Shadows on the Wall Chapter 125

Shadws on the Wall 

 CHAPTER 125:  Undone

by Nicky

 

Voiceover by Kathryn Leigh Scott:  “Another night in the accursed town of Collinsport, where the changes made in the year 1840 are like ripples from a stone tossed uncaringly into a pond … and for those unfortunates who have mingled, wittingly or unwittingly, with the members of the Collins family, those changes could mean the difference between life … and death.”

1

 

            “Rose Cottage,” she said, and looked around appraisingly.  Her lips quirked into a smile.  “How appropriate.”

            Thunder grumbled outside; at her side stood Quentin Collins, ramrod straight, his blue eyes wide and slightly unfocused.  An ascot covered the twin wounds on his throat.  But they continued to leak droplets of blood which stained the pretty blue ascot with dark brown spots.

            Roxanne Drew nodded as if she had expected this sentiment.  “I thought so,” she said.  “We will keep your coffin in the basement.”

            “I forgot that there was a basement.”

            “Fortunately for you, I have forgotten nothing.”

            The woman who had lived a hundred and thirty years ago as the wife of Daniel Collins, this Valerie Collins, undead, dead, and now undead again, glared suddenly at Roxanne.  “Why did you bring me back?” she said.  “I was at peace.  There was only darkness, and I was a part of it.”

            “Because the past has changed,” Roxanne said.  “There are two versions in my mind, and they clash.  I suppose one of them will fade away with time and I will remember only what those fools changed with their meddling, but for now I know this:  you did not become the victim of Barnabas Collins, who was locked away in his chained coffin the mausoleum at Eagle Hill while we were living our lives, and subsequently you did not become my victim.  Daniel languished for a few months after the loss of his family, and you lived uneasily with Edith and Tad at Collinwood, until Edith finally grew tired of you and disposed of you with her powers in a fairly typical way for the witches of this community:  she sent you screaming over the edge of Widow’s Hill.”

            “I remember none of this,” Valerie growled. 

 

            “Of course you don’t,” Roxanne said, “because it never happened.  In the revised history of the Collins family, you became possessed by the spirit of the witch Angelique; Barnabas Collins attacked you in order to free your body of that spirit, just before both Barnabas and Angelique left that time; I made you my victim so you could become a vampire; Caleb and Gregory discovered what you had become and drove a stake through your heart; then you were buried and they vowed never to speak of you again.”

            “You could have revived me at any time,” Valerie said, as if she had heard none of Roxanne’s recitation.  “Why did you wait until now?”

            “Because now is the proper time,” Roxanne said.  “Because my army has dwindled, and the Collins family and their friends continue to represent a threat to us, and to the whole world.”  She smiled.  “What amuses me the most is how their own bungling around with the past gave me another tool to use against them.”

            “I am a tool,” Valerie said, musing.

            Roxanne patted her gently on the shoulder.  “You needn’t be so dour, dear.  This is the twentieth century.  You’ll need to adapt, of course, and there will be adjustments to make, but –”

            Roxanne gaped.  Valerie had vanished.

            “No!” Roxanne howled, and spun around and around the room, nearly impotent in her fury.  Quentin merely stared straight ahead, unblinking.  “Where has she gone?” Roxanne hissed into his face.  “You can sense her; you must!  Tell me where she is!”

            “You know I cannot,” he said automatically, his voice grating as with disuse, an automaton gone rusty and run down long years.

 

            “She is supposed to be under my control,” Roxanne snarled.  “I made her; she is mine.”

            “She died,” Quentin said.  He continued to stand in his place, unmoving.  Perhaps, Roxanne thought, perhaps he is unable to move without her command.  That could prove annoying in the long run.  “Maybe the rules change once a vampire dies and is resurrected.”

            Roxanne blinked.  “I never thought of that.”

            “It seems to me,” Quentin said, and now his mouth quirked into a little smirk, “that there are a lot of things you never thought of.”

            “Be quiet, Quentin,” Roxanne growled, “or you’ll really be quiet for a long time.”

            “I almost feel badly for you,” Quentin said, ignoring her.  “Every plan you’ve had come to nothing, every thread you’ve pulled has undone the entire garment, fallen to pieces around you.  Your most powerful foot soldiers are dead –”

            “Shut up,” she whispered.

            “— those that remain have defected –”

            “Shut your mouth.”

            “— and you can’t control those that you have left.  Where is Danielle Roget?  Tom Jennings?  Or Valerie Collins, for that matter?  They’ve all abandoned you, Roxanne, left you to fight for yourself, and what a miserable job you’re making of it –”

            “I told you to shut up!” she shrieked, and the force of fury in her voice shattered every window in Rose Cottage as she reared back and backhanded Quentin with all the preternatural strength of the vampire.  He flew across the room like a ragdoll, struck the far wall of the room, and slid bonelessly to the floor.  She stood over him, her nostrils flaring, her eyes twin blood globules, her hands stretched into bat-claws the size of shovels.  When she spoke, her voice was guttural, feral, an animal’s.  “I know what you’re trying to do,” she grated.  “You want me to kill you because you are too weak to bear being the slave of a vampire.”

            Blood trickled from both Quentin’s nostrils.  He smiled up at her blearily. “Nothing … gets by you,” he groaned.  “No wonder you’ve survived this long.  You’re the smartest vampire on the block!”

 

            She knelt beside him, her beauty and humanity restored.  “I’m going to punish you for your insolence,” she said smoothly, calmly, “and this is what your punishment shall be.  I’m going to allow you to hold on to your miserable existence if only so you will continue on as Valerie’s slave.”

           

            “You’re all heart,” Quentin said.

            “Even though it sickens you, you want her still.”  Roxanne’s lips were very close to Quentin’s ear.  “You’re burning for her right this very moment.”

            “It’s worse than the time I had the clap.”

            “You sicken me,” Roxanne said, disgusted, rising, wiping her hands off on the silky orange material of her slacks.  She tossed her head.  “But I suppose it doesn’t matter in the long run.  I’ll find Valerie myself.  She’ll come around.  She can’t survive for long in this world; she doesn’t know it.”  Her eyes glowed feverishly; she wrung her hands and wrung them and wrung them.  She seemed not to notice.  “She’ll come around,” she said again.

            “Maybe,” Quentin said quietly, “maybe she doesn’t want to survive,” but Roxanne didn’t hear him.  He stuck his tongue out and tasted the blood from his right nostrils as it ran into his mouth.  Copper bloomed on his tongue.  He grimaced with disgust.

2

            Awed, Audrey touched Barnabas’ face gently with the tip of one red-painted fingernail.  He allowed this with the patience a father exhibits for its child, with a little smile.  “Wow,” she said.  “You must know some awesome plastic surgeons.  Honest, Barnabas, you’d never be able to tell that crazy bitch gouged your eye out with that enchanted dagger thingie.”

 

            “Because she never did it,” Barnabas said smugly.  His hands were clasped behind him back, and he stood before the portrait the late Sam Evans painted of him upon his return to Collinwood in the summer of 1967, which glared down at him and all his guests, unamused.  “When Angelique and I confronted Miss Drew in the past, she swore that she wouldn’t harm me in the present.  Even after I regained my rightful body after losing it in 1897, my eye remained intact because it would seem that Roxanne kept her word.  She never tortured me with the Dagger of Ereshkigal.  Even my memories of it are fading away.”

            “Time travel hurts my head,” Audrey said to Willie, who nodded fervently.  They were holding hands as they sat together on the sofa Willie had discovered and dragged out of one of the numerous attic rooms, though no one commented on the closeness of their relationship.

            “Regardless of what Roxanne may or may not have done to you,” Angelique sniped from her stance by the windows, arms folded, lower lip protruding, “she is still guilty of separating me from my powers, which continue to wander around thinking they’re a goddess or the embodiment of the universe or something equally ridiculous.”

            “What isn’t ridiculous these days?” Julia observed dryly from Barnabas’ favorite armchair. 

            “At least you all made it back safe ‘n sound,” Willie said.  “And ain’t nothin’ really bad happened while you was all in the  past or wherever you were.”

            “You were gone forever,” Audrey observed.  “Like, almost four months.”

            “It wasn’t that long for us,” Barnabas said.  “Only a week or so.”

             “We successfully travelled to the year 1840,” Angelique said, “but what good it did us, I still don’t know.”  She turned her sour face away from them all and looked out the window.

            “Angelique misses her powers,” Willie whispered to Audrey, who looked at the witch thoughtfully. 

            “Yes, I do,” she snapped, though she didn’t face them.  Her shoulders trembled.  “I … I was hoping against hope that they would stay with me when I returned to this time.  I … was wrong.”

            Barnabas crossed to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.  Julia looked away.  Willie and Audrey noticed.  “We will find a way to restore your powers,” Barnabas said gently.  “I swear it.”

            She turned to him.  “I’m not sure if that’s entirely possible,” she whispered.  “Oh Barnabas, I’m so afraid.”

            “I thought this was to be a dinner party,” Julia said abruptly, and they all turned to look at her.  She lifted her chin unapologetically.  “A moment for us to breathe before the next disaster rains carnage around our heads.”  She blinked.  “If you’ll pardon the hyperbole.”

            “Julia is right,” Barnabas said after a moment, extricating himself from his former wife.  “And I don’t think the journey was all for naught.”

            “No one says things like ‘naught,’ anymore,” Audrey whispered to Willie, who giggled.

            Barnabas frowned, but said, “After all, we brought Miss Faye back with us, and as Julia pointed out, she was responsible for destroying Gerard in the past –”

            “But he didn’t stay destroyed, did he,” Angelique said desolately.  Julia glared at her, and Angelique shrugged.  “That’s what troubles me, is all.”

            “It’s one more chance we didn’t have before,” Julia said in a tone that reminded Barnabas of a cat backed against a wall.  She set the highball glass she’d been sipping a Willie-prepared gin and tonic (which was mostly gin) onto the ground beside her chair and rose, a bit unsteadily, to her feet.

            “Willie,” Barnabas said in a low voice.

            “Barnabas,” Willie replied in the same tone.

           

            Barnabas glared at him, then jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen.

            Willie cocked his head questioningly.

            Barnabas rolled his eyes.

            “Oh!” Willie said, removing his arm from around Audrey’s shoulders and rising quickly.  “Sorry, honey,” he said, “but the roast is ready.”

 

            “I wish I could eat some,” Audrey said sadly.  “I never get to eat any of the meals you make.”  She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted prettily.

           

            Willie kissed her forehead quickly.  “You will,” he said, “soon, I promise ya,” and hustled out of the drawing room and into the kitchen.

            “Perhaps,” Julia was in the middle of saying to Angelique, “perhaps if you’d kept more of a civil tongue in your head back there –”

            “I am never anything but civil!” Angelique snapped, her hands clenched into fists.

            “And we have no idea how much of the present we’ve changed,” Julia sniped.  “What else have we done, besides fixing Barnabas’ eye?”

            “I don’t mind my eye being fixed,” Barnabas offered.

            Julia and Angelique were now eye to eye.  “Because you only made nice, safe decisions while you were in the past,” Angelique growled.  “Sure.  Nothing you did changed anything either.  The great Dr. Julia Hoffman, known only for her cool, clinical nature and supreme rationality at all times.”

            “All I’m saying is that we don’t know for sure,” Julia snapped.  “I stand by my original assessment of the plan:  we never should have tried it.  But since we did,” she added swiftly as Angelique’s eyes grew wide with rage, “I think that having Leticia Faye in the house will only help us.”

            “I have my doubts,” Angelique said, “that’s all.”

            “Or are you simply feeling guilty?” Julia said.

            “Why would I feel –”

            “Because Barnabas is a vampire again,” Julia said with sudden, quaking fury, “and I don’t care if it was your past, present, or future self, you are always responsible for his curse, and you always will be.”

            Angelique opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, then closed it again.  Her enormous eyes filled with tears, and she spun away from the other woman.  “How dare you,” she said softly.

            Barnabas said nothing, and stared at the floor instead.

            Julia hesitated, narrowed her eyes.  She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something.  Then she turned away instead.

            “Dinner,” Willie announced from the doorway, “is served.”

3

            Maggie Evans was accustomed to feelings of guilt.  She’d been dragging around a whole load of it since she murdered her own father a year or so ago; giving up the magic she’d proved so adept at using was only part of her penance.  The other part was eschewing most, if not all, human contact, which meant friends, girlfriends, lovers.  That much she’d been more or less successful at achieving, but it was proving more and more difficult to give up the magic completely, especially when the residents of Collinwood came knocking on her door, asking for help, as they inevitably did.

            Now, looking at Nathan Forbes, half in and half out of her doorway, she added him to the list of supplicants in recent months:  Professor Stokes, Chris Jennings, Audrey Jones, and, mustn’t forget, good old Quentin Collins, the former love of her life.

            Quentin wasn’t the love of your life and you know it.

            “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Maggie said evenly, and willed the door to close.  “You’ll have to leave now.”

 

            Nathan continued to struggle against it, which only amused Maggie more.  “Please,” he said, “please, you have to listen to me!”

            “Why should I listen to you?” Maggie asked.  “According  to all reports, you’re a black hat.  Didn’t my ex-boyfriend conjure you back from the dead to mess with the Collins family?”

            “Yeah, but I –”

 “That was a rhetorical question, I’m afraid,” she said sadly, and gestured, and Nathan flew backward and skidded across her porch.

            “Quentin’s in trouble!” he cried, and she froze.

            Then her eyes narrowed, and Nathan swallowed.  They had turned black, and he knew that was rarely a good sign.  “And why should I care, exactly?”

            “Look,” Nathan said, “I know you two used to, I don’t know, date or whatever, hell, there’s history there, I know that, but you don’t want to see him dead, do you?”

            Maggie considered this.  “I suppose not,” she said at last.  “But why do you care so much?”

            “I’m not a bad guy,” Nathan whined.  “I wish everyone would stop thinking I’m a bad guy!”

            “It’s getting harder and harder to tell who is and who isn’t,” Maggie said, “these days.  Good night, Lieutenant Forbes.”

            “I saw Roxanne Drew take him away!”

 

            Maggie raised an eyebrow.

            “She’s a vampire, isn’t she?  And she’s out to destroy the Collins family!  I know, because I …”  He trailed off.  She waited expectantly.  “Listen, that part isn’t important.  What is important is that she has hypnotic powers that she probably used on Quentin and she took him away, probably to kill him, and if you don’t help me and he becomes a vampire it will be as much your fault as it is hers!”

            Maggie’s eyes were still black.  “I stand by my original question.  Why do you care so much?”

            Nathan shuffled one foot.  “Let’s just say … Quentin was nice to me,” he muttered.  “That’s all.”

            “Oh my god,” Maggie said, recoiling.  “That does it.”  She snapped her fingers, and an invisible hand lifted Nathan, carried him off Maggie’s porch, and continued to drag him, hovering a foot or so above the ground, down the street. 

            “You have to help!” Nathan screamed as he went.  “You have to help!  You have to!  You have to!”

            Eventually she couldn’t hear him at all anymore.  Shaking her head, she returned to her couch and the book she was trying to read. 

            Another knock at the door.

            She frowned, but wouldn’t allow her eyes to go black.  I can beat this thing, she thought, I just have to stay in control.

            Knock, knock, knock.

            “Dammit, Forbes,” she growled, and waved her hand so that the door opened on its own.  She stared furiously at the pages of her book.  “Say what you have to say,” she said as footsteps approached her, “and then get out.  I don’t have time for this.”

            “Oh, I think you have time for me,” that slick, oily, familiar weasel-voice purred, and she looked up, terror crossing her face.

            “Oh my god,” she whispered.

            Nicholas Blair nodded, pleased with himself.  “Not quite,” he said, and slid the blade he carried, glittering in the warm light of Maggie’s reading lamp, directly into her gut.  “But it’ll do for now.”

TO BE CONTINUED ...