Wolf Moon Rising (9 page)

out the whining door, and jumped in the snow, happy to breathe

in fresh cold air and to fi nd herself among the trees.

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F o u r

Collinwood seemed to fl oat in the silvery light, a giant ghost

of a house, its face wavering, its dark windows like tears.

Every cornice and turret was softened and draped with a snowy

mantle. One low window was brightly lit, the leaded window of

the drawing room, and in an instant Barnabas was there, hover-

ing at the casement, as in centuries past, always the distant rela-

tive lurking in the shadows.

From his fi rst night as a vampire two hundred years ago,

Barnabas had come here to spy on members of his family. He

had always been their anonymous guardian, watching over them

in secret. Monster though he was— an object of contempt had

they known the truth about him— he had managed, neverthe-

less, to circumvent for generations many misfortunes that might

otherwise have befallen his family, and to night he wondered

what compassion still lived in his heart.

Standing by the window with thick fl akes falling between

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him and the glass, it was as if he were peering into a Victorian

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Lara Parker

snow globe at a scene captured out of memory. Elizabeth was

seated by the fi re, staring into the fl ames, and a look past dreaming on her face. Her dark hair was piled high, and her soft curls

still possessed a shine that framed her delicate features, lumi-

nous eyes, and creamy complexion. Two emerald earrings en-

cased in diamonds glittered at her jawline. Her dress was

midnight blue, velvet, he decided, with a fi tted bodice and long

sleeves revealing hands somewhat lined, but adorned with rings

that sparkled when she reached up to touch the pearls that were

always nestled against her bare neckline. Pearls, he remembered,

when worn often against the skin, grew more lustrous with time.

She had been such a beauty when she was young, and even

now her features possessed a perfection that suggested both

gentleness and refi nement. Her eyes were deep- set, the brows

pronounced, her nose tipped with a charming little bulb; but, in

contrast, her mouth seemed to be pulled down at the edges, re-

vealing a hidden bitterness. Still, her demeanor was one of ele-

gance and breeding, her posture imperious, and he remembered

her voice was rich with the mid- Atlantic diction of fi nishing

school girls.

She was listening to her brother, Roger, expound on some

subject Barnabas could not make out; only his droning, nasal

tone came through the pane. As usual, Roger seemed to be pon-

tifi cating, puff ed up with an awareness of some ensuing misfor-

tune. A handsome man, thought Barnabas, with his yellow,

graying hair and square jaw, thin lips and blue eyes that pinned

any helpless antagonist to the wall should one be forced to en-

dure his glare. A man of high standards, brooking no humor and

no indulgence, he seemed to be threatened by the world and yet

ready to take it on. How much he reminded Barnabas of his

own father, who, to protect the family name, had chained him in

his coffi

n and left him there— for almost two hundred years.

Indeed, Roger and Elizabeth were fl awless examples of the

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Collins family line. A heavy weight sagged in Barnabas’s chest

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as he gazed at them both. Often, when he looked at Elizabeth,

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

he remembered his own mother with such tenderness. She, too,

had possessed that patrician air and the same fi ne features.

Curled up on the couch, looking up at Roger with her china

blue eyes, Carolyn appeared transfi xed by what she was hearing,

her satiny, well- brushed hair in two waterfalls on either side of

her petulant face. Elizabeth’s young daughter had always earned

Barnabas’s sympathies. She was lovely, but bored with her life.

Trapped in Collinsport, a small town without a movie theater

or a shopping center and so little to entertain or distract her,

she had developed no resources of her own. She seemed an un-

willing victim of circumstance, her small existence doomed to

dullness.

But she was clever and precise, possessed a quick temper,

and this eve ning especially, she appeared more irritable than

usual. Barnabas stepped back, wary of being spotted— an ob-

scene face looming behind the glass.

And who was missing from the family portrait? David, he

could see, was not present, and that may have been the problem.

Perhaps they were discussing David and his new obsession with

Antoinette’s daughter, Jacqueline. Th

ey thought she was a mys-

terious girl with troubling moods. As he was the heir to the

family fortune, all hopes rested on David, now sixteen, and pre-

paring to go to Prince ton. Th

ere were fears, shared by Barnabas,

that if the infatuation did not end this girl might jeopardize his

future. A troubled child, David had grown into a young man of

mettle, and of all the family, his welfare mattered most to Barn-

abas, who saw himself in the young man’s impetuous nature.

And where was Quentin, the ne’er- do- well of the family? A

distant relative recently materializing from abroad, he made no

contribution other than to consume the brandy in the cellar and

pursue what ever bar maid or cleaning girl was young and ripe

enough to catch his eye. Barnabas shuddered, remembering the

damaged portrait, and he was vaguely troubled by Quentin’s

absence.

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Over the past year, during his time as a human, Barnabas

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Lara Parker

had been part of this family as well, and he had become familiar

with its petty problems. But since his transformation, he had

stayed away, certain his change would be obvious and cause

alarm. As he looked in on them, a painful lump in his throat

would not dislodge, and his limbs felt powerful but weary. He

was no longer one of them but instead hiding in the shadows,

once again the stranger staring into the snow globe, always with

the casement separating him from those he loved, able to trust

no one with his secrets— they in the light, he on the side of

darkness.

And, of course, one more character did not appear on the

scene, and Barnabas felt a twinge of shame. Julia was not

there— Dr. Julia Hoff man, the family physician, had been miss-

ing for weeks. Barnabas lowered his head and thought of her

lying in her coffi

n, abandoned, and trapped forever, facing eter-

nity alone.

To escape these guilty thoughts he rose into the air and soon

he was a dark wing hovering against the bright moon whose

hungry craters gaped as if to devour his shape. It was a fl ight so boundless and fi erce that he ached with all his being to fl ee the despised world, but he descended again, slipped beneath the

pearlescent shroud that enveloped the earth, and settled be-

tween the trees. Soon he was peering through a window of the

Old House into his own parlor, a room so painfully familiar that

he grasped the wolf ’s head of his cane and forced the wooden tip

into the snow.

Here he had brought Josette, his young bride- to- be from

Martinique. He could still see her stepping from the carriage,

her mauve velvet coat skimming the ground as she playfully took

his arm. Here he had rejected her maidservant Angelique, a be-

witching girl who had come to his room and demanded his af-

fections. Foolishly he had seduced her in Martinique, but back

in America he wanted to be rid of her, never dreaming that she

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possessed otherworldly powers. It had been a dastardly mistake.

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Here, in this very room, he had fi red the pistol that wounded

but failed to kill her, and into this very window had fl own the

bat that attacked him as she fl ung out her curse and doomed

him to life as one of the living dead.

Th

is was where it had all began, the heartbreak and the

ruin, and it was here that he had discovered the two sides of his

nature. Toward Josette he had shown only devotion, toward

Angelique contempt, and both emotions fought to shape his

whole being. He was trapped by an insidious duality.

Voices from far off broke his reverie, the shouts of boys, and

he wondered how they came to be in the woods. Strange that

children should be out in this weather, at this hour, children who

should have been home in bed. He felt a vague inkling of men-

ace, as though there were forces afoot he did not understand; the

cries of boys were haunting like wounded birds, fl oundering in

the drifts.

He turned again to the window and caught his breath. She

was there! Antoinette—

looking more like Angelique than

ever— was standing by the fi replace where its fl ames cast a golden light into the room and painted trembling shadows on the fl oor.

She was wearing green, as he remembered she so often did, and

her robe was of a medieval style with long bell- shaped sleeves

and a low- cut bodice that hugged her slim waist before the soft

fabric fell in folds to the fl oor. Her golden hair was roped and

twisted into knots.

He had hoped to fi nd her in her bed, deep in a dream, with

moonlight shadowing her pale skin, her dressing gown open at

the neck, her pulse fl uttering. Even though he could feel a thrill vibrate through his body, he was not in the mood for a struggle.

But so much did this woman who had scorned him in his hu-

man form resemble Angelique— they seemed to be one and the

same— that he found himself despising her once again. Once he

had desired to rid his life of her as quickly as possible. Centuries of indecision— it was time for them to end— and what better

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way than to enslave her, to destroy Angelique’s jealous rages and

Antoinette’s poisonous indiff erence in one consummation of

vampire lust.

And this time, when he had her under his power, he would

uncover the witch hidden in her heart, and he would force her to

undo the curse. Th

at more than anything was his goal.

But he was disappointed to discover that she had a visitor, a

tall man with a lean body and a well- cut dinner jacket that clung

to his broad shoulders. Barnabas was confounded by his reac-

tion. He expected to be weakened by the sight of her. He was

also prepared to be confused, perhaps, or exasperated beyond

reason, or to feel desire, at the very least a spasm in his loins or a sudden wrench in his heart. But seeing her standing there a few

feet away, engaged in lively conversation with a man whose back

was to the window— his dark head a mass of curls, one hand

grasping a gold- rimmed goblet, a velvet sleeve, a snow white

cuff , long and graceful fi ngers— aroused in Barnabas rage more

wrenching than a knife to the fl esh. Antoinette moved toward

the window, and the curve of the casement framed her face and

upper body, like a painting of a Madonna.

He was shaken by the force of a sudden impulse, to shatter

the glass, tear open the frame, and fl y into the room a screeching bat, ready to sink his teeth into her neck. Or to descend on his

rival— he could see now that it was Quentin— breaking his body

with a few vigorous blows. He was glad now that he had left the

painting hidden, and the thought of the control it off ered ap-

peased his ire. But Antoinette’s expression as she gazed out into

the moonlight made him curious. She was no longer smiling,

and her face was now twisted in a grimace of confusion. She

lifted her fi ngers to her eyes and pressed them there, then said in a shaking voice, “Please, Quentin, I don’t know where it is. I’ve

searched for it, looked everywhere. It seems to have disappeared.”

Even though Barnabas remembered Quentin’s volatile tem-

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perament, he was surprised at the depth of Quentin’s bitterness

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when he answered her. “Stupid woman! You are the last person

who saw it. If you didn’t smoke that infernal substance, you

might remember something! I left the painting in your care!

How can I make you understand?”

Hearing the word
painting
, Barnabas leaned into the glass

and overheard Antoinette say in a gentle voice, “I am so sorry,

Quentin. All I want is to make you happy again.”