Dark Shadows: Angelique's Descent

by Lara Parker

  By the time I reached her, she was already a few feet from the edge of the cliff, trembling in the wind and staring out at the night sky where the moon had come forth once more and stars careened in swirls of cloud. I knew what she saw was a vision summoned for her by Angelique, something not real but so terrifying it had robbed her of her courage.

  “Josette!”

  Startled, she turned to me, her dark eyes not seeing me, her mouth agape. Her voice was raw, quavering with fear.

  “Don’t come near me. I know what you are, and I don’t want to be that—what you have become! I’ll die before I let that happen.”

  Frantic, I struggled to speak, but she only shook her head, her eyes like pools.

  “Stay away!”

  “Let me—pull you back, my darling—don’t be afraid. This nightmare is not ours. Another dream awaits us.”

  I lunged for her and caught her just before she fell, and with a gasp of relief I crushed her to me. But she sobbed, “No! No, let me go!” and as I tried to contain her writhing body and clawing hands, in my desperation I could think of but one method of restraint.

  And for a moment I did have her. My fangs found her heart’s artery, and her blood flowed into mine. But even as she froze for a moment, she would not give over. A new surge of revulsion seemed to overtake her, and again she beat at me, tore herself free and stumbled backward toward the cliff; where she teetered for an instant, her face contorted in absolute hatred. I hesitated to draw nearer as she took another step back, slowly shaking her head at my desperate pleading, then one slippered foot rolled on a loose rock, but I was not quick enough, and, taking one last breath, she turned and jumped.

  “Josette!” I ran to the edge and looked down, my heart a pounding drum. There lay her broken body on the rocks, the foam swirling around her blue cape, catching her hair and pulling it into the surge. She was still alive when I reached her, but she did not know me. The breakers crashed, the wind roared under the moon-streaked sky, and beneath the tumult I thought I could hear Angelique’s evil laugh sputtering out of the gale.

  Anyone who loves you will die!

  As the sea churned around us, I knelt and caught Josette up, gathering her body in my arms, heaving sobs and crying over and over, “No, I will not let you go. I will keep you here, I will find a way. I cannot live without you!” all the time knowing she had left me forever, that—hating me—she had chosen to die. She was gone from me, and I faced eternity without her. I held her as the life flowed out of her, and as I kissed her skin wet with the salty surf, and stopped my breath in the tangled seaweed of her hair, I saw one white hand drop away from my embrace and fall into the foam.

  Black roses in her hair. Odor of roses thick with bruised stems and decay. Crimson roses turned to ebony. At least she had died. She was released from the hell of all her fears. Death is often less terrible than life. I watched Ben dig her grave, and I was more tormented when, in her wedding dress, they laid her in the earth. Desperately I reassured myself, if I had one power, it was the vampire’s curse. I had taken her blood.

  Once the others had gone, you and my father, I went to her grave, lay beside the new mound, and dug my hands into the dirt. The lilies lying there sickened me with their sweet odor as I traced the letters on her stone with my finger and I called to her. The trees near the mausoleum creaked in the wind, and I looked up at their flailing branches against the pale sky, like the arms of supplicants in prayer.

  “Josette, I know you can hear me. Come to me.”

  Her voice was a whisper of the wind. “No, I am dead. Let me rest.”

  “I beg you. I implore you, and, as your maker, I command you. Return from the land of the departed.”

  How long did I call to her? Was it weeks? Months? Was it years? I know I never ceased to lie by her grave at night and beg her to join me. By then you knew what I had become, but you did not know my obsession.

  “Josette. You are mine. Come and we will fly away together. Eternity will be ours.”

  Always she refused. Then, one dark night, as I sobbed anew, more wretched than ever, the grave moved. The soil lifted.

  Elated, I waited for her in her dark chamber where no reflection of mine quavered in her mirror. The clock was ticking when a white skirt, white slippers, faded embroidery coated in mud floated up the stair. There was a soft fluttering at her door.

  Cold air.

  The wind whistling, and then silence.

  A shrouded form, her face draped in white cotton. I held my breath. The clock stopped. She was there! Fragile and emaciated, like a skeleton hung with her wedding dress, her shape too small, the fabric gathered in wrinkles around her shoulders.

  “Why did you disturb my rest?”

  But my breast heaved with joy. “You have come back.” I could barely speak. “Oh, my darling, do you still hate me?”

  She was silent, a white specter almost transparent, and so thin and small. I longed to embrace her.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  At first she did not answer, but finally she said in a weak voice, “There is nothing to forgive. I can feel nothing now. I have gone to my fate. You have gone to yours. You should not have forced me to visit you. If you lift my veil, you will see why.”

  “No, no, I don’t want to lift your veil. I know what you are because I made you. Your beauty will break my heart. You will be frail for a while, but I will protect you, and once you are a vampire, you will be lovelier than ever. Come to me and let me hold you. Lie against me.”

  And in the shadows from the moon I drew her to me and kissed her face again and again through the sheer muslin, my mouth searching for the shape of her cheeks, her nose, her lips, and then, when I lifted the veil at last to kiss her mouth, the stench of death rose from her, the odor of roses rotting in a vase. I brought the candle up to her face, and it was as if she had been scorched by fire. Flesh hung in black strips, like layers of a rotting onion, and one blood-veined eye was loosed from the socket and dangled on her cheek. Green maggots squirmed from the gaping hole, her nose had collapsed into her skull, and her mouth was a toothless cavern. I could feel her bones give way beneath her shroud, and what had once been her skeleton disintegrated into powdery crumbs in my hands.

  And so, Mother, I have looked upon the face of death. She came to me, dragged from the grave by the power of our love, but it was not enough. It is finished and I shall never see her again. My dearest mother, why do we never learn to leave the past alone? Why do we try to reach back? I killed her with my own hands.

  Look where I am now. This house is deserted. None of my family, not even you, will ever visit. This has been a house of agony. But I must be here, where she and I were—with her portrait, always young, always beautiful. I must endure a sentence of solitary confinement, thousands of nights alone.

  See how Ben digs Josette’s grave. I can grasp him by the throat and fling him into the earth. He comes to care for me, my only companion. And with him I share my bitterness.

  “Is there a wind tonight? Does it blow off the sea? Through the trees?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Are there stars? Is there a mist from the sea? Is there a moon? This is the time when the nails of corpses grow. As I emerge, I want the night to be dark. The stars must not see what is happening tonight, for I have deeds to do. Why should anyone live when she is dead? They all feared the plague. I will visit them with a pestilence that will leave them nothing but lust for sweet release. My rage will burst these walls. My passion will crumble these stones. Destruction is all I want. Destruction everywhere. Death. And blood.

  “I want to see her. Look on her one last time.”

  “But you know she is dead.”

  Anyone who loves you will die!

  The rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The last thing I saw was her frail white hand. That water. Those rocks. My father has opened my coffin. Empty! So he knows. His premonitions are torture to him now, and someday soon he will come with chains. Or, I will go to Col
linwood, and I will walk through the door. I will tell you how much I love you, Mother, and I will tell my father what has happened. He can do whatever he wants. I would rather be lying in the coffin with a stake through my heart than be the way I am now.

  Angelique! Are you determined to keep me in this hell? You will not let me die, but you will kill no one else, and your curse is broken because I will never seek love again. Josette is dead, and my heart is gone from me. She could have been with me always.

  And so, Mother, that is my fate. Immortality, the soul’s desire, is mine, but not in the way I had dreamed. I am evil’s emissary, the Devil’s messenger, and though I still crave goodness, it is no longer within my grasp. You have heard the sordid tale, and all that is left is for you to forgive me.

  If this is what eternity is to be, then let it begin!

  Your devoted son,

  Barnabas

  After he had folded it carefully, Barnabas replaced the letter in the box, covered it with the other objects, and closed the lid. He had never known how his mother received his confession, her only souvenir, as his father did come to the mausoleum soon after and, devoid of compassion, chained him in his coffin. There he remained for nearly two hundred years. He shuddered to think of it.

  And now, of all that was incomprehensible, he was ready to embark on a new existence as a lowly human. Fate had intervened and given him another chance to prove his mettle and his mean, to live out the life he had lost. The woman in the foyer was not Angelique, but a mere stranger who posed no threat. Julia, who had cured him and released him, was waiting in her room with a welcoming heart. A shaft of sunlight burst through the glass.

  He stroked the rough inlay of the wooden box and his fingertips found the shape of the galleon’s sails and oars. Was he the man he had always believed himself to be? Could he accept the future as the gift it was, or was he doomed always to revisit the past?

  He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. Instantly, inexorably, the memories swarmed.

  Note from the Author

  When Dan Curtis decided to resurrect Dark Shadows for prime-time TV in 1991, one of the writers called me to ask whether I could remember how Angelique became a witch. I said no, there was never any mention of it on the daytime show. However, I was intrigued and so began the imaginative wanderings that resulted in this book.

  Since I played the role of Angelique on the soap opera, I chose to tell the story primarily from her point of view. This is Angelique’s story told as she remembered it and as she believed it happened. I take full responsibility for any differences between this story and any character attributes or actual events of the television show. Even though I tried my best, I could not incorporate every detail, and in truth, Angelique herself might well have changed the account of her own childhood more than 175 years earlier to suit her own purposes.

  I have the deepest respect for the work of the writers and the actors on the show and great affection for the series, which was my inspiration. It was my sincere intention to remain true to the soul of Dark Shadows, and I hope I have done that.

  Lara Parker

  August 28, 1998

  Tor Books by Lara Parker

  Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch

  Dark Shadows: Angelique’s Descent

  Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising*

  *forthcoming

  About the Author

  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 M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She lives with her husband in Topanga Canyon, California.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  DARK SHADOWS: ANGELIQUE’S DESCENT

  Copyright © 1998, 2012 by Curtis Holdings, LLC.

  Originally published by HarperCollins Publishers

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Parker, Lara.

  Angelique’s descent / Lara Parker. — 1st Tor ed.

  p. cm. — (Dark shadows)

  Based on the characters created for the classic daytime serial “Dark shadows.”

  ISBN 978-0-7653-3260-8 (trade pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-6466-1 (e-book)

  1. Vampires—Fiction. I. Dark shadows (Television program : 1966–1971) II. Title.

  PS3616.A74527A44 2012

  813'.6—dc23

  2012001830

  e-ISBN 9781429964661

  First Tor Edition: April 2012