved futilely in the air, then settled on his hands, but they were strong, those fingers, those arms, muscles bunched with effort and grown strong with years of wheeling, wheeling, wheeling around Collinwood; the thumbs held for a moment, then they pressed –

 

            “Gagh,” Edith Collins said.  “Gagh?”  There were spots floating in front of her, floating and circling, and they were red; no, now black, floating and circling, floating and circling –

            “Witch!” Gabriel Collins hissed from between clenched teeth.  Freshets of white foam flew from his lips and landed on her cheek, but she was beyond feeling them.  Her tongue protruded from between her lips as they lost their color and grew blue.  Her face began to turn black.  “Die, witch,” he said, panting, “die, die, die!”

            She didn’t hear him.  She was swept up in a great tide of blackness, and she didn’t feel the floor against her cheek as he dropped her lifeless body so that her head struck the carpeted floor and bounced once.  Her sightless eyes glared furiously into nothing.

6

            Edith took in a great ragged breath and sucked in noxious, sulfuric fumes into her lungs.  Her face burned where it lay against the floor of an immense stone cavern.  The only light came from torches that lined the walls and gave off greasy black trails of smoke.  She glanced down at her body and saw that she was naked.  White lice streamed over her flesh, and she screamed and began to strike at them over and over.

             The rolling, thunderous laughter of something that must be quite enormous indeed greeted her ears, and she froze in her ministrations and looked up.  And up.  And up.

            Something with eyes the size of carriage wheels glared down at her, and they were red, those eyes, bright red, as red as the flames that were everywhere in this dreadful place.

            “Edith Collins,” this monster said, and she could almost believe that its voice contained mirth, “would you care to make a deal?”

7

            Quentin finally rolled off her nearly a full three minutes after the shivers and the power in the energy of his orgasm subsided, and then flopped over onto his back, enjoying the feeling of the sweat that sprang from his forehead and chest and back during the intensity of their coupling.  He clasped his hands together and rested his head on them.  He found he was smiling in the darkness.  “Daphne,” he said, “Mrs. Collins … you are amazing.”

            Daphne, in the darkness at his side, made a purring sound of contentment.

            “I don’t care what they’re going to say,” Quentin said.  “Any of them.  Not Father, not Valerie, not even Gabriel.  This is right; we both know it; we knew it the moment you came to Collinwood.”

            “I knew it,” Daphne said in the darkness.  Her voice was sated, feline.  Just the sound of it started him again.

            “It won’t fade, our love,” Quentin said.  “Don’t you feel that, darling?  Don’t you think that’s true?”

            “I do,” she said.

 

            “We will love for eternity,” Quentin said dreamily.  “Collinwood will be our home.  It will be our legacy.  A testament to our love.”

            “Eternal,” Daphne said.  “Never ending.”

            “You are mine,” Quentin said, and lifted himself off the bed, supporting his weight with his elbow.  He reached out to her in the dark, but saw only the barest white outline of her shoulder.  Her face was swathed in shadows.  “You are my bride; no one can deny that now.  Collinwood is ours.”

            “Ours,” Daphne exhaled, a prayer, an invocation.

            “Darling,” Quentin said, and leaned down to press his lips to hers.

            Lightning flashed outside, just in time to illuminate the room, to send the shadows away, to show Quentin the true face of his bride.

             He screamed then, and recoiled, and tried to move away, but her skeletal arms, the flesh black and rotting, snaked out and wrapped around him, and there was strength in them yet, and they pulled him, shrieking and struggling, down, down, down.  Her face, fleshless, a bare skull, but with fire flickering far back in the empty sockets, reached up for him.  The mouth opened, and a rotted tongue emerged.  It lapped hungrily at the air.

            “Kiss me,” the horror said.

 

TO BE CONTINUED ...