Subj: Dessplaced -- Chapter 2
Date: 4/5/99 12:49:01 PM Central Daylight Time
From: Doreen Gregoire

Angelique popped into earthly existence in the middle of the night in a torrential rainstorm. It was early spring, so the sheets of rain were mixed with sleet. In seconds she was drenched to the skin and shivering violently.

Collinwood! Which must mean that the Old House is this way…She glanced wildly around, first to try to ascertain where she was, and secondly to find some kind of shelter. Through the downpour she saw a familiar pattern of lights.

She stumbled on and finally found the stables, long in disrepair, but now modernized into a garage for a black Rolls Royce and a green Oldsmobile. She sneered. All his money and she *still* drives that old bucket. She made a casual motion with her left hand the air in one of tires leaked out plaintive whistle. As an afterthought repeated gesture car settled down on its front wheels like cow field.

She started searching the cupboards and cabinets in the garage for some of the items she would need. Matches -- rope candles. Where would they keep candles? She pawed through the usual detritus that accumulates in any garage or workshop and came up with nothing but greasy hands. Surely someone as practical *she* is would have candles for the car --

Locked!? Who’d break into a car out here in the middle of nowhere?? She snapped her fingers (or tried to -- the grease made her fingers too slippery to produce any real sound). She made her way over to the Oldsmobile and tried the door -- it was locked. She tried the other side, but with no success. Not wishing to deplete what little powers The Master had granted her, she sighed in frustration and found a hammer on one of the workbenches and simply smashed the passenger side window. She opened the glove-box and almost crowed with delight. Neatly wrapped in cellophane were six sturdy, white candles. Not black, but they’d have to do.

* * * * *

An hour later she was ready. She was grateful that the rain had lessened, for she'd had to make the long trek from the stables/garage to Widows Hill, where she'd carefully picked her way down the rain-slick path to the beach. Once there, she'd poked aside innumerable wet, dripping bushes, slogged through sand that felt like clay, and struggled through beach grass that clutched at her legs.

She finally found what she was looking for, almost invisible in the darkness, and well hidden behind a flourishing clump of vegetation -- a narrow opening in the cliff face. She muttered in frustration as she forced her way through the bushes and brambles. Thorns caught at her straggling hair and at the sack she carried, and her wet dress caught on everything else.

She heaved a sigh of relief as she stumbled over the last root into welcome dryness. The cliff opening widened into a tunnel. She retrieved a candle and matches (ever-practical person that *that woman* was, the matches were in a waterproof container), and ignored the movements the bag made as she set it on the cold stone floor so she could light the candle.

The candle's flickering glow showed a series of branching passageways stretching back into the cliff. She strode purposefully down the corridors, neither turning nor hesitating, until she came to a heavy metal doorway.

And now, here she was. She'd drawn a pentagram on the floor with a piece of limestone that had fallen from the cliff face, and around the pentagram, a circle. At each of the five points of the star she'd placed a lit candle. And in the middle, the last "item" necessary to her spell -- Mrs. Johnson's ginger tom cat, thoroughly trussed up and as wet as she was. The cat glared balefully at her and hissed impotently.

She held out her hands and surveyed them ruefully. The cat had not come peacefully, and had acquitted himself well, scratching and biting fiercely. At last she had managed to loop a piece of rope around the spitting, clawing little beast, incapacitating him and rendering him relatively harmless.

The cold stone walls were damp with condensed moisture and the candles did nothing to alleviate the chill of the room. Angelique shivered convulsively and struggled to steady her hands so she could light the last candle. It took her three tries before she was able to light the candle and hold it in her trembling hands.

She held it aloft, wishing it cast heat in addition to its feeble glow.

"Hear me, oh powers of Hell and darkness! I call upon you and command you to do my bidding." She tried to stop her teeth from chattering. The last thing she wanted now was to mispronounce something.

"I harness you to be the instruments of my revenge against Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman Collins. As payment, I bring you this creature." She lowered her candle slightly, indicating the thrashing cat on the floor, then knelt and took up a knife that she'd placed there earlier.

"In shedding the blood of my gift to you, I call you to me. By accepting my gift you will do my bidding." She put the candle on the floor and held the knife in both hands and started plunging it down towards the hapless feline. "I call upon you, and command you to curse Barnabas Collins and Julia Collins with dea -- ssshoo!"

At the same time as Angelique sneezed, the cat lurched, so instead of impaling it on her knife, she merely cut the rope. The cat redoubled its efforts and finally managed to wriggle free and scoot down the hallway to freedom.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Angelique watched helplessly as it disappeared into the black depths of the maze-like basement of the Old House, and realized her plan had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

to be continued

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production