Adam has repainted Quentin's portrait, and he is now free of it, free to change and develop. Adam plans to work on his own portrait next. Hallie has become a phoenix and seduced David. She is offering sacrifices to Ra with the help of the gypsy Zoya Zalisky. Yolanda is seeking a power source that will allow her to get revenge on Angelique.

JULIA'S SECRET

Chapter 1

Quentin sat huddled, sobs coming out of it.

Adam looked t him, then to Angelique, then back to Quentin.

"It he still like this?" he asked with awe mixed with little disgust.

"You know what the conditions of his release are. He has to weep, abundantly."

"But will he ever be able to get up and resume living?"

Angelique studied Adam critically "Are you having second thoughts?"

Adam did not answer, fascinated as he was with Quentin.

"Are you afraid" Angelique insisted " that if you fix up your portrait you'll end up like him?"

Adam nodded.

"You should not be. You don't have as many things to regret in the first place. And you have not been holding them in check for that long."

"Still, some of the things I did.. Like the way I stood between Carolyn and Elizabeth, just to hurt Barnabas. Not that he did not deserve it. But they certainly did not."

"Liz knew what she was getting into. She used you as much as you used her. As to Carolyn, you plan to make it up to her, don't you?"

"Yes. I am."

"You two belong together. And with Quentin gone, it won't be long before Carolyn gets a divorce and marries you."

Adam shook his head "She may well divorce Quentin, but as to marrying me... she seemed scared of me. Of what I had become. And then you know why she married Quentin."

"To become Carolyn Collins. To carry on the family name."

"Yes." Angelique knew that to be true. Carolyn had changed greatly in the last year. But not enough. Not in what touched the family pride. Her reconciliation with Barnabas had meant that David had had to sign away his inheritance right in exchange for a settlement. And Vicky had had to renounce any hopes she might have as Roger's child... Would Carolyn be willing to lose her last name of Collins? Well, she and Adam might well live together..

"Well" Adam sighed "that is for the future to worry about. One thing at a time."

Quentin sobbed again, then looked around "You?" he asked Adam "What do you care? Is there anything else?"

"I came by to see how you are doing."

"As you see." Quentin's voice was toneless. Adam looked at Quentin's face, trying to read it. Was there really hatred in that face? Had his gift to Quentin brought about this despair? Could Quentin ever look at him with anything resembling forgiveness?

Maybe even affection?

"I... I am working on my own portrait. Just as I worked on yours."

"And you want to know if it is worth it? Well, it is not. I can't stand the pain. Why did you let me know myself? Why not just kill me?"

"Quentin..."

"No." Quentin turned his face away "Don't say it. Don't say it how it is for my own good, that I am finally free, and that soon I will thank you for it. Because it isn't true. It isn't for the best. And I will never be glad for this."

"You will feel different when this is over."

"You think so? No. I will never be well again."

Adam retreated. He had no argument to offer. Time would tell who of them was right.

Angelique had a small, half-cynical smile when he looked at her. "What do you think?" he asked her.

"Self-pity, that's what I think. He's not in the habit of suffering. He still can't believe that it could happen to him. Oh, he's changing, he's learning. But he's not happy about having to learn. No one is happy about that. If it was up to us, we'd be children forever, with our parents to take care of us. But that is not to be. Quentin will grow up, even if he has to do it all of a sudden. He'll be all right."

"I wonder if I had the right."

"It was the best that could have happened to him, even if he does not want to admit it. Go ahead, work in your own portrait. And don't worry so much about Quentin."

"If anything happens to him, let me know."

"Yes. I'll let you know."

Adam looked at Quentin again "You know my story. I have no family. I did not even have the orphan's daydream of who my parents might be. I knew that I had no parents, that I never had. No chance of ever finding a faded photograph, not even some hidden memory in me. I was alone. No father, no mother, no brothers. No one. Not even a dog."

Angelique's hand rested on his shoulder. Adam noticed it and shrugged it of. It was too late for that. "Don't try to offer me anything." his voice was calm, yet could not fully disguise the anger that had followed him through the years. "Well, as I said, I gave up on the idea of having a family. I live outside. Even Liz, that was no family, it was an arrangement. I thought that maybe now Quentin could be my brother. We have much in common. But he hates me now."

"He will not hate your for very long"

"Hallie, will you marry me?"

Hallie smiled, a bit shyly, then laughed. "Well, David, I thought you'd never ask."

"Will you?""

"You are so old-fashioned." she grinned "have you thought of telling your family about it? They might not approve."

"Why shouldn't they? And it does not matter, after all. I have not talked to my father in years. He has disinherited me, and I signed away any inheritance rights to Carolyn. That was all she cared about me."

"Barnabas wants you to graduate, to make good. He probably figures that you'll do better if you stay single."

"I would not be the first married student nor the last."

"Will he understand? He has high hopes for you. I do not like to seem as if I am spoiling them. He may do something about it."

The way she said it made David bristle.

"You are not suggesting that Barnabas might do something to you."

"I am not so sure. You know him and you trust him. But I... I know what he's capable of."

"Hallie" David frowned "you have nothing to fear from him."

Hallie lifted her hand to her throat "Do you believe in reincarnation, David?"

David nodded "You are going to tell me that you used to be Maude Browning and that Barnabas killed you."

"Yes. You see, I know how dangerous and fearsome he can be."

"So do I. I learned about it in 67. But that is done and over with. You need not fear Barnabas.. He's not an ogre out of a fairy tale, ready to smash your happiness at every chance he gets. He's a human being who wants to do right by me and you. And he's the nearest thing to a father that I got."

"Maybe. But I still don't trust him."

"You'll have to get to know him better, that's all."

She would marry David. She had planned it this way. She did not for a moment thing that Barnabas would do the things he accused him of. But her reluctance, her fears would make it possible for her to keep at a distance from him when they moved to Collinsport. More important, in his efforts to bend over backwards to accommodate her, Barnabas would not be very inquisitive about her own habits. He would leave her very much alone, and she preferred it to be so.

Clumsy and naive, Barnabas could be. But also could be a dangerous adversary. Laura could tell of that. And she did not mean to share Laura's fate.

"It's been over a year, isn't it?" Barnabas asked, his head resting on George's chest.

"Yes. Over a year."

"It seems ages ago."

"Would you have thought that it would last this long?"

Barnabas tried to protest, but did not. They had survived Ruby Tate, and if anything could have pulled them apart, it had been what she had done. And it had not.

He knew that George was thinking about her, too. "Are you still angry about what happened with Ruby?"

"Still a bit, now and then." George admitted "mainly at your own stupidity. At your goddamned stupidity of delivering yourself into her hands."

"I had to."

"Yes. I guess you had to. And it turned out all right. But damn it, how could you have been so stupid?"

"I would not have blamed you if you left me for that."

"What gets me now is different."

"Nunez" Barnabas guessed.

"Yes. I know that you have told me time and again that it is none of my business. I know that you explained the whole thing to me over and over. Still..."

"Still, you wonder when I will finally let Comet go."

"You know how I feel about that."

"Yes, I do."

"You must understand my position. You judged him, passed sentence on him, and executed it, all by yourself. He had not even the chance to defend himself.

"Lack of due process, is that it?"

"Yes. The rules of society that keep our dark sides within bounds. You acted as if they did not exist. I know the arguments. He deserved worse than what he got. He did much worse himself. But the rules are not for the sake of people like him, but for us, to keep us on the straight and narrow. Were it not for the rules, I might end up being no better than Nunez... I like the power too much."

"I understand."

"Is that all your are going to say? That you understand how I feel?"

"I know your arguments, and I know how much of your anger is your hurt pride. You are the sheriff and you do not take it kindly that I went over your head. You don't like being made to look then other way. Nor the implication that you put up with it because I am your lover."

George nodded, growling.

"Is it that, then? You think that I am getting away with murder because we sleep together, and it should not be that way?"

"Yes." George admitted.

"You did favors for me before you were lovers. And you did favors for Megan, too."

"But Comet is too much. You went too far on that one. And I wonder if you'd have dared if I was not your lover."

"George..." Barnabas began to protest, but did not. It was a nasty spot that he had put George in. It touched too much George' integrity, his self-respect. He had doubts himself about Comet. He had decided on it on a white rage, feeling still Norma's pain within himself. He had been afraid, even then, that he was going too far.

"Yet, once he had started, he had to go on. For whatever reasons he had done it, he had committed himself to make Nunez into a full-fledged human being and he could not go back from that.

"George" he said. "If you were to talk to Nunez yourself, if you could see what I am trying to do, will you try to understand?"