Wolf Moon Rising (4 page)

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adventures.” He looked down at the dying girl. “Enjoy it while

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you can. You are swept up in the excitement. But that will pale,

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my dear, and grow brutally dull. Believe me, you will soon learn

that you are doomed, as am I, to unrelenting misery.”

She gasped as though he had slapped her. “How can you say

that?”

“Because I have lived almost two hundred years, and I know

it to be true!”

Grasping his cape, her eyes dark and her lips drawn tight,

she bit out her words.

“Don’t . . . don’t think you can ignore me. I brought you

back with my own blood. In time you will see that you cannot

exist without me.”

He wondered if that were true.

“And I will never leave you.”

“Th

en
I
must leave
you
.”

“How can you be so ungrateful?”

“You restored the curse! I despise you for that!”

He wrenched himself free, but she was too quick for him

and again blocked his way. She fell to her knees.

“Wait! Don’t go without me. We can have our lives and our

happiness for all eternity. I gave up my life to make you what you

are now. We belong together.” She lifted herself into his arms

and he could feel weakness trickle through him. She was stron-

ger, perhaps because she was more determined. Her obsession

fed her passion whereas he was drained of any feeling. As she

caressed him, he felt hopelessly ensnared, and— as he had in his

coffi

n— unable to breathe. With a determined eff ort, he pulled

away and placed his hands on her wrists.

“Julia, this is pointless. Set me free, now, or we are both

damned.”

Carefully stepping over the wretched girl, he avoided her

pleading eyes as he climbed the narrow stairway to the vast

underground basement. Easing the portal open, he felt a blast

of stale air, all the time aware of Julia still standing in the secret room, willing him to turn back. She whispered one last word.

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“Never . . .”

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Lara Parker

He could sense her power draining him, and his knees felt

weak as he shut the door on her face— a face he never wanted to

see again.

Th

e basement smelled of rat feces, and it was cluttered with

dusty stacks of magazines and house keeping paraphernalia—

brooms and mops, sacks of rags, and old paint cans. Th

eir room

beneath the stair was well hidden but too close to the family

living in the house. He fi ngered the key to their secret portal

and thought of simply locking her in. He hesitated, feeling his

hands open and close, one still gripping his cane.

Breathing hard, he made his way through the debris and

searched among the gardening tools for what would be needed.

He caught sight of a hay rake with fi ve tines and a sharpened

hoe; shears and clippers; a heavy shovel; and rolls of wire fenc-

ing. A dusty carpenter’s bench displayed tools more purposeful,

various wrenches and screwdrivers, hammers, and boxes of

screws and nails. Near old bags of solidifi ed cement and a pile of discarded lumber lay a few iron stakes. Any of these would do.

His patience was exhausted, and better to snatch the mo-

ment when his ire was rich. Th

e stake was rough in his hand,

decayed with rust, and a mallet lay on the bench. An open pad-

lock he had found earlier, the key still inserted, hung from a nail on the wall; and, in a shadowy corner, behind some wooden skis,

a child’s sled beckoned, and a tangle of rusty snow chains tum-

bled out of a cardboard box.

When he slid open the door again to his chamber, Julia was

feeding. All about her were strewn the bruised lilies— crimson

pollen staining the petals— as if she had ripped them in anger.

Th

e fl ames of the candles had died; only one still fl ickered in its pool of wax. It cast her shadow on the wall, rising and falling as

she drank. She was lying awkwardly on top of the girl with her

dress draped over the body, and her copper hair falling across a

face now frozen in death.

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Watching her, Barnabas was revolted by a feeling of nausea;

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he could see her only as a refl ection of his own morbidity. Des-

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peration fl owed through him like an electrical current. How

could he spend eternity with her, ever to be reminded of his

own loathsome nature, to see it mirrored in another— and one

who enslaved him— leaving him with no will of his own?

Th

e lady with the unicorn gazed down at him with a mel-

ancholy smile, bestowing her blessing. She stood in her brocaded

gown among her rabbits and birds, her serenity a challenge and a

taunt, the snowy beast curled by her side.

Barnabas gathered his courage, and, fl oating behind Julia,

raised the stake. Finding his mark, he hesitated, and then real-

ized in a rush that he had to do nothing; Julia’s naiveté had done

it for him. She had succumbed to the vampire’s drunkenness

and was sucking the girl dry, already drawing death from her

victim’s veins.

Only sipping up until now, tasting the nectar from so many

vines, she had never learned that she must cease before draining

the fi nal glass. She knew to make a new vampire one must stop

just before the heart stops and then feed the victim with one’s

own blood. Th

at was the way she had brought him back. She had

ripped open her own neck for him and leaned in to let him drink.

But did she know to kill a victim and not become mortally

ill, one must never drink from a corpse? A vampire rarely fed

until the body was drained because he was satiated long before

then, but Julia’s bitterness and her anger with Barnabas must

have stunted her reason. Or, perhaps she did not know. Th

ere

was no one to tell her, and she had drowned her sorrows in this

excess. Now, he thought with a chuckle, rather than putting an

end to her, it was up to him to save her.

He bent forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, gently

pulling her loose. Julia groaned and rolled over, her hands

grasping the air. Her mouth was slack, her face smeared with

blood. Her eyelids fl uttered, and her eyes grew soft.

“Barnabas,” she whispered, “my love. You came back for me.”

“Yes . . .” He leaned over and lifted her into his arms. She

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was weak and nearly unconscious. It was but a few steps to their

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coffi

n, and after he settled her on the satin, he placed the paper-

thin body of the dead girl beside her. Julia stretched in luxuriant ease, smiling up at him, her eyes barely focusing.

“Come, my dearest,” she said in a slurred voice. “Lie with me.”

“Yes, I am coming. In a minute. Sleep now.” He reached for

the lid and only glimpsed her puzzled look the moment before

he slammed it shut.

Enormous strength fl owed through him, enough to resist

her upward thrust. But still she fought like a tiger, the casket

rocking with her struggles as again and again she forced the lid

a gap, enough for him to catch sight of her wild eyes and hear

her frantic screeching. He threw off his cape, climbed up on the

casket, and knelt on the bucking lid. Th

en with a mighty heave

he jammed it tight and held it there.

Th

e fi rst nail and the second slid in with single blows, and

Julia’s muffl

ed wails were soon drowned out by the sounds of

the hammer rattling down, pounding in nail after nail. Breath-

ing heavily now, his heart ready to explode, Barnabas reached

for the chains and hoisted them on the coffi

n, encircling it again

and again, until all that was left was to attach the padlock.

After donning his cloak he made for the stair, but something

jerked him back. His heart clenched. Had she escaped and got

hold of him? But he saw he had only nailed a corner of his cape

between the lid and the coffi

n. Th

e unicorn maidens watched in

amusement as he ripped off a piece of the fabric in order to free

himself. With a fi nal look back at the silent room, he bolted the

door, dragged the cement sacks against it, and tossed the key

into a corner of the basement before he fl ed.

Still shaking from the brutality of his deed, Barnabas crept

stealthily up the basement stair and through the quiet

kitchen. When he emerged into the outside world, he was awe-

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struck with wonder. Th

e grounds had been transformed into an

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endless ocean of white. Collinwood’s vast lawn was blanketed

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by a heavy snow that obscured every shrub and wall and walk-

way. It was still twilight, and rising early behind the feathered

trees was an enormous bloodred moon.

Realizing that Julia had risked daylight to bring him a vic-

tim ignited a fl icker of guilt, but he shrugged it away. He was

thankful to be rid of her. As he savored his freedom, he breathed

in the frozen air along with the odors of warm- blooded animals

that wafted out of the forest. Hunger gnawed in his gut, and he

thought of Antoinette.

As he moved quietly toward the front of the great house, he

remembered that she had a daughter, Jacqueline. What would

become of her if her mother disappeared? Would he be obli-

gated to care for her as well? Th

e thought made him uncomfort-

able. An oddly mysterious girl, she had fascinated him in ways

he did not understand, although he had only spoken to her once

or twice. He knew his young cousin David had developed aff ec-

tion for her, and he had told Barnabas he believed her when she

said she had lived past lives. Barnabas felt a pang of sympathy

when he thought of David, and he worried about a teenage ro-

mance that could threaten the Collins heritage.

Still disturbing was the memory of a journey back in time

with Antoinette— to Salem during the dreadful witch trials— in

a misguided eff ort to save a girl she said was her daughter— a girl accused of witchcraft. He could still picture the black- robed

parishioners who sent the young woman to her death and her

enraged benediction from the scaff old:
If you take away my life,
God will give you blood to drink.

He remembered she had cursed all her judges, and one of

them had been a Collins. Could she be the same girl who lived

now with Antoinette? And was she a threat to David, Barnabas

wondered, as the boy’s welfare and happiness were his only con-

cern. In spite of his unnatural state, Barnabas was still a Col-

lins, and he had vowed to always watch over his young cousin,

the last in the line.

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Th

e full moon glimmering behind the trees jarred his

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memory and pricked what was left of his conscience. He remem-

bered he had one errand to complete before he could go to the

Old House. During his time as a human he had made many

mistakes in judgment, but one had been especially grievous. He

had stolen a token of power that belonged to another, and if it

was still where he had hidden it, he should return it to its right-

ful own er. As a vampire once again, he must respect those who

were also immortal.

He fl ew freely through the trees behind Collinwood and a

luminous blanket of snow stretched out beneath him. Th

e un-

blemished earth was so bright it could have been day— a day

with many shades of black and gray tinged with gold. Th

e moon

was a Wolf Moon, the fi rst moon in January, rising at dusk, and

so brilliant that it pained his eyes to look at it. Below was the

graveyard, the home of all his memories, and he could not help

but wish he were there among the dreaming dead, asleep in a

tomb like some fortunate soul at rest.

He settled where the snow- topped statues were like robed

phantoms poised to leap and dance. Yielding to a sentimental

whim, he fi rst stopped to visit a white marble tombstone, and,

with his long cape spread out over the snow, he scraped the in-

scription with his shoe. It was an indiff erent gesture, but when he exposed the name—
Josette
—he felt a twinge of remorse. Th

ere she

lay, his beloved, so rudely taken, and he was somewhat surprised

that he still remembered her with regret. Perhaps, in spite of a

mind poisoned by bitterness, he had not gone completely numb.

He could still see her coming through the garden. She was