PART ONE
Petofi was dead. Her beloved Barnabas was missing. His 1897 spirit had merged with his body from 1968 in the mausoleum at Eagle Hill. Someday, someone named Willie Loomis would return her true love to her. Rather than alter the timeline, Angelique bided her time by traveling to Boston and catching the next ship to England. It took all her money from Quentin, but it was worth it. Arriving in London's West End, Angelique looked around the old city for traces of places she had seen in her previous travels. All her old contacts were long dead; her old haunts now new businesses. She smiled mischievously as she searched for lodgings.
"Haven't had a lodger since the Ripper killed Mary Jane." the landlord led the beautiful blonde sorceress down the alley in Miller's Court. "Can't seem to get anyone to stay more than a night." The landlord looked like old Ben Stokes only dirtier. The tiny one room apartment was dingy and foul with a broken window and stained walls. It would have to do for now.
"Here..." he snapped his fingers for the first month's rent.
"I already gave it to you." Angelique lied as she stared into his alcoholic bloodshot eyes and mesmerized him. Feeling her power, the dirty fat man turned around speechlessly with a graceful turn and returned to the tavern down the street with just a bare memory of his bewitching new boarder.
Alone, Angelique turned round and dropped her one bag. Sighing, she wondered if this was going to be worth it. Eyeing the dirty walls of the flat that might be her home for a while, Angelique turned her hand and extended her fingers to the spectacle as she reached for a broom. The walls brightened as the molecules of dirt fell to the floor to be swept up. She used her shoe to dust off the curtains and peeked briefly into the closet as she passed it. It was fair enough for her as she reached for a hanger and started to hang her clothing, but then she had a feeling of apprehension. Maybe she should not be putting anything in there. She tried to shrug it off then hung her clothing off a bar to her kitchenette in an alcove.
She could also repair the broken windowpane herself. She took a bottle from outside her door and used its volume to replace the space in the pane again molecule by molecule. Another pass of her hand and she elevated the mattress of her would-be bed and flipped it over.
"Witchcraft…" she sang under her breath and grinned to herself before sweeping her floor out the door. "How could I live without it?" She looked up and saw someone coming for her down the alley. He was dirty and loathsome and clothed offensively as he looked her over.
"I'll give you five pounds for a good time...." He thought she was one of the East End's whores!
"What you need is a bath!" Angelique cringed and covertly turned her hand again and the would-be john was doused with a pail full of water from the apartment above. Smiling at herself, Angelique returned to her cleaning, but she was barely finished when the door sounded again. The john was back and not alone.
"What did you do to my friend?!" Another bucket of water fell to earth, this time enough for two as Angelique grinned mischievously back to them.
"You mean that?!" She turned into her flat and closed the door only this time she locked it. She turned back to her sweeping and light cleaning to turn this would-be apartment to a brief home. She took the linens from a trunk by the door and started setting her bed. She still needed to check her lamp for oil, but just as it started getting dark, Mary Kelly's old johns started returning. She grumbled as she unlocked her door and peeked out. "I am not a..."
"Ten pounds, missy - fifteen of you bring your friends."
"Meet my friends." Angelique closed and relocked the door. The buffoon stood outside her door as he heard dogs in the distance barking and growling. The noises were getting closer as he saw five, then eight, then twelve dogs coming at him. Bolting from the door, he briefly saw Angelique watching from the window as a huge retriever and a pinscher bit and tore at the seat of his pants.
"And that's enough of that." Angelique removed her dress to her skirts, undid her locks of hair and slipped into bed. She lit her oil lamp and decreased the flame to barely light the room and leaned back to sleep. The bed creaked under her as she closed her eyes.
Knock, knock, knock…
"This is getting..." she pulled her blanket around herself. "Now you listen here..."
The alley way was empty. She shuddered in the cold air as she heard the far tapping of wheels to a cobblestone street. That feeling of inexplicable dread returned as she doubly locked her door this time, peeked out to be sure and returned to her lonely bed. It creaked under her again as she nervously thought of ways to earn money. She turned to her side to dream of marriage and love and motherhood over plans of a happy contented future. Her mystic senses then jumped to alarm with the sensation of a visitor not of the world but the next. She froze in her bed as she felt it coming upon her.
The mattress creaked from its presence.
Lifting her head, Angelique looked through the dim darkness. As she lay back down, she heard it again as if someone had crawled in bed with her. She began to look around again. Her hanging dresses were swaying on the impromptu rod.
The unexpected sensation of someone on top of her pushed her to the bed. Looking straight up, she saw nothing as something pushed against her! She gasped and kicked at the presence then slid her body and tumbled to the floor for her bags.
"Miss Kelly," She pulled some white candles out. "I'm so sorry about your murder, but this flat has not enough room for previous tenants!!"
PART TWO
The white magic of five white candles burning around her bed allowed Angelique to sleep the rest of the night peaceably enough, but she was not planning on sharing the tiny apartment with a female ghost. Early the next morning, though, she began to search out the curio shop she knew had existed at the corner of Weymouthe and Land's End in 1710. It was only a little over a century since she had last been here and she hoped it was still there. She however paused with little surprise when she noticed it was now a private residence. A brief question to passersby and she learned that the owner's descendants had another shop deep into the heart of England just a few blocks from Piccadilly Circus.
The shop seemed to have curios from America as well as the Far East. She saw furniture hanging from the rafters and numerous jars of dried goods behind the counter on shelves. She eyed some garments as the clerk helped a customer then proudly thrust her presence on him with her own regal bearing.
"Have you ever heard of Dragon's Foot?" Angelique knew the root was closely related to ginseng and from the highlands of Tibet. It could be combined with other ingredients to ward off spirits or converted into charms - the same sort of charms which superstitious tourists might purchase.
"One left." The clerk answered covertly as he secretly motioned her to the back room. "Didn't know any of you witches were still around."
"I just returned from the States." Angelique was led into a back room behind a curtain. The room was filled with roots, herbs and powders in various sizes and containers stacked to the low ceiling. She briefly gazed over the cloth voodoo dolls and waxes for various uses. The small room contained a drugstore's worth of chemicals, countless exotic plants and strange objects peeking out of liquid-filled glass jars for white witches and sorcerers alike. A certain former black witch could go wild in here if unleashed.
"I'll be getting more next month if you need it." The clerk checked out her lovely frame. "Even with the witch hunts long over, it's getting hard to get this stuff out of the Far East. Someone ailing?"
"Going to be." Angelique dropped the root and more candles into a basket. "I have a rather pesky spirit who does not want to go."
Before the clerk could ask which of London's millions of ghosts it was, his daughter escorted another equally beautiful blonde witch through the curtain. The three of them exchanged glances a minute.
"Do you have any Dragon's Foot?" the other witch asked.
"She got my last one." The clerk admitted as Angelique tried to anonymously slip out unseen. She barely made it as she felt someone hold her back. The American witch looked back upon the British witch.
"You don't need all of it, do you?" her would-be rival asked. "My cousin's baby is very ill and I have need of its medicinal uses."
"And I have a very nasty spirit." Angelique replied.
"Then you won't need all of it."
"No," Angelique admitted. "But I can make a lot of money selling the rest as charms and love potions." She eyed this other witch over. She was blonde and regal as if related to the monarchy, and had a royal bearing as if she had known a few monarchs in her time.
"Look," she began. "I can make you a better deal. A home without a ghost and a paying job with little or no work - a nanny's position of sorts. You do like children, don't you?"
"Of course." Angelique decided for the less abrasive approach over her previous tradition of making enemies. "Angelique Bouchard." She held her hand out.
"Samantha Spellcraft." The other blonde sorceress leaned forward. "I really think that this could be the start of a beautiful relationship." She paused. "If you are to allow it…"
"Just give me one reason to not trust you…" Angelique gazed carefully upon her would-be rival. The store-owner and his daughter gazed upon each other expecting the worst.
PART THREE
Forgetting their fondness for the mystic arts, Angelique and Samantha crossed the London Street for a sidewalk cafe and talked of deals and arrangements. Before dinner was over, they were laughing and enjoying themselves as if they had known each other for years. It was then a long carriage trip to the Spellcraft estate. The estate was located far out in Borley Parish in Essex County. Angelique looked up and saw a huge castle perched on the hilltop; it was large enough to dwarf Collinwood and the Old House back home. Samantha described how her ancestors had built it within the walls of an old Roman fortress and even warned her how some of her relatives were a bit haughty and eccentric.
"But they're harmless." she added. "Most of the time...."
The carriage rolled into a huge courtyard as servants appeared out of nowhere and scrambled for the bags and boxes. As Samantha gave instructions for Angelique's things to be taken to a third floor room in the tower, Angelique stood outside the double glass doors of a study and listened to the boastful claims and stories of the men inside.
"As Shakespeare said...and he quoted me beautifully, 'The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth like the gentle rain..."
"No, no, no," Another voice interrupted. "Maurice, you big ham! It's more like this..."
"Angelique," Samantha got her attention. "This way..."
Angelique was led to a huge stone walkway to several steps up to huge oak doors. Once inside, she found herself humbled before a huge foyer, larger than the Collinwood Drawing Room, as two more women came down the huge mahogany banister. They were bickering between themselves as they came closer.
"Hilda, Zelda," Samantha began. "This is Angelique. To get the medicine for Thomas, I asked if she'd like to live here and help take care of him."
"Wonderful," Hilda was obviously a little flighty as she grinned. "You'll love my baby brother, he's no trouble at all. You don't happen to know any cute guys?!"
"Like I said, boy crazy." Zelda excused her sister. "Please excuse her, Angelique, she's a bit nuts."
"Nuts?" The two of them started bickering as Samantha amusingly shook her head and gasped.
"Don't worry about them, Angelique." Samantha spoke up. "The only ones you might need to worry about are my cousin Vespa and maybe my mother, and maybe my Uncle Arthur..."
"I'm not going to be turned into anything, am I?" Angelique asked.
"No," Zelda answered. "But you'll never get bored."
PART FOUR
Angelique had been living now in Spellcraft Manor for about a week and was slowly still getting used to the family. Samantha, Hilda and Zelda treated her warmly, but there were still the others. Zelda's eldest sister, Vespa, was a presence to be reckoned with as the opulent lifestyle had given her a very arrogant and haughty attitude. Samantha's Uncle Arthur was a bit getting used to as he used his mystical powers for practical jokes on everyone around him as if he were the trickster of the gods himself. His eldest sister, Clara, had a heart of gold if not for her age and mental acuity affecting the accuracy of her spells. And then there was their sister who Angelique met by accident. It was Samantha's mother who ran the family house as if she were Queen Victoria herself!
Wandering through the long hallways of the huge edifice, Angelique heard the meandering argument between mother and daughter in the second floor library. She tried to ignore it, but it soon became obvious it was about herself.
"I can't believe you hired a mortal witch to be the nanny to your cousin's baby!!" the older, red haired woman argued with her daughter.
"Oh, mother..." Samantha sighed. "She's my friend!"
"You can't trust them," her mother argued. "They make pacts with devils and demons for powers as a travesty to our true and more noble heritage! She's not a true witch.""
"She's not like anymore! She's returned to more pagan roots."
"Are my ears burning?" Angelique had heard enough. She had to make her presence known.
"Angelique." Samantha stepped back. "This is my mother, Endora Spellcraft."
"Charmed." Angelique tried to show respect to the door-faced lady who didn't trust her. Endora just smiled connivingly toward her and looked at her hand with faint amusement. She waved her hands dramatically and vanished! No puff of smoke, nothing! Angelique froze at the spectacle.
"You tell me now!" Angelique turned to Samantha. "What sort of witches are your family?!!"
"Well," Samantha stretched the word into two syllables. "An, you see...sit down." The two of them motioned to two chairs at the windows over looking the garden.
"My family line...are born with their powers." Samantha admitted. "I was conjuring unicorns when I was three years old. My ancestry runs back to pagan times and some of my oldest relatives still have memories of the Sumerian Empire."
"How old are you?"
"I was born in the reign of Henry VIII." Samantha revealed. "My lifespan is apparently rooted in my DNA and you have to, what? Use charms and incantations?"
"I rooted my appearance to a portrait I posed for when I was eighteen." Angelique revealed. "I was eight when I was introduced to magic and an ordained witch by time I was 23."
"You see that's the difference." Samantha replied. "You had to work, tap and develop your powers. My family has to merely exercise them. My ancestors go back to before the sinking of Atlantis. I guess you could call us… True Wiccans, a different branch on the human evolutionary family tree."
"But what's this nonsense about mortals." Angelique leaned forward. "You're not gods, are you?"
"Heavens, no." Samantha chuckled. "In fact, true immortals such as Zeus and Odin don't call themselves gods. They exist too, but they won't have anything to do with anyone as long as they have pagan witches as yourself still tapping into the power of their names."
"Could you teach me some of your magic?"
"Why would you want that?" Samantha leaned back. "You seem more adept at your skills than any other human sorceress I know."
"I'm in love with a man who doesn't understand me." Angelique stood up and dramatically changed the subject. "I know he loves me too, but...I don't want to force his love, but I can't go on much longer with all these feelings in my heart going unfulfilled. Even a witch's heart, human or otherwise, can break too."
"I think I'm going to cry." Hilda stood eavesdropping in the arch as she pulled out a handkerchief.
PART FIVE
Thomas Spellman was growing up into a very handsome young man with Angelique as his nanny, and sometimes as his governess. Treating him as her son sometimes, Angelique tried to teach him a higher tolerance for regular individuals that his sisters didn't seem to have. In turn, Thomas's nature gradually brushed off on them except for Vespa who left for her own home in Paris. Eventually, Angelique then noticed that the family's own ways were coming off on her. It was a few months after Thomas's fifteenth birthday that she was coming out of the curio shop and someone ran into her.
"You loathsome heathens!" she turned on the young boys. "How dare you touch me?!! Do you know who I am?! I could turn you into..." She froze as she noticed the terror in their eyes. They were just boys, just boys playing in the street. For the moment, she didn't like herself. "I'm.........excuse me."
She clutched her parcel and jumped into the carriage. She turned to remorse as it dawned on her to what and whom she was reverting back to. In a brief moment, she was Cassandra Blair again; that horrible person she was when she held Collinwood in her lap in the far future of 1968! She couldn't revert back to being that sort of person.
Returning to the Spellcraft estate, she ran past Zelda and Hilda crying. The two sisters forgot their argument and looked at Angelique as she ascended the stairway and vanished into the North Wing for her room. They started to rush after her then stopped and looked at each other. Snapping their fingers, they popped into Angelique's room and noticed her sloppily throwing her things back into her bags.
"Angelique, what's wrong?" Zelda watched her. "Did Vespa threaten to change you to a llama again?"
"It's not her, it's me." Angelique's eyes were awash in tears. "All this good living has turned me back into a person that I really hate. A few boys ran into me in town and came that close to turning them into mice. I won't allow myself to become that sort of person again!"
"Trust me," Hilda mumbled. "Some of those urchins deserve to be mice." Her sister glared back to her.
"Angelique," Zelda tried to stop her. "Wait till Samantha gets back from Tokyo and talk to her about it."
"No, my mind is made up." Angelique lifted her three bags the same way she carried them when she arrived in London. "I need to stay humble. I'm returning to the states and finding myself the smallest apartment I can get!"
"Well..." Hilda sounded like Samantha. She conjured up a small scrap of paper and looked briefly to her egghead sister. "An, if your mind is that set, take my ticket to New York. I can pop there faster."
Angelique stopped in the hall just a few feet from the top of the banister. She took the ticket and looked it over. Across the top, it said First Class. It was just a brief more luxury before her vow of poverty.
"Please extend my apologies to Samantha." She started down the stairs.
"You can come back anytime." Zelda hugged her before Hilda could. "You have a very nice boat leaving this afternoon on its maiden voyage. It's supposed to be the greatest ocean liner ever built."
"Well," Hilda motioned for Yorick the coachman. "With a name like Titanic, it ought to be!"
PART SIX
Arriving at the dock, Angelique looked up and up and up at what looked like a huge steel structure without any doors. Her eyes floated over the portholes to the huge letters that read "HMS Titanic." It was obviously much more bigger then the ship which had brought her to England over fifteen years ago. From amongst the busy rabble of passengers and stewards loading the ship, she attracted on-lookers who admired her appearance and then finally one porter who rushed to collect her baggage and wheel it on ship to her First Class suite.
Once on board, she didn't feel as if she were on a ship. It felt more like a very grand hotel, and an extravagant hotel at that. It could have been a floating city with opulent surrounds dedicated to wealth and prestige. The furnishings were Olympic-level, more suited to the gods. The ambience and atmosphere invaded her spirit and soul almost immediately. From somewhere beyond time and space, she heard a cosmic vocalist feeding her lines from a song she had never heard before! She felt it was resonating from the spirit of the great ship.
"Every night in my dreams...." she sang to herself under her breath. "I see you, I feel you. That is how I know you go on..." Her mind started straying and she found herself getting so tired of having people run into her. Curbing her first instinct to turn the miscreant into a cat, she realized it was her fault and looked up. He looked like Tim Shaw, that teacher she knew back in Collinsport in 1897!
"I am so sorry." he smiled at her appearance. "I'm Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer. Are you alone, Mrs…"
"Collins." she responded with a faint British accent from her several years living in England. "Angelique Collins." She introduced herself.
"Married?"
"Separated."
"Please let me make up for this most discourteous act. Join me for dinner tonight at the Captain's Table." he tried not to flirt.
"Well, I'd be honored." Angelique smiled as she caught scant notice of someone watching her. It was a massive man with long blond hair pulled tight in back. He was tall and built like a warrior restrained in the clothes of the time. He glared upon her protectively as if he were an unknown older brother. "Mr.. Andrews, would you know why that man is looking upon me so oddly?"
"What man?" He turned around. The figure was gone!
A slight chill passed through Angelique as Mr.. Andrews escorted her to her room. She knew she had seen him, but where had he gone to in such a brief second. Wandering the ship later, she hoped to find him, but he must have left ship. Her mind floated elsewhere as she rushed to meet her admirer for dinner that night. But then that nasty chill returned..........
She was still finding her way around the town-sized ship when she heard something flitting amongst the huge smokestacks of the ship like a demonic bird of prey. Rearing her head up to the noise, a brief shadow flew out of the side of her vision. Turning around, she looked up to an overhead balcony.
"Amanda Harris!" she muttered under breath. It was either she, or her twin sister. A very lovely, darker and more intimidating twin at that with a wild look in her eye. One blink of the eyes, and she was gone as fast as the blonde man that morning.
"Mrs.. Collins?" Thomas Andrews surprised her.
"Oh!" Angelique shrieked at the surprise. He proudly escorted her arm and arm to the main ballroom where he promptly introduced her to Isidor Strauss and his wife; they marveled at her beauty. Colonel Archibald Gracie lamented he wasn't a younger man for her. J. Bruce Ismay and steel tycoon Cal Hockley were charmed as Molly Brown called her a Yankee beauty. The introductions led to Ruth DeWitt-Bukater and her daughter, Rose, accompanied by the young lady's escort, Jack Dawson.
"And this..." Andrews continued. "...Is Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary." Angelique froze in the presence of the Countess. She was the vampire she had seen flying over the ship!!
"Countess…" Angelique replied hesitantly.
"Mrs. Bouchard…" The suspected vampiress eyed her as a worthy opponent and sipped a glass of red wine.
PART SEVEN
Angelique sat and watched the Bathory carefully during dinner. The auburn-haired countess was very cordial, regal and especially careful. She barely ate much of anything except a steak that was rare enough to have walked itself to the table and on the dance floor she mesmerized her partner away from the mirrors. She and Angelique kept a close look on each other every so often, obviously knowing already what each other was and scanning for weaknesses. When the immortal vampiress excused herself, Angelique stood up and followed her up to a point.
"Now where'd she go?" her wily opponent had vanished on her on the outside deck. As Angelique looked around, it dawned on her of the legend that Dracula himself had made the Countess what she was. Was he close behind? Was he the massive brute watching her from afar? She turned round and noticed him once more staring from over her head. Tall, blonde and massive as per some Nordic god, they locked eyes at once and studied each other. He smiled a moment and tilted his head to her before leaving her presence.
There were two things Angelique knew she could do: inform the captain he possibly had two vampires on board and allow herself to be restrained as a lunatic or she could handle it herself. Her dealings with Barnabas had made her a bit of a novice vampire killer, but how many of them could command the mystic arts? She went to her suite and tossed what she needed into a purse. As inconspicuously as possible, she headed to the bowels of the ship. Thinking as Bathory would, she would not attack first class members; they'd be too easily missed. Third class passengers, however, would not be missed and would be much closer to a coffin hidden in the cargo bay.
For two days, she searched the ship without incident. The crewmen had pulled a body drained of blood from the ocean, but they blamed it on the sharks. Her blonde follower, however, was popping up even during daylight hours so maybe she had to rethink what he was. By the third night, Angelique realized she had scoured much of the hold. As she headed out, she noticed the steamed windows of a car. She noticed the handprint left in the watery glass and thought she had found a body. Lurching open the door, she found it empty.
Retracing her steps, she headed back the way she had come. Turning around several packages of Egyptian artifacts being shipped to New York, her eyes glance briefly over the uncovered sarcophagus and then over the broken seals. Bathory could be wily enough to hide inside for the trip. She nervously raised the lid............
"You!"
"Witch!" Bathory grabbed Angelique by the neck as the purse hit the floor.
From somewhere, the whole ship rumbled and trembled as if a great finger from above had stroked it. Briefly distracted, Bathory felt the witch's leg strike her in the chest. Dropped to the floor, Angelique held up the cross she stole from the ship's chapel. Bathory clutched at her eyes and dove into the sarcophagus. She felt her history as an unstaked vampire coming to an end as Angelique slammed the lid on her. Tossing the cross inside as well, Angelique had alternate plans than staking her. She clutched her bag and pushed down on the lid as she struggled to light a candle and then several more for an impromptu ritual.
"I call upon the powers of Earth and all her children...." she heard Bathory cursing at her.
"I'll kill you!!!"
"I bind you to your grave!" Angelique melted wax on the unbroken seals as water ran under her feet. "By the powers of Gaea, Danu and Jord, may no man ever release you from your grave! May you no longer walk! No longer may you live by night! You are bound!!!!"
Bathory was still screaming at the top of her undead lungs as Angelique stepped back. The wax hopefully now had the resiliency of steel; no one should be able to break them. She now noticed something else. Pinpricks of water squirting inside at high pressure were shooting between the seams in the hull. That could not be good being below sea level of the ship. As she looked to the water running under feet, she heard voices from behind her.
"I wonder what sort of damage the ice... hear, what you doing here?" His accent was British; the groaning from in the hold almost primordial. The witch and the five porters looked to the steel bulkhead and noticed where water was spraying through numerous tiny holes between the plates of steel. Angelique felt afraid as her mystic senses forced her to brace to the floor.
Without warning, everything exploded. Thrown between floating boxes, she was thrown hard to the far inside bulkhead of the ship. Her back felt the brunt of the impact as she fell into the cold freezing miasma of debris and ice floating around her and then her mind drifting into unconsciousness.
PART EIGHT
His head was swimming and her body was numb as her eyes opened to the water surrounding her. Trapped against a light in the ceiling, only the small lower part of Angelique's back was warm as the freezing cold water of the North Atlantic rushed into the hold of the mighty ship. Fighting to keep awake, she gasped for air from the small pocket trapped in the ship and removed her dress. She was already so cold, but swimming in the heavy water-soaked thing was only going to slow her down. Treading water long enough, she dived under the floating boxes and tried to remember her way out. Floating in her slip and underwear, she eyed the stairway already submerged and paddled like a trapped mermaid to reach it. Through the twists and turns of the corridor, her head finally broke surface in the dim watery stairway. Groaning filled the ship as she heard the heavy water tight doors closing throughout the ship.
"No!!!" She sloshed sleepily toward the thick sliding door. Her skin freezing on her and ice in her hair, the hold of the ship was closed off. The doors were quicker were quicker than she thought. She struck the door with her curled up white fists. She couldn't feel her fingers. "Don't leave me down here!!!!!"
The water exploded behind her as Bathory's stolen watertight sarcophagus broke the surface. Angelique spitefully and hatefully looked back at her. It was her fault she had to come down here!
"At least, I'm not dying alone!" the female vampire trapped in the Egyptian coffin laughed through the lid.
"Drown why don't you." Angelique spitefully and hesitantly bounced off it back into the water. It was so much colder now, or seemed like it as she wearily dived and swam through the bowels of the ship around floating and drifting debris and crates. She cringed from the remains of a dead porter and fought off the sleep trying to possess her. The ice cold was trying to stop her, but she had to keep going. There had to be a way out!
Gasping for air in trapped pockets and led by vents and pipes, she found herself caught by the undertow of more water rushing into the ship. The ship had to be slipping further! How much time did she have left? Was the ship still breaking the water's surface? A railing whirred past her dimming sight as she clutched at it. Holding fast, she pulled herself against the current as she swam up into another flooded corridor. Her head finally breaking surface, she shivered painfully, her mind about to drift off permanently as she sloshed slowly in water up to her waist. No obstacles this time, she felt optimistic as she turned a corner.
Another watertight door stood closed to meet her!
"No, no, no, no…" her voice quivered five times worse than any winter she had ever experienced. Seemingly trapped in slow motion from the cold, she struck at the door fearfully and desperately. "P-p-please......... i-i-is there... ssssssomeone, aaaaanyone...out there?" Her tears were already cold as the water saturating her slip froze to her body. The water was now up to her chest. She never thought she'd die like this. Lonely, forgotten and trapped in the bowels of a sinking ship.........
PART NINE
"Angelique!! Don't go to sleep!!!"
Did she hear that? Or was her mind hearing things? Angelique's whole body was numb and wet. She could barely stand in the still barely lit corridor. The water that had risen to her shoulders had frozen her further in the last few minutes than in her entire time down here. She couldn't breath as she slowly faded off to a permanent sleep. The ship groaned around her as the Titanic slipped further underwater. She then felt the door to which her shoulder was frozen shift. Did she do that?
Something was moving it as the water poured through the opening. Her hazy vision showed a hand in the door opening. Her eyes widened wearily as someone pushed the massive hatch to one way. She noticed an arm and a face. It was him!!
"Angelique!!" His voice roared over the rushing water. He braced his back to the door as he pushed the door and the several tons of hydraulic pressure to the side wide enough for her to pass. The water also rushing through also threatened to carry her through with it. "Give me your hand!!!" Her mysterious guardian reached to her.
"W-w-who a-a-are y-you?" Angelique could barely think. She had to be dead, and this superhuman spectacle a hallucination. She placed her small white hand in his mighty palm and was lurched through the opening like a huge wet rag doll. Behind her, the watertight door slammed shut with a resonating crash.
Partially collapsing, Angelique felt herself lifted up like a baby. Her huge protector up close was taller, larger and stronger than any normal man she had ever seen. His face was flawless, his steel blue eyes had a bit of nobility to them. He was handsome and he had a regal bearing that impressed her as he carried her through the flooded hallway.
"W-who a-are you?" she asked again as he searched the way back up.
"This is not the time." his voice reverberated with an indecipherable accent. Scowling at the water still pouring into the ship, he carried her with fond protection and the demeanor of a hero. Looking back one minute, he noticed the weight of more water shattering a set of wood doors and charging toward him.
"By Ymir's snowy beard!!!!" He clutched Angelique tightly and ran back the other way. Sighting another staircase climbing up out of the water, he looked back and then charged up into the middle class compartments. Behind him, the hallway completely flooded.
Climbing another staircase, he noticed there were still people moving through the ship. He grabbed a handful of blankets for Angelique to wrap up in and turned to some of the other passengers. Above their heads on a short staircase, some of the third class passengers were trapped behind gates spouting curses at the White Star Line employees beyond the gates.
"Let us through, you dogs!!! We're all going to die!!!"
"Not till they're through tending to the first and second class passengers." The porters calmly held the keys out of range.
Angelique briefly caught a glimpse of Rose and Jack rushing through the hall as her hero turned to some of the passengers. Speaking in German to them, he placed Angelique down for them to warm her as he briefly left her.
"Why won't you tell me who you are?" her mind was slowly returning.
"My mother told me to protect you." he spoke again. "That's all you need to know." He turned to the spectacle at the top of the stairs. Pushing through the enraged and hurried men, he emotionlessly eyed the gate as if it was no match and ripped it down with hardly an effort.
Angelique's eyes widened as her anonymous hero re-collected her and took her up into the cold North Atlantic air. Panic, screaming and the futile sparks of flares being fired filled the air. Trussed in her blankets as some Christmas ham, Angelique felt herself lifted over all the heads and placed down into a boat just now descending. She looked back up the rising wall of the ship as she gazed one more time on the stranger who had saved her life. Huddling in her few inches of space, she noticed as he watched her departure with noble anonymity.
From beyond time and space, Angelique heard the strange music once more which had followed her on board. She drifted off briefly, but when she looked back, the ship was far enough away to be blocked by the head of the person next to her. It's stern was high up into the air as a skyscraper just before cracking in half and sliding beneath the depths. With it, it took the identity of her hero............and a vampire in its hold.
PART TEN
Angelique didn't remember being carried on to the Californian half alive. When she woke up in a New York hospital, the doctors told her she had frostbite throughout her arms and legs, but something else prevented her from the humiliation of amputation. Her recovery was nothing short of a miracle as Hilda heard about the ship's sinking and came to New York with Zelda and Samantha in tow.
Having lost everything in the sinking, Angelique used the reparations from the White Star Line to furnish herself with a basement apartment in Greenwich Village from out of which she sold good luck charms, fertility tokens and even a few fortunes. Basically happy for the time, she was just barely scraping under this role. She had a home, enough to eat and her dreams. She wondered if Willie Loomis had even been born yet as she thought of Barnabas up in the mausoleum waiting for the future and herself to catch up with him. He still unknowingly had the ghost of Quentin, Adam, Dr. Lang and a few trips through time to live through before he'd even accept her as his true love.
Eventually, Angelique found she needed to make more money and she reluctantly started working behind the scenes in the theatre district as a seamstress and assistant. A director noticed her legs one day and made her a dancer. From there, she became an actress performing behind the vaudeville stars of the day and gradually getting the serious roles. A hesitant role in the play "Dracula" took her across the country several times over, but in 1925, many of her co-stars started to notice she hadn't aged a day in over ten years. Questions about her age and beauty secrets forced her to leave the troupe near Fall River, Massachusetts.
Instead of returning to New York, and with different plans in store, Angelique headed north under a brief new alias. Carrying ten suitcases of possessions, she took the train up the coast seeking to hide in anonymity. It was a small town on the coast she finally stopped at. She checked into the local hotel and without seeing her room traveled to the largest house in town. She smiled wickedly as the horse-drawn carriage delivered her to the mansion of the wealthiest family in town. Pausing at the door, she reflected nostalgically at the surroundings as she finally forced herself to rap on the door.
"Yes, mum?" A maid appeared in traditional black and white.
"Is the master of the house at home?" Angelique asked.
"Yes, mum, he is." the maid answered. "Who may I ask is calling?"
"Please tell Jamison Collins it is his cousin, Angelique Collins, from England."
PART ELEVEN
"You are my Uncle Barnabus's daughter?" Jamison barely remembered the uncle who had lived on Collinwood in 1897. He himself looked uncannily like Barnabas Collins himself; his wife, Joanna Edmonds-Collins, looked rather similar to Angelique in a way except for her long black hair. The Collinwood of 1925 was obviously in a time of transition as it turned from 1897 Collinwood to the 1967 Collinwood Angelique had discovered when she called herself Cassandra. Edward himself was still very much alive, but very old and set in his ways. Judith was bedridden upstairs and slept most of the time except when she woke to read to her grandniece Elizabeth Collins. The young girl reminded Angelique of Sara Collins, and Nora had now grown up to look like Victoria Winters. Very rarely at home, Nora traveled the world and called Collinsport her home three months out of the year. She sat in awe and listened to her cousin Angelique talk of life in England.
"Who was your mother?" Edward asked.
"The Lady Kitty Hampshire." Angelique mentioned in passing. The answer drove Edward into a mood as he still resisted losing Kitty to Barnabas in 1897. The only one to know the truth, Angelique looked to the empty spot in the foyer.
"What happened to the portrait of my father's ancestor?"
"I had it burned." Edward tramped out of the waiting room. Angelique froze at the news.
"He burned a copy." Jamison added in a whisper. " I had the original hidden to be restored later in the future." Angelique relaxed. Without it in the foyer, Willie would not know to release Barnabas on time. Although a mere child at the time, Liz will have to have it re-hanged it on time in 1967.
"Where are you staying?" Joanna asked her blonde twin.
"At the inn," Angelique admitted. "I'm only in town for a little while."
"Nonsense." Jamison turned to his sister. "Nora, show her to a room. I'll have Hanscomb pick up her things in town."
Gently protesting, Angelique actually wanted it no other way. She wanted to return to Collinwood to be closer to the mausoleum. Nora however continued talking as they headed up the stairs.
"So you were on the Titanic?" She smiled. "You were what? 15 when it went down?"
"16." Angelique claimed as she was shown to the room that would someday be Victoria's and sometime later Maggie's. Ironic that the three loves of Barnabas Collins would share the same room in different years. She and Nora talked as if they were friends until her belongings arrived from the inn. Finally contented, Angelique settled in afterward and after dinner and more whirlwind conversations, she finally slipped back to the room to sleep. She was home!
And so were the ghosts. Angelique heard and felt them all from Sara on the path to the Old House to the Widows on the cliff and from Josette and Jeremiah downstairs to Beth Chavez upstairs. Yet, there was one she wasn't familiar with at all. It felt familiar in some way, but it did not belong to Collinwood. It creaked the floorboards in the room and hovered over the bed like a faint smoke. A face appeared in it that Angelique tried to recognize. She watched in awe and fear while the face vaguely resembled both Millicent Collins and Charity Trask.
"Mary Jane Kelly!!!" Angelique shrieked as she once more found her pinned to the bed under the female phantom. "You found me!!!!!!"
PART TWELVE
Angelique stood coldly in front of her mirror. She had pulled on the tightest dress she had and had arched her chest up as high as it would go. She dressed and primped herself for several minutes spraying herself with expensive perfume as somewhere in Collinwood two month old Roger Collins screamed his head off. The boy's older sister Elizabeth ran loose through the halls with her doll under her arm. She stopped in her Aunt Angelique's doorway and watched as her new relative worshipped and flirted with her reflection.
"Aunt An," the girl looked up. "Would you like to play with me and my dolls? I named this one..."
"Get out!" Angelique snapped at the young girl. Liz just made a hurt look, squeezed her plastic doll and hurried off back to her room. Satisfyingly running her hands down the front of her dress, the calculating sorceress turned on her heel and headed down the hall. She opened the door to the foyer and walked out on to the balcony as Jamison entered the house. Joanna met him with Roger over her shoulder. Coddling the baby, she kissed her husband while Angelique stood defiant in their presence.
"Would you like the servants to bring you lunch?" Joanna asked her husband.
"Quickly," Jamison brooded a minute. "I need to get back to the cannery and make sure they're not goofing off." He proceeded on into the drawing room. Standing over the desk, he perused the morning mail as Angelique appeared. She grinned oddly into his presence as she glided up to him.
"Cousin." he asked. "How was your first night here?" Without warning, she gripped him tightly and closed her lips over his. Flustered by the kiss, he grappled with her a minute carefully as he pushed her away. "Angelique!"
"What??" She seemed to come out of a spell as she regained her composure and crossed her arms in front of herself. "Jamison!" She became embarrassed. "I don't know why I did that!! I'm sorry! Please don't misconstrue my gratitude to allowing me to stay here!!"
"It was..." he looked for a reason as he looked to make sure his wife was gone. "An accident..........we won't speak of it." He hurriedly wandered off as he struggled to wipe off the lipstick. Angelique collapsed into the sofa and distraughtly became afraid of herself.
"Get out of my body..." She whispered to herself. She slightly swooned as her body and facial features relaxed into an expression of desire and deceit. A sensation of something slipping through her body grabbed her breath in the form of another set of attire within her body. She once more ran her hands over her face and body as she straightened her dress.
"No, my fair Angelique…" her accent changed from French Martinique to English Cockney. "Your mind, body, soul and wonderful powers are now...mine!!!!" She broke into an evil laughter.
PART THIRTEEN
Bereft of her body, Angelique was left to the mercy of the spirits of Collinwood as Mary Jane Kelly pretended to be her. No longer the ghost once left behind in England, Kelly once more embraced being alive again and with such remarkable powers at her command. Carousing the village for her male callers and having as much money as she wanted, she could not be stopped. Angelique was powerless to her possession. She could escape the torment by heading to the astral plane, but that could conceivably break her already weakening link to her body.
The ghosts of Josette and Jeremiah were another matter. Their white shades chased Angelique through the corridors of the main house. Glowing white and screaming curses that the living could not hear, they taunted the incorporeal witch with their words and curses.
"You killed me!!!" Josette screamed.
"I'm not the person I was. Please forgive me!!" Angelique could only throw balls of ectoplasm at her pursuers. Turning around, she recognized the shade of Beth Chavez. Her hauntingly beautiful apparition reverted to the condition the fall from Widow's Hill had given to her. Angelique shrieked at the sight and raced down the servant's stairs. The Reverend Trask was at the bottom. Clad in his black minister's clothing, his face was skeletal and his mouth permanently stretched back into a hideous grin. Angelique darted under him. It would be years until Professor Stokes returned him to a servant of God.
Racing through the anamorphous shapes of the living in the foyer, Angelique looked up the stairs as Jeremiah stood to greet her. His handsome visage returned into the mangled mess of bandages that she had caused. Desperate to return to her body, Angelique turned to the door under the stairs. Sara Collins was there to take her hand and lead the way.
"Sara?" Angelique was surprised. "You?"
"My brother needs you, Angelique." the tiny phantom became lifelike in the black sub-basement. "You're still the only one who can save him."
Josette's and Beth's screams for the witch went unanswered as the two exited the secret passageway into Angelique's room. The witch's physical body looked blurred and out of focus as Angelique looked upon it. Through a spirit's eyes, it looked like a human-shaped bag of colored water behind a thin curtain of hazy air. Pushing through the veil between them, Angelique felt her estranged husband's little sister pushing her back into her body.
The living little girl in the door was Elizabeth Collins. Standing outside her Aunt Angelique's room, she was carrying her favorite book for her grandaunt Judith to read to her when she heard the gasp from the room. Pushing the door open, she noticed her Aunt Angelique still lying in bed. She had got in so late last night, but now she twitched and shook in her sleep. The child's eyes widened as her new aunt's body began convulsing as if it were being ripped apart by invisible forces.
"Mommie!!!"
Joanna placed tiny Roger Collins back into his crib as she ran to the source of her daughter's scream. Remembering her nurse's training, she gently pushed Elizabeth away as she checked Angelique's pulse and for a fever. Jamison appeared in the door concerned.
"What is it?" he asked fearfully as his wife tended to her look-alike relative.
"She doesn't have a pulse!!!" His wife screamed.
PART FOUTEEN
As Angelique, Mary Jane Kelly loved being able to have dreams rather being trapped in a nightmare as a disembodied spirit. Dreaming of King Arthur, Robin Hood and other heroes, she noticed the surreal nature of her dream was changing. Her heroes were leaving her as another presence entered the dreamscape, that special realm between the waking world and the realm of eternal sleep. The fog parted as Angelique invaded her imagination.
"I believe you have something of mine, and I want it back." She replied.
"Forget something?" Kelly grinned and threw an amount of mystical energy. "I have your powers too."
Angelique dodged the blast as she conjured a sword out of the tangible reality of the dream. Kelly copied in same as they met in this illusory world where gravity was a thought and cause and effect was willed. They jabbed and parried against each other, imagining armor when they needed it and acrobatically jumping and flying around and through the Celtic ruins of Kelly's dream world. Around them, the elements of frontier America popped up as well from Angelique's memories. Kelly swung hard at the blonde witch, and the British prostitute fought dirty with kicks and blows to the sorceress who owned this body. Pushed backward, Angelique somersaulted and landed on her feet as Kelly reared back, swung her sword and struck the marble pillar. Where was the witch?
"Tricky, tricky, tricky." She mumbled as she heard earth moving. She looked over her shoulder and saw Angelique several feet away. She was waiting for her as she charged with her sword drawn. At the last second, she then noticed the grave dug for her. Stopping short, she barely missed it.
"Thanks for showing me another spell." She landed behind Angelique. Sweeping her arms, she caused the earth to well up around her foe.
"No!!!" Angelique screamed as it rose up over her legs, her chest and then over her head. Her sword was driven from her hand as the cocoon of dirt and soil incased her. She became buried alive!
"So sorry to see you go." Kelly cackled as movement stirred out the corner of her eyes. Her horizons were becoming darker. A break of light showed something else entering her dream.
"This can't be good..." she picked up her sword. "Angelique, are you doing this?" The falling mass became a figure in a large red cape and silver armor. He was huge and blonde with the arraignment of a Viking. Long blonde hair dangled from under his winged silver helmet as he clutched his hammer. He scowled toward her presence.
Kelly threw a blast of mystical energy, but it just evaporated in his presence. She dove at him with her sword, but his hammer shattered it as if it were glass. His powerful hand clutched her by the waist and lifted her by the feet.
"Thanatos," he spoke looking behind him. "This one is yours."
Kelly looked up and noticed what looked like a handsome Greek warrior with short dark hair. As he came closer, though, he was immersed in black and the skin of his face receded and became a skull. In his role as the grim reaper, the death-god reared his scythe and dragged Kelly into his embrace. His presence felt ice cold.
"Hades, Annywn or Niffleheim." his voice was hollow.
"Your choice." The huge Viking reared his hammer back and struck the pillar holding his beloved Angelique. "And thank your nephew Morpheus for the spell." The sound of thunder covered up Kelly's screams as the Olympian god of death dragged her off to the underworld of her Celtic ancestors. The mound of dirt holding Angelique shattered like an eggshell under his hammer as she collapsed into her hero's arms.
"You?!!" Angelique coughed and shook the dirt from her hair. He was the one who had saved her on the Titanic!
"Thor Odinson at your service, my daughter."
"What did you call me?"
"Angelique," the Asgardian god of thunder draped his cape over her. "You are the last of my mortal descendants. Your father, Donner Jordson, was a Hessian soldier killed in the American Revolutionary War. Haven't you ever wondered where your natural Wiccan gifts came from? Wouldn't it be greater to embrace your pagan roots than to embrace the evil of a false god? You have a greater destiny ahead of you just as long as you continue pushing forward and don't look back."
"I'm sorry, but I..."
"Can't believe it?" Thor answered as he took her hand and laid it on the hammer Mjolnir. As Angelique squeezed the handle, the sky opened up and in a burst of light and she saw a million stars and floating realms. All at once, she was side by side with Apollo in the court of the Mayan gods. Six-armed Hindu deities gave her amrita to drink and Russian faeries and satyrs ran around her. Native American gods stood side by side with Chinese gods as African loas and orishas danced with Hawaiian fire spirits. Leprechauns from the realm of the Celtic gods rose jugs of ale to her as her presence flitted by them. It was all so incredible and spectacular as her immortal ancestor whispered in her ear.
"Do not forget your pagan legacy." His voice drifted off as the scenes broke to her room in Collinwood. Angelique's eyes parted and looked up to Joanna Collins replacing the wet rag on her head.
"Jamison, her fever broke and she's awake!!" Joanna called to the family.
PART SIXTEEN
The ghosts of Collinwood were pulling away now that Angelique was back into her body. She could have attacked them in return for their persecution, but that was something the old Angelique might have done. She had to prove she had learned humility and passion. According to Joanna, she had been sick for two and a half months and slipping in and out of consciousness the whole time. Angelique didn't know if the images she had dreamed were true or not, but she remained confined in bed to recuperate none the less. Losing ten pounds in the meantime, she finally rose when Edward started comparing her to bed-ridden Judith.
Gaining her strength back, Angelique learned that Benjamin Collins had come home. The wayward son had been off at college during the events with Petofi in 1897 and now returned with his Junoesque bride, Megan Woodard-Collins. A tall handsome and powerful figure, Ben was the youngest of the children of Geoffrey Collins. Hearing his eldest sister, Judith was too frail to leave her bed left him convinced it was time to return to Collinwood.
"Where have you been living?" Angelique and the wayward brother sipped tea in Collinwood's dining room.
"New York." Ben admitted. "Been there?"
"I lived there for a while."
"I heard you were on the Titanic." Ben scooped more sugar into his tea. "Must have been a horrible experience."
"Yes, it was." Angelique heard voices out in the foyer.
"Of course, if the ship had been built by our shipyards, the thing wouldn't have gone down." Ben added with a sinister tone. The voices in the foyer were coming closer. Angelique turned round as her eyes widened in shock.
"This is your Uncle Benjamin, and this is your cousin Angelique." Jamison escorted a familiar relative. "Everyone, this is Quentin's son, Quentin the Third."
Angelique stood and smiled in the presence of the old scoundrel. Keeping up appearances, she rose to shake his hand.
"Charmed to meet you cousin," she leaned in and whispered. "Are you your own son?"
"Are you your own daughter?" the charmer whispered back.
PART SIXTEEN
Angelique pulled the drawing room doors closed on her and Quentin. Because of the Tate painting, he was still irresistibly handsome if not a bit wiser than the person he once was. Back in Collinwood, he characteristically went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink.
"If anyone asks...." He started. "I'm the son of Quentin and Amanda. You?"
"Barnabas and Kitty Hampshire." Angelique claimed. "What are you doing here?"
"Still chasing my portrait." Quentin sipped his drink. "What did you do with it?"
"I?" Angelique remised. "I thought you had it when you pursued Amanda to New York."
"I lost trace of her." Quentin sat down. "I did learn that several Tate paintings turned up in Boston after the fire then tried tracing you down. I thought you had it. Maybe Barnabas…"
"Which one?" Angelique strided confidently and covertly through the room. "The doppelganger I created of him still lays staked at Shipwreck Point, his body in the future took his place in the mausoleum to be released in 1967 and Josette's ghost took him and Kitty to 1795."
"How did you know that?"
"I was there." Angelique smiled secretly. "Kitty appeared on Widow's Hill after the real Josette had jumped. She was mistaken by the Countess DuPres to be Josette and later took poison. About that same time, I followed a governess named Victoria Winters back to the future where she had come from."
"So you've been there too." Quentin smirked. "Personally, I can't wait till everything catches up."
"Yes," Angelique chuckled. "Still, it's still a rather dark part of my life I still despise. Back in 1795, I briefly traveled forward to 1968 and posed as a Cassandra Blair and married Roger."
"That baby boy upstairs??!!!" Quentin reacted amused at all these little time-traveling tangents tying together.
"He's not much different as an adult." Angelique sat down by him. "Anyhow, I was sent back to the past and was shot by a man named Lamar Trask. I would have been lost forever if you and Nicholas had not brought me back to life."
"Nicholas? You mean, Evan Hanley."
"His real name is Nicholas Blair." Angelique remembered her former ally. "We were members of Judah Zachary's cult in the 1690s. We were once lovers too. Posing as a Charles Dawson in 1840, he and Judah almost framed your great-uncle for witchcraft."
"Don't tell me you were Valerie Collins?!"
"That was I." Angelique smiled precociously. "We must find your portrait. It must be in west wing!"
"It's locked."
"Doesn't mean a thing to me."
Quentin beamed as he put his glass down and Angelique reopened the doors. Her infant future husband was screaming upstairs.
"Wait a minute," Quentin stopped her at the base of the stairs. "What if we both make it to 1967? Won't you run into yourself as this Cassandra?"
"Yes," Angelique admitted. "And she better watch out! If I remember correctly, I was a bit of a bitch!""
PART EIGHTEEN
Before the locked door to the West Wing, Quentin stood guard as Angelique worked her magic on the lock. With a click, they pushed it open and secreted themselves through. Moving his way through the cobwebbed and dusty furniture against the wall, Quentin felt a pang of regret. It was always so clean and bright in his day. He had come through here often before, but now it was a mere shade of what it once was.
"I don't get it." He looked around lost. "Where is it? There ought to be a door here!!"
"It's been closed up." Angelique became sorry for Quentin. "Judith sealed Trask inside. Your painting can't be here."
Quentin noticed a trace of movement in the room at the end of the hall. Glancing to Angelique, he turned up an eyebrow and headed down the corridor. The end of the hall opened up on two doors to one of the largest bedrooms. This had been Joshua's room in 1790, but it was now empty and stripped of furniture. A spirit stood looking up at the empty mantel. It turned to see them. It was Quentin's ghost!
"Angelique, what is this?!!"
"It's your ghost in another time!" She realized. "If Beth had killed you, that's where you'd be. David Collins and Amy Jennings release him in the future. That's why Barnabas travels back to save your life!!"
The room warped into another reality with another Jamison in another time with a different wife. They were fighting and hurling obscenities.
"You can't let Stokes get his hands on Collinwood!" Melissa Collins yelled. "He'd burn down the place with half a chance."
"Shut up." This Jamison was an obvious hothead as he struck his redheaded wife with the back of his hand. "A Stokes will never own Collinwood. I know what I'm doing!!"
"Mommie, are you fighting?" A little boy ran up.
"No, Quentin, we're talking." Melissa picked up her son. "We're just talking."
The room warped again back into an abandoned room. There was no sign of the ghost or if it was their room.
"Dangerous." Angelique pulled the doors closed. "I shudder to think if someone got trapped in there."
"I've never seen anything like it." Quentin turned on his heel. "Other times, other realities."
"I've heard about them in mystical circles." Angelique admitted as they headed back to the main wing. "I have friends in London. Maybe they can help us find your painting."
"Witches?"
"Naturally."
PART NINETEEN
Edward eased himself carefully down the steps as he looked across the foyer. Elizabeth had raced across a minute ago as Joanna carried his grandson Roger to the dining room for lunch. There wasn't even a sign of his nephew Quentin or his niece Angelique as he looked into the drawing room. Those two were seemingly getting romantic with each other in his mind. Squeezing the thought out of his mind, someone rapped at the front door as he turned to answer it.
"Yes?"
"Telegram for Angelique Collins." The messenger replied.
"I'll sign for it." Edward scrawled his name as best as his arthritis allowed and tipped the man a dollar. As he scanned the envelope, he noticed the post-address read London, England.
"Is that for me Ed....I mean, Uncle Edward?" Quentin came down the stairs.
"No, it's from the Spellcraft estate in Borley, England for your cousin." Edward dropped it on the desk.
"Well," Quentin picked it up. "It must be news about Tate. She's helping me track down my...........father's portrait."
"Quentin!" Edward scowled as Quentin ripped open the telegram. "You're almost as bad as your father. If it wasn't for your age, I'd think you were him."
"My father spoke nothing but good things about you." Quentin smiled at his own lie. "I wish you'd do the same." Quentin looked at the telegram.
"Dearest Angelique," it began. "I hope this is of some use to you but as far as we know Charles Delaware Tate is still alive, but in self-imposed seclusion. Last we knew of him, a man named Count Andreas Pefofi of Bistrix, Romania, frequented him often. Petofi died in a fire near you in Rockport, Maine in 1897. Tate escaped to New York later on where Vespa helped him to restore his hands. He continued painting until 1903 we believe. Tate paintings, however, have appeared in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Bangor, London, and Paris and maybe as far east as Helsinki. If he were still alive, he would be in his eighties.
Much love, Zelda Spellman
P.S. Thomas sends his love."
"Good afternoon, all." Angelique entered the drawing room.
"You got a telegram." Edward announced.
"Where is it?"
"Quentin's reading it." Edward pointed the way. Angelique strided up and looked him over as he handed it over.
"Good news?" she asked him.
"Thomas sends his love." Quentin announced as she scanned the message. A brief glance up, Angelique read the telegram as she hovered over the fireplace. The portrait of Joshua Collins looked down on the room as if he were watching and studying his descendants.
"Where in the world can that portrait be?" Quentin asked out loud. "It can't just vanish."
"I told you." Edward barely looked up. "It burned up years ago when Tate's studio burned down. The Evans family just recently had it rebuilt. The studio though, not the portrait."
"Quentin," Angelique led him into the foyer. "We will find it. It has to be somewhere. I was thinking of leaving Collinwood anyway to return to Samantha. We will find it."
"I know it exists." Quentin mumbled. "But where?"
PART TWENTY
Heading back to England, Angelique returned to London. As the war started in 1939, however, she and the Spellcraft family became forced to leave as a short madman terrorized much of Europe. Joining the USO, Angelique searched the local art galleries ahead of the Nazis while at night she danced with American service men coming to the aid of England. As she entertained, her memories were often returning to Barnabas back home unaware of the events occurring around him.
"You seem distracted tonight, Angelique." One of her admirers noticed.
"Just thinking, Colonel Hogan." She smiled. "Now don't get yourself put in one of those POW camps."
"Would I do that?"
The Fifties brought Angelique back home. She purchased her first car and spent most of her time shouting obscenities at it.
"Now listen here you five ton hunk of metal!" She roared at it. "I am the last person in the world you want to get angry! You won't believe what I could do to you!!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," The Milwaukee mechanic came over. "This thing is a work of art, much like yourself. You need to show her you love her." He reached in and turned the ignition of the light blue 1957 Chevrolet Convertible. It turned over and hummed like a purring kitten.
"How can I thank you?" Angelique looked up.
"Would you like to go up to Inspiration Point with me?"
The Sixties amused Angelique very much as all the teenagers had long hair, carried flowers and picketed against a new war in the Far East. She was working as a model in Chicago, but her local war concerned the teenage boys in her neighborhood.
"Mr. Bundy," she appeared at the door of her neighbor. "I just got home and I found something disgusting on the outside of my bedroom window." She pulled a young man inside by the ear.
"Al, are you bothering Mrs. Collins again?"
"Oh come on, dad," The boy looked up. "Her window was there, the ladder was there..."
"Mr. Bundy," Angelique continued. "If this happens again, I will place a curse on your family and all its descendants..."
Father and son laughed as they slammed the door.
"...If only someone else hadn't beaten me to it." She remarked turning back to her house. Looking for something to do, she clicked on her TV as she perused her mail. The TV screen came to life on the black and white images of water crashing against rocks. Wavering letters rose over them as Angelique scanned the mailers she had been sending to art galleries. Among them, she noticed a wedding invitation from New York.
"We Please Request Your Presence At The Wedding Of Darren Stephens And Samantha Spellcraft."
Samantha had done it. She followed Angelique's lead by marrying a regular man. At the wedding, she heard that Thomas had also done so. Everyone was marrying and having children and she was still looking forward to catch up with Barnabas in the far future to return from 1840 after vowing his love for her.
"Thomas just had a baby girl." Hilda mentioned her nephew at the reception. "They named her Sabrina Angelique Spellman."
Angelique's ego went up a notch as she noticed one of the other guests eyeing her over. He was handsome and distinguished and as they looked each other, she felt as if nothing else mattered.
"Who is that?" she asked.
"Schuyler Rumson." Zelda replied. "He's a client at McMann and Tate where Darren works."
Rumson glided over to meet her.
"Care to dance?" He asked.
"Perhaps." Angelique beamed as she sent back a look of superiority to Zelda and Hilda. They merely rose their glasses to her as Rumson took her hand. He stared deeply into her blue azure eyes.
"I've never met anyone like you before." He claimed. "What would it take to get you to marry me?"
"But you don't know me."
"I will."
END