Charade: Chapter 13
From: Nicole
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 09:19:26

December 8, 2008, Collinwood, 4:50 PM-Normal Time

Constance crept back into Collinwood, stepping carefully so that the angry sound of her heels did not reverberate throughout the house. She did not know why she was being so careful, but she made no attempt to stop. Part of her hoped that the absence of any sudden noise would keep Ms. Taylor tucked away in her daytime lair. Ever since the I-Ching incident, Ms. Taylor would barrage her with questions every time she saw her. Sometimes Constance felt sorry for the woman. That had probably been her first experience with the supernatural and it had foretold her possibly being drained of life by a couple of vampires. Yet this pity did not mean she was willing to sit back and answer a million questions about concepts she herself did not often understand. She would probably end up sending her to Julia to get her answers. Julia might get frustrated with the woman and feed off of her out of frustration. That prospect alone gave her the perfect reason to pay Julia a little visit.

Constance strolled into the open drawing room and glanced cautiously around the area to find it empty. She sighed and took a seat by the fire, extending her hands near the flames in the hopes of killing the New England chill that had infected them. She was almost willing to ignore the boom of footsteps that bounded down the stairs. Then the thought of Ms. Taylor slipping into the room and barraging her with questions made Constance want to escape via the secret passage over to the west wing. But the footsteps sounded too heavy to be those of the petite bitch. It could be Quentin. “That could always be fun,” she murmured. Constance fled her post at the fireplace and flung herself across the sofa, tossing her head back with flare and arching her back to thrust out her chest. She cast a seductive eye to the doorway and fell back onto the sofa in defeat. “Oh, hi Chris,” she sighed.

“Hello.” Chris walked into the drawing room and took a seat by the fire. He gave her a concerned look as he asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Constance thought that Chris looked nice today. Usually, he looked like a thrift store junkie; today, he looked smooth and polished. Constance liked polished. Years ago, she ate men like Chris Jennings for dinner. The absence of the usual urge to touch everything male that moved was enough to convince Constance that she had changed. In all honesty, she wanted him to go away. “What brings you to Collinwood this afternoon?”

“I . . . um . . . I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh shit,” she murmured beneath her breath. Suddenly, Cameron’s words came streaming back into her mind. She knew that she would be having a talk today that she had not planned on having for at least another week. “Um . . . there’s not much to say. I don’t see what we have to say to each other that’s this important.”

“Well, it’s not so much something I have to say to you as it is something I want to show you,” answered Chris, his voice sounding strangely affable.

“Okay . . . what is it?”

“It’s in this house.”

“You can’t show me anything in this house that I haven’t seen before,” said Constance. She tried hard not to laugh, but the giggles slipped from between her lips before she could stop them. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think you have anything to show me.”

Chris groaned. He relinquished his seat by the fire and knelt next to Constance. He placed his hands on the sofa and looked her straight in the eyes. “You’re not listening to me,” he insisted. “I have something I have to show you, something in the east wing. It has to do with . . . ”

“I told you before that there will never be an us. I thought I had made that perfectly clear to you years ago and I thought that it would look even clearer when I left this place with Quentin. I only think about you when I have to and I don’t think of you that way. Nothing in the east wing could convince me that there could ever be a you and me.”

“You’re not even giving this a chance.”

“I don’t think of you that way! I think of you as . . . I don’t know . . . a little boy lost in a mall. That means that I see you as cute, sympathetic, and in desperate need of a mother, but not a lover . . . not by a long shot. You would be well advised to stay away from me. I’m not what you think I am.”

“And what are you?”

“You know the terminology but you don’t know what I can do. You’ve never seen the men that have withered to nothing but dried skin and bone because of my touch. You’ve never seen the madness that I can bring on the uninitiated. God, just ask Julia; she’s seen one my victims.”

“Has Quentin ever seen one?” asked Chris patiently.

“He’s never seen one of MY victims because I’ve not taken anyone but him since 1972. But I took him to meet a friend of mine; she showed him what she could do with a bad boy and fifth of tequila. Let me say that it wasn’t a pretty sight.” Constance shivered at just the mere thought of that night. She and Quentin had not actually watched the row. Instead, they hid away in their hotel room until the noise died down, and then they only peaked out between the blinds to see the once clean landscape littered with human debris. It had been hell explaining to her shaken lover that her friend was a sadist and that she would never do to him what the other one had done to that poor man. Quentin seemed to buy her explanation, but he still insisted on sleeping on the couch that night. After that, Constance decided that they would not talk about her compulsions anymore. There was no need for anyone, especially an immortal, to fear for his life. “But that doesn’t matter, Chris. He knows what I am and what I’m capable of. You only think you know, but you really don’t have a clue.”

“Then tell me!” Chris grabbed onto her forearms and lifted her from the couch. “Listen, I’m going to take you there and you’re going to see what I have to show you. If that doesn’t put even the slightest doubt in your mind, then I’ll let you be.”

Constance stared at him speechlessly as he held her arms. His eyes were filled with an odd fire, something burning deep from within and might some day consume him. She had seen this fire in him before. She knew that anything he seemed obsessed with at any moment would take him over body and soul until all he could think about was that thing. Apparently, she had been his one thing for the last few months. “Okay,” she murmured calmly, “I say we talk about this like adults. Just put me down and everything will be all right.”

Chris paid her no mind. He grabbed both of her thin wrists with one hand and wrapped his other hand around her mouth before he hoisted her off the sofa. He pinned her arms behind her back and wrapped his arm around her waist. “You have to see. You’re coming with me whether you like it or not!”

Constance squirmed in his grasp. He surprised her by how tightly he had her held. She tried to scream, but her voice was muffled drastically by his hand. As she attempted to free herself, he carried her to the east wing. Constance seriously thought about biting through his fingers but she knew the trouble it would bring. He would heal and she would be free, but those were not the problems. She could not risk getting his blood into her mouth. Constance had done her best not to cultivate a blood lust, but she recognized the power that the mere sight, and most dramatically, the metallic taste had over her. It decreased her inhibitions drastically, leaving her groping for any warm body that happened to be in reach. She had that happen once with Quentin and she had found the experience exhilarating. Replicating such an experience with Chris would only make matters much worse than they already were.

So Constance decided to merely struggle with Chris as he took her to the east wing. Once they were there, he took her to the end of the hall and placed her down in front a set of doors. To her, they looked like any other doors in the house. “Why are we here?”

“You’ll see.” Chris walked around her and opened the doors. He stepped away quickly and picked her up off the ground, binding her arms behind her back as they both stared into the room. “What do you see?”

“A surprisingly pretty room for this dank end of the house,” snapped Constance. She knew that Chris did not always play with a full deck, but his display of power and obsession was wearing thin with her. She wanted to go back to the drawing room and wait for the twins to come back from their trip with Kelene. Of course she would have to tell Angelique about the large portrait to her that sat over the fireplace. It looked like someone had a following. “Listen this is wearing me down. I don’t see what this . . . what the hell?”

Two people had entered the room. One looked like Constance and the other looked like Chris. The woman began to search a desk that sat next to the window while the man went into the bedroom. Moments later, the two met up again in front of the portrait of Angelique. “Did you find it?” he asked her.

“Not hardly. Jesus,” yelled the woman as she laid her head against the man’s chest, “this was the last place I knew to look. We checked every inch of Collinwood for some sort of notation, and we come up with nothing. Dammit David, what are we going to do?”

“Shh, shh. Ease up, kid. It’s going to be fine.” He wrapped his arms around the sobbing woman and kissed the top of her head. “I swear to you, Constance, that this will be fine. We’ll find what you’re looked for. I know it.”

Constance could only stare into the room, half mesmerized by the people inside yet all too aware of the grip Chris maintained on her arms. This had to be the room that Quentin had told her about the day they had returned to Collinwood. She was gazing into Parallel Time. She could almost see what Chris was seeing. He believed that the two inside the room were just like he and Constance on the outside. “They aren’t us,” she murmured.

“What? I can’t believe you can look at them and say that,” moaned Chris.

“But they can’t be. Think about it: I was born thousands of years before this woman’s oldest known ancestor was a dream in her father’s eyes. And you, you were born in the early 1940s, right? We are not their true counterparts.”

“Does that really matter?” insisted Chris. He released his grip on her arms, but turned Constance around to face him. The fire in his eyes seemed to burn uncontrollably as he said, “Is that the best you can come up with?”

Constance closed her eyes and sighted. She knew that it would be best not to say another word, but she felt there was a point that she had to bring to the table. “What about Quentin?”

“God! Is that all you ever think about?”

“I don’t bring him up to hurt you; I bring him up to be logical.” Constance pulled away from Chris’ grasp and pressed her back into the nearest wall. “Think about it: Quentin and I are together and you see yourself as his rival. That’s deluded but it’s fair enough. Okay, now let’s look at the Parallel Time couple: there’s a me and there’s a you but there’s no Quentin. This man doesn’t have a rival. They aren’t in the same situation. It’s not the same thing.”

“You’re not making sense!”

“I’m making more sense than you’ve ever dreamed and it’s pissing you off!” screamed Constance. She moved back up to Chris and pushed him back, “We are not meant to be and never will be. And if you ever touch me like that again, I will make you wish that you had never laid eyes on me. You will think that the curse that rode you for most of your mortal life was a gift after I deal with you. You will leave me alone. Am I making myself clear?”

Chris groaned and backed away. He backed down the hallway to the door led out of the east wing and left. Constance let out a strained breath and fell into the wall, allowing the wood to buffer her fall and ease her the floor. She looked back into the room to watch the couple wordlessly leave. As much as she did not want to, she began to laugh. Constance had thought Chris much smarter than to believe that people walking around in another realm could be their counterparts. She supposed that she was wrong.

Constance lazily lifted herself from the ground and began to walk away. She turned back to close the doors when she heard the sound of a man sobbing. She looked down the hallway to find no one there. She turned back to the room and backed away. A man materialized before her eyes. This man looked exactly like Quentin, although he looked slightly older. Constance knew that he could be no one but Quentin. The man walked around the room, his eyes glancing slowly over all that lay there before him as he turned to the doorway. His eyes grew wide as he stared out into the abyss.

Constance could not believe what she saw. There was a Quentin in Parallel Time and he was dead. Although she knew that this man was not the one she was with, it took all her strength to keep her tears from falling. Constance moved forward a step and she watched the ghost move back. She moved back and the ghost hesitantly retook his original spot. She realized that he could see her. This Quentin, this sobbing dead man on the other side of the parallel divide, was able to see her on her side of the world. She reached out her hand and, after a moment of hesitation, Quentin did the same. He closed his eyes tightly and
mouthed a name: “Constance.”

“Quentin?” she asked in a whisper.

“What?” Constance broke her trance and turned around to see Quentin walking toward her. She looked back to the room to find it bare and decrepit. Quentin placed his hands on her shoulders and Constance fell back into his embrace, allowing his arms to wrap around her body and hold her close. He kissed the top of her head and asked, “Why are you in here?”

Constance considered telling Quentin about Chris’ little temper tantrum but decided against it. She had hopes that this misunderstanding would be a one time occurrence. She hoped that either Chris had gotten the message of that she would be able to sit him down and have a rational conversation with him about their relationship. “I was just curious,” she mumbled. “Can’t a girl be curious once in a while?”

“You’re curiosity always seems to get someone in trouble,” teased Quentin. He slipped his arms from around her waist and took one of her hands. “The twins are back. They’re highly anxious to see you.”

“They don’t know that we’re going to lecture them about the incident with Griffin, do they?” Quentin shook his head. Constance groaned and wrapped her other hand around his before bringing it close to her body. “I really hate lecturing them. I’ve done lots of bad things in my life. I don’t think I have a right to tell them that they’re wrong to tell off a bully.”

“Under that philosophy, neither of us has the right to guide them. But it’s our job to be strong leaders, to be willing to take the moral high . . . oh dear God, am I extolling the virtues of lecture and punishment?”

“Yes darling, I believe you are. If you keep this up, you run the risk of falling down the slippery slope to respectability.”

Quentin emitted a loud fake sob and buried his head in his hands. “What’s to become of me?” he cried sarcastically. He wiped away a faux tear and replaced his previous grimace almost instantly with a wicked grin. “But I’m sure you have a plan to remind me of the bad boy that I truly am?”

“Hmm . . . I think I can work something up.” Constance laced her arm around his waist and let him do the same to her. As they walked out of the east wing, all Constance could think of was her interaction with the ghost of Quentin in Parallel Time. She had been certain that you could not communicate with someone in another time band unless you physically entered that world. Did the rules differ when it concerned the dead? She would have to ask Julia later. Maybe she would ask after she lectured the children . . . and spanked their father.

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