Barmabas has turned a torturer into a dog, to satisfy the angry spirit of his friend. Liz has returned, and is dying of cancer. Yolanda and Nicholas conspire to have Quentin find the mask of Baal.
Chapter 1
Barnabas hid the small vial. Julia would miss it, surely. And she might suspect him. And he could not doctor the records without getting into serious trouble.
Maybe he should confide in her... but if she did not understand nor sympathize...
Then the light went on.
"What are you doing here?" Julia asked him "and what do you have inside your coat?"
'Nothing."
Julia shook her head. "Feh" she said "you have something and you'd better let me know what it is, or you are fired.
Barnabas pushed the vial back into the cabinet. "I was just checking up on supplies."
"You don't know how to lie to me." Julia said with dismay "Yet you keep at it." she picked up the vial "This? Do you know what this is? Do you realize that it is highly addictive? Are you addicted? Did you catch it again? Why not come to me.? I know that you are sensitized to it, and that I am the one who sensitized you. Why not come to me?"
"It is not for myself."
"For whom, then? You are not a pusher."
"It is for Liz."
"Elizabeth?"
"She is dying of cancer. And she's in pain. What the doctors give her makes her act strange. Makes her snap at people that she loves and who love her. She accuses them of terrible things. She does not want this, specially with Carolyn. She asked me for help, and I have given it to her before."
"If her doctor prescribed her those pain killers, then it is up to him to change them. You know that I am not supposed to interfere with someone else's patient."
"I knew you'd say that. That's why I wanted to take this to her without your knowing about it."
"You cannot do it!"
"Julia, you don't have to know anything about it. Julia, please, I have no degree. I am not bound by any kind of professional courtesy. I only want Liz to stop hurting so much."
Julia stared at him. "I can't allow you to take it out of my cabinet..."
"Then I'll go to street dealers. Do you want that? You know that the stuff they sell is not precisely pure nor Federally inspected.,"
Julia shook her head.
"I'd rather not give Liz the stuff that sells on the streets. Will you help me, Julia? Liz in is pain. She is dying. I want her to be able to make her peace with her daughter. Can't we give her that much?"
"You bastard.." Julia muttered "you know how to twist my arm."
"So it is yes?"
"As you said, I will know nothing about it."
Quentin lifted weary eyes from the papers. The spelling used in the seventeenth century was hard on him. He thought of himself as old, having been around since the last century. But these were even older.
If he kept at it, he would get the gold mask.
The gold mask... he knew better than that, now. It was the mask of Baal, the one they buried with the headless body of Judah Zachary.
A shiver ran through him as he remembered what Barnabas had told him of Gerard Stiles' fate in that Parallel time that had spilled into theirs. The one they had visited via the time staircase. The mask had led to Gerard being possessed by Judah's spirit.
But that had been because Judah's head had been brought back by Desmond Collins.
There was no head, now. Only the undisturbed, headless body remained, and the mask was now loot for the first comer.
And when he got it...
He'd exorcise Carl and Jenny, and the rest of them. Then, maybe, he'd lay down the law for Carolyn and Roger, to the point that Carolyn would pay any sum of money to have him leave. Then have her change her will in in his favor...
He'd be able to be master of Collinwood at last.
The memories danced in his head. He had wanted it so much. And he had to see it pass to Judith, to Jamison...
Jamison's like ended with Carolyn. David had been disinherited by Roger. Edmund was an obstacle that could be removed...
It was time that Quentin Collins came into his own.
Sadly he realized that the family fortune was not as it had been. And it could maintain itself only by the kind of effort that Carolyn provided. He would never be capable of working that hard.
He did not have the dedication, the capacity for hard work. A sustained effort was something that he could never manage.
No, let Edmund have the fortune and work at it. After all, with the power of the mask, he could gain a lot more riches than the paltry sums that Carolyn had.
The dog rested at Barnabas' feet, a small growl still on its throat.
Barnabas petted it, speaking in soothing tones. "Now, now, there is nothing to growl at."
He knew that the dog had once been a man, a man that he despised and hated. But he could not hate the dumb beast that lifted its pathetic eyes to him. He had extracted payment from Nunez and now could only feel pity for the frightened creature that found itself cut off from the world that he had always known, with no way to tell anyone what had been done.
He had been training it, and the next time he went to Wyncliiffe, he'd take the dog with him.
He caressed the dog's ears. It was easy to feel affection for the animal, forgetting the misdeeds of the man.
"It will be hard." he told the dog "it will be painful at time, but you will earn your release. As I once earned my own."
He told the dog of his own struggles to regain his lost humanity. How he had first searched for answers outside of himself., waiting for some miracle to work. How he had finally given up on the quest, and at the moment he acknowledge defeat, he had found victory.
"You see, there was humanity in me. And over the years it has grown. It strengthened itself and now it has been fully restored to me. Humanity does not care for the shape of body that it is in. And you, Captain Nunez (I will probably the last one to call you that) you can use your change of circumstances to degrade yourself further. Or you can find the humanity in yourself. You can finally understand what makes a human being, can search for it in yourself. nurture the spark until it grows within you."
The dog did not answer that, as it obviously couldn't. All his other attempts at argument had led to barking fits.
"You may think me cruel. And in a way I am. Not blindly, selfishly cruel as I was once, but purposefully so."
The dog whimpered at that.
"You rather I didn't lecture you?" He petted the head. " nobody likes it. And you cannot answer. Poor Comet.."
The dog howled.
"You don't like your dog name. You don't want to be a dog. But you are a dog and you must be a good one. And you must be trained to behave like one... Come Comet."
He put the leash to the collar and coaxed the dog to come out. They went into the grounds. Those grounds were at torment to Comet. he wanted to chase wildlife, to follow scents, to urinate on trees, lifting his leg. But he would not. He was not a dog. He was a man... He was a proud officer of the Argentine Army..
"Comet, do not fight it. The sooner you accept it the better. I tell you from experience. Fighting it does not good."
The night was still and calm when Quentin sneaked out of Collinwood, his map in one hand and the spade and lamp in the other.
The burial place of Judah Zachary. He had finally tracked it down by his search of the family papers.
It had been a long, tiresome task, reading paper after paper, shifting through household accounts and other dull reminders of daily life. He had read them all, to the point that he knew what the papers would say before he read them...
He had nearly missed, in his irritation, this one document that had looked at firsts like another laundry list.
But he had noticed it. And read it, and there it was All he had to do was dig, collect his prize, and go back home.
It seemed too easy. There must have been a hitch somewhere...
No. What could that possibly be?
An owl called about him. He looked up, nervously.,
No one had seen him. No one human.. But if Barnabas saw him... or Megan, or Pearce...
And if they did, what was it to them? They could not guess what he was looking for.
Pearce... he night do something He was greedy after treasure, still trying to finance that salvage operation. And the mask was gold. How could he stop Pearce from meddling?
With a stake through the heart. How else?
He did not wish to kill Pearce. Another murder was not what he needed now. But if Pearce made himself a nuisance, he would do it. And this time he would not miss the heart as he had done with Barnabas.
Thus strengthening himself he began digging. He hoped that Derek was not there. He did not wish him harm. He wished no one harm, eleven if it sometimes it resulted from his actions...
He dug under the light of the lantern, straining his muscles, feeling the pain in the palms of his hands as the shovel's' handle rubbed them roughly each time he moved it.
He had been forced into hard work in the past when his money had run out and could not use promises of his inheriting the Collins fortune to get himself credit. He had not liked it. And he did not like it now.
Once the makes was his, he'd never have to worry again.
The mask meant freedom. Freedom from Carl and the others. Freedom from ever needing to do hard work again. Maybe even freedom from Petofi's gift.
It was a while before he found the mask. But the moment came and he stood with it in his hands, caked with dirt, but shining from the light before it.
