Yolanda has been defeated, as Megan breaks from her prison of light. Hallie, who has become a phoenix and married David, secretly helps in destroying Yolanda and secures stones for herself. Barnbas recovers from his uncontrolable hunger. Adam finds that his temper is getting out of control. Willie's father is coming to Collinsport.

AUTO DA FE

Chapter 1

Megan held the gun straight ahead of her, squinted, and pulled the trigger.

"Bull's eye" she said evenly, a bit wearily.

"So this is how you handle the blues?" Barnabas asked her.

"Yes. It is a good way to get rid of tensions, and also improve my aim. Why don't you try it?"

Barnabas shook his head. "It's been a while since I fired a gun."

"The more reason for you to know how to handle one. You can't always count on your own supernatural powers to get you out of trouble. They certainly didn't help me."

"Would a gun have helped?"

"Maybe. After all, pulling a trigger can be very quick. And she wasn't experienced enough to detect the movement or to stop every one of my muscles. But, like a sap, I did not carry a gun with me. Didn't think I needed one... I was having a bad case of stupidity... Well, I learned better. You just can't take anything for granted in this world."

"You still angry with yourself?'

"Wouldn't you?" To be jumped like that by... by a damned amateur! A bumbling amateur, for Chris's sake! She impersonated me, then looked into the mirror to see if she looked right!" she shook her head in disbelief at Yolanda's and her own stupidity."

"She fooled all of us. She fooled me. I actually pleaded with Carolyn to give her another chance.."

"Well, fooling you..." Megan shrugged "that's..."

"That's to be expected?" Barnabas said softly. "I guess that by now everybody knows what a soft touch I am."

"Well, there are worse things than being a soft touch. But me... I don't have that kind of a reputation. I don't like having it."

She put more bullets in the gun, then faced the target.

"One. Two." she counted as she squeezed the trigger. "Three Four..."

She shook her head. "Perfect center. There is no challenge anymore. Maybe I should try with old fashioned firearms. They weighted and felt differently."

"So it is not the same with them?"

"Of course not. Why don't you try it? You'll find them quite different from the guns you grew up with."

He took and lifted it. She was right. It felt different. But then, it had been so long...

He pressed the trigger.

"You see?" Megan said. "Way off. These are not the old fashioned ones. You ought to learn how to handle these ones."

"What for? I am not in your line of business. George does carry a gun because that's part of his job. My job is to treat patients at Wyncliffe, and I rather not think what Julia would say if I brought in a gun... And she is right. It would not help the patients any to see me armed."

"I see your point."

"Guns are the last thing you need there. It is one of those places where a gun only makes things worse. A gun can make more trouble than it is worth, sometimes."

Megan smiled lopsidedly "I see that you are fully recovered. Lecturing and everything."

"Do I?"

"It is a habit you can't break. You would not be yourself if you didn't"

"Yes. I guess that's it."

Megan sighed. "You have no idea what might have happened to Phillip?"

Barnabas shook his head. "No more than the police there, or the insurance company. He might have killed himself so that the child could have the insurance money. Or he might have had some bad luck. Or..."

"Well, the insurance company was bound to say that. They do not like paying. Making them cough up is quite a trick. But they had a good point. No body. No proof of death." Poor Phillip. "He had no head for money. And Vicky still thought that it was up to a man to provide, so she did not step in and handled the finances... She knows better now."

"Did you encourage her to train as an adult instructor?"

"Yes. I do want to create an adult training center. Old fashioned jobs are disappearing, and the new ones require more learning than people here have. There is a good money making opportunity here. And also a way for the Davenport Center to expand... I can set it up and then have Davenport or someone else buy me out... Barnabas you do not realize how much vampires need money. Any moment you may have to leave town, and you must have cash to cushion you until you can establish yourself somewhere. So it is wise to invest, and take your earnings. As cash, or gold, or something that cannot be traced."

"I cannot imagine leaving Collinpsort."

:"One day you may have to. But you need first a good cushion. It is time that you started thinking of ways to make money."

"I am a therapist."

"But you only work for Julia. Julia is not going to be there forever. You need to establish yourself independently, and be able to earn your way. It is no fun making people give you the contents of their wallets after you put the bite on them. I've had to do it... And believe me, people miss the money a lot more than they miss the blood.. They do not forget that easily. You have to make a plan for the future. I can help."

Barnabas thought about it.

"I guess I will. But now it is too soon. I am still shaking. When I think how close she came to cut Urien's throat. And I know that if she had done, I would have drunk the blood."

"Yes, you do need to talk about it. So do I. The fact that she used Phillip's name to entice me... Phillip and Vicky. I loved him once. You loved her once. And now we are squeezing our brains for a way to bring the two of them together..."

"Yes." he stared at the distance. "She was evil. I thought that Angelique was evil, but her... she was pure malice. She was cheated out of her inheritance, so she was going to commit mass murder..."

"Evil is evil... no matter who does it."

They were silent a few moments. There was much pain that had to work itself out of their system.

Then Megan turned to Barnabas. "Tell me, the girls that were involved in that protest about the shopping center to get safe transportation, are you still in touch with them?"

"Not much, but I can get hold of them. Why?"

"Because I want to use them in my next project."

"It is going to be a girl." Julia said. "and perfectly healthy.

"That's good." Kenneth kissed her. "Have you decided on names, yet?"

"Well, it could be Julia. Or what is the female form of Kenneth?"

"A bit too unusual. Kennetta. But it doesn't sound right. It might in Ireland, but not here."

"What was a your mother's name?"

"Bridget. But she already has two grandchildren with that name. We might try looking elsewhere. has Barnabas any ideas about it?

"The last time we spoke of it, he was still cooped up in the Old House. He cautioned me that if he did not make it, and the baby was a boy, not to name him Barnabas. We have not talked about it lately. Too busy with other things."

"Yes. I imagine that he's busy. He has to catch up on a lot of things."

Julia suddenly shivered and hugged herself.

"What is it? Kenneth asked with concern.

"The girl, Yolanda. She burned to death. It is a horrible way to die. Yet I cannot be truly sorry. I am glad that she's dead."

"Considering what she had planned for you and the rest, even the children, I don't see what else you could feel."

"You say that you saw this... this flying object?" In spite of himself Verhoff could not sound convinced or willing to be.

Xavier harrumphed "Not yet. but people are seeing it all over the place. It is a matter of time before I see it too."

"The evidence seems a bit... shaky. And the witnesses seem to be a bit on the neurotic side."

"Neurotic? Do I seem neurotic to you?"

"Seeing things that aren't there is a recognized symptom."

"I see. The witnesses are not reliable because they are unbalanced, and they are unbalanced because they see things that aren't there. Is that what you learned from Dr. Freud? Circular reasoning?"

"Mr. Davenport..."

"I will not have you call me a nut, not even in fancy language. So I haven't found evidence of an U.F.O. yet.

That does not give you the right to be insulting. Not after the way you blew it with Barnabas. He kicked you out, and he was right. I feel like doing the same, Doctor Verhoff."

"I am sorry." It was difficult for Verhoff to apologize. If Yolanda had not made such a fool of him he would not have done it. True, she had used the stones to take over his mind. But he had not had an inkling, not one suspicion of how things stood. Her other victims knew the truth. He had been deceived, unable to conceive that he could be wrong. He had been as certain as he always was, even when he was wrong.

Maybe Barnabas was right. Maybe he needed some humility.

Xavier grunted. The apology did not sound really heartfelt. Evidently Verhoff did not much practice of it.

"Maybe you'd like to come looking for them with me."

"It would have to be at night. I share Mr. Collins' condition."

"Yes. I know." Silently Xavier added that vampirism was the least objectionable thing about Verhoff.

A few weeks from now he would marry Carolyn. He would become the master of Collinwood. Lord over the place from where he had been chased off with sticks and stones and dogs...

No. It as not because of that that he married Carolyn..

Yet his thoughts seemed to center on that more and more. Keep Barnabas from ever setting foot inside again. Find a way to publicly humiliate Willie, to pay him back for his abuse...

And Vicky... She hated and feared him, he knew. She was part of that past that he wanted erased,...

He filled a glass with brandy and brought it to his lips. Yes. He'd teach them all a thing or two. And Roger. And that brat Edmund...

The glass shattered in his hand, crushed in his grip.

He saw the shards, the spilled liquid, the blood...

So the old man was coming to see them. Willie wondered why he had agreed that last. Between Louella and Barnabas they had managed to make it such a Kumbayah moment that he had given in.

But it would not be like that at all.