Wolf Moon Rising (47 page)

She stood in the hoary air, the snow nearly obscuring her

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face, and her smart suit and overcoat and a scarf wrapped around

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her hair disguised her aura.

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“You didn’t expect to see me?”

“No . . . I mean, how did you . . . ?”

“Escape?” She laughed bitterly. “I am a vampire, remember?”

He fl oundered for words. “Julia, I . . . I would have come

back for you. What I did I did in a fi t of anger. I have regretted it every night since. Please, try to forgive me. I was going to

come back, but I was attacked—”

“Attacked?” Had she narrowed her eyes? Her face was a

shadow.

“By a werewolf. He nearly killed me. Th

is is the very fi rst

night I have been abroad—”

Th

en she was gone.

He whirled, panicked, searching for her. She reappeared

behind him, but the gauzy air obscured her, and her voice was

like the hum of the wind.

“How have you fed until now?”

Guilt fl ooded him. “Someone . . . cared for me.”

“A woman?”

He could not see her. She was only a voice in the swirl of

snow.

“Yes, Julia, please—” Th

en she was revealed, stark against

the white sky, her face contorted with grief.

“How could you, Barnabas? How could you betray me? I

gave you everything I had to give. My love. My life.”

He drew near her. Reached for her with his mind. “Julia, if

you must know the truth, I wanted to spare you. Th

is life is not

for you. It is an eternity of malevolence and misery. You must

maim. You must murder. Is that what you want? It’s better that

you remain asleep.”

“Oh, Barnabas. Seeing you again, I only know that I loved

you. I only wanted to spend eternity with you. Th

at was my

dream. You met with misfortune, and . . . and when I could

have helped you . . . you turned to another.”

“Julia, listen to me. I was near death. I could not move; I

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could not walk. If not for her I would have died.”

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“And did she come to you of her own will? Or did you sum-

mon her? Desiring her?”

Barnabas said nothing, his face immobile.

“Answer me.”

He turned away.

“You could have sent her to release me. I would have come,

gladly. And do you desire her still?”

“No.”

“You can hunt again, and you desire her no more.”

“No more.”

“Th

is is hard to believe. What did she mean to you?” Again,

she disappeared in the mist.

“Julia, where are you? I don’t have to answer these ques-

tions. You have no right to hound me.”

A whisper. “What did she mean to you?”

“She was a victim, a casualty of my needs.”

“To be used up and thrown away.”

“Yes . . .”

Th

e wind moaned. “Th

en you will not be unhappy when

you fi nd her.”

“Why? What have you done?”

“Good- bye, Barnabas.” Her voice was far away. “I’m sure we

will meet again.”

He stood in a stupor; then he heard the car start and slowly

drive down the road.

Th

e air cleared a little and he walked in a daze to where she

had parked. When he saw the blood on the snow, he wondered

whether some animal had made a kill and dragged it to its lair. If

he found it, it might suffi

ce. Th

e trees shimmered, their branches

like lace. Something dark was up ahead, under the snow.

Blood like fl owers. Scattered in huge droplets, like red roses

tossed from a vase. Deep bloodred.

And then he saw her. Antoinette.

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Julia had tried to bury her, her brightly colored coat, her long

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golden hair, and one gloved hand. With a cry he dug the snow

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from around her face, tried to kiss her awake, and lifted her into

his arms. She was light, drained, and her skin was as white as the

snow, deathly white, almost blue, except for her throat, ripped to

a dark red rose.

Stumbling blindly, he carried her, light as a child, her shape

so familiar, her odor as well. And then he fell, dropped her, and

buried his face against her body. When he rose again, a stab of

grief plunged through him like a thrust knife. He staggered and

caught himself, and lifted his head to the sky and cried out. He

was washed through with a desperate sadness.
All who love you

will die.

It was the curse, but it was more than that, a sense of help-

lessness like none he had felt since the death of Josette. Loss—

not only of Antoinette— but also of the possibility of a new

existence, one free of remorse. He had hoped to escape this

pain, and now he felt such heartache and such deep sorrow for

this woman he thought had meant nothing, a passing compan-

ion, someone to discard as he had so many others. He ached as

if a great sickness had entered his body when he thought of how

she had begged for her freedom, and she seemed no longer to be

something he would miss but something he could not live with-

out. A new awareness shuddered through him like a blast of

cold air. He was not dead inside as he had believed himself to

be. He was still prey to the bitterness of love; and still burning

within him, like a fl ickering ember, was the soul of a man.

His weakness returned. Not able to fl y, scarcely able to

walk, he stumbled back through the graveyard with Antoinette

in his arms. Where to leave her? What was he to do now that

she was dead? What of the young girl, Jacqueline, her daughter?

If she learned of her mother’s death she would be inconsolable.

But was he to blame? Julia had killed her. It little mattered. Who

would take over her house, and how could his casket remain

there? He lumbered through the gravestones, each a specter

shrouded with snow, each condemning him. Julia had deserted

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him. It was a mistake he had made more than once— pursuing

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an impossible love and rejecting the one proff ered. But was he

diff erent from any other man? Man is a hunter— as a vampire or

as a lover— relentless, insatiable, and inevitably foolish . . .

It would be a dark night, the dark of the moon, a night

when even the new moon is hidden behind the earth. Snow still

spun about him in agitated fl urries like the whirlwinds of his

thoughts. Th

e Mausoleum. Th

e inner chamber. His casket was

empty and he could leave her there. But he could not return to

fi nd her withered and decayed. Trudging further, he brushed

against a statue, and startled, looked up at the angel who was

watching him in the dimming light. Her sorrowful gaze cut

him to the bone as he forced himself to meet her accusing eyes.

She seemed to be reaching out to him. He shuddered, holding

in his embrace the fragile corpse of her twin, and wondered

once again whether she had been Angelique.

Half an hour later, or an hour, he could not tell, he turned

off the road toward Widow’s Hill. Th

e snow deepened as he ap-

proached the precipice, and when he was at the cliff ’s edge he

stood above a void with nothing beneath him but utter black-

ness. He could hear the sea crashing against the rocks, but he

could see nothing, only a yawning chasm as he released her and

let her fall. Her arms fl ew out and she turned once, slowly, be-

fore she was sucked into the dark. He did not hear her fall but

only the waves breaking in a repeating boom and rush of foam,

and the tide rolled in with no moon to draw it, as it had done for

thousands of years.

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E i g h t e e n

Curled up by the fi re in the drawing room, studying math

problems for his SATs, David found it increasingly diffi

cult

to concentrate. He had not seen Jackie in days, and he had grown

increasingly despondent. At fi rst he had been sympathetic, know-

ing that the journey back in time had been emotionally draining

for her. She had seemed so distant after they returned. Th

en he

had heard from Dr. Hoff man that Antoinette had gone to Bos-

ton and left Jackie behind.

He remembered a train ticket Antoinette had bought for

her daughter and his heart shrank at the thought of her going

away, but apparently Antoinette had not left any kind of address

where they could meet. It seemed thoughtless of Toni, but then

she had often been unfeeling where her daughter was con-

cerned. Wherever she was, and what ever she was tripping on,

she was sure to come down sooner or later and send for Jackie.

Most of all David wanted to remind Jackie that he had

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found a second painting of Quentin in the tower at Collinwood.

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Th

at it was perfectly intact. Somehow in all the excitement he

had forgotten to tell her where it was hidden, and he looked

forward to her delighted smiles of gratitude and to her recon-

ciliation with her mother. He had so hoped to make that hap-

pen. Th

eir journey back in time had revealed many things: that

Quentin was indeed immortal, and that the family curse was

still upon them. Th

e crimes of his grandfather were enough to

have kept it alive.

He did remember what Tate had said when he showed him

the painting.
Th e curse of the full moon. But it is worthless. It is not
signed.
Should he simply turn the painting over to Quentin and be done with it?

Pushing aside his books, he reached inside his shirt pocket

and withdrew a small velvet box. Inside was a gold locket on a

chain. His mother had left him few trea sures, but this was one

of them, and he had decided to give it to Jackie. For a long time

he had wanted to give her a present and he had settled on this as

a token of his aff ection. He held the locket up to the fi relight

and read the inscription on the back.

I will always love you.

Perhaps she would wear it and think of him, and at some

time in the future, both their pictures would go inside, face- to-

face.

He had made another attempt to return to his trig problems

when he heard a determined knocking at the front door. He

seemed to have missed his lessons for over three weeks and he

couldn’t remember the last time one of his tutors had come to

the house. He wondered whether they had been scared away by

rumors going around, unfounded stories of a wolf attack— a wolf

the police could not seem to track down. Th

e knocking was re-

peated, and David dragged himself to his feet and marched into

the foyer just as his father descended the stair.

“Who can that be at this hour?” said Roger in his usual ir-

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ritable manner.

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David was curious as well. When he opened the door, he

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was dismayed to see Nathanial Blair standing under the portal

lamp. He was holding Willie by the collar of his jacket.

“David, good eve ning. May I come in?”

“Why? What’s going on?”

Willie looked extremely disgruntled. But Blair was full of

business.

“Th

ere’s been another attack. And I’m certain this man

knows a great deal about it. If he is not himself the culprit.”

“Ah, no, Dr. Blair. I don’t know nothing,” cried Willie, his

eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know nothing about no vampire.

You gotta believe me.”

“He was found trying to bury the remains.”

“Is this true, Willie?”

“Aw, Mr. Roger, he was already dead. Just some bum from

another town, I thought it would make more trouble for you

and Miss Elizabeth if another body was found near here.”

“His hands were covered in blood, and just look at his

clothes.”

Blair moved brusquely past David and dragged Willie into

the foyer, where he fi nally let him go. “Fetch Dr. Hoff man,” he

said. “I believe she knows this man quite well, and I would like

her to question him.”

“I think Dr. Hoff man is at the hospital.”

“Please check. I would also like to speak to Quentin Col-

lins. Is he around?”

Th

inking it might be a waste of time to argue with Blair in

his excited state, David went to the top of the stair and walked to Julia’s door. He knocked but received no answer and so he pushed

the door ajar. Her room was empty. When he returned, Blair

was arguing with his father.