Authors: Lara Parker
she fl oats off her chair and hovers above her canvas, her brush
lifting an image out of the shadows. But it is not a painting of
the boy who dreamed of her, or the portrait of Quentin her tor-
tured mother must fi nd. Th
e brush moves by itself; something is
guiding her hand. Sparks fl y out of the tip as it rolls on deep
maroons and magentas. A vision emerges of a brooding man
she does not recognize. Coal black hair combed into curving
spikes across the forehead, bloodshot eyes dark as chestnut seeds
with a tiny fl ame in each iris. Craggy jaws and a large Roman-
esque nose, and faintly glimmering just inside blood- tinged lips,
two enlarged incisors. With a sharp cry, Jackie throws down her
brush and pulls back from the canvas. Something malevolent
has risen out of her subconscious. She has painted the vampire!
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O n e
Anxious to fl y the night, Barnabas listened for some sound
before raising the lid of his casket. Fully awake now, he as-
sessed his predicament: this place was dangerous, too easily
discovered, and if he were to survive, he would need to return to
his coffi
n in the Old House. Antoinette lived there now, all the
more reason she should become his slave.
Antoinette! Her face fl oated across his mind— her mouth
blossoming, her eyes hypnotic. Already, he could taste her,
and— as he had done every eve ning since his transformation— he
renewed his plan. He would draw her to him, bend her reluctant
body to his, and he would force her to look into his eyes, all the
while dazzling her with a power she had never imagined. Ig-
noring her struggles, he would fi nd her heartbeat, and at that
moment possess all that she was, all that she had been before.
His pulse raced at the thought. Th
e mystery of her past would
be revealed to him— the moment he took her blood— and he
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Lara Parker
would know at long last whether or not she was Angelique.
Many things die, but desire is not one of them.
His memory of her indiff erence when he was still a human
was painful— that night at the Blue Whale when Antoinette
told him she would not marry him, that she did not love him.
Humiliation in courtship was a common experience for mor-
tals, but the sting of dismissal lay outside the vampire’s range of emotions. Now that he had regained his powers, he vowed that
she would come to regret her cruel rejection.
He reached across the width of his casket— so lovingly cho-
sen for its breadth: providing room enough for two— and was
relieved to fi nd Julia gone. Julia, his savior and his guardian.
Ever since his return— had it been a month?— he had been forced
to lie with her, submitting to her embrace. Th
is after a year of
agony, her fi endish elixir, the painful injections, the curative that tamed the vampire’s hungers. He could still hear the tinkle of
the syringe, see her blood pumping into the tube, and feel the
infernal heat when the concoction entered his veins. She made
him human again, but infected herself in the pro cess. Th
at dark
December night when she drained him and fed him and re-
turned him to this monstrous form, he shuddered to think of it.
He pushed open the lid of his coffi
n and gazed at the raf ters
above his head. Th
e basement room was suff used with the odor
of lilies— white lilies Christian mortals bought to celebrate
Easter. Although he could not see them, Barnabas knew the
walls were hung with tapestries, scenes of Elizabethan hunters
on horse back chasing a unicorn. In one tapestry, the snow- white
beast was cornered and fenced within brambles, and the hunters
hoisting spears and bows stood around in plumed hats— their
shapely legs incased in striped tights.
All these decorative eff orts would be Julia’s doing. Ridicu-
lous how a woman must adorn her nest— even a vampire’s nest—
and Julia mistakenly believed lilies and candlelight would sway
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his crippled heart. But she was shrewd; he would have to admit
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that. He must never underestimate her cleverness. And oddly
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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising
enough, even though they were reproductions, he rather liked
the tapestries.
Still lying in his coffi
n, he adjusted his silken shirt, pulled
the cuff s into the sleeves of his jacket, and carefully tied his cravat, all the time considering his troubling companion. What
drove her to devote her life— my God, her own blood— to this
last misadventure, to this trifl ing with the dead? Even after they had both gone over to the dark side, she had insisted that it was
love. Barnabas uttered a dry chuckle.
A living death, Julia, is not
what you dreamed it would be.
He sighed, now reluctant to embark upon his night’s vile
quest. What drove her, he had come to realize, was that old
worn- out engine:
age
. She was no longer young, and now, if life were to brim, it must brim with the juice of others. For a brief
period, as a human of her making, he had succumbed to a limp
sense of loyalty. But now, and this was the fi nal irony, she had
terminated the treatment, given him back his powers, and—
without realizing it— created a monster incapable of gratitude.
As he gazed up at the ceiling of his basement prison, and at the
giant fl oor beams of the mansion where his family resided, he
resolved to be rid of her. Th
e thought of spending eternity with
her was an abomination.
A voice fl oated out of the gloom. “Good eve ning, Barnabas,
my love. I was waiting for you to wake.” Ah, she was there. Ris-
ing up, he turned to look at her.
Th
e room was small and the hard stone walls were bur-
nished by the glow of candlelight. Julia was sitting among the
lilies on a step that led up into the basement, and he was shocked
again to see that she was not the aging woman he remembered
but a vampire of shameless splendor. She wore a dress of wine
dark velvet, and her arms were shapely, as were her surprisingly
round breasts just glimpsed within her décolleté. He had im-
mediate qualms when he thought of trying to overpower her, for
he could see her body was as strong as a lioness’s.
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She had already ventured into the night. Her victim was
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Lara Parker
reclining on her skirts, a young girl with bleached hair and a
smudged face, still breathing, and the terror frozen in her eyes.
Her threadbare coat was muddy— or were those bloodstains?
And her bare legs were scratched. She wore no shoes and her
feet were fi lthy, perhaps black with frostbite. Where had Julia
found such a miserable wharf rat?
Behind her, the tapestries gleamed with life. One was a
scene from an elfi n forest where delicate fl owers and small ani-
mals surrounded a medieval lady as she looked down demurely
and rested her hand on the unicorn’s long and slender horn.
Barnabas imagine the three of them as a theatrical staging for
his amusement— a triptych of womanhood: the goddess, the
vampire, and the dying girl. Which would he choose?
Julia smiled, lifted the girl up into her arms, and the bright
head fell against her breast. “You see what I have brought you?”
Even though he was hungry, Barnabas recoiled. “Like a
house cat brings a dead mouse to her master?”
A shadow crossed Julia’s face. She pursed her lips and spoke
in a voice edged with sarcasm. “Can I do nothing to please you?”
Julia was a new vampire, still taken with the thrill of the
hunt, not aware that there was far more to feeding. After more
than a hundred years, one’s victim was a delicate choice, and
he had awakened this night with his selection already in mind.
It was to be Antoinette, and only Antoinette. As he slid from his
coffi
n and rose to his feet, he was conscious of his body’s new
tensile strength. Once again it surprised and even pleased him.
“I am perfectly capable of fi nding my own, in fact, I would
prefer to—”
“But why, when it is my joy to serve you.”
He combed his thick, black hair with his fi ngers. “Julia, you
must respect my wishes.”
She rose— thoughtlessly allowing the girl to tumble among
the fl owers— and, fl oating as vampires do, drew close and placed
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a fi nger across his lips.
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“Wait. Don’t speak. I want to tell you the thoughts I had
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this eve ning as I wandered the streets.” Her skin was fl ushed,
and he could smell blood, a not unpleasant aroma, on her breath.
“I am still amazed at this new existence that I now share with
you, and each discovery brings me closer to . . . to those com-
plexities of your mind I have always found so bewildering.” He
turned away, but she caught his arm. “Please, Barnabas, listen
to me! I understand your hungers, and your remorse. And now
that I am with you, you need not worry. Because I will protect
you from guilt or shame. I will hunt for you.”
He sighed.
Like a good little wife.
Vampires, if nothing else, were beautiful, and Julia’s beauty
was blinding. Gone were the sunken cheeks and thrust- out chin
of her middle- age years. Her amber eyes were soft, her skin
glowed, and her hair had grown long and brushed with bronze.
Was that why she was able to wander Collinsport in the eve ning
without being recognized?
When she leaned against him and took his hands, he could
see beneath the glittering facade the same needy and manipula-
tive woman she had always been. Sensing his prying thoughts,
she glanced back at the dying girl.
“Don’t you want her?”
Still breathing, the girl stared past him, and then her eyes
locked on his. She seemed unable to move; perhaps her back was
broken.
“Please, help me,” she whispered. A pink bubble formed on
her lips. Yes, he could share her with Julia, and they could bond
on that feast. Fill their veins from the same source. He imagined
himself bent over the young body, his mouth pressed against her
throat.
“No, I’m not interested,” he said, and moved away as he
began his preparations for the night.
Julia’s copper eyes narrowed while he smoothed his black
suit jacket over his scarlet vest and reached for his cape. As he
adjusted its dark folds across his shoulders, it skimmed the fl oor
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of his prison and the candle fl ames danced. Th
en he reached
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back into his casket for his cane. Th
e silver head of a wolf molded
to his hand.
She became agitated in the old way and took hold of the
back of his cloak. “Where are you going, Barnabas? Don’t go
without me.”
Vile juices rose in his throat. Perhaps the moment had
come. His hands twitched and his fi ngers curled on the cane’s
handle as if they were grabbing her by the neck, forcing her
down. But her vigorous energy restrained him, and he was dis-
tracted by another lady in the tapestry, the one with the fl owing
hair. Th
e unicorn had risen up and placed his feet in her lap. She
wore a golden crown and had a wicked glance that reminded
him of Antoinette— or was it Angelique? Recalling his night’s
mission, he longed to fl ee, but he stopped beside the fl owers, the sweet odor rising to his nostrils, and turning back to his waiting
companion, spoke with as much control as possible.
“My dear Julia, we are not involved in a love aff air. Much
less a marriage. Did you believe that we were? I don’t have to
explain where I am going.”
Flickering in her eyes was the same confusion he had seen
so many times when he had been brusque with her, but now she
possessed a stronger will. She would be a powerful adversary.
“I thought,” she said in a hoarse voice, “that things would be
diff erent now.”
“Th
ings
are
diff erent,” he said, growing impatient. “Th
ings
are very diff erent now, thanks to you, and your incompetent
meddling. You have brought this all upon yourself. And upon
us. And now there is nothing to do but make the best of it.” He
swayed with restlessness.
“What are you saying, Barnabas? Th
at I should have let you
die?”
“In a word . . . yes. Death would have been far more palat-
able than this. You are still in the honeymoon of the vampire’s