Wolf Moon Rising (10 page)

Quentin turned abruptly and glared down at her. “Do you

honestly believe there is such a thing as happiness, Toni?” He

chuckled in his mirthless way, a sneer on his lips. “Happiness

does not exist.” He began to pace, his lanky frame agile within

his loose- fi tting clothes. A great shock of glossy black hair

fell heavy on his brow, and he settled in a chair lazily, glower-

ing at her with his deep- set eyes. “I had larger expectations than life has hitherto off ered me. And now, thanks to your meddling, the one gift I had has been taken from me.”

Antoinette was leaning over, and Barnabas could see that

she had in her hand the end of a small fl at cigarette. It was the

marijuana she smoked. She inhaled and walked unsteadily to

Quentin, off ering it to him.

“Here,” she said. “Try to get mellow. It’s not the end of the

world.”

“I have a conscience,” he said, ignoring her. “It goes to waste.

What does it count in the long illustrious life of Quentin Col-

lins, once a ghost and a tormentor of children, now threatened

with a horrible fate?”

“Take a hit,” she said, her voice shaking. “It will calm you.

Quentin, it’s only a painting—”

Lashing out, he smacked the small cigarette from her hand.

“A painting that controls my whole existence!” Th

en he looked

at her from under his shaggy brows. Still holding the goblet

with the gold rim, he seemed to sway a moment before, grimac-

ing, he crushed it, and the splintered shards sliced his fi ngers.

In a savage gesture, he threw the glass against the table and,

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lurching off balance, he reached for her but missed her and

grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself, his head lowered

in a menacing scowl.

“Damn you, wench! You have no idea what you have

done!”

Antoinette turned again to the window and looked out into

the night, trembling and clearly distressed, and for an instant

something fl ickered in her eyes as though she had seen a move-

ment of some kind. Barnabas drew quickly into the shadows.

Th

en he saw Quentin standing behind her, his hands on her

shoulders, his long fi ngers curling around her upper arms. She

shrugged restlessly, as if to toss him off , but Quentin leaned over her, his black hair falling across his forehead, and he pressed his face against her braids. He murmured something that must have

been an apology, since her expression softened, and she closed

her eyes. As Barnabas watched, he thought he saw Quentin’s

fi ngers circle her neck, the bones protrude, and the fi ngernails

grow long and yellow. Quentin turned her to him and kissed

her, and then, his arm about her waist, led her to the fi re where

they lay side by side on the hearth.

Barnabas forced himself to remain quiet, but his body

trembled with rage. He despised himself in the role of a specta-

tor, but he could not tear himself away. He looked up at the

moon, risen now, and gleaming like a giant pearl. It pulsed with

white fi re.

Antoinette reached for the cigarette on the fl oor and lit it.

She lifted her lips to Quentin’s and breathed smoke into his

mouth. Slowly, he relaxed, lay back, and, as they spoke, even

though Barnabas could not hear their words, he could see their

conversation became more intimate. His vision blurring, Barn-

abas looked away from the window. He could not bear to watch

them, and again his hand clenched the handle of his cane as if it

were a sword. He knew he would not be able to control his anger,

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already unleashed once this eve ning, nor did he have any desire

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to suppress his lust. He could feel the moon beating down like a

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

searchlight, burning his skin. Hearing a faint moan, he turned

to look again.

Quentin was sitting hunched in front of the fi re, bent over

and groaning. He grabbed at his stomach, and his eyes widened

in surprise as his arms fl ew up and upset a crystal decanter that

crashed to the fl oor. Antoinette cried out as he pushed her away

and staggered to his feet.

Quentin’s body tensed and grew ridged. His back arched

and he howled in such agony the sound rattled the window-

pane. He turned toward the window, his face contorted in a

grimace, and Barnabas drew back, certain he had been observed,

but Quentin’s view was focused on some inner turmoil. He con-

vulsed in a doubled- over collapse, tensed again, then lurched

through the door, growling like a wild animal, and fl ung himself

across the porch, down the long colonnade of trees, and into the

woods.

Morbidly curious, Barnabas fl ew after the dark fi gure as it

fl oundered through the snow, and he hovered just within the

treetops. Quentin had stopped running and was now hunched

in a clearing where the moon shone down like a pitiless beacon.

Th

ere he began an uncanny transformation.

His chest exploded from his shirt and thrust a furred mass

out from his body, and his bony arms morphed into spindly legs

with paws spread with yellow claws. As his head grew massive, a

snout protruded, and black lips drew back to expose slimy teeth

and a bloody tongue. His eyes were bloodred as well, slanted,

and ringed in black; his ears lay fl at on his broad head and gaseous clouds steamed from his jaws.

With a sudden shuddering in his powerful limbs, the man-

beast turned and bounded over the snow and into the dark.

Before he was out of sight, he stopped and rose against the shin-

ing orb, the silhouette of a wolf, and he threw back his head and

uttered a howl into the night, a howl answered by its echo, then

silence.

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Shaken by a blast of guilt, Barnabas turned back to the Old

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House. He was to blame! Quentin had been a man, a man lung-

ing like an animal, a man— and then a wolf— a werewolf! Un-

der the full moon, Quentin had changed into a beast. And he,

Barnabas, was the cause. He had demolished the painting that

protected the unfortunate man, and now a monster was loosed.

“Quentin?” a hysterical voice came fl oating through the trees

behind the Old House. “Quentin, where are you? Are you there?

Quentin?”

Antoinette was calling as she would a naughty child who

had run off . She was following him into the woods, with no con-

cept of the danger she was in. He could see her moving through

the trees in her green robe, her face white in the moonlight, and

her long tangled hair falling to her shoulders.

Th

e hunger that rose up in him was like a shock wave puls-

ing through his body. She was coming to him, and he had only

to take her in his arms. He moved like a phantom, his great

cape fl oating over the snow, and when she saw him appear out

of the mist, her hand fl ew to her mouth.

“Barnabas—my God! You scared the shit of me!” Her coarse

language took him by surprise. He had forgotten how common

she could be. “What are you doing out here?” She looked past

him. “Did you see—?”

“Yes. Quentin. I saw him run into the woods.”

“I have to go after him . . .”

“Why? What do you want with him? Here— let me—” He

reached for her, but she snatched her hand away.

“What are you doing?” Her eyes gleamed and she frowned

at Barnabas, obviously miff ed at his attempt to restrain her.

Distracted by a sound, she looked past him again into the trees.

A gust of wind fl ew through the treetops, and clumps of snow

fell from the branches, making soft plopping sounds.

“Th

e storm, my dear, and the cold. You are not dressed

warmly, and the woods are fi lled with drifts, you could become

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disoriented, freeze to death out here . . .”

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“Oh, don’t be absurd . . .” She made for the forest, and

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again he moved to block her way and opened his cape, as if to

protect her. He was near enough to remember her scent, a ferny

woodland odor, and in the cold air she radiated a heat that was

tantalizing. He was quivering with desire. She was so alive, so

solid, and vibrant with energy. A longing to possess her now,

this woman who had so infuriated him, to fold her against him

and to quench his desperate thirst, drowned any lingering

thoughts of his rival running under the moon.

She sidestepped to move past him, but he reached for her

and took her arm. Th

is time she stopped and looked at him, and

then a strange expression darkened her face. “Barnabas? What’s

wrong with you? Are you alright?”

“Of course . . .”

He knew what she had seen— a diff erence in him, a fright-

ening diff erence, his skin smoother and whiter, his hair blacker,

eyes bloodshot, and deep shadows in his face— like scars. But

there was something else she saw, something in his presence, a

calm foreboding. He must have seemed menacing with his dark-

ened brow because she stepped back, drawing her arms across

her breast. It was the fi rst time he had seen her since his trans-

formation, and he was more amazed than ever at her resem-

blance to Angelique, the same wide eyes.

“You . . . you don’t look like yourself,” she said. “You look . . .

odd. Maybe it’s just the moonlight. Anyway, I have to fi nd

Quentin.” She was covering her trepidation, wanting to get away

from him. “Something has happened— I . . . I have to go . . .”

“At least let me give you my cloak.”

She shook her head and backed further from him, wary now,

made uneasy by an intuitive sense of danger. Barnabas probed her

mind; he could read her suspicious thoughts, her struggle to com-

prehend, and her fear infl amed him further.

“I insist. Wrap this around you.” Th

e trees blurred as he

reached for her and enfolded her, and everything went out of his

mind. He felt her warmth as he drew her to him, and then her

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breasts as he swirled the cloak around them both. She squirmed

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in his embrace and cried out, “No! Barnabas! Stop!” but he

smothered her, and in the darkness created by the hood he found

her mouth and kissed her.

His heart was pounding in his ears as— just as he had

planned every night in his casket— he thrust his mind into hers.

In the end it was all so easy. He could feel her giving in to

him, becoming pliable, softening under his spell. When he felt

she was deep in a trance, he kissed her again, and her mouth

was as warm as wine.

She was trembling, both aroused and terrifi ed, and when

she looked up at him, his fangs descended. Her eyes fl ooded

and she sucked in her breath, but still she clung to him. He

lowered his mouth beneath her hair, and she shuddered when

he found her. Her surrender aroused in him a vague contempt;

nevertheless, bliss enveloped him as he drank.

Th

e night exploded like a rain of hail, a rumbling growl, and

then came a brain- shattering blow. Barnabas was struck on the

back, then thrown across the snow where he collapsed against

the trunk of a tree. A massive animal thick with fur leapt upon

him and emptied his lungs of breath. Claws and teeth ripped his

fl esh, accompanied by menacing snarls. He cried out, tried to

wend off the creature’s wrath, but for some reason his super-

natural strength was not enough. He could feel his shielding

arms split by hungry jaws clenching the bone, and then the

same razor teeth gnawed his face. He was being eaten alive!

He made a desperate eff ort to lift into the air but he was

caught, shaken, hurled, and the ground came to meet him in a

furious crash. His body was broken, and before he lost con-

sciousness, he saw the creature carry Antoinette’s insensible

form into the Old House. He felt fl ickering in the back of his

mind some canon of Transylvanian lore, so ridiculous that he

had never given it much thought, since he never believed he

would encounter it. Before his mind went blank and darkness

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shrouded his vision, Barnabas remembered hearing the ancient

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rune:
Only the werewolf hath the power to eviscerate the vampire.

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F i v e

The moment she stepped off the platform, Jackie realized

that she had made a mistake. It was growing dark, and the

snow was deep; it came up to her knees near the road, and, when

she tried to walk into the woods, it sucked her boots into two

feet of crunchy powder.