(Written by Geoffrey Hamell, first printed in "The Eagle Hill Sentinel", Issue #2, October 1985.)
For a century after the exorcism Angelique remained in Hell - whether as an inmate or a jailer (or both) is not clear, but it can hardly have been a pleasant experience either way. It was perhaps the first time in her very long life that she had faced the full consequences of her evil; and it must have scared her badly, for at last she obtained an audience with her Master and made an incredibly audacious request - to be allowed to return to Earth and released from his service. Even more incredibly, Diabolos granted her wish - but only on two conditions. She would only be released if she could make a mortal love her without using her powers on him; and if she ever used witchcraft after that, her soul would once again be his. (Which, in view of her temper and impulsiveness, turned her "chance for freedom" into little more than a sadistic joke.)
Thus, in 1897, when Evan Hanley and Quentin Collins attempted to raise a demon, it was a laughing Angelique who appeared, letting the would-be warlocks think that they had summoned her. Learning that Barnabas had come to that time, she agreed to help them destroy him - but, in truth, she at once decided that he was the man she would marry. To her dismay, however, she found him already enamoured of Rachel Drummond. Highly upset at having to deal with yet another Josette, she immediately tried to kill her with witchcraft, only failing when her spell was interrupted by Dirk Wilkins. (She explained her presence in the unoccupied caretaker's cottage by posing as "one of Quentin's women".)
When Quentin was murdered by his deranged wife Jenny, Barnabas, desperate to alter history, begged Angelique to revive him. She willingly agreed - for an unspecified "price" - but, with perverse humor, brought him back as a zombie, using him to menace the hapless Rachel. Finally she returned him to normal, only to almost kill him again with a spell soon afterward. Thinking Laura Collins had caused Quentin's "attack", Barnabas again turned to Angelique for help. This time, she named her price, which - not surprisingly - was that Barnabas remarry her. With great reluctance, Barnabas agreed, and Angelique spared Quentin, who she actually rather liked anyway. (Though she knew better than to take his romantic overtures seriously.)
The biggest obstacle to her plans now was Laura, whose interference at Collinwood could not be permitted. At first Angelique merely gave Quentin advice on how to destroy the phoenix; but when Laura tried to stake Barnabas, a confrontation ensued, leaving the two unearthly women mortal enemies. Angelique and Quentin performed a ritual designed to rob Laura of her life-force; when that was interrupted, Angelique cleverly decoyed Laura by creating a doppelganger (duplicate) of herself and allowing Laura to destroy it. Thinking the real Angelique was dead, Laura was shocked when she reappeared to disrupt her plans for young Jamison and Nora. As Laura tried to draw her children into the "flames of immortality", Angelique caused the ancient phoenix to appear her true age - terrifying the children and destroying all of Laura's hopes. (And, if Ra was angry enough, perhaps her chance to reincarnate as well.)
Feeling that she had done her good deed for Barnabas, Angelique urged him to return to 1969 with her. But Barnabas felt that his mission to change history was unfinished and refused to listen to her prophecies of danger, thinking she was trying to trick him. Frustrated and bitter, Angelique decided she had finally had enough of trying to coax passion from her unyielding ex-husband. What's more, he had now been exposed as a vampire, making any marriage impossible. (And forcing her to tell the family a sob story about how the awful vampire had put her under his evil spell!) She would go after a new, more cooperative target instead - the amorous and handsome Quentin.
But Quentin had his problems - he had fallen victim to the werewolf curse, and now had his face disfigured as well by the living, severed hand of Count Petofi. Angelique used witchcraft on the count's servant Aristede, forcing him to tell her the hand's location; stealing it, she told Quentin she would use its powers to restore his face on the condition that he marry her. Stunned, Quentin had no choice but to agree - but the ritual failed and the hand proved almost impossible to control. Realizing the grotesque thing was both useless and dangerous to her, Angelique willingly turned it over to Barnabas - in exchange for his promise not to meddle in her plans for Quentin.
A month later she got a second chance. Edward and Jamison Collins were possessed, victims of Petofi's sorcery; Angelique used her powers to restore them to normal - making a dangerous enemy of Petofi - in return for Quentin's promise of marriage. With her future husband's welfare (and her own) in mind, she must have considered trying to lift his curse - certainly she could not allow the scheming Gregory Trask to expose him. Placing Trask under a spell, she commanded him to write a confession that he was the werewolf, then kill himself. But Petofi intervened; he had already cured Quentin, unknown to anyone, and apparently wanted Trask alive just to cause more trouble. He had plans of his own for Quentin.
When Quentin was murdered, Angelique must have truly been at her wit's end - but Barnabas' presence in 1897 altered history once again. Petofi (who would not have been there at all if Barnabas had not come into possession of his hand) saved Quentin's life - in return for his future services. Taunted by the count's cheerful claim to "own" Quentin, Angelique joined forces with Barnabas and the time-travelling Julia Hoffman to fight him. At Barnabas' suggestion, she created a doppelganger of Barnabas to serve as a decoy. Learning of the duplicate's destruction, Petofi was lulled into a false complacency - while Angelique helped to hide the real Barnabas until Julia's injections could free him from the curse. When Julia was forced to return to the 20th century, Angelique completed the treatments herself. Ironically, it was while she was doing this that Angelique made her one brief alliance with Petofi - to stop Quentin from leaving town with Amanda Harris. Petofi stole Amanda's brooch so that Angelique could threaten her life with a voodoo doll, forcing Quentin to remain in Collinsport. It was not until weeks later that she learned why Petofi wanted Quentin to stay - he had used his black magic to possess the young man, leaving Quentin's mind trapped in the count's aged body! When Angelique discovered the truth, "Quentin" took her captive, temporarily took away her powers, and left her to perish in a circle of fire, guarded by the mocking Aristede. Playing on the young man's lust for power, Angelique tricked him into freeing her, promising to teach him witchcraft. Then she clobbered him with a rock and escaped.
When Quentin was finally himself again, he was as anxious to go in search of Amanda as ever. Realizing she could never have him till Amanda was out of his system, Angelique philosophically gave in, telling Quentin that one day, when Amanda was long forgotten, they would meet again.
When Barnabas found himself in 1795 once again, he confronted the Angelique of that time, begging her to spare Josette. Knowing nothing of their future alliance, she ignored his pleas - yet history was changed in some ways. For reasons we can only speculate, her exorcism months later apparently did not take place; we know, at least, that she did not spend a century in Hell. She continued, presumably, to roam the world working mischief - but, knowing now that Barnabas would be freed in the future, she returned to Collinsport once a year, checking to make sure his secret resting place was undisturbed.
Perhaps the key lies in the fact that her future had also been changed. We do not know her activities after 1897, but we do know that her priorities had changed. She would no longer have sought a place in Nicholas Blair's coven; she would no longer have felt the need to torment Barnabas. Instead of reeking havoc as Cassandra in 1968, she was living in New York City, making a highly successful career in the modeling profession. It was through this career that she met Schuyler Rumson, the publisher of Fashion magazine. "Sky" fell in love with Angelique instantly, and he in turn was everything she dreamed of in a man - handsome, loving, rich, and tantalizingly mysterious. For weeks she pondered his proposal; every day she went to an art gallery and stared thoughtfully at the painting beneath which Quentin's magic portrait was hidden - the portrait that seemed to symbolize all the mistakes and unhappiness of her past life. In the end she married Sky, rejecting the powers of darkness - only to find, ironically, that her husband had innocently bought her the painting as a wedding gift!
And it was the portrait that was to signal the end of Angelique's brief happiness. In January 1970, Julia Hoffman, searching for the painting to help restore Quentin's memory, tracked it down to the Rumson's isolated home on Little Windward Island, off the Maine coast. Angelique was terrified that Sky would learn about her past, and Julia promised not to tell anyone where she was; but when she realized the full extent of the Leviathan threat, she broke her word. Barnabas went to Angelique and begged her to help fight the Leviathans. Angelique flatly refused to use her powers for any reason - she wanted no part of the occult ever again - but she found she could not abandon Barnabas in such desperate need. Despite her fear that they would recognize her, she agreed to hide Elizabeth and Carolyn at her home.
It was not until too late that Angelique learned the heartbreaking truth - her loving husband was one of the Leviathan cult! When Barnabas told her she refused to believe him; but she was forced to believe when Sky introduced her to "the man to whom he owed his success" - Nicholas Blair. Nicholas, old grudges not forgotten, immediately ordered Sky to kill her - and, regretfully, Sky tried to obey. Realizing her marriage was a tragic mockery, Angelique used witchcraft to escape, and fled to Collinwood where Barnabas and Quentin offered her protection.
But it was the Leviathan people who needed protection. Angelique scornfully rejected Sky's attempt to recruit her into the cult, but she no longer had any reason not to use her dark powers - her salvation was lost. When the ghost of Peter Bradford appeared to threaten Jeb Hawkes, Angelique sent him back to the grave, promising that she would take care of Jeb. Unconcerned that the Leviathan was himself trying to become human, she conjured up a hideous living shadow to stalk and ultimately to engulf him. Jeb's pleas for mercy only amused her; but, at Barnabas' urging, she at last relented for Carolyn's sake, and told Jeb how to transfer the curse to the real cause of her troubles - Nicholas.
Barnabas' kindness and protectiveness at this painful time had led Angelique to hope that their love might still have a chance; she even cast a love spell on Quentin and Maggie, to keep Maggie from becoming a rival. But when Barnabas departed into Parallel Time without a word of farewell, it must have seemed that her dream was hopeless. When he returned later that year, Angelique was gone.
The already tangled history of Angelique was altered once again when Barnabas and Julia time-travelled to 1840. Making her annual check of the mausoleum, she found Barnabas gone, and lost no time introducing herself at Collinwood as his wife "Valerie". She and her gypsy servant, Laszlo, smugly moved into the Old House, knowing Barnabas could not refuse them without creating a scandal. Having no knowledge of the future (like her pose as Cassandra, her return to 1796 seems to have been "erased"), Angelique did not recognize Julia - but guessed at once that she was in love with Barnabas, and anyone could see that Barnabas was in love with Roxanne Drew. Wildly jealous of both, Angelique used witchcraft to reopen the healed vampire marks on Roxanne's throat, so that she bled to death and became one of the undead. Able to control Roxanne with her powers, the witch held Julia captive in an abandoned mill, intending to have the vampire slowly drain her of her life. But Barnabas forced Laszlo to tell him where Julia was; he rescued her and ultimately helped to see (no doubt with very mixed feelings) that the unfortunate Roxanne was laid to rest.
But Angelique soon learned that she and Barnabas had a common enemy - her long-ago corrupter, Judah Zachery. Knowing Judah would seek revenge against her as well as the Collins family, she declared a truce with Barnabas, and in the months that followed was a tremendous help in his ongoing battle of wits with the insidious warlock. When Judah discovered that Barnabas was a vampire, she even lifted the curse to thwart him! (One wonders why she couldn't have done that in 1897.) And when the now-human Barnabas was walled up alive by vengeful Lamar Trask, it was Angelique and Julia who rescued him.
At last, in a desperate attempt to prevent the execution of the first Quentin and his cousin Desmond, Angelique tried to use her witchcraft directly on Gerard Stiles (whom Judah had possessed). Enraged, he stripped her of all her powers and held her captive, leaving his henchman Charles Dawson to guard her while he went to the execution. But Angelique struck Dawson from behind, killing him, and - stealing the severed head of Judah's original body - ran to the chopping block, declaring to the astonished crowd that Gerard was the true warlock, not Quentin. When the judge rejected her claim for lack of evidence, she made an even more amazing announcement - she confessed to knowing Judah because she had been a member of his original coven. In the ensuing confusion, Desmond Collins' quick action led to the death of both Gerard and Judah.
Angelique told Barnabas that all her risks and sacrifices had been to prove that she loved him. Could he tell her now what he might feel for her? Barnabas promised to give her an answer that night - but, before he could, the murderous Lamar Trask shot her. Mortal once again, she died, never knowing what his answer would have been.
