Tammy and Iris were rescued from eighteenth century slave ship which had been summoned by Violet and Delia. Elizabeth writes to Carolyn, wanting to return to Collinsport. Barnabas has finally learned that his curse came as an effect of a revenge spell cast by a witchdoctor caught in a slave ship owned by the Collins family. He findsm that everyone he's killed is a direct descedant of the crew of the ensorcelled ship. Schuyller Rumsen's niece, Yolanda, has become a governes in Collinwood, looking for proof of Angelique's bigamy. Urien ran away after Quentin tried to kill Barnabas and was captured by Nicholas Blair.

EYE FOR AN EYE

Dedicated to Ernest Lefever and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

May God forgive then, because I cannot.

Chapter 1

"How's Barnabas handling it?' Megan asked George.

"Better than we would have expected. It was a terrible thing to be confronted with... You and I, we can accept our historical guilt over slavery and how much this country was built on the labor of slaves. We say "It was our ancestors, and they did not know better." He does not have that excuse. He is one of these ancestors that did not know better...

"Yes, you and I can take advantage, as many Germans say, of the "mercy of a late birth." He? he is stuck. One more guilt piled on top of the others. As if he did not have enough already."

"Yes, unlike us he cannot pretend to be good, as we do. We call ourselves good, when all we are is untested." George said sourly. "We are not good, there is too much darkness in us. Only it is under control."

"As long as we know it is there, and we don't pretend it has nothing to do with us, we can control it. The trouble begins when we stand there and pretend that the darkness has nothing to do with us. That's when people die. That's what Barnabas was doing for too long. He hated having to bite, so he pretended it was not him who did it. He denied it until the last possible moment. Of course, by then he was out of control, and he took it violently, so that the possibility of injury, or even death to his source was more than likely.. Once he got sensible about it, stopped pretending that it wasn't him who was doing the drinking, he could plan and take proper precautions... which are not difficult at all."

"But Barnabas only killed the descendants of the sailors. No one else. He did damage, but stopped short of killing. when not acting as the avenging angel for the ship's crew. And owner."

"Yes. " Megan conceded. "But still, it would have been better for everybody, himself included, if he had accepted his condition and learned how to live with it. He would not have become the Collinsport Strangler, and he would not have been locked in that coffin for over a hundred years."

"Barnabas said that it was to happen. That he had to experience firsthand what the slaves suffered in the cargo hold. That he had to learn at what cost his family had made the fortune that he carelessly spent."

"Yes. There is that. But the rule about not forgetting about our dark side holds. Look at Delia. For a long while she made a sort of truce with her dark side. She enjoyed SM sex with willing partners, and was reasonably happy. Then for some reason she got to believe that it was wrong to enjoy herself that way. She got into therapy to get rid of those desires. She got rid of them, temporarily. But her darkness remained. She pretended that it was not her, that she did not want those things. And you know what happens when you do. You cut off communication between yourself and your dark side. You lose control over it. And one day it burst out, and /Delia found that magic charges whip, and had no defenses against it."

"It makes sense. Ignore your dark side at your peril... Dave never ignored his dark side... Lord, his dark side, had he not tamed it, would have made him a real monster... But he tamed it. He did not deny his desires, nor that he sought to satisfy them. But he took care not to inflict harm, and to do good in return. He put limits to himself. And that's why I mourn him instead of cursing him..."

"You too have a dark side, George. Fortunately your badge keeps in in check."

"My dark side... I gave in to it three times. Once with Julia, once with Zeb, and once with Urien."

"And it was the badge that held you back. The idea that you were dishonoring it. The badge allows you a healthy outlet for your violent tendencies, but you could lose in disgrace if you ever crossed the boundaries if imposes on you. And it was for the sake of the badge that you stopped yourself with Julia and Urien. As for Zeb, it nearly cost you to lose it... and that's why you are more careful.

"So it is not that we are good people, but that we know that we are not, and try to live with what we are."

"Yes., that seems to be the secret of it... And I think that Barnabas has finally figured it out."

The waves crashed below him as he looked into the distance...Widow's Hill at last held no terrors for him, no ugly memories. It only showed him an unimpeded vista of the ocean. Vast as his own freedom.

For he was a free man.

He had to repeat it to himself. Nothing from the past bound him. There were no standing debts. He had ever paid them, or understood that they were not truly his debts..

It was cruel and harsh to kill innocent men and women for the sins of their ancestors. but the dying witchdoctor came from a worldview in which men and women were not individuals but members of their clan or tribe, and any member of it could be called to account for the sins of any other member. You may call it barbaric and cruel, until you remembered the circumstances in which the curse was cast... And remember that the moral development that allowed you to see individuals instead of members of a clan or family was due to the leisure and ease bought with the wealth created by slaves such as the one who had cast the punishing spell. Having been treated in such a cruel and barbaric fashion, was it surprising that his answer was equally cruel an barbaric?

But what mattered was that he was no longer the avenging angel. The Peggy Green had reached port. Its sailors and slaves had been set free. That debt was paid.

And now he had a whole life ahead of him...

Would his life continue or end now that his usefulness was over? Would his curse be gone as it was no longer needed to keep him alive until was needed? His hunger told him that it was not so, not yet...

He was just as where he was a week ago... But now he knew what he was, why he was that, and that he was free.

Free...

That's when he saw her again, and his heart ached for her. if only she too could set free...

She was painting. Bitter, locked dup, her brushstrokes firm and precise.

She nodded at Barnabas. "I was wondering when you'd show up.:

He came closer "You still paint by night?"

"Yes. It is quiet and peaceful. Not many people watching and talking nonsense, like "pretty" or "artistic".

He looked at the painting. He wondered how she could do it, illuminating herself with a flashlight. "you paint the sea, now."

"Seems so." It was breaking waves and desolate, jagged rocks. There was violence in there, too.

He looked at her "You can't be in this pain, not for so long." he told her softly "you have to let it go."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

"It helps no one."

"It hurts no one, either."

"Except you."

"What is it to you if it hurts me? I mean nothing to you, Neither do my children."

"I can share your pain."

"No need to. It is not as if they were killed by a totalitarian society. Argentina is merely an authoritarian one, so it does not matter if it kidnaps, tortures and murders people. They are anti-Communist allies, and everything is OK. The victims do not matter. I do not matter to you... Wrong. I do. I am a source of blood to you."

"I voted for Carter, not Reagan."

She shrugged. "But you thought him naive... he did not understood the way the world works. Human Rights is a pipe dream, only."

"I care about you."

"You soothe your conscience saying that. The way you soothe your conscience letting me come in. After my children were killed you throw me a bone. Let me stay in this out of the way place and paint pictures than on one appreciates..." She pulled down her collar. "come, feed, and let you be gone."