Barnabas, George, Urien, Roger, the Kings, Patterson, Derek, Howard, Frances, Amy and Sebastian have been captured and enslaved withint the magic kingdom of Vassily Petofi. Knowing that showing an interest might get her captured too, Megan and Angelique feign indifference while seeking to destroy Vassily's power. Angelique had switched places with Amy, to find Vassily's weaknesses.

THE DRAGON

Chapter 1

Vicky went over Barnabas' correspondence. It was surprising how much of it there was. Granted that a lot of it was money requests, but still... How he had managed to find those groups, how they had managed to find him, and more, how many money requests he actually answered.

She wondered how many people in Collinsport got as many requests. Probably not many. And not just money. Requests that he write to his Congressman (or rather Congresswoman) in support of different causes...

Even since Willie had released him in 1967 Barnabas had managed to create a small community around him. She knew about the one in Collinsport. But there might be another one, people who recruited him for their causes

She sent money to those causes that she knew were dear to him. Or to herself. She took note of the requests to write to Maggie or their Senator. She would write them later.

It made her feel useful to do this. Made her feel that she had not abandoned him yet.

She had not gotten involved... She had imagine that George Brant had it under control, and that Megan and Angelique would handle it.

Now... now it was up to them, and she did not have the faintest idea of what she could do.

"Do you have the last letter Megan sent you?" Phillip came in. "I want to check on something."

She sighed. "She said that she does not want it. That she does not want to be involved."

"Maybe I can talk to her."

"No one knows where she is. She erased her traces before she left."

"I still want to see that letter. I want to check on it."

Vicky got up and retrieved the letter. There was nothing there, she knew. But Phillip wanted, like her, to fee useful, wanted to believe that they had not abandoned Barnabas...

If she had Phillip now, it was because Barnabas, Brant, and Nelson had fought Burke Devlin. And they had all been taken.

And she could not think that she could do to rescue them..

"Here it is!" Phillip said. Here are her words. 'her nook'"

"So?"

"There was a place, when we visited Boston that she said to me that she would like to have, that it could be her personal nook. She may have bought it and is now there..."

"You think?"

"I am willing to try."

"You think that we could go there."

"No, not you. She may be more willing if I am alone."

'You mean that you are trying to seduce her?"

"If it works, if I can get her back that way. I am willing."

Vicky shivered. "If it works, I am willing to go along."

That was not Angelique lying there, Megan decided. It might look like Angelique, but it was not her. It might be another person, made to look like her. It might be a doppelganger. But whatever it was, it was not Angelique, though Angelique might use her as a conduit to communicate with her.

She had then to ten to that prostrate body, make sure that it was comfortable, hydrated, and fed., so that Angelique could use it.

George and Amy laid in each other's arms, their duty done.

He had laid with her every night since. It was a bitter duty, knowing that he was to father children who would be doomed to the same existence the was enduring now. Even if he could feel enthusiasm about sex with her, this was not the way. It was too obscene, too evil.

Maybe it was better this way, that no lust of his entered their coupling. If his body had ached for hers, knowing the use that they were being put, it would have been too terrible to bear.

"I gave in too easily" he muttered "I should have let them beat me to death rather than go along with this."

"They would not have beaten you to death. They would have given you back to the tamer."

George did not answer. He remembered that night when he had been broken, and what had been done to him, and by what means obedience had been extracted from him.

"We ought to be stronger." he finally said. "We should be able to hold on to ourselves, hold on to what we believe in."

Angelique, in her disguise as Amy, wondered if it was safe now to confide in George or not. Would he keep her secret now? Would he be strong enough? She would need help for what she planned, and George could be her best bet.

"I can't let them have Urien. He is now Barnabas' son. Even if I can't escape myself, even if I can't free Barnabas, he ought to be free. I should have never involved him in this." He said, bitterly. "I was supposed to take care of him while Barnabas was away, and this is how I did it. And now he's in his own cell, trying to impregnate some girl."

"We can do nothing. We must accept it."

"Accept it? Accept that you re going to be a mother of slaves, that you will raise children so that Vassily can use them to do all the hard work that needs doing, like dumb beasts, and then be bled so that Barnabas can be kept alive and powering the machines. That your grandchildren will do the same, and so will their children... Can you accept it?"

She was silent for a few moments, wondering how much to tell."I can show you Barnabas" she said. "Keeping him clean is part of my duties. He just lies there, without moving. There is a tube stuck in his mouth, and every now a then a bottle is attached to it. He swallows without waking up, and above him the wheels turn... It is him that makes them turn."

George sobbed and pushed he away violently "Don't tell me of it!" he begged "It is bad enough to do this. And to know that he...he.."

Julia cradled Gretchen in her arms.

George, Urien, Barnabas, Frances. And Howard, or rather Richard...

She had lost Richard again. And she could do nothing to save him.

But what could she do? Stokes' notes were gone. Barnabas had been taken away. Megan and Angelique had turned their backs on all of them. What could she be expected to do?

She had abandoned Richard to his fate..

No, it was not her fault.

Yet she had accused Barnabas for his seeming unwillingness to help Richard once. And now she was doing much worse.

And yet, what could she do?"

It would not do. It was the same excuse she despised in others. What can one person do against such evil? Over the ages it had been said and believed... Her parents had died in the Nazi camps. She herself might well have gone up in smoke in some crematorium. So would have Richard. And now she was the one looking the other way.

But Gretchen, she needed her mother...

But what was to be done? All the ways she knew were closed.

No, not all of them. There was the I Ch'ing. She could try contacting the Romano tribe and beg them to use Petofi's hand. She could hold a séance to summon a protective spirit like Josette or Naomi.

"You should not have done it." Joe said to Tammy "You might well have pushed George to do what got him abducted too."

"I did not want it to turn out the way it did."

"You should have seen how it would play up. Or did you think that you had a chance to become the first black woman elected sheriff in Maine?"

"I never wanted him to lose his job... Look the way he was carrying on, they would have kicked him out sooner or later. You cannot get drunk every night and pick up fights at the Blue Whale and expect to remain sheriff. I was trying to offer him something.. some reason to get himself together."

"Well, it did not work out, that wall, did it? And now, come the next election, you can say you are a candidate."

"I have no desire to be sheriff. All I wanted was for him to be the sheriff he once way. All I wanted is to get people to try to do something, to offer some ideas, to make him feel that he was not all alone in that. But they did not care."

"Be realistic, Tammy, what could they have done?"

"They did not even try to find out."