PAYING THE PRICE
Chapter 1
"Let me get this straight," Verhoff said, sarcastically "You are asking me to kill one of our own and save the blood for some experiment of Angelique's?"
"You do kill your own. You do hold executions, don't you? I watched you execute Zimmerman."
"You should have saved the blood, then. We are not going to hold another execution to accommodate you."
"But you will carry out an execution, sooner or later. All I want is that when you do, you save the blood for me. Or at least notify me."
"Why should you know of it? It is none of your business who we execute, and when."
Megan cursed herself for not being more involved in vampire politics. Verhoff was powerful there, and she how had to placate him.
And it looked like he had a grudge.
"All I want is the blood. It is important to us. It will make no difference to you if we take it. You do not feed on it, nor find any use."
"Yes. We do not find a use for it. You know why? Because if we did we would be tempted to execute more than we should. And for more trivial offenses."
"It is important... we do need that blood."
"What do you need it for?"
"To restore a couple of a gorgon's victims."
"Gorgons?"
"Yes. With snakes in their hair, capable to turn people into stone with their gaze. We learned that statues can be restored with he blood of vampire as the stake goes through the heart."
"That ancient legend? You mean to tell me that it is true?"
"Said by someone who is considered a legend by others."
"Megan, you have to do better than this if you want me to give you what you want."
Barnabas lighted the candles. People wondered why the place had not burned down yet. That's because in this century people had not learned how to handle candles, how to make sure that they did not touch anything flammable. Candleholders were not just decorative. They were there to keep the flames to keep from touching anything that might catch fire...
But he appreciated modern matches.
He really ought to get someone to keep this place clean and in good order. When Urien left, no one took over..
Maybe he should hire someone part time from he village. There were plenty of people who'd be glad to come up a couple of hours and do the minimal caretaking.
The flame flickered in front of him. He frowned. It seemed...
It seemed like a face in the flame.
He tensed up. Another salamander? Was he the target of another phoenix?
But he felt a warm, comforting presence. As if a friendly hand had touched him... touched his heart.
Tammy was actually cheerful, Amy noted with relief. She had been given hope and she was holding on to it. Still, eventually she would get impatient because they did not come with the answer soon enough.
"I have to thank you, for what you did."
"I did nothing. It was Angelique who did it."
"But you kept her baby safe, and that's why she could go."
"Yes. that is true."
"It won't be long now... You know, remember when you were all taken in the egg? George started coming apart at the seams. I criticized him, and wanted to get over it. He was just wallowing in self-pity I thought. He should go on living... and all those things we say. Until it was my turn. Until I learned how much it hurts. I would like to apologize."
'Well, he's also like to apologize for your not "being able to get over slavery". He had to learn what it meant when Vassily Petofi took him."
Urien stopped at the bar and had a beer. And another.
He should not. He knew better than to expect his problems to vanish this way. The dreams would not leave. What could he do? Go back to Collinsport? Talk to Julia? But that might mean unleashing Yolanda on them again. He had obeyed Yolanda once. He would not do it again.
Not at any price.
He remembered again how Yolanda had enticed him, making him believe that she was Megan, how she had put him under her control, how he had watched how she had put the stone inside Barnabas' flesh... and all that had happened afterwards.
He would not let that happen to Barnabas again. He owed him that much.
He would find some way of handling Yolanda, some way of making the dreams go away.
There ought to be someone in town who could give him some answers. Some way of purchasing a protective spell, or something like that. All he had to do was ask around. Sooner or later, something would turn up that he could use.
"He will not cooperate " Megan said angrily "He's just going to watch us stew in our own juice. It is his way of paying us back for Barnabas beating him up when he went over the line here. with the Davenports. Nor to mention the things I said to him by Richard's trial."
"Maybe I could make him change his mind" Angelique said, her eyes glistening malignantly.
"That could be an idea." Megan agreed "But if it does not work, he will retaliate, and it will get worse."
"I could make him regret his decision."
"I am tempted to let you go ahead. But it could mean no en of troubles for you and me. I cannot buck the politics there, no matter how tempting."
"We still need that blood sample if Maggie and Joe are to be restored"
"We could always tell Barnabas the truth, ask him how much he wants to help."
"In the middle of his religious crisis, he will feel that he has to. That he owes both of them. But I do not want to tell it to him. Not until we really run out of options. I do not care to face George's wrath if we do."
"No." Megan agreed. "George is too good a friend."
"I keep thinking. Maybe it is a chemical change in the blood. Maybe we can get Julia to start adding chemicals to blood samples to see how they react. Add lignin or cellulose, for example."
"That's an idea. And I will try to talk to some of the old timers, the ones who were enslaved by sorcerers. I can imagine that some of the old time sorcerers must have wanted to restore some gorgon victims in their time, and they might want to keep their vampire slaves a bit longer, so they might have experimented a bit. God knows that the old timers do not want to talk about their times under the sorcerers, but some might want to help."
George looked at the walls of this office. He would be leaving it soon. this was his last year in office. Then he would return to being a private citizen. He would get a license as a private investigator, perhaps work for some lawyer...
Maybe he and Barnabas could move away.
No, moving Barnabas could be hard. This was a vampire friendly town - and it had taken work to make it so - establishing himself in another town might prove hard to Barnabas, who would have to start lying and hiding again.'
But not for long. The process would be the same as it had been here. Feed on a number of people who got to know the truth, but had to keep silent about it. The more people he fed on, the more people learned, the more people he did not have to hide form. Then there people who knew were more than the done who didn't. Then the moment would come when someone would announce, between fear and excitement "Barnabas Collins is a vampire" only to be answered "Oh, you noticed?"
And then another vampire friendly town could be created...
Barnabas could not move far from Wyncliffe. He had his job there. But once he got comfortable in his new town, he could qualify as an independent therapist there...
And they would raise the baby.
