Hallie, who has become a phoenix has caused Willie's father, who found some of her secrets to burn to death. There has been a rash of U.F.O. sightings in Collinsport and Zeb King may have made contact with one of them. Adam was mind-napped by gypsies who made him believe that he is Andreas Romano - son of King Ruslan Romano - and whose body contributed to the constructin of Adam. Buffy Torrance is pregnant,

FIRE IN THE SKY

Chapter 1

"It's been a while you have come here. For this, I mean." Iris said..

"Too much between us" Barnabas said, apologetically.

"Yes. We did nothing but fight. Not always noisily, but there was always tension between us.. "

"It was not meant to be. I wanted more than you could give. And you wanted more than I could give."

"Yes. I am sorry about Peter. I should have never listened to Zeb King."

"He found you at vulnerable time. And I am George's lover."

"Yes." she dismissed the topic with a wave of her hand. "But Peter deserved better than to be made a pawn for brawling grownups... And he had no call to turn Peter to that horrible woman.. I can never forgive him for that."

Barnabas did not contradict her. Peter was the one casualty in this war between supposed adult.

"I want to get custody of him. Permanently. I want Violet's rights terminated."

"It will take some doing."

"George will help me. But it would be better if you got Violet to sign away her rights."

"She may not be willing to do so."

"You can make her do it. Or at least convince her that she will not be released unless she signs those rights away."

He considered it. It was tempting. Take hold of Violet's mind, an make her sign. He could do it...

Except that there were certain ethics that came with his profession. And he did not have enough time nor enough experience to play loose with the rules. Not safely. It was too easy to break one rule, an then another, and another..."

"I will try. But there are now new guidelines for mental clinics, the Legislature is pressing for more control, and we can expect greater scrutinizing I don't want to give them reason to come looking into us..."

"You don't want to do it."

"I don't want to do anything that might cause an investigation and which might lead to Julia losing her license."

"But who would know?"

"They are tightening the oversight. I do not know what they are looking for, but anything that looks like we forced Violet to sign might trigger an investigation. I'd rather not be investigated by the State."

"Just say that you do not want to do it."

"Not the way you suggest. But we might find a way. We might get her to admit that he resents Peter, that indeed she hates him. If we get that admission for her, it will be a lot easier. We'd have a probable cause to deny her custody..."

"You are getting too scrupulous. lately."

"Just found out how much paperwork and regulation I have to deal with. I have to be more careful now that I am leaving a paper trail."

"Yes, I suppose you do." She threw her head to the side. "Well, go ahead. I know that you are hungry.:

Barnabas touched her throat with his lips, searching for the vein. She remembered her affair with him again. Could it have worked? Would it if she had been more willing to commit herself to him? It was too big a commitment... No, it was better that it was over...

Yet, in Barnabas' arms, feeling his mouth on her neck, she could almost fall in love with him again.

"Are you still worried? " Frank asked Buffy.

"Maybe I am just paranoid. Maybe it is just that I am going tom have my first baby, and I am scared."

"Well, Julia Hoffman Anderson has more right to be scared, and she seems to be taking it easy."

"In public. I know that when she is alone, she starts having all those doubts and fears."

"Well, according to your tests, you are going to have a healthy baby boy."

"But it takes so long for it to be born! Too many things can happen!"

"What things?"

"I don't know." She was silent for a few moments, then spoke again. "Do you remember Laura?"

Frank grimaced. "I have been trying to forget her. Hard. It is not something that I am proud of."

"Both of us made love to salamanders. Both of us gave ourselves to her. What if that makes it possible for her to claim our baby, to make up for losing Pearl Loomis?"

"Laura is defeated, and a prisoner. Her salamanders were released. We were released. It is over."

"Is it, really?"

"Barnabas assured me that she cannot escape."

Xavier held to his equipment, his field glasses, his photo machine, his flashes, everything. This time he would know for sure. He'd come back with proof positive this time.

Maybe... maybe he had done this before, and they had destroyed the plates and his memory of it...

But if they did, it was an incomplete job, for he had these... visions, these unconnected flashes of memory.

And maybe it was just getting to him."

'You are brooding again." Urien complained. "You are again thinking that had something to do with what happened to Loomis!"

"I know you didn't" Barnabas spoke calmly.

"Do you? Do you really know it? Not the way you act around me."

Urien was right. There was a strain between them. Barnabas could not accept George's verdict: death by misadventure. Loomis Sr. drank and smoked in bed, even when warned not to... It was a natural death for him...

Maybe it was his pride that was hurt. He had offered to help the old man, and instead he had burned to death under his roof. Willie's father. That made it tougher. Even if Willie did not get along with his old man, still it was a shock for him too."

So he chose to blame Urien for it, thought it was not his fault.

It was unfair. He had seen Urien after the accident. He was shaken, horrified. And innocent. He had proof of it - He had not taken Urien's word, he had bitten him, hard and extricated the truth out of him that way... Which proved his innocence definitively...

"I am sorry, Urien."

Urien grunted. Barnabas said that he was sorry often enough. And he did not mean it.

"No, Urien." Barnabas knew what Urien was thinking. "This time it is for real. I behaved unconscionably with you. Can you forgive me for it? I just don't have the habitude of people coming to a tragic end while entrusted to my care." But then he remembered Pansy Faye, dead because of three people, Dirk Wilkins, Laura, and himself..

"Specially such a horrible way."

"I have blamed myself and I have blamed you. I had no right to. It was hard telling it to Willie. It was hard accepting. But I had no right to make you bear the pain of it. Can you forgive me for it?"

"Me?" Urien was incredulous. "forgive you?"

"Yes."

Willie stood outside the Blue Whale. A drink would do him a lot of good, he felt.

It would also do him a lot of harm. He couldn't drink one single glass anymore. No unless he wanted to spend the rest of the night. in the drunk tank. He grimaced. He knew what alcohol could do. What it had done to his father, what it could do to him, and indirectly to Pearl and Louella.

Yet, for a while a drink could make the pain stop. Or could make you stop caring about it. Could make you not care that your father had died after you had kicked him out into the street. Could make you forget how you felt at the funeral. A small funeral. No one cared to come, except out of respect to Willie himself. No one had cared about the old lush. Not even his own son.

It was fair. part of him insisted. Robert Loomis had deserted his wife and children after he got tired of kicking them around. What did they owe him?

Still, to be so old, so alone, with no one to care if your lived or died. So destitute...

Damn it! The man was his father!

And it wasn't only his father's fault. He had had bad luck. He knew the feeling, knew how you could get it. He had been there himself.

Like father, like son. If it had not been for Barnabas, he'd have ended like his father...

He wished that he could cry. Or that he could shrug off the old man, as having gotten what he deserved. He could do neither...

He could not even get drunk.

Just what she needed. A demonstration of women in front of the cannery, complaining about sexual harassment. "We want to work, not sell our asses." "We are not available." "We demand respect." "Carolyn Collins, aren't you a woman?" "Respect women." and other signs.

Where had they come from? Didn't they know the spectacle they were giving? They could come to her with their complaints could they not? They made it as if she was a traitor to her sex for not wanting to be involved in such business. I mean, what was wrong if men flirted with them?

Well, another problem that needed to be solved.

She was always solving problems. And her problems, who took care of them?

She poured herself a drink.

Roger saw her and shook his head. "It doesn't help." he said.

"I need it now."

"Adam isn't worth it. No more than Laura was. You are not hurting him. Only yourself."

"Just let me drink in peace, Uncle Roger."

Zeb sat alone in his study. He heard Jessica call him, but he did not answer.

He had work to do, here, in the dark. The gathering of the forces, they had called it. He lighted the matches in a circle and concentrated hard on them. Why matches? Why such a primitive method, when they had all that technology at their disposal?

He could not deny what he had seen. It had happened. And he still felt, inside him, what he had felt when he had first seen those beings...

Somebody who hated Barnabas Collins as much as he did...

Who could that be? Why should an extra-terrestrial care about one particular earthling?

Unless there was something special about this earthling. Either his vampirism or his homosexuality.

Whichever. He had found an ally.

Julia wondered how it would be to become a mother. She had stopped seeing herself as one years ago. She was now pregnant and recognized the signs in her well enough. But it felt unreal. And part of her wondered how much her now apparent state affected her image, professionally, at least.

She laughed at herself. Still the Iron Lady. Determined to succeed in her profession at any price, even after the years had taught her that professional success was not the end-all and be-all of existence. That there were indeed other things.

It would be funny, wouldn't it? That after diagnosing and treating Louella's anxiety regarding her impending maternity, she would succumb to the same syndrome. Of course, she would be sophisticated about it. Education did that to you. Make you sound more knowledgeable when you were only being unreasonable.

Why couldn't she be as calm and accepting as Hallie? As Buffy? Both of them seemed to have no problems with their pregnancies. David did not sound that convinced that he wanted to be a father, but with Barnabas' prodding he had found that he had had to. Because nothing was going to deprive Barnabas of his grandchild (or whatever the relationship would be). And Barnabas had a point. If Daniel's line was to continue, it would have to be through David. Much as Barnabas loved Edmund, he was not really Carolyn's son. And Carolyn would never have children of her own.

Well, as long as Barnabas did not decide that Julia was in need of pampering... She would keep her dignity. Really the way Barnabas could fuss around you...

David looked at Halllie, feeling guilty that he wasn't more glad that he was going to be a father. He knew better than to show it. Gold knows that it would mean another lecture from Barnabas, and he knew what they were like...

When you considered Barnabas' past, you wondered why anybody should listen to his lectures. Yet people did.

Dear Barnabas.. He was a potential murder victim. One day, somebody who did not care to be lectured, would do him in...