The Winter Wild
By Lucidscreamer
Written 1998; previously published in "Wolf Tracks" and "The Collective" fanzines.
This story is the third in the "Twist Of Fate" series. It follows "Lorelei".
Disclaimer: Dark Shadows is the creation of Dan Curtis.
The Forest
It was late, but the swollen moon lit her path through the skeletal trees outside the village.
Five months had passed since Barnabas Collins had left her standing beside this nameless stream, now thickly clogged with ice. Balancing herself carefully, Angelique slowly crossed the fallen log that served as a footbridge and made her way deeper into the woods. Her boots crunched through the thin crust of new-fallen snow as she entered a hidden clearing and went straight to the dead stump at its center. The blackened tree stump still bore the scars of the lightning that had killed it. Reaching into the hollow center, she drew out an oilskin-wrapped bundle.
Kneeling awkwardly, she loosened the leather thongs that held the bundle tightly closed, and spread the oilskin to reveal the ritual implements inside. Five yellowish tallow candles each as thick as her thumb, a bone-handled knife covered in carvings, a small leather pouch, and a miniature broom made of dried herbs bound at the stems awaited her pleasure.
With the broom, she carefully swept away the new snow to reveal a shallow circle cut into the bare earth. Arcane symbols twisted about the circumference; inside, a smaller circle and a large, five-pointed star, were cut more deeply into the dark soil. Deep indentations marked each of the star's points and into these she placed the candles, one for each point.
Chanting softly under her breath, the words learned long ago on Martinique, she lit the candles, each in turn. They smoked heavily as they burned, giving off a thick smell of animal grease. The acrid fumes stung her eyes and burned her throat, but she ignored these minor discomforts. Kneeling in the center of the circle, she took up the knife. In one swift movement, she drew it across her palm with the deftness of long practice. Her voice rose slightly as she sprinkled the fresh blood over the symbols.
After binding her hand with a strip of cloth, she opened the drawstring pouch and dipped her fingers inside, coating her fingertips with the grayish-green powder, which filled the pouch. With a sweep of her hand, she scattered the fine powder over the candle flames. The pungent odor of bitter herbs rose with the smoke.
She inhaled, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. As usual, it made her cough, but she ignored this as she had ignored the other discomforts. Her plans were coming to fruition; that was worth a few minor annoyances.
Reaching again into the hiding place inside the hollow stump, she withdrew a dusty bottle. Dark, viscous fluid swirled at the bottom of the thick glass. Using a gourd as her chalice, she poured an inch of the oily liquid into the gourd and added more of the powder. She heated the noxious mixture over one of the candle flames, then drank it down in a single gulp.
She grimaced, and resisted the strong urge to fill her mouth with numbing snow. Five months of repeating this ritual had not taught her to savor the libation, but she had no thought of stopping now.
Her hands lovingly caressed the full-moon swell of her belly, as it grew even fuller beneath her touch. She moaned with the strain--the new life within her twisted wildly with the magic, as if already seeking to escape her womb.
Smiling despite the pain, she stroked her ripe abdomen and murmured soothingly, "Soon, mon cher..."
She glanced up at the grinning face of the moon.
"Soon..."
----------------
Elsewhere
The werewolf crouched in the drifts at the edge of the small encampment. It blended effortlessly into the liquid shadows pooled beneath the trees, a long low shape flowing silently across the snow.
A whisper of wind brought the thick odor of pine smoke to its keen nose; with it came the far more enticing scent of the sleeping bodies huddled close around the dwindling campfire. The smells of human flesh and sweat, of blood and of the musty wool and animal pelts with which they had wrapped themselves made its mouth water.
Vague images--memories? --flickered in the werewolf's mind, images barely recalled and easily dismissed. Images of these prey creatures welcoming it into their circle, offering the warmth of their fire. Of course, it had not been in its true guise then, with night and the freedom of the moonlight only distant promises.
Now, temporarily escaped from the hated cage of human flesh, it had returned to the camp. To hunt...and to feed.
On silent feet, it padded closer to the unsuspecting sleepers. Even the sentry dozed, his bearded chin tucked into his chest. Still, the werewolf was cautious, warily circling the camp, alert for any sound or movement. The sentry snorted suddenly, shifting in his slumber, and the werewolf froze. But the man settled back with a sigh, and was soon snoring again.
Crouching lower, until its belly brushed the frozen earth, the werewolf inched into the circle of firelight, its dark eyes fastened on the two forms that lay slightly apart from the others. These forms were smaller than the bulkier shapes of the sleeping men and their scents proclaimed them female -- smaller, weaker. Easier prey.
One of the two forms was smaller still, and it was to this one that the werewolf crept. Again, the strange images flickered in its mind: the bearded male speaking, explaining the circumstances that had led his family to these dire straits, shelterless in the winter woods. His other self had been sympathetic, the werewolf recalled. But the weak emotions of the Other meant less than nothing to it now, when instinct and hunger drove it to hunt.
Black lips skinned back, revealing long yellow teeth in a savage, silent snarl. The Other, that hated alter-self, had thought to deny it its rightful prey, leaving the camp to run far into the forest before moonrise threatened. But the werewolf was more cunning. It remembered.
And now it would have its prey.
In one swift movement, it lunged forward and seized the smallest sleeper in its claws. It sank lethal fangs into her soft throat, silencing her cry before she could alert the others. Then it turned and loped back into the shadows, the still body clutched to its furred chest.
--------------
The Forest
Angelique rested quietly in the center of her magic circle, surrounded by the flicker of candlelight. The sharp aroma of burning herbs mingled with the smoke, which wrapped itself around her like a gray shroud. The ritual was complete.
She contemplated her engorged belly, swollen with the burgeoning life within. Her spells had quickened the process, increasing the child's development and hastening the time of its birth.
Patience had never been one of her virtues.
The child would be born soon, Barnabas' child. A son, to inherit his father's features...and so much more.
-----------------
Elsewhere
The werewolf buried its muzzle deep in the flesh of its prey, snapping up steaming gobbets of red meat that it swallowed whole. It paused, its long tongue lapping gore from its leathery lips, and tilted its head back to gaze at the night sky.
Hunger sated, it threw back its head and sang its joy to the moon.
---------------
The Forest
The greasy smoke coated Angelique's lips, her tongue. It clogged her throat, making it difficult to breathe. She fanned the smoke away, then struggled awkwardly to her feet, supporting her weight against the tree stump.
The smoke rose with her, as if reluctant to let her go. It curled about her face, tickling her nose, stinging her eyes. She wiped her face, took a single step...
...and gasped as unexpected pain shot through her body.
The gasp forced more of the smoke into her already straining lungs; she choked and gagged, as the pain ripped through her lower back, then stabbed deeper into her very core. Her knees buckled.
With a strangled cry, she fell, her thrashing legs scattering the candles. Her mind raced; this shouldn't be happening, not yet! Something was wrong -- it wasn't supposed to happen like this.
Fresh agony lanced through her, as if demons were clawing her apart from the inside. She screamed, dug her hands into the snow as if she could burrow away from the pain.
After an eternity, the torment subsided. Panting, she curled onto her side, clutching fistfuls of snow like talismans. This couldn't be happening to her.
Eventually, she sat up -- slowly, every movement revealing how fragile she suddenly felt -- and reached for the herb pouch. Her fingers brushed the leather... and another spasm hit, stronger than before. The agony shredded her thoughts, as demon-claws sank deep into her flesh.
She couldn't think, couldn't attempt another spell. She could only surrender to the pain and the inevitability of life.
--------------
Elsewhere
The gray witch-light of dawn woke him. Barnabas lay curled on a bed of pine straw, sheltered by an awning of low-hanging branches. The evergreen needles above him were thick with snow, but the carpet of dead brown needles beneath the tree was bare of all but the lightest dusting of white.
Reluctant to commit himself to the new day, Barnabas lay still, feeling the prickle of the pine straw against his bare skin. But his rude bed was cold and uncomfortable without the protection of either sufficient clothing or the thick pelt of a werewolf.
Automatically, he glanced down at himself...and froze.
He was covered in blood.
Shock coursed through him, leaving him weak and trembling. No matter that this had happened before; each awakening, after a night as the wolf, brought its own fresh horrors.
He staggered to his feet. Shrugging out of the remains of his tattered shirt, he flung it away in disgust and stumbled from his shelter. Taking stock of his surroundings, he was astonished to realize that he had slept not far from the cache where he had hidden his meager belongings the day before.
He frowned. Coincidence? Or something more? Had the beast somehow known... Did it remember, as he could not, except in dreams?
A shiver skittered through him.
Reminded that he was half-naked and freezing, the wind cutting through him like an icy sword, he roused himself and started toward the rocky outcropping where he had hidden his belongings in a narrow crevice.
And then he felt it.
The shivering presence of death.
Barnabas froze, momentarily paralyzed by indecision. Every human instinct he possessed screamed at him to run, to abandon his cache and get as far from this place as possible.
He glanced down at the dried blood coating his hands, smeared in rusty swathes across his bare arms, his chest. He could feel it, stiff and sticky, on his face, in his hair.
He had to know.
Cautiously, he pushed his way through the undergrowth. Ducking beneath a pine bough weighted with snow, he accidentally dislodged its burden and received an icy shock when the snow slithered down his neck. But it wasn't the cold, which made him tremble as he made his way through the trees. The feeling of death was oppressive here and growing more so with each step.
Blood speckled the snow, an unmistakable trail... leading him on.
-----------------
The Forest
Angelique lay in the clearing, not far from where she had first fallen. She had managed to drag herself several feet from the circle, but the pains were coming faster, and she knew it was folly to think she could make it back to the village.
Her breath came in quick, ragged gasps that steamed in the cold air. She panted, waiting out the latest wrenching of her womb. A thin scarlet ribbon of blood decorated her chin where she had bitten through her lip. Her palms bore bloody crescents from her fingernails, mute testimony to her agony.
She bit back another scream, unaware of the angry tears streaming down her face.
It wasn't supposed to be like this!
----------------
Elsewhere
For a second, not even a heartbeat, Barnabas almost convinced himself that it was some forest creature, a deer perhaps, lying in the bloodied snow at the center of the clearing.
Then, like a blurry vision sliding into focus the abstraction of broken angles and crimson shadows shifted, resolved itself into the soft curve of a cheek, the fanlike spread of golden hair, the delicate fingers of an outstretched hand. The homespun tatters...dark with blood.
So...small.
No!
The instinctive denial rose like bile in his throat, choking him. No.… Oh, dear God in Heaven, no.
He fell to his knees, unable to tear his horrified gaze from the terrible sight before him. The tiny corpse bore the unmistakable signs of predation, great gaping wounds where chunks of meat had been ripped free. The body was scored with numerous deep, ragged furrows, claw and fang marks purple against the graying skin.
And all around her in the snow...footprints. The footprints of her killer, of the murdering beast.
But no wolf had done this. At least... none that ran on four legs.
The scream finally broke free of the tightness locking it in his chest, a wild strangled howl of self-loathing. He clawed at his face until his nails were slick with fresh blood. But he could still see her, the image burned into his brain. Her golden halo of hair, her tiny hand -- reaching for him.
He could still see her. He could still see... Sarah.
He moaned, fighting the image. The memory. He buried his face in his hands, smearing salty tears into the gouges on his cheeks, relishing the pain as penance. On his fingers, his blood mingled with the child's.
Oh, God...
He prayed it was all a dream. A dark, terrible dream from which he could awaken to find the blood washed from his hands and the shadows from his soul.
He opened his eyes. The small body of his victim was still there; his hands were still covered with blood. The shadows in his heart were darker than ever. This was no dream, but memory...come alive to torment him, again. Memory...
Memory had its teeth in his throat, dragging him back.
Back to Collinwood...
---------------
The scream tore through him like a knife.
Barnabas dropped his demitasse glass, oblivious to the crash of the expensive cut-crystal as it shattered against the hearth, intent only on getting upstairs to Sarah as quickly as possible.
He took the stairs two at a time, vaguely aware of his father at his heels. Barnabas' terror gave him wings; he easily outpaced the older man, leaving him behind as they reached the landing. Alone, he dashed down the dark hallway.
Sarah's door was open.
He slammed it back against the wall in his haste to get to his little sister, to learn what had frightened her so. To protect her, as was a big brother's loving duty.
He was too late.
A broken china doll, she lay crumpled on the floor beside her bed. Night's reverse alchemy leeched the color from her hair, turning gold into lead. One hand was outflung, reaching toward him; the other was curled beneath her cheek, as if she were merely sleeping. But the blood glistening in the moonlight shattered that comforting illusion.
He wanted to scream, but all that emerged from his gaping mouth was an anguished sob.
"Barnabas, what --?"
His father's voice, choked off in mid-question, released Barnabas from his paralysis. He crossed the room in two strides and flung himself to his knees beside Sarah. Gently, as if she really were only asleep and he might startle her, he touched her outflung hand. "Sarah?"
There was no response.
There never could be again.
Tears clouded his vision; impatiently, he dashed them away. "Sarah..."
Sobbing, he gathered her limp body into his arms, heedless of the blood, which soaked his waistcoat, smeared his palm when he stroked her hair. Behind him, a sharp intake of breath... Then Joshua's hand alighted briefly on his shoulder, a fleeting touch devoid of comfort. His voice a pale shadow of its usual authoritarian tones, Joshua said, "What manner of foul beast did this?"
Barnabas didn't know. But, cradling the dead body of his sister, he vowed, "Whatever the monster is, I swear I will find it... and kill it."
-------------
And so he had, though he could take no pleasure in having fulfilled his vow. The nature of the beast was a horror he had come to know only too well since that fateful night.
As the memory released him, Barnabas was surprised to find himself lying facedown in the snow, some distance from the body of his latest victim. He barely felt the cold. It was so tempting to simply remain as he was, to close his eyes and let the winter take him in its icy gray embrace.
Like a melting snowflake, a fragment of memory drifted across his mind and settled behind his eyes...
The monster was difficult to kill. No ordinary could hope to slay it; how could mere cold do what gunpowder and ball could not?
The effort to rise left him drained. But he forced himself to his feet, and stumbled the remaining distance to the spot where his belongings were hidden. Clumsily, fingers stiff and red from the snow, he shifted the stones that covered his hiding place. He reached inside the narrow opening thus revealed, ignoring the rough cloth of his spare shirt, the small packet of food. Instead, his fingers closed on the weatherproof bundle that held his pistol.
His hands trembled as he unwrapped the bundle and lifted out the pistol.
The snowflakes of memory fell...
Josette, ethereal in the luminous sunlight of Martinique. Smiling demurely. Agreeing that, yes, perhaps she would marry him...
Sarah, pleading prettily for just one more story before bedtime...
Jeremiah, frowning over the accounts...laughing at some ridiculous jest...
Faster, the snowflakes fell...
Josette's dark eyes, haunted now...
Sarah clutching his hand -- wanting to comfort, and be comforted...
Jeremiah, tight-lipped and white with anger, looking all-too-like Joshua as he and Barnabas argued...met on the field of honor...
Jeremiah... falling...
Faster...
Josette...with tears on her face, blood on her hands...Sarah screaming...Sarah, forever silenced...
Dead, all of them, along with how many faceless victims fallen to the curse? To Angelique's curse.
His hands tightened around the gun, as if it were her neck and he could squeeze the life from it. As if that might work. As if he hadn't tried.
Perhaps he could not kill her, but he knew how to kill her creature.
He took the silver ball from its wrappings and rolled it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. It looked like a tiny silver moon, cradled in his hand. The irony did not escape him.
Slowly, deliberately, he went through the ritual of powder and wadding, forcing his mind to focus only on the mechanics of the task at hand. When it was done, he stared at the loaded weapon balanced across his palms.
For months, he had carried this option with him; for months, he had resisted it in the vague hope that by some miracle he would break free of the nightmare. There had been no miracle, only death and more death... And now this.
What would his father think? Would he name his son "coward"? Or commend him for preserving the family honor?
Barnabas stared at the fresh blood smudging the pistol's shining wooden grip. There was no honor in putting down a rabid beast, no sin in slaying the dragon. His hands were steady as he lifted the gun.
Aimed...
No Hell could offer torments greater than this.
...Fired.
----------------
The Forest
Exhausted but triumphant, Angelique cradled her newborn son to her breast. She smiled down at the downy fluff of dark hair crowning his small head. Barnabas thought he had learned suffering beneath her curse.
His education had only just begun.
----------
Elsewhere
Barnabas awoke reluctantly, dragged up through the layers of darkness against his will. He opened his eyes to see the purple sky of twilight above him and, for a long moment, lay without moving, without thinking, aware only of the cool brush of the night air against his skin and the hushed sounds of the woods around him. Moonlight filtered down through the branches, illuminating his resting place on the forest floor.
The moonlight...
Memory flooded back in a painful rush, shattering his fragile peace. He gasped, releasing a breath he'd been unaware of holding, and bolted upright. Wildly, his gaze searched the ground around him.
There ...on the pine needles where it had fallen from his hand, lay his spent pistol.
Unconciously, his hand crept to his temple, where memory insisted there should be a fatal wound.
There was nothing. Nothing but smooth, unblemished flesh.
His breath caught harshly in his throat. Why hadn't it worked? Why hadn't the silver bullet killed him? It should have worked, experience told him, as it had worked when he had been forced to shoot--
He shied away from that thought, that memory, and turned his attention back to his surroundings. Beyond the rough shelter of the pine tree's low-hanging boughs, the snow lay in deep drifts. Even in the moonlight, he could see the dark remains of the werewolf's last meal.
His hand went again to his temple. Something was very wrong... He should be dead, not sitting here in the soft glow of the full moon and wondering what the hell had happened.
Barnabas froze, suddenly realizing... The full moon?
He scrambled to his feet and out from beneath the tree, casting his startled gaze skyward. Riding low above the tops of the trees, the swollen moon seemed to gaze impassively back at him. It was indeed full, fat and baleful, a wolf's moon. And yet...he felt nothing. No searing change coarsing through his body. No terrible urge for fresh meat.
He was no longer a werewolf.
Barnabas threw back his head and laughed -- with relief, with joy. The curse was broken. He had beaten her, had beaten the witch!
He was free.
Quickly, he moved to his hidden cache, in the rocks nearby, and retrieved fresh clothing. As he changed, he felt a strange chill rush through his body, but he shrugged it off. Surely, it was nothing but the cold wind shivering across the snow drifts....
Tucking the pistol back into his small pack, he set off through the snow, in the direction of the hunters' camp. He hoped they would once again extend to him the hospitality of their fire... and their food. Better yet, he hoped they had some fresh water, or perhaps, something stronger.
He was so very thirsty...
To be concluded...