BARNABAS' LAST BATTLE

Chapter 1

"Barnabas wants to see Verhoff?" Julia was aghast. "You know that Verhoff wants to execute him."

"I know," George answered. "But you see, he came home to die. Paralyzed as he is he does not have much to look forward to."

"There might be a cure, a way to get him well."

"There isn't. It was a magical injury that he received, and those do not heal. Barnabas is condemned to spend the rest of his life, which in his case is eternity, paralyzed in his coffin. He does not want that. He wants the chance to straighten up his affairs, as much as possible, to say goodbye to all of us, and then to die."

"But..."

"Julia, I can understand. I know, you are a doctor, and you do not like to lose. I do not want to lose him either. But I see him lying there, incapable of moving, and I think of what Joshua Collins did to him... As I see it, he has a right to make sure that we are not burying him alive."

"But it is not hopeless."

"Do you know how much I told myself that? Until I saw him, until I understood what he has to look forward to... At least with Verhoff, I will not have to do it myself... You know that I promised him that if he ever needed killing I would be the one to do it... well. he found a way to relieve me of my promise."

"You would do it?"

"Yes. I will not let him suffer needlessly because I do not have the guts to get a proper stake... I love him too much to let him suffer."

Julia shook her head. "I never thought it would end like this."

"It had to end somehow...I know, you hoped that he would end up burying you, that he would end up burying all of us. But he never wanted it... I was told that he would manage to get himself killed before the end of the millennium and that is going to happen... Ever since I knew him he had a target pinned on his back and one pinned on his chest. Whether by design or not, I do not know. But I know that they are there, and this time he won't escape."

"I cannot accept it... Not yet."

"Give it time and you will. As I did."

"You are taking it rather well."

"I already did my crying and screaming. Now I just have to make it as easy for him as possible."

"Do you want me to call Verhoff?" Megan was aghast. "Tell him that you are here, helpless?'

"Yes." Barnabas answered. "I know what he wants. Not just my death, but that of Julia. I want a proper inquiry. I want them to come and take my deposition, clearing Julia of all involvement."

"And you think that that will stop Verhoff?"

"No, you will. You do your duty, turning me in. You get Cecily or any of the children who owe Julia to join, so that Verhoff has no grounds to charge her with anything. Make sure that he is content with my death,."

"He might want not so much your death but to torture you into delivering Julia."

'That's where you come in. You have to play politics to make sure that I am executed cleanly, that Verhoff does not want to use me for experiments in regenerating magically severed spinal cords."

Megan nodded,. Yes, she could do that. Even if it meant Barnabas's death...

Although, looking as he was, helpless, immobile in his coffin, she could see why he would want to die. And if he got Julia off the hook at the same time...

"All right. I will do as you ask. Make sure that Julia is not involved, and that you are killed cleanly."

"Thanks"

She left, and Barnabas contemplated the darkness. It was late at night, and everybody else was asleep... It was the one drawback of his condition that he could never get over it. Too many empty hours, with nothing to do but read...

And now, not even that...

He wondered how Elsa and Edmund were doing. He knew that Frances had returned home, but not them. Frances had nothing to offer against Burke, and Burke had no reason to be interested in her. As for Roxanne... Roxanne had her own debts to pay, and so did Sebastian and their path did not cross Burke's in any way.

And he lay there, helpless, waiting to die, but still a source of power that Burke would be tempted to grab...

Well, it was his part to play. It was his duel, still, as he had promised Burke, so long... so long ago?... He could barely recognize himself in the crazed, raging, hurting man he had been then... yet he had promised it, and it was now time to make it happen.

And then, once it was over, he could die, as it had been promised to him.

He was at peace . He had seen the future in the labyrinth, and he was not in it. And when Julia had cut him open, he had faced himself, understood and accepted his past, all of it... His demons had been finally laid to rest.

Now it only remained to say goodbye,. To George, to Julia, to Willie, to Urien... to so many of them. Each name was a warmth in his heart. He held a part of their lives with him, and they too held a part of his life.

But first Burke had to be defeated..

He had to wait. As they were all waiting...

"Isn't there a way to make it happen sooner?" he asked, aloud.

"Tsk, tsk.."

He recognized the voice and was not surprised by it.

"Dave..." he said "you have come."

"Someone had to stop you before you gave in to self-pity."

"And because you care for me."

"Of course I do, you sentimental fool."

"Why must they suffer so? Isn't there a way to make it easier for them?"

"No. Only one thing will help George now, and it is to have your death behind him. But that cannot be yet."

"But still... to do nothing but lie here, and wait, and see what it does to them, to George... why did he have to love me?"

"It is as it must be."

"Why couldn't there been another way?"

"Why couldn't Burke have turned up different? He could have chosen another path." and this time there was real bitterness in the words.

"You knew Burke a while before, didn't you?"

"Yes. I knew him quite well. We were close once. No, not as I was with George. He was someone I wanted to help because... because he reminded me of certain things. He was willful and believed that he deserved better than what life had given him. I mistook his complaining about the injustice of his fate with a complaint about the injustice I saw around me. I tried to help him, but envy and bitterness ruled him. His life became centered on Roger Collins, why should Roger have everything while he had so little. He wanted what Roger had, and if Roger did not have it, it was not worth having. I tried to explain how things were but I had no authority in his eyes... I had unwisely made a pass at him, and he not only turned me down, but despised me. So he did not listen to my advice. His ambition, which would have been a noble, worthy thing, became twisted. Instead of embracing others, of sympathizing with those who had to struggle, he fixated on Roger Collins. He had an affair with Laura, and were it not that Roger wanted Laura too, he would not have looked at her twice... it led him to jail, and I hoped that when he came out he would have learned something... He learned ruthlessness and that being rich was all that mattered. You know by what means he began his fortune... Then once he was rich, he came back to Collinsport to revenge himself on Roger. But it was not fun. He saw Roger as he was, rather pathetic. Not the great Collins Monster he had seen growing up. He was not the proud, sneering rich kid who mocked him and his attempts. Roger was someone who had gone nowhere, who basically hung around because his family had made money once, and who was on his way to becoming a drunk. He was even slightly comical. He made Roger confess and that humiliation was enough for him.. He fell in love with Vicky and maybe she would have healed him."

"But I came along."

"Yes. And it is funny, but the worst damage you did in those days was something you were not even aware of."

"How?"

"You were the great Collins Monster of his imagination. The Rich Kid who had everything and mocked him and his attempts. The Lord of the Manor. The one who stuck in his craw... No, Roger was not that. But you, you were exactly that. And then you made a play for Vicky."

"So it started again?"

"It started again. He had gone to battle the dragon and found him unworthy, so he had a chance to reassess his life. But then there was this new dragon, and this one was not unworthy... he did not turn away from the challenge. He began stalking you, as he once stalked Roger. And you also stalked him, for your own reasons..."

"So..."

"So you were in a sense at the beginning of this. You might also be at the end."

"I am sorry."

'You did not twist Burke. He had already burned that village in Brazil. And other deeds... Behind each fortune there is a great crime... it was true in his case."

"And behind my family's. The slave trade was an unspeakable crime... it took Tammy to make me see what it was.."

"Yes. And you paid for it... We all paid for it.."

"Your ancestor was on that ship...you paid for him."

"Yes... what a tangled history we have to deal with... We want to believe that we are innocent, that we have nothing to do with the deeds of our ancestors. But if we accept the inherited money, we should know that we accept the guilt that accumulated it... A sailor did not leave that much inheritance, but enough for his son to accumulate more, for his children to climb into the middle class, for me to be able to go to Medical School... and then came payback time, after Willie released you."

"I am sorry..."

"Does not matter. You also made a dream of mine happen, one that I had asked Burke to help accomplish.. You brought Xavier Davenport to town.. You set another industry in town to break the economic stranglehold that the Collinses had on the local economy. What I asked Burke to do, but he did not. That kind of effort was too hard, when it was so much easier to seduce Laura...Well, my dream had to be forgotten. But you delivered it...And now we have to take Burke down, you and I."