Wolf Moon Rising (51 page)

He pulled his collar up against the frozen rain now icing his

windshield. Somehow he would be worthy, transformed by some

courageous gesture; he would embrace the call what ever the sac-

rifi ce. He imagined that he had lived in the golden age of Greece

and that he had been the son of a king, his task to save the prin-

cess imprisoned in the castle. What must King Arthur have felt

when he was but a boy and he pulled the sword from the stone?

A fate determined by magic.

He was approaching the place where he had fought with the

boys when he saw the body lying in the snow and recognized the

red plaid jacket. Th

e boy lay spread- eagled on his back, his body

twisted and his work boots pointing to the sky. David braked,

eased the snowmobile to a stop, and hit the kill switch. Warily,

he climbed off the sled, and when he drew closer he found blood

splattered snow all around the boy’s head. Th

e throat was ripped

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open.

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David leaned over and shook the boy’s shoulder. Th

ere was

no response, only a limp jostling. David had never been so close

to anyone who had died. It was strange— he was so still, so cold,

and his eyes were open and glazed as though what ever he had

seen had stiff ened him with terror. He tugged back the boy’s

collar and sucked in his breath when his fi ngers touched blood

that was still warm. Disgusted, he wiped his fi ngers on his pants

and gingerly inspected the gashes, still wondering whether there

might be a pulse. Both repulsion and fascination battled in his

brain when he found what he had been looking for— on the

neck, just under the chin, sticky globs of blood all around— two

deep puncture wounds.

His whole body crawled with tremors, and he could feel

sweat springing from his pores.

It was Barnabas. It was the work of the vampire.

Gasping, he pulled away, bewildered, and something glinted

in the hand of the dead boy. He pried it open to fi nd his mother’s locket, the chain wrapped around the boy’s fi ngers. After tugging it loose, he sat back with the twisted charm burning his

palm and looked out into the snowy woods. Had it been left

there for him? A talisman.

Jackie had said she dreaded living an ordinary life. He under-

stood the desire for something more transcendent. He ached for

that romantic fate as well, the journey that would defi ne his

character. He thought of Barnabas as the monster in the cave,

hovering at the center of the labyrinth, huge and hungry, his

great curved horns ready to gore the life out of any intruder.

David felt the earth spin and his thoughts were whirling in

a slow gyre. Th

e snow blotted out everything and formed a cave

of sparkling diamonds. He had a bizarre idea. How was a vam-

pire made? It was an unnatural creature that drank blood to

survive. He put his head down near the corpse and reached out

to brace himself before he came close to the boy’s neck. He

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could smell sweat and the odors of blood and death as he stared

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at the gaping wounds.

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He tried to imagine the vampire’s habits, his urges, and his

hunger for blood. What was that like? Curious, but also dis-

gusted, he leaned in and, fi ghting nausea rising in his throat, he placed his lips near the holes. Nothing came but the metallic

taste that coated his tongue and made his gut clench. What was

he doing? Th

is was crazy! He was inventing foolish and ridicu-

lous notions, imagining that if he were a vampire, she would

love him. He gagged on the taste, his bile rising.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard the sound of

a car. His fi rst reaction was relief— someone had come to help

him. Th

en there were footsteps, walking, crunching the snow,

then running, and he tried to gather his wits, to sit up and look

around, but he lost his balance, slipped, and fell again against

the body.

He heard a voice cry out, “Stop! Don’t try to get away!” and

there were black shoes on the snow, trouser legs, and again he

rose to his knees, tried to stand, but his sight was blurred by the blood which had leaked from the cut on his forehead and his

palm was bleeding horribly, when someone, a man, leaned over

him, placed a fi rm hand on his shoulder and he felt a prick in

his neck and then a terrible pain, a piercing stab— his thoughts

whirled—

Th

e vampire!

He wrenched his body, struggled to pull away— something

was jammed into his neck, like a giant wasp stinging him, and

he swatted at it, but he could not tear it loose and he fell on his back in the snow and gasped. He was staring up into the face of

Nathanial Blair— hot breaths panting down on him, dark eyes

fi erce and reproachful— and he was shaking him horribly and

pressing him to the ground, one knee on his chest, saying

through gritted teeth, “Don’t try to get away. I have you!” He

looked around like a crazed maniac and shouted to the dappled

sky, “I have the vampire!” He thrust harder on David’s chest, “I

have caught you— drinking blood. You are discovered, and you

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are compromised! Monster! You are mine!”

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Astonished, David tried to free himself, shouting, “What?

You’re crazy! I wasn’t doing that! Let me go, you idiot,” and he

shoved against Blair’s shoulders with all his strength, but that

strength was diminishing— a blur in his brain— the hypodermic—

the needle in his neck, and even while he was fl ailing and kick-

ing, his mind clouded over, grew dim, then the white world

dissolved into darkness.

When Barnabas woke later, Jackie was still there, looking

very pale, sitting before an easel. She saw him rise from

his coffi

n, and she looked over and smiled wanly, as though she

were immersed in melancholy, but herself again— a child who

carried a heavy burden. Despite her tangled black hair, her

beauty was enhanced by her deep concentration as she touched

her brush to her palette and raised it to her canvas. He could not

see what she was working on but he thought of Angelique, sac-

rifi cing herself, reaching up from the land of the dead, and vio-

lently ripped into two separate beings, Antoinette with her

songs and Jacqueline with her paints, both aching to become

whole— one the bright and the other the dark side of the moon.

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T w e n t y - o n e

That which had been waiting to happen— inevitably,

inexorably— was upon him, and Quentin had reached a

state of madness. Th

e moon had not yet risen, but its glow could

be seen behind the house, a bluish aurora radiating into the dark

sky, a luminous vacuum that would soon emerge huge and

empty, swelling as it drew his fl ailing body like a magnet draws

an iron fi ling.

Th

e time for procrastination had passed. Quentin was be-

yond despairing, and helpless to prevent the transformation, he

was terrifi ed of what he might do once the monster was un-

leashed, or whom he might harm. He had hit upon a desperate

plan. Could he escape to the past— before the curse? Surely it

would not follow him there. As he waited in the library for

Blair, he became more and more agitated.

Th

e signs were unmistakable; shaving that morning had not

removed his beard’s shadow, and now the hairs were coming in

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on his forehead as well as his chin. His skin itched and his odor

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was gamey as he dressed, pulling a silk shirt over a shrunken

chest while the fur pushed out between the buttons. Bones elon-

gated, and also shriveled; his voice was a hoarse growl, and his

mouth so fi lled with teeth he had a vision of gnashing on some

bloody fl esh.

With an unsteady hand, he knocked on Elizabeth’s door,

and when she refused to open it to him, he pleaded at the crack,

suppressing the canine whine with a whisper. “Blair has agreed.

Please, my darling, come with me.”

She undid the latch, and her face in the dim light seemed as

beautiful as when he had fi rst met her, her eyes a mossy green

and her skin pale as cream. But when she looked at him closely,

she sucked in her breath and her brow furrowed.

“Quentin, what is it? Is something wrong?”

Pushing the door aside with what he hoped was not brute

force, he moved into her room and encircling her waist with his

long arm, led her to the mirror above her dressing table. When

she saw their two refl ections, her hand fl ew to her mouth. “Oh,

Quentin, have you been ill? You— you look so . . . so—”

“So
old
? Yes, I have aged.” He chuckled. “We are the same

age now, Elizabeth.”

She stared at the mirror. It was true. Th

ey were at long last

the elegant couple they dreamed of becoming, both past their

prime but handsome and proud, with their dark hair and patri-

cian features. Both were slender, but he towered over her, his

body gaunt and slightly hunched whereas she was still softly

rounded, her waist trim. Th

ey could have been long married,

living together with a lifetime of memories. “Th

is is what we

should have been,” he said. He took her hand and held it to his

lips a moment, gripping it so that she had to pull it away. He

looked into her eyes. “Oh, but I am aging fast, Elizabeth. Soon

I will be gray and feeble, barely able to walk, and then—”

“What? What do you mean . . . aging?”

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Quentin staggered over to the bed, reached for the post,

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then turned an anguished face to Elizabeth. “Th

e portrait is

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lost! My protection has disappeared, and the curse . . . the curse weighs on my soul. Elizabeth . . . I am dying.”

Her hand fl uttered to her throat. “Are you delirious? What

are you talking about? What curse, Quentin?”

He shook his head and groaned. “Come and sit down. I will

tell you the story.” She looked at him anxiously, and frightened

but compliant, she allowed him to lead her to the bed, and

watched as he sat opposite her in a chair. She was trembling,

searching his face for some clue, and she looked small in her dark

robe, her body shrunken, her hands folded in her lap, and an ex-

pression of profound pity on her face.

After a long moment of hesitation and many false starts he

began. “Th

ere is so much you never knew about me, Elizabeth.

When you met me, I was already much older than you, some

forty years.”

Elizabeth gasped. “But how is that possible?”

“Ah, how can I explain? I had found my way to the dark

side; I lived under the spell of an enchanted portrait. Do you

remember the paint er who remained for a time at Collinwood,

in the tower room? When we were . . . when you . . . were still young?”

“I do. Charles Delaware Tate. A strange man. I sat for him

once, but he never completed more than a sketch of me.”

“You were fortunate because his portraits were dangerous.

And I don’t think he was as . . . as interested in women. He had

a talent that was unnatural, a skill that no mortal should pos-

sess. His brush could create life, still life, apples that could be tasted, lilies whose odor could be inhaled, a glass of wine that

could be quaff ed.”

Elizabeth’s face was twisted with disbelief. “What are you

saying? Th

ere is no such thing as a painting creating life.”

“But it was true! His likenesses cried real tears and saliva

escaped from their lips. When he saw what he could achieve,

his vanity knew no restraint, and he began to think of himself

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as a kind of god. My picture was his masterpiece, and his

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months of tedious manipulation of paint and blood— yes, he

mixed his own blood into the paint— cost him his sanity. But the

image he created of me was so real that it claimed my life’s jour-

ney and left me an empty shell. It aged, as I stayed young. It grew scars and pockmarks, as my face remained unfl awed. Nothing,

no matter how depraved, was written on my cheeks but instead

found habitation on the face of the man in the painting.”

Elizabeth was silent for a moment, then she said quietly,

“Th

is is inconceivable. Ever since you returned to Collinsport, I