LARA PARKER, whose real name is Lamar Rickey Hawkins, played the role of Angelique on Dark Shadows. She grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, attended Vassar College, majored in Drama at the University of Iowa, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University at Los Angeles. Her books include the Dark Shadows Trilogy: Angelique's Descent, The Salem Branch, Wolf Moon Rising, and others. She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband and daughter.

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

Wolf Moon Rising

By Lara Parker

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2013 Dan Curtis Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3259-2
CHAPTER 1

Anxious to fly the night, Barnabas listened for some sound before raising the lid of his casket. Fully awake now, he assessed his predicament: this place was dangerous, too easily discovered, and if he were to survive, he would need to return to his coffin in the Old House. Antoinette lived there now, all the more reason she should become his slave.

Antoinette! Her face floated across his mind — her mouth blossoming, her eyes hypnotic. Already, he could taste her, and — as he had done every evening 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. Ignoring her struggles, he would find her heartbeat, and at that moment possess all that she was, all that she had been before. His pulse raced at the thought. The mystery of her past would be revealed to him — the moment he took her blood — and he 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 indifference 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 mortals, 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 chosen for its breadth: providing room enough for two — and was relieved to find 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. This after a year of agony, her fiendish 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 process. That dark December night when she drained him and fed him and returned him to this monstrous form, he shuddered to think of it.

He pushed open the lid of his coffin and gazed at the rafters above his head. The basement room was suffused 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 horseback 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 encased in striped tights.

All these decorative efforts would be Julia's doing. Ridiculous how a woman must adorn her nest — even a vampire's nest — and Julia mistakenly believed lilies and candlelight would sway his crippled heart. But she was shrewd; he would have to admit that. He must never underestimate her cleverness. And oddly enough, even though they were reproductions, he rather liked the tapestries.

Still lying in his coffin, he adjusted his silken shirt, pulled the cuffs 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 trifling 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 final 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 floor beams of the mansion where his family resided, he resolved to be rid of her. The thought of spending eternity with her was an abomination.

A voice floated out of the gloom. "Good evening, Barnabas, my love. I was waiting for you to wake." Ah, she was there. Rising up, he turned to look at her.

The room was small and the hard stone walls were burnished 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 immediate qualms when he thought of trying to overpower her, for he could see her body was as strong as a lioness's.

She had already ventured into the night. Her victim was 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 filthy, 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 elfin forest where delicate flowers and small animals surrounded a medieval lady as she looked down demurely and rested her hand on the unicorn's long and slender horn. Barnabas imagined 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 coffin 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 finding 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 fingers. "Julia, you must respect my wishes."

She rose — thoughtlessly allowing the girl to tumble among the flowers — and, floating as vampires do, drew close and placed a finger across his lips.

"Wait. Don't speak. I want to tell you the thoughts I had this evening as I wandered the streets." Her skin was flushed, 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 complexities 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 evening without being recognized?

When she leaned against him and took his hands, he could see beneath the glittering facade the same needy and manipulative 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 floor of his prison and the candle flames danced. Then he reached back into his casket for his cane. The 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 fingers 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 distracted by another lady in the tapestry, the one with the flowing hair. The 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 flee, but he stopped beside the flowers, 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 affair. 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 different now."

"Things are different," he said, growing impatient. "Things are very different 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? That I should have let you die?"

"In a word ... yes. Death would have been far more palatable than this. You are still in the honeymoon of the vampire's adventures." He looked down at the dying girl. "Enjoy it while you can. You are swept up in the excitement. But that will pale, my dear, and grow brutally dull. Believe me, you will soon learn that you are doomed, as am I, to unrelenting misery."

She gasped as though he had slapped her. "How can you say that?"

"Because I have lived almost two hundred years, and I know it to be true!"

Grasping his cape, her eyes dark and her lips drawn tight, she bit out her words.

"Don't ... don't think you can ignore me. I brought you back with my own blood. In time you will see that you cannot exist without me."

He wondered if that were true.

"And I will never leave you."

"Then I must leave you."

"How can you be so ungrateful?"

"You restored the curse! I despise you for that!"

He wrenched himself free, but she was too quick for him and again blocked his way. She fell to her knees.

"Wait! Don't go without me. We can have our lives and our happiness for all eternity. I gave up my life to make you what you are now. We belong together." She lifted herself into his arms and he could feel weakness trickle through him. She was stronger, perhaps because she was more determined. Her obsession fed her passion whereas he was drained of any feeling. As she caressed him, he felt hopelessly ensnared, and — as he had in his coffin — unable to breathe. With a determined effort, he pulled away and placed his hands on her wrists.

"Julia, this is pointless. Set me free, now, or we are both damned."

Carefully stepping over the wretched girl, he avoided her pleading eyes as he climbed the narrow stairway to the vast underground basement. Easing the portal open, he felt a blast of stale air, all the time aware of Julia still standing in the secret room, willing him to turn back. She whispered one last word.

"Never ..."

He could sense her power draining him, and his knees felt weak as he shut the door on her face — a face he never wanted to see again.

The basement smelled of rat feces, and it was cluttered with dusty stacks of magazines and housekeeping paraphernalia — brooms and mops, sacks of rags, and old paint cans. Their room beneath the stair was well hidden but too close to the family living in the house. He fingered the key to their secret portal and thought of simply locking her in. He hesitated, feeling his hands open and close, one still gripping his cane.

Breathing hard, he made his way through the debris and searched among the gardening tools for what would be needed. He caught sight of a hay rake with five tines and a sharpened hoe; shears and clippers; a heavy shovel; and rolls of wire fencing. A dusty carpenter's bench displayed tools more purposeful, various wrenches and screwdrivers, hammers, and boxes of screws and nails. Near old bags of solidified cement mix and a pile of discarded lumber lay a few iron stakes. Any of these would do.

His patience was exhausted, and better to snatch the moment when his ire was rich. The stake was rough in his hand, decayed with rust, and a mallet lay on the bench. An open padlock he had found earlier, the key still inserted, hung from a nail on the wall; and, in a shadowy corner, behind some wooden skis, a child's sled beckoned, and a tangle of rusty snow chains tumbled out of a cardboard box.

When he slid open the door again to his chamber, Julia was feeding. All about her were strewn the bruised lilies — crimson pollen staining the petals — as if she had ripped them in anger. The flames of the candles had died; only one still flickered in its pool of wax. It cast her shadow on the wall, rising and falling as she drank. She was lying awkwardly on top of the girl with her dress draped over the body, and her copper hair falling across a face now frozen in death.

Watching her, Barnabas was revolted by a feeling of nausea; he could see her only as a reflection of his own morbidity. Desperation flowed through him like an electrical current. How could he spend eternity with her, ever to be reminded of his own loathsome nature, to see it mirrored in another — and one who enslaved him — leaving him with no will of his own?

The lady with the unicorn gazed down at him with a melancholy smile, bestowing her blessing. She stood in her brocaded gown among her rabbits and birds, her serenity a challenge and a taunt, the snowy beast curled by her side.

Barnabas gathered his courage, and, floating behind Julia, raised the stake. Finding his mark, he hesitated, and then realized in a rush that he had to do nothing; Julia's naiveté had done it for him. She had succumbed to the vampire's drunkenness and was sucking the girl dry, already drawing death from her victim's veins.

Only sipping up until now, tasting the nectar from so many vines, she had never learned that she must cease before draining the final glass. She knew to make a new vampire one must stop just before the heart stops and then feed the victim with one's own blood. That was the way she had brought him back. She had ripped open her own neck for him and leaned in to let him drink.

But did she know to kill a victim and not become mortally ill, one must never drink from a corpse? A vampire rarely fed until the body was drained because he was satiated long before then, but Julia's bitterness and her anger with Barnabas must have stunted her reason. Or, perhaps she did not know. There was no one to tell her, and she had drowned her sorrows in this excess. Now, he thought with a chuckle, rather than putting an end to her, it was up to him to save her.

(Continues...)Excerpted from Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising by Lara Parker. Copyright © 2013 Dan Curtis Productions, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.