Wolf Moon Rising (53 page)

another. She had discovered a way to draw life to the subject of

the painting so that it seemed to stare into her soul, and often

she found herself mesmerized by her own work. She had painted

many still lifes as well, bottles and fruit, fl owers caught in the moment of perfection, and she had just completed a landscape of

the full moon rising behind Collinwood and silvering the turrets

and towers. But it was Barnabas who seemed to watch her at

night before she fell asleep, and he drifted into her dreams.

She turned to Quentin’s portrait, and she began to work on

the face. Her confi dence grew as she painted the slender aqui-

line nose and the sensual, fi nely shaped lips; her body grew

warm and she was keenly aware of her remarkable skills. She

hesitated, feeling the tingling vibrations of a spell rising, and she pushed them back down. She did not need magic, as this was her

gift. She told herself she would restore the portrait, and Quentin

would be saved, and when her mother returned, they would be

happy together. As Quentin’s face slowly emerged from the can-

vas, vital and breathing with life, her brush had a power of its

own, caressing the paint and carving out shadow and light.

Th

e eyes frightened her and she was afraid to set her brush

to them. She turned to the curls of the hair and the sideburns,

spending time capturing the sleek locks and the wiry facial hair,

enlivening the black with Prus sian blue. Each time her brush

touched the canvas, her hand quivered and the sable tip caught

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fi re. For the fl esh tones she would need chrome yellow over the

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burnt umber shadows of the scars. Th

e face was diffi

cult, and

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

she almost despaired, hesitating before she painted in the

wrinkles and pustules, using cadmium red and fl ake white, and

then a light fl esh tone wash over them, obscuring them—

leaving the smooth unblemished skin, as fl awless as a boy’s.

As she worked, the painting took on vivid details, and she

barely breathed as she drew in the fi ne hairs of the brows and

the lashes, each one laid upon the next as though they had

grown from the skin. She seemed to remember a yellowish tint

and was placing ochre in the sockets beneath the lower lashes

when she realized she had forgotten the color of Quentin’s eyes.

Were they hazel, green, or dark brown? She couldn’t remember.

She reached into the paint box for blue cobalt, but when

she unscrewed the cap she found the paint had hardened and

she could not squeeze out a single drop. It was the same with the

manganese violet. Frustrated, she set the tube on her palette and

hammered it with her fi st, and then she took up her palette knife

and fi ercely cut into the tube, fi nally extracting a chip of paint, and mixed it with a bit of medium, linseed oil and turpentine, to

soften it. In her exasperation, she held the brush tightly, and as

she touched the tip to the canvas, she felt another hand close

over hers and grip her fi ngers, forcing the brush to move against

her will in awkward jerky strokes.

Leaping up, she cried out and shook her hand, letting the

brush fl y, and it clattered to her palette. Her palm was burning.

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the brush a second time.

Again, icy fi ngers enclosed her fi st in the grip of an invisible

hand, and she had no power to resist. Guided by an unseen

force, the brush fl ickered over the eyebrow, rendering it per-

fectly. She jerked it away again and threw the brush to the fl oor, crying out, “I don’t want a spell! Why did it come when I did

not summon it?”

She could hear Barnabas’s voice saying,
Jackie. Th e thing you

say you have inside of you— something evil— you must fi ght it. You
must not give it power over you.

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She stared at the painting, wondering— if she were to stop

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Lara Parker

now, how would she fi ll in the eyes? Something was hindering

her progress. Why had her paints dried up, and what was the

icy hand that guided hers?

Frustrated, she rose from her easel and stepped back to look

at the painting; it was breathing, glowing with vitality, all but

the eyes. Th

ey were hollows of madness that seemed to echo

Quentin’s soul, and they defi ed her skills— yet dared her to

attempt them.

Exasperated now, she left the easel and walked to her

window. As twilight settled, a blue light hovered over the snow,

painting the trees and grounds a pale azure. Th

e sky was sap-

phire, and a few stars pierced the darkening canopy. Th

ere would

soon be a moon, a Blue Moon, the second full moon that month.

She must fi nish the painting— before the silver disc rose on the

horizon.

She found herself remembering the eve ning she had lain on

David’s bed while he searched through the book for the Due-

senberg and she had read about the moon from the encyclope-

dia. She had tried to lure him away from his fascination with the

miraculous automobile, but he had been consumed with excite-

ment, and his excitement had fi lled her with an unexpected

longing. She thought of his laughing eyes, russet with copper

fl ecks in them, and the way his soft curls fell over his brow. She remembered unfamiliar stirrings, being drawn to him in a way

that surprised her. How thrilling it had been to be alone with

him, both with their books, wanting to touch but still afraid,

the air between them alive, and their lives stretched out before

them.

Turning back to her easel, she caught sight of her refl ection

in the mirror of her vanity. She stiff ened, cold chills snaking

over her body. She was there in the glass, but hovering behind

her was another image, the woman with golden hair and tur-

quoise eyes. Jerking away, she moved to her wardrobe, and

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again that mirror gave back a double vision, one pale and fright-

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ened and the other gloating with merriment. Th

en she heard

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

the laughing, like the music of a tinkling harpsichord, up and

down the scales. She put her hands over her ears, shook her

head, and found herself staring down at the silver hand mirror

on the dresser. When she saw the wicked face dancing in the

small oval, she caught it up by the handle, lashed out with all her strength, and shattered the larger glass. “Leave me!” she cried in

a harsh voice. But long slivers of mirror fell to the fl oor, each

with its own grinning likeness of the woman with yellow hair.

“What do you want with me?” Bewildered, she turned to

see the same face refl ected over and over in the dark of her win-

dows. “Who are you?”

An amused voice answered, “Don’t you know?”

She shook her head.

“I am Angelique.”

“Angelique?” She thought of the statue in the graveyard.

“Why do you haunt me?”

Th

e tones were sweetly caressing. “You need me. Without

me you would have no powers. You could not save yourself. You

could not fl y. I am the reason you remember living before. In

Salem. In Martinique.”

“And you are the evil that makes me off er myself to the

vampire? Th

e evil that would take over my life?”

Th

e image in the mirror smiled. “Don’t you want to fi nish

the painting?”

“Of course.”

“Th

en let me help you.”

“But why must I turn to you for help? I am the artist, not

you.”

“Silly girl, don’t be presumptuous. Every great artist sells his

soul to the dev il to create his masterpiece. Th

at is the price of

fame, as all men know. It’s a bitter truth proven again and again

throughout history. Do you know how this painting you seek to

repair was fi rst conceived? Th

e paint er gave up his soul. If you

want to be the artist who can create this enchantment, you must

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do the same. I will teach you.”

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Lara Parker

“I don’t want you to teach me.” Jackie turned away from the

mirror and fi ngered her brush. “I want to paint alone.”

“But you are my creation.”

“No. I am not yours.” She gritted her teeth and felt her body

grow rigid. “Go away and leave me be. I don’t want you near me.”

Th

ere was a long moment before Angelique spoke. “Do you

really believe you can capture Quentin’s aging face? Can

you paint the eyes of the werewolf, Jackie?”

“Yes, I can. Of course I can.”

“Not without me. Not without me.”

Jackie felt something explode within her. She grimaced,

screwing up her face and clenching her eyes, blotting out all

light, and placed her hands over her ears. Th

en she screamed,

squeezing the sides of her head and rocking back and forth,

screamed until her throat was raw. “Get out! Get out! Get out of

me!” She waited until the echoes of her cries died away and

the room was silent again. Slowly she pulled her hands away.

Angelique had vanished. Far off Jackie heard the wail of the

wolf already on the loose. Fear set its roots in her again and she

turned to the window. Th

e moon’s glow had brightened, and

soon its rim would emerge.

She ran to the painting and took up her brush. Her heart

racing, she mixed the colors still on her palette, all to a luminous brown, and lifted the tip to the irises. Th

e camel hair bristles

fl ashed fi re, and the eyes came to life. A man with a seductive

gaze looked out at her, his lips about to speak. But something

was happening. Th

e painting was undulating, the surface rip-

pling and splitting as dark fur sprouted on the shifting surface of Quentin’s face. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ears swelled

into points, and the mouth crawled out of the canvas.

Chills creeping over her skin, Jackie backed away— fearful

but elated. She had done it! Th

e painting had come to life and

absorbed the curse, and Quentin would be saved. Jackie snatched

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the portrait from the easel and ran for her bedroom door. As she

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passed her vanity, she glanced in the mirror. It refl ected the dark

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

room in its quivering surface, but all it gave back was her own

pallid face.

Emerging from his sanctuary Barnabas felt the ominous

power of the rising moon burning his skin. It would be a

Blue Moon, he remembered, the second full moon in January,

and its hungry craters would loom in clear relief as it blazed in the sky. He fl ew over the graveyard on his way to Collinwood, and

beneath him the tipping stones were like white sails in a dark sea.

His task was a melancholy one, but of the utmost necessity.

Other than himself, there were many he needed to protect, Jac-

queline and David most of all; however, everyone in the family

was a potential victim— Elizabeth and Roger, even Carolyn,

the servants, and the good people of Collinsport.

Barnabas laughed at the absurd hypocrisy of his thoughts.

Wasn’t he a killer as well? And all that separated him from the

werewolf was a modicum of self- control, a scrap of selectivity. Th e

werewolf was a rapacious predator with no choice over his feeding.

Barnabas shuddered to think of Jacqueline in the arms of the

beast. Instead, he had made it his habit to seek out victims from

the unfortunate population in the dissolute areas of town— those

whose wretched habits made them dispensable, even deserving of

death— and to never harm anyone in his family or anyone he

loved. But even those killings left him wracked with guilt.

Had the vagrant curled in his own urine on Canal Street not

once been a babe in his mother’s arms? Why was David any more

precious? Was it his breeding, his education, his potential value to the community, the fact that he was a Collins? Barnabas felt his

body weaken with these pangs of conscience, and he knew he

would kill to survive, to preserve his wretched existence— as

hideous as the werewolf ’s. Had he not ruined Antoinette’s life to

preserve his own?

But beside revenge for the werewolf ’s attack— the agoniz-

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ing wounds and his prolonged recovery— along with the danger

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Lara Parker

that it might happen again, Barnabas had other motives for

plotting Quentin’s demise. One eve ning, hovering outside the

drawing room window at Collinwood, he had overheard Quen-

tin’s bargain with the scientist— that despicable Dr. Blair.