Subj: How It Might Have Happened
Date: 11/10/99 5:23:30 PM Central Standard Time
From: Daphne

How It Might Have Happened
11/10/99

It was wrong to love Quentin...

Of that much Beth was certain, even as she lay in his arms, peacefully exhausted by the pleasure they had just shared...

It was a sin to want him, a sin that had already condemned her to the darkest depths of Hell.

But she couldn't help it.

She loved him, and had since she first started her new life at Collinwood. The very first time she'd looked into his sapphire-blue eyes, she'd been hopelessly lost in his essence, wanting nothing more than to share her life with him...

She'd tried desperately to stay away, to not respond to the sound of his voice or the taste of his stolen kisses, but she had found it impossible to deny her need for him.

Beth had shared the most private and intimate parts of her soul with Quentin and in doing so, he'd become as important to her existence as the very air she breathed.

How many times had she wanted to leave Collinwood? It seemed as if that was all she could think about now, about slipping away in the night and leaving the pain that dominated her life behind forever.

But she would be nothing without Quentin.

Nothing but a poor servant girl with no place to call her own...and would running away like a frightened child end her desperate loneliness? Her feelings wouldn't end simply because she was no longer with him...

As she fell asleep in his arms, Cerebus' demons crept in, determined that Beth's goodness and love would bring about her final destruction.

****************

"Help me Beth!" Quentin's anguished cry woke her in an instant, frightening her with the intensity of his agony.

Moonlight eerily lit the room, its spectral haze a terrifying reminder of what their passion had caused them to forget.

The moon was full.

And the wolf was taking possession of Quentin.

Beth could feel the raw, tearing pain of his transformation as if it was her own and she reached out to him to calm him. But there was nothing left of the man she loved.

Gone were his piercing blue eyes, eyes that Beth swore could look straight into her soul...

Gone was his rugged, square jaw and the thick, careless black hair that she loved to run her fingers through...

Gone were his powerful hands, hands that had never ceased to make her tremble with desire.

In place of the beautiful man Beth loved was a snarling monster, a beast with obsidian claws and dagger-sharp fans whose only reason for existence was to murder in an orgy of blood and flesh.

Quentin had become the living embodiment of the debauched nature of his inner being.

And the demons knew of only one way to use him for their amusement.

****************

Beth raised a trembling hand to her throat as the wolf sprang from the bed, its red eyes blazing with hunger and greed. The pentagram would protect her from the wrath of the three-headed Hellhound that held Quentin's soul firmly in its jaws.

But where was it? What had happened to it?

She would have never forgotten to wear it!

And she would never know that the phantom spirits which had invaded Collinwood had taken it from her, slipping it from her neck while she was blissfully lost in the peace of dreams...

****************

The wolf knew of nothing but hunger.

It wouldn't matter that she loved the man he once was. He no longer knew her or the difference between right and wrong. All that mattered was that he was the wolf and he needed to sate his hunger for human flesh.

YOU MUST KILL HIM, the shadowy demons hissed, YOU KNOW IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN SURVIVE!

She couldn't do that! How could she possibly go on living without him if he died? It had almost happened once before, when Jenny had stabbed him in a fit of rage...her heart had broken when she found him lying on the floor of the cottage, his body pale and cold as death claimed him.

Beth had never known such grief as she did the day he was so cruelly taken from her...it was an aching, paralyzing pain, one that had consumed her and made wanting to live impossible.

She couldn't go through that hurt again, but Beth didn't want to die either. There were so many things she still wanted to do; she wanted a comfortable life with a loving husband and children who'd carry out her legacy when she was gone...

But Quentin wouldn't kill her would he?

There had to be some part of him that recognized her as his lover, even if it was a small part of his memory. Surely there was some way to reach him!

NO! THERE IS NO WAY! HE IS A MONSTER NOW AND WILL KILL YOU TO SATISFY HIS HUNGER FOR YOUR FLESH, the demons continued to taunt her, taking perverse pleasure in her fear.

The wolf was cowering in a corner now, obviously struggling against its hunger.

If she spoke would he recognize her and know not to harm her?

"Quentin! Please look at me!" she pleaded, hoping that eye contact with the beast would spark a memory of what they had shared...

But when he turned to her, she saw the fires of Hell in his eyes and knew that those fires would consume her.

****************

The wolf turned and started to advance, its hunger telling it that the woman standing before it would fill its empty belly with the warmth of her flesh...nothing else mattered to the beast except to silence the darkness within it that screamed to be fed.

Its eyes focused on her throat...

It could smell the scent of blood, the scent that would renew his life, even in the midst of the lovely woman's death.

The wolf crouched, ready to kill....

****************

YOU MUST KILL HIM! the voices repeated, insistant in their demands. YOU MUST FIND THE GUN WITH THE SILVER BULLET! THAT ALONE WILL DESTROY THIS MONSTER!

A gun?

Where?

Beth frantically tried to remember where she and Quentin had hidden it, on the first night of despair that they had shared after Magda had cursed Quentin. They had found that a single bullet of silver would pierce the hardened shell his heart had become, and Quentin had made her promise to use it if he was ever out of control.

She had, of course, protested....but she had never witnessed the transformation before. She hadn't known then what it would be like to watch Quentin become the wolf.

She hadn't know the pain that she felt watching him become one of Satan's
minions....

Of having to accept that the man she had loved was lost to her forever.... Of knowing that she could do nothing to end the torture of his curse....

Death would be merciful to Quentin, and swiftly meted out by the bullet's force.

Beth knew what she had to do....

But how?

*************

Cerebus had sent them to condemn the lovers, and as the spirits permeated
Collinwood, their voices grew louder...

YOU MUST KILL HIM! HE IS EVIL INCARNATE! HE IS ONE OF US!

LET US UNITE WITH OUR BROTHER!

They found the gun, waiting patiently in a corner of Quentin's roll-top desk, and brought it to Beth, their shadowy beings taking form only long enough for her to see the Hell to which she was about to commit herself.

*************

The gun felt heavy in her hand, echoing the weight of Death that now wrapped around them both.

She had to do it.

There was no other way.

"I'm so sorry Quentin," she sobbed, raising the gun so that the wolf was looking directly into its barrel.

Closing her eyes, Beth pulled the trigger.

*************

The shot rang out, its echoing a death-knell in the darkness.

Dropping the gun, Beth opened her eyes in time to see the lone piece of silver striking its target, its poison driving the curse from Quentin, returning him to his human form as he lay dying...

Blood pooled on the carpet, congealing in an angry black puddle, and Beth felt sick-what had she done? He was dead now!! Before there had been a hope, slight though it was, that he could be cured, a hope that they could escape the pain of the past and find happiness in their future.

He had promised her that they would travel together to Europe, that they would be husband and wife.

But now those promises were dying....

She was on her knees beside him in less than a heartbeat, barely able to breathe as the shock of what she had done overwhelmed her.

It wasn't until his eyes opened that she was able to speak, begging him to forgive her.

"I'll be waiting for you, Beth," he whispered, his voice strangling on the blood that had pooled in his throat.

Then his eyes closed, and his ragged breathing was stilled...

Beth felt the weight of his death rip her soul apart....

And the demons rejoiced.

*************

Diablos watched from a distance, looking through the walls of the great house as if they were mirrors...the lovely one had been awake all night, unable to leave her dead lover. He had watched as she cried, almost tasting the salt of her pitiful tears....they were like the sweetest ambrosia to him.

He would have her soul, just as He had claimed the wolf's immortal spirit.

It was only a matter of time before she joined Him... All he had to do was watch and wait.

*************

Beth was unable to feel anything as night's darkness turned to day.

The family would find him, and when they did, they would say she had killed him out of spite and jealousy, for they did not understand what he had become.

She wouldn't be able to convince them that she had killed him out of a sense of duty, out of his need for mercy.

They would call her a murderer.

And they would be right.

How could she live without him? How could life possibly mean anything to her when she could no longer look into his eyes, hold his hand, tell him she loved him?

She had become one of the living dead when she had killed him, a mere shell of a person who had no reason to continue with her existence.

And he had promised her that he would be there in the end, when it was her time to die.

"Oh God what have I done?" she cried, as the gun beckoned to her....

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO, a solitary voice urged....YOU KNOW HOW TO END THIS.

Picking up the gun, Beth hesitated for only a brief second before she pulled the trigger and stepped into the arms of her eternal lover....

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.