Disclaimer: It all belongs to Dan Curtis. Including most of the scenes.

Chapter Four: Discovery and Denial

Joshua closed the door to his study quietly, looking furtively down the hallway. No one. Of course there was no one. The two ladies of the DuPres family had left earlier that day. Sarah was supposedly asleep, and Naomi was probably drowning her sorrows in her chambers over her recently deceased son. Good. Not that he was doing anything wrong, but he wasn't keen on explaining to his wife that he was going down to his son's grave to inspect a possible case of grave robbing. So he walked slowly, carefully down the stairs, tucking his favorite pistol beneath his vest. Throwing his cape around his shoulders, he walked out into the chill air, closing the doors behind him.

As he drew nearer to the mausoleum, his apprehension rose. Joshua had never been superstitious, and had been the first to scoff at the flighty notions that had been running up the Northern coast. Nevertheless, he couldn't deny the sense of foreboding that was beginning to slither into his heart.

A rustle came from behind him. To his chagrin, he nearly jumped at the sound. Forcing himself to turn around slowly, he watched with no small amount of surprise as Ben bumbled through the underbrush into the clearing that surrounded the mausoleum.

"Ben? What are you doing?" Joshua said with a palpable measure of impatience.

Ben seemed not to have realized he was there, because his shaggy head shot up in surprise and…fear? "M-Master Collins…" he began, haltingly.

Joshua's small hint of patience dissipated almost immediately. He had no time for the fool's blabbering now. "What the devil are you doing out here? At this place? I gave you no leave to do so," he barked.

"I—I finished all my duties for the day, sir, so I thought I might take to the night air, ya know, just—just for a bit."

"You? Taking a stroll?" Joshua's impatience manifested itself in condescension. "Whether or not you take such privileges is not yours to decide. Get back to Collinwood. Now." His voice took a stern edge, an edge he knew brooked no disagreement.

But, for the first time, Ben, prison rat, blustering illiterate, did not back down immediately. Did not bubble over with apologies. "Sir…sir…you're goin' into the mausoleum?" he said, with a note of trepidation in his voice. His eyes flickered to the darkening sky briefly.

"That is no concern of yours." The nerve!

"Sir…" Ben's voice was quavering now. "Don't do it. Please. It's…let 'im rest."

Joshua rounded on him, ferocious now. "Excuse me? Was that an order?" He watched with satisfaction as his servant cowered under his gaze. "Do remember that is my power that has brought you out of prison. And it is my power that can place you back in it." The last words were practically spat.

Ben seemed to waver for a minute, then turned tail and left as quickly as he had come, his large feet crashing against the fallen twigs. His anger having wiped away all of his misgivings, Joshua turned and walked into the mausoleum without a second glance.

Barnabas woke up in the darkness of his coffin. Before the familiar depression could take hold of him, he noticed a difference in the stuffy atmosphere. He froze. What was it? Two weeks, and it could still take him a few moments to understand the information his radically changed senses were giving him. But it was getting faster. This time it only took a couple of seconds to realize that it was the scent. Normally, the mausoleum reeked; stuffy air, years of filth, and, above all, rotting corpses. It was that smell, above all, that turned Barnabas's stomach. The stench itself was bad enough, but it was the knowledge, the awful truth of the fact that he was one of them, that made him sick. Not rotting, perhaps, but cold, dead, and revoltingly lifeless just the same, for the majority of the day. Fortunately, no one had ever seen him like that. He thought. There was no way to be sure. And that thought was the most terrifying of all.

But today…today it smelled different. The scent was muted through the fine, solid wood of the coffin. But it was there nonetheless. Warmth. Worn fabric. Sweat, covered up with the heavy scent of incense and perfume that everyone wore to cover up the constant stench. The metallic scent of blood, the scent that made Barnabas salivate in spite of himself. And another familiar scent…a scent that Barnabas couldn't place, a scent that drove both anger and a growing sense of trepidation into Barnabas's now too often apathetic heart. But it was no matter. He briefly considered lying in his coffin until whatever grave robber it was went away, but then he realized…if they were a grave robber, they'd probably open his coffin. And he could pretend, but the idea of lying there, willingly looking like the corpse he was, while a stranger probed his clothes for trinkets, was too disgusting to consider. Besides, it would be an easy meal. And if he was a grave robber, Barnabas might not even feel too much guilt over it.

Slowly, he lifted the lid. There was no need to rush—it wasn't as if his prey would be able to escape him. The wooden lid creaked and moaned under the movement. Barnabas froze when he heard a familiar voice speak one word, in a tone of utter terror and grief that Barnabas had never heard accompany it before. "Barnabas?"

Barnabas opened the lid and sat up stiffly. He looked straight into the horror-filled, flinty eyes of his father.

"Is this true?" Joshua muttered in an almost inaudible whisper. Then, as if the question had just been an excuse to hold off belief, he muttered, "It is true."

God. Not now. Not so soon after Josette. It had only been two weeks, and already four people, people whom Barnabas would have described as close, had discovered his terrifying secret. He was through with pretending. The lie had not worked with Josette, and it certainly would not work with his father. He crawled out of the coffin, biting through stiffness, wanting the movement to look as natural as possible. Wearily, almost caustically, he said, "What is true, Father? What," he said flatly, forcing himself not to feel anything as his father turned away, covering his mouth in revulsion and fear. His father…fear. The two words did not belong in the same sentence. And it had been him that had inspired such a mixture.

His father finally turned back to him. "I do know what is true," he said, slowly. "I was in the room with you when you died. I listened for your heartbeat myself." His voice quavered frighteningly on these words. Barnabas hid his shock; his father had taken such care after his death? He had felt such emotion in regards to it? "I sat by your cold body until they…until they brought the coffin. I went with them when they carried it into the mausoleum." He turned away again, covering his mouth with a shaking hand once more as he said with rising voice, "This is a terrible nightmare, I'm imagining it!"

"No, you are not, Father," Barnabas said, with no hint of consolation. He had none to give anymore, least of all to the man that had always put business above his own children. No matter what he had done at the hour of Barnabas's death.

"Then…you live?" Joshua said, his voice wavering between disgust and hope. He turned back to face his son. Barnabas found himself wishing the man would make a decision in the matter.

"Yes." On this score, it might do to let his father swallow the fact that he was alive before telling him that he actually wasn't.

"Oh." Joshua's voice was tinted with confusion.

"A curse," Barnabas replied to his unspoken question.

"A curse? Who believes in curses, who?!"

"A curse has given me eternal life," Barnabas said forcefully. This might take some time.

"Another fancy," Joshua scoffed.

"It is not a fancy!" That was too much. He had to live with it, and now here his father was, belittling the ruin of his life, just as he had belittled everything Barnabas had done. "I cannot die as I am, do you understand that yet?!"

"You have given me nothing that I can understand!"

"I cannot make you face a simple fact. You run around ignoring everything I say." This, at least, felt familiar. It was a scripted argument that had passed between father and son many times. "Your gun cannot kill me, is that plain enough?" Joshua's head shot up, and Barnabas felt a shimmer of satisfaction. His father had apparently hoped that Barnabas would not notice it. Well, too bad. "It cannot!" Barnabas turned and paced away. He couldn't face his father's look of disbelief anymore.

Barnabas heard a derisive scoff from behind him. "You make it sound as if you are one of those ridiculous creatures the legend of which has spawned such an uproar in the villages. A demon of some sort. Are you telling me you've been caught up in such nonsense, too?"

Barnabas turned to face his father with what he hoped was a serious expression on his face. It was a serious matter. Apparently he succeeded, because his father's expression turned once again from one of condescension to one of overwhelming disgust. "You think that, don't you? You think that you are a demon. You are mad. My God, have you been causing the attacks in the village with your madness? Are you the one they're calling the Collinsport Strangler?"

That name. Barnabas wanted to turn away in shame, but he would not. Not in front of his father. His silence must have been answer enough, because his father spoke again.

"And I am to what? Stand by and watch you follow through with your madness? Stand by and watch you murder?!"

The words stung. It had been the first time anyone save him had described his nightly ritual in such a way. Ben had been too polite…maybe too afraid. And Sarah simply hadn't known. "Yes, you are!" Barnabas roared, pacing to the wall. He felt trapped. Stifled. He raised his hand up against the wall, as if he could somehow force his way out of the huge, stony squares of which it was comprised.

"Why?! How could you ask me to do a thing like this, how?!"

Barnabas didn't know what made him say it. Perhaps it was his father's uncharacteristic display of emotion. Perhaps it was because he'd just given up. He whirled around. "Because I am a vampire! I must have blood!"

The room fell suddenly hush. "What?" Joshua whispered. And then Barnabas realized. His father knew that towns all along the Northern Coast had been distraught with the fear of a demon…some sort of supernatural fashion. But he hadn't known the particulars. His aloofness had also caused him to be ignorant. Ignorant of the fact that the legend spoke of a corpse, a blood-drinking corpse that came to life every night to prey. That hundreds of graves had been torn open and stakes driven through the hearts of those inside to prevent the horror of the creature that might be. Of course, Barnabas knew that most of these incidents were false alarms. But he also knew that some might not have been. And sometimes he wondered…had they felt fear? Pain? Guilt? Maybe even relief? All those…creatures had been in some way his brethren, helpless against their sordid situation just as he was now.

But his father knew the word "vampire". And, with that one word, Barnabas had given him all of the details of his condition. "No," Joshua murmured, turning away. "This is madness! There are no such things as vampires!"

Barnabas ran to his side, leaning over the hated coffin to look him in the eyes. "I am proof that there are!"

"Just in books. They are the tales of the s-stupid and s-superstitious." The stuttering of Joshua's voice shocked and worried Barnabas.

Joshua still refused to look at him. Barnabas began to shout. "You aren't willing to—to listen to me even when I'm telling the truth!" He began to pace around the coffin. The movement, animalistic, primal, calmed him nevertheless. "I have been trying ever since you found me." He leaned over the coffin. "I have become an animal. My instincts are to kill. Everything about me has changed. I am not your son anymore." The words, held for so long, tore their way out of them, and he watched with shock as his father, his proud, apathetic father, moved toward him, arms outstretched as if to comfort him. Barnabas lunged away. "No, don't come near me, don't touch me." The thought of his father touching his body, feeling the proof of his lifelessness beneath his own hands, was disgusting.

Even turned away, Barnabas could hear, could almost feel his father's movements as he brought his arms in, slowly, as if wounded from the rebuttal. He heard Joshua move for something at his side. The pistol. Barnabas stiffened instinctually. "Barnabas," his father said quietly, with a tone of grief and care that Barnabas had never heard in it before.

"Yes," he said, wearily.

The gun cocked. "I must do this." A small smile found its way onto Barnabas's face. It was a bitter one. His father was going to put him down, like a rabid but much loved dog. Quick, painless. Merciful. And he supposed that that was what he was, a rabid animal. Little did his father know that the gun would do nothing. The gun would not put him out of his pain. "I must," his father whispered.

Barnabas turned slowly to face him. It was the proper way. His lurid smile was still plastered to his face, he knew.

"Forgive me," Joshua said. It was the first time Barnabas had ever heard those words out of his mouth. "Forgive me, dear son.

Dear son. It had taken his son turning into a vicious beast for Joshua to utter those words? As Barnabas stared down the barrel of the gun, he knew that it would most likely be the only time he heard them. He prayed that Sarah would be more fortunate.

The shot rang out, staccato and dry in the small room. Barnabas felt an impact, harder than he had ever felt before, as he was thrown against the wall. He held his chest instinctually, gritting his sharp teeth as the pain ricocheted through him. He wouldn't die, but, no matter who you were, a bullet in the chest hurt. It didn't incapacitate him, though. Careful not to show his pain to his too often disdainful father, he waited until it had subsided enough for him to straighten. Perhaps it was simply the shock that his own father had actually shot him to kill that had kept him immobile so long. Slowly, in a pattern that he was beginning to recognize as the circling of prey, he began to walk around his father, who was now staring at his pistol in disbelief.

"I…I don't understand," Joshua whispered. "I shot you in the chest."

Yes, I noticed. "Now you understand why I have not committed the deed myself yet. You think I wouldn't want to?" He gave a dry chuckle, and turned back to the candelabra that was now in front of him. "It cannot be done."

"You should be dead!"

"Don't you understand?" Barnabas said, turning to face his father. "What I am trying to tell you is that I am already dead."

Joshua lay the pistol down carefully on the coffin—his son's coffin. He felt nauseous. His hands were shaking imperceptibly. He couldn't believe it. But he had to. He had seen the proof. He could almost feel his own mind expanding painfully to encompass this new perception of the world. He turned to Barnabas, but couldn't bear to look at him fully. "What has happened to you is incomprehensible. It defies all reason." As if saying that would make it untrue.

"But it has happened." Barnabas was turned away again.

Joshua was, for once, at a loss for words. All he knew was that he needed to do something. "You cannot go on…in this frightening state that you're in."

"I have no choice in the matter," Barnabas said, turning to face him. His voice rose, though out of pain or anger Joshua did not know. "There is no way to change what I have become."

"I do not believe that. There has to be a way." Joshua had built his career off of solving problems…of finance, of business. Of shipbuilding. This was no different.

"There isn't!" In Barnabas's eyes lay a hopelessness the likes of which Joshua had never seen before. Apparently this would take some time.

Joshua paced around his son in much the same way his son had paced around him only a few minutes previously. "If it is possible…for one to be cursed, then it is also possible…that one can be released from a curse."

"Even if there were, Angelique would not let it happen."

"Angelique?" This was new. "What has she got to do with it?"

"She is the one responsible for everything tragic that has happened in our lives. She wanted me for herself, and she…got it, by using every evil power at her command. The death of Jeremiah…and of me—both were her doing."

"Do you mean to tell me…that Angelique…is the witch?" He moved away from his son, pondering over this change of events.

"Yes."

Immediately, an anger consumed Joshua. "How long have you known this?"

"I found out…a few days after I married her."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?!"

"She warned me that…if I betrayed her secret…she would…destroy the entire family."

Oh. "I see." Well, he couldn't fault the boy for that. Then, another thought struck him. "And…the wrong person was tried for witchcraft. Miss Winters is innocent."

"Completely."

Well, that, at least, was something that Joshua might be able to remedy. "I shall see that the girl is freed immediately."

"How?"

"How? By telling the court the truth." Barnabas's maudlin, pessimistic approach to everything was beginning to grate on Joshua's nerves.

"But, how…?" Barnabas sounded exasperated, perhaps a little frightened. "You can't very well do that without telling them about me."

"I'll think of some way to set her free. There is ample time. The more important matter at the moment is you."

Barnabas whirled away and began pacing again. It was beginning to become very annoying. "There's nothing you can do for me or about me!"

"I cannot believe that!" Joshua shouted, following him around the room. "I'll try to find some way to give you peace." He left the second part of that sentence unsaid: dead or alive.

"How?" Barnabas turned to him, now with an almost painfully hopeful expression on his face.

Now that the question was asked, Joshua wasn't sure he had an answer. "I will try to find someone who can release you from this wretched curse."

"But who do you think that could be?" Barnabas's pessimism was back. Joshua's uncertainty must have been obvious.

"I don't know." He hated saying those words. They went against everything in his nature. At the admission, the true horror of his son's…condition, came flooding back to him. He had heard the talk from the town, mostly from his own employees. One had even lost a sister to the attacks. Agatha Victor, her name had been. Putting a name to the murders made it that much worse. With a hatefully fearful tremble to his voice, he asked, "So…you are behind the attacks, at the docks. Twelve people."

Barnabas's silence was an answer in itself.

Another thought struck Joshua, one that made him sick. "If…I had not been there, when you…opened the coffin…if it had been someone else…?" He left the question unfinished. Barnabas turned abruptly to look at him, and Joshua's stomach dropped to his feet. Because he saw it, all there, in Barnabas's eyes. Laid open, bare. He may still be able to walk and talk like a human, maybe even reason like one, but he was a creature. A wild, predatory creature. And his prey was human. His own son. He remembered the day he was born. He remembered his first attempts at speaking. He remembered when he first went off to boarding school. He remembered all of these things, despite the fact that he had never been much involved in household matters. And now, that boy, the boy he had watched grow into adulthood in his own house, was a feral beast. He wanted to vomit. He closed his eyes, willing himself not to. "I…can't let you go on like this." Then, he made a flash decision. "You're going with me…until…I find a way…to put you to rest forever."

"Go with you?" Barnabas's voice was guarded.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Back to Collinwood. I will keep you in isolation. I will put you in the tower room. I will keep you there…until I can find some help for you."

Barnabas's response was vehement as he moved towards his coffin, leaning on it. "I will not be confined by you or anyone else."

Joshua's temper exploded. "I will not let you roam the countryside like a crazed animal! You will come with me!"

"I said no!"

And, for the first time, Joshua realized there was nothing he could do to force Barnabas into obedience. When his son had been younger, he had used the switch. When he had aged to the point of being Joshua's physical equal, he had resorted to the threat of disinheritance. Now, Barnabas was beyond both of those things. He was most certainly Joshua's physical superior, if the legends told true. And he could no longer sink lower than his present situation, so the threat of living conditions was out of the question. Joshua paced around the coffin and his son. He would have to think of something else. Finally, he landed on an idea. Slowly, he said, "Then it will be necessary for you to kill me after all, because, if I leave this room alive, I will not keep your secret, Barnabas."

"What do you mean? Who will you tell?"

"Your mother."

"You can't do that!" Barnabas's voice was icy with shock.

Joshua turned to him. He regretted the threat, but it was necessary. "The choice is yours, not mine. If you want to protect your mother, you will either kill me…or put yourself in my charge. There is not a third way. Make up your mind, Barnabas."

Joshua walked through the now quiet, dark halls of Collinwood. He was mindful of his son following on his heels; it was disconcerting, especially because it was the first time he had felt a hint of fear with his back turned to the boy. He was his father—he had taken the switch to Barnabas countless times—but he felt like nothing more than a frightened squirrel in the sights of a wolf.

When they finally topped the innumerable steps of the tower, Joshua opened the door to the small room quietly. He let Barnabas walk through—he felt safer with him in his sights. His son stepped into the room, looking around its small, unwelcoming space. "You really believe that I can stay here?" he asked dourly. He turned to Joshua, the scant light casting his frighteningly gaunt features into relief.

"You must. You have no choice."

"My need is different from those of ordinary humans," Barnabas said, looking away, "and when the time comes for me to fulfill those needs, I am helpless to resist."

"You must exercise the strongest willpower." Joshua stepped closer to his son.

Barnabas turned to face him with an almost disturbing abruptness. "We shall see." He changed subject just as quickly. "Were you able to find Ben?"

Ah, yes. He had explained, reluctantly, Ben's involvement in the matter. Joshua found that he couldn't fault the servant in this matter. Had he not taken Barnabas under his wing, there may have been even more deaths. And Barnabas would be in even worse shape. "Yes."

"You told him…that he must bring-?"

"Yes," Joshua interrupted. He didn't want to hear the word. "All the arrangements have been made. You will have everything here you had at the mausoleum." He walked toward the window, wishing to distance himself from the creature that was his son.

"I must have it here before morning."

That. On the way to the manor, Barnabas had informed him of that as well. And it was perhaps this, his inability to walk in the sun, the fact that, from now on, Joshua might never see him outside of the shadows of night, that, above even his horrific dietary needs, had driven home the fact of what had become of his son. "I know," he said, quietly. Wishing to change the subject, he said, "Ben will be here as soon as I have made certain that everyone is retired for the night."

A thought seemed to have struck Barnabas, and he raced to Joshua's position quite alarmingly with a fearful expression that almost reminded Joshua of the child his son had once been. "What will you do if…if someone happens to discover me in this room?"

"No one ever comes to the tower."

"I see." Barnabas moved away, and Joshua felt a shimmer of relief run through him. "Has it ever occurred to you…the risk you are taking in doing this?"

"I don't know what you mean," Joshua said, following his son. That was false; he did know what Barnabas meant, but he didn't want to say it.

But Barnabas said it anyways. "I myself…have tried to undo the risk…of the curse…by…preventing it, and she will do the same…when she knows what you are trying to do."

Oh. Joshua had been thinking more along the lines of keeping a blood-thirsty demon in the same building as his wife and young daughter. Not that that was what Barnabas wanted to hear. There was no need to ask to whom Barnabas was referring, but he did anyways. "You mean Angelique? She fled from here not long after you…after the illness took you."

Barnabas gave a mirthless chuckle. "Distance means nothing to her."

"Well, my first responsibility is to take care of you. I will deal with the witch if and when it becomes necessary." And Barnabas did need care. No matter the people he had killed, no matter the terror he had caused, his appearance made clear that he still had a firm hold on the short end of the stick. His face was gaunt and pale, and his entire body emaciated and sickly-looking. He slouched over slightly, a stance that had at first made him look predatory. By now, though, Joshua was beginning to suspect it was a sign of lack of energy, weariness…perhaps even pain? Whatever amount of blood he had taken in the last couple of weeks, it was obviously not nearly enough. His eyes, though, were the most frightening—lackluster and lifeless, they looked so different from those that Joshua had remembered on his son. They were eyes from which all the fight had left. And it was Joshua's responsibility as the head of household and as the boy's father to bring him back to health. Besides, Naomi would have had him in a coffin if he hadn't.

He gave Barnabas a long look before turning to leave. His son's eyes were filled with an undefined emotion as Joshua closed the door on the room. How dark it must be in there, he thought as he turned the key in the lock. Not that he thought Barnabas wouldn't be able to see, but nevertheless…there was something so unnatural about locking one's own child in a dark room at night.

But it had to be done.

Notes: Alright. This should be the last time I lift scenes straight from the series (although I kinda cut and pasted these ones-I'm too lazy to have the entire plot of 1795 storyline included. I realize it was supposed to take place at the Old House). Also, I'm still having trouble with making breaks on my computer, so just bear with me. I know it might make a few people cross-eyed:) Thank you all so much for your reviews and I hope I live up to them!