Wolf Moon Rising (12 page)

with snakes. She was barely visible in the fading light. A bunch

of dead branches was all they saw until they somehow sensed she

was there, and they froze and stared, jaws agape, because she was

waiting for them in a space between the trees. Circling her were

ten snarling coyotes with red tongues and eyes like fi re.

She was hovering three feet above the ground.

Her hair was tangle of black serpents coiling about her face.

She swayed in the air, and her coat fl uttered away from her feet.

Black fl ames fl ickered in her cavernous mouth, and her eyes were like silver shards piercing the air. She fi xed them with a gaze so venomous, it struck them dumb. At fi rst they stiff ened, afraid to move— their eyes wide with terror— and then they found they

could not move, but were frozen into statues made of stone.

Only their mouths opened and closed in an eff ort to scream.

She made no sound but in their heads they could hear her voice

hissing like an underground wind.

Leave me tranquil. Leave me be! Get thee to the depths of hell,

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before I rip out your tongues, before I tear out your eyes.

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She hovered nearer, fl oating in a black fl ame, and her hair

was a mass of writhing snakes with long bodies slithering out

from her head, red- eyed snakes that leapt and twisted in the air.

I will leave you only with ears so you can hear the furies of the night
coming into your rooms. And they will come, my darlings, like ravenous
serpents. And they will devour you, fi nger by fi nger and toe by toe, while
you scream for mercy— silent screams that no one will hear!

And then she did make a sound. She laughed, a cruel mirth-

less laugh that reverberated through the forest.

As if the laughter had been their cue, the coyotes leapt over

the snow and fell on her tormentors with growls and gnashing

teeth; and— reduced to sniveling infants— the boys found their

bodies and catapulted into the drifts, tripping over gravestones

as the black wave undulated above their heads and the yapping

animals nipped at their legs. Yowling like babies they fl ed the

bloodied jaws, vaulted the fence, and took off into the night.

When Jackie woke, the moon had risen, and shadows of

trees scarred the snow’s metallic sheen. She had fl own

into a large oak and fallen asleep in the branches. She looked

out upon a world as bright as day, but with no color, as though

she were watching an old black- and- white movie.

Something was beneath her, circling her tree, its dark body

huge and black- furred. It was sniffi

ng the ground like a hound

that had treed a coon, but so clumsy and formless, its paws mak-

ing no sound as it trod in a circle, its breathing raw and heaving.

She pulled against the trunk and held her breath. And then the

creature lifted up and placed its feet against the bark of the tree and Jackie saw the red- rimmed eyes and bloody teeth, the huge

lolling tongue, and heard the cavernous growl that seemed to

come from the center of the earth.

It was a tremendous wolf, its jaws dripping saliva as it

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panted and snapped at her feet, and its crimson eyes looked

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deep into hers. It gathered its body and leapt for her branch, and

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

she sucked her body closer. It panted, claws ripping the trunk,

then leapt again and howled in frustration, before it fell to four

feet and lumbered away into the trees. She knew if it did not

fi nd food it would be back.

Her raven fl ew to the branch above her head and looked down

at her with its red eye, bounced its head, then fl ew off again, leaving its sign and its permission. Welcoming the night’s cover, she

spread black wings and fl ew out of the forest.

She came down in a clearing, and releasing her wild form,

struggled to her feet and, lugging her books to her chest, began

to plow through the snow again. She felt a dull ache in her stom-

ach, knowing her mother would be angry and they would argue

as always, and she felt, as well, a groggy nausea, the residue of

the spell.

An itch pricked in one of her ears, and her mouth tasted

sour. Her feet and hands tingled from the cold, and the wind

whistled like fl utes through the pines. Th

en she heard the whine

of David’s snowmobile back toward Collinwood, and she real-

ized he had been looking for her but had gone on without her.

Her head throbbed and she remembered she still had homework

to do before she could take her medication— or better still, drink

the potion she made from herbs— and sleep for real, enter the

world of her unconscious.

Wearily, she climbed the rise of the lawn behind the house,

adjusting her books to her hip and slogging through the deep

drifts. She was shivering in the frozen air that tasted of ice. She knew she must have fallen asleep in the tree, although she could

not remember sleeping, only that she had sunk into a trance and

had been awakened by the cries of the coyotes, not yapping as

they did when mating, but heart- chilling, desolate screeches,

more like tied- up dogs left to die. Now she heard the huge wolf

howl again, this time further away and more desolate, and she

stopped, chills creeping down her neck, and a pulse between

her legs that she knew was fear. Th

ere was another sound, much

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closer, a faint moan beneath the whine of the wind.

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Lara Parker

Th

e house was just ahead and she could see the lights of the

drawing room winking through the trees, and a rosy shimmer

where the fi re was still glowing. Th

ere was something on the

snow, a dark shape like a fallen log, yet thicker, or, it seemed to her, like a sleeping bear. As she drew nearer, the moonlight

revealed black splotches and areas where the snow had been

packed, as though trampled by a herd of dogs.

She could see footprints, and she was jarred with a suspicion

that the coyotes had come here, that they had chased and cor-

nered the wolf. Th

e splotches grew larger, faintly tinged with a

dull maroon, and she could smell the acrid scent of blood. What

could it be, that dark mass beneath the last of the trees?

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S i x

David’s breath spilled out in misty spurts as he eased the

throttle, gripped the handlebars, and rose up out of his

seat. He could smell the snow, vaguely like tin and chalk, or the

interior of a meat locker, along with the acrid odor of gasoline

and exhaust. He had forgotten his gloves and wore only a wind-

breaker, but he was warmed by adrenaline pumping though his

body.

Drawing on his sixteen- year- old instincts, which he felt

were pretty good, he assessed his plan. Neither Jackie nor Toni

had any memory of moving the painting, or at least they in-

sisted they had none. He thought Antoinette would cover her

tracks if it meant not making Quentin angry, and Jackie was

unreliable, not only because she suff ered from— he might as

well admit it, even though it made his breastbone ache— some

sort of mental disturbance. She had been diagnosed as schizo-

phrenic, and he knew she often skewed reality to shape it more

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to her own world. Still, there was something strange about

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Lara Parker

everyone he knew, so what did it matter that she was a little dif-

ferent. All he knew was that he wanted to protect her, keep all

her monsters at bay.

Th

e engine whined and sometimes screamed when he

pushed on the throttle, and the wind whirred in his ears. He

leaned back from the windshield, opened his mouth, and felt

the fl akes landing on his tongue. Th

e cold threaded into his

nose and down his throat, and he tasted the frozen air like dirt-

fl avored ice. He smiled thinking of last week, when he and

Jackie had made snow cones with Tang in a cup while they sat

together on the back step of the Old House and sucked the

sweet juice until their mouths were bright crimson inside and

her lips were glossy as cherries.

He did not posses Jackie’s clairvoyance, but he believed he

was more than exceptional at fi nding things. Maybe he was

telepathic. His mother had been otherworldly, he was certain.

Surely he had inherited something from her. He could still see

her face in the fi re, her voice calling him— he remembered it

clearly, even though he had been so young. He tried not to think

of how much he missed her, and instead he blasted down the

back road from the Old House to Collinwood. He squeezed the

throttle lever and bounced through the snow, the treads digging

into the ruts and the skis swiveling on patches of ice.

Frustration at having only an old Ski- Doo as a means of

transportation triggered thoughts of his cousin Barnabas’s Bent-

ley, now sitting abandoned in the carriage house. It had been

months since it had been driven, and David had begun to con-

template taking it out some night while the family was asleep.

In his fantasy he always pictured Jackie beside him, her eyes

glowing with excitement.

Willie, of course, had the keys and would never be talked

out of those, and, except for a driving lesson or two supplied

by Barnabas before he had essentially disappeared during the

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day, David was a long way from taking his driver’s test. Not

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that anyone cared. He was used to being alone, growing up

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

without a mother and having a distant father. Who was there

to stop him? If he did take the Bentley, just along the sea road,

when there were no other cars about, he was sure he would be

fi ne.

It was growing dark, and an orange moon hovered behind

the trees, close to the horizon. Th

e full moon rises at dusk, he

remembered, but for an instant this moon was a fl ame within

the dark cedars, like the burning shed where his mother had

been when she called to him, and it fl ickered as he sped along.

Up ahead he could see the Collinwood cemetery surrounded by

its railing of iron spears.

Th

ere was a down slope so he slammed in on the throttle

and fl oated the sled in curves on the new snow, thrusting his

body from one side to the other as he carved wide turns. He

thought of Helios’ son who had stolen his father’s chariot of the

sun and driven the fi ery horses across the sky. What was his

name again? Phaeton? Phaeten? Phaethon. He had fl own too

close to the earth and set it on fi re, and then had taken the coach too high, whereupon the earth had frozen over.

David sped up and— bouncing recklessly— roared through

the drifts, his fi ngers curled around the handlebars, imagining

he had hold of the reins. Deep in his muscles, he could feel the

other boy’s terror when he could not control the galloping horses, the sun blazing behind him, his hands raw from grasping the

leather. Wild with fear, the raging steeds exploded into the sky,

and he drew back with all his might, tugging the reins to his

chest.

Th

ere was a bump in the road and David whooped, gunned

the sled, hit the rise with the track grinding, leaned in, and lifted the skis up into the air in a gnarly wheelie, but damn! He came

down on a hidden rock and twisted and skidded to one side, lost

his balance in the snow, and went crashing to the ground. Th

e

engine shrieked like a skill saw and then died.

Knocked out of breath, David lay still for a moment, and

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then turned over on his side. He was across from the graveyard,

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looking through the iron railing where he could see the Collins

mausoleum and the leaning tombstones with their top hats of

snow like children dressed in Halloween costumes. Shaken but

not hurt, he brushed himself off and climbed back on the sled,

leaned over, and jerked the pull start rope.

To his dismay the handle broke loose with the cord caught

inside. He cursed under his breath, the wooden handle dangling

in his hand, and shook his head. He looked up at the sky’s fading

light. Time to get out the tool kit. Good thing he had a spare

cord. He would have to remove the engine cover in order to get

it started.

Dismounting again, he realized he actually enjoyed work-

ing on his sled. He extracted the wrench from the tool pouch he