Chapter 11

Amy was resting. The hurt in her body was fading away. She soon would be detoxified, they told her.

Something dark came down on her, blocking the light.

"Barnabas!" she whispered "you scared me."

Barnabas said nothing. He looked at her in a way that disconcerted her as he pulled up her sleeve.

"Yes." he said with ferocity. "You got the marks on you."

Amy tried to pull her arm away, afraid.

"No, let me look at it." Barnabas hissed "I guess I paid for some of them myself. That's what David asked me money for, isn't it?

Amy nodded, unable to find her voice.

"So I got to your veins, after all." His face contorted with rage "you played me for a fool, didn't you? All that acting you did, that you were scared of having me bite you, of making me promise to stay away from you, that was just so that I would never know how laced with junk your blood was."

He dug his fists into Amy's shoulders so painfully that she screamed.

"I think that I'll find out what a junkie's blood tastes like." He forced her head back, brutally "I am really going at it this time I won't stop until you are dry."

"No! Please don't!"

"It won't make that much of a difference with you. You are already a pusher. You know how to get to other people's veins."

He bit down on her throat. He missed the vein and tore through the flesh until he reached it. He sucked the blood out, spitting most of it on the pillow, so that satiation did not make him stop.

A flash of light blinded him.

"Get away from her!" Chris snarled at him.

Barnabas looked at him, without releasing Amy.

"Get away from her, you bastard!"

A nurse came behind Chris. She pushed a cross at him making him recoil to the corner of the room.

"She's hurt" the nurse tended to Amy's wound, " but she'll be all right."

"Which is more than can be said for this son-of-bitch when I'm through with him."

Chris advanced towards Barnabas, his fists closed.

If Barnabas had an ounce of sense, he'd have left. But then, if he had that much sense, he'd never attacked Amy in the first place. It was just too much. The mounting paperwork, the frustration, the sexual advances he received night after night... David and Amy's treachery...

He only knew that he was hurting and that he wanted to hurt somebody back.

He faced Chris. The nurse still held the cross, leaning on Amy. He couldn't move on that side, now.

Chris understood that Barnabas wasn't rational anymore. He couldn't be calmed down by a kick in the groin. he was itching for an out-and-out fight.

And looking at Amy's blood on the pillow, Chris felt the same way.

"Come on, Chris" Barnabas clenched his fists and spread his legs. "Come on, give it to me."

Chris slipped into wolf shape. There was a short wave of pain running over his body and there he was, hair bristling, ears glued to the back of his head, legs in a half crouch ready to spring.

Barnabas advanced.

Chris growled his last warning. Amy was his littermate. His cub. The ancestral call of wolves to defend their young was in him now.

Barnabas moved to the side. Chris jumped and fell on his shoulder. His teeth caught cloth. He pressed hard. He shook his head, tearing the cloth and getting closer to the skin.

Barnabas tried to catch Chris' throat, but he could only use one arm, the other one being crushed under Chris' weight. Finally his hand got a grip on that throat.

All he had to work with were the loose folds of skin under Chris' throat. Chris' lower legs raked him until he lost footing and fell backwards.

Chris thrashed over him at the floor, still working at his shoulder. Then there was a crack...

Barnabas felt his own body go limp, while Chris's teeth were tearing flesh.

Then the pressure eased. Suddenly Chris' body was a dead weight over him...he looked up.

"I had to knock him out" Megan said " give me your hand and I will help you up."

Barnabas gave him his left hand. Megan took it and twisted it. There was a sting on his wrist and then... nothing.

Megan roused Chris.

Chris shook himself...then he was on two feet again.

"Is he...?"

"He's out. I got this drug that works of vampires, like Sodium Pentothal" she showed him her version of a tranquilizer dart fastened to her wrist. 'How's Amy?"

"Bleeding's stopped." the nurse said. "And I already called the doctor."

"Good" She pulled Barnabas up on his feet "I better get him out of here."

"Let me help you." Chris offered.

Megan wanted to tell him that he had already helped enough, but thought better of it. "Thanks."

"What did get into him, by the way?"

"He's mad as hell, and won't take it anymore."

The pain on his shoulder forced Barnabas awake. As his eyes focused he was aware of a weight on his chest.. a too familiar weight...

Afraid to move more, he stole down a glance.

They had placed a cross over his heart.

Fear and revulsion took hold of him. "Not again...no..."

Had Chris done it? Would he punish him so for what he had tried to do, by chaining him inside a coffin, like his father had done?

Panic mounted in him as he recalled those empty years. When nightmare followed nightmare. When he often dreamed of escape. Dreams so vivid that he could swear they were real, only to find himself chained again.

When Willie had finally let him out, he hadn't been sure it wasn't another dream...It was a miracle that he had not gone mad. Unable to move, to see or hear anything. Only able to listen to his own thoughts, feeling his mind panicking and calming down again, blanking itself to escape the panic, and then coming back for more...

"No!" he screamed "Not again!"

Willie stepped it "What's wrong?"

"Willie" Barnabas sighed with relief "take this cross off me."

Megan says that you have to stay there until your collarbone mends.

"My collarbone?" Barnabas was finally aware that his shoulder hurt.

"Chris broke it."

"In the fight..." Barnabas tried to remember.

"That'll teach you to pick fights with Chris." Megan came into the room. "Can you leave us?" she asked Willie "We've got things to talk about.."

Willie left.

"What got into you?" She asked him.

"It was just...too much. How's Amy?"

"In better shape than you."

"I tried to put my curse on her..." there was sadness in his voice.

"Well, you gave yourself hers."

"Hers?"

"Drug addiction. Didn't I tell you that Dr. Hoffman sensitized you to opiates? Well, what do you think would happen if you came into contact with an addict's blood?"

"Serves me right. I guess I'll have to go cold turkey now."

"Don't worry. I'll detoxify you."

"Do I have to stay here?"

"Yes. First, it is better for your collarbone. And second, I'm not letting you out until I'm sure you won't go berserk again."

"I guess I deserve it." He felt the needle of Megan's injection slide into his flesh. "But..."

"What go into you? I know that I was tactless. But you had reached your boiling point already. What's been eating you?"

"The paperwork at the office... I can't handle it anymore."

"Hmmm... I think you will have to ask Torrance for a crash survival course. What else?" she thought for a moment. "I saw Miss Harding make a pass at you. Is she the only one?"

"No!" he spat out "the only think I can find that works is to go late when they are supposed to be asleep. And even then I get asked for...for..."

"Stud service" Megan sighed "I guess it's my fault. Since I make it with the men, you are supposed to make it with the women. I'm sorry."

"At least when I'm here they cannot get at me." He stared at her. "I am really staying here? You won't let me out?"

"You are staying here. I'll get you some of Pearce' dried stuff for you."

"Pearce! He's at my place now. And I left my checkbook there!"

"Right. I'll go there before he cleans you out."

Megan disappeared.

"Willie?" Barnabas called. "Willie?"

"What is it?"

"Can't you let me out?"

"Megan says that you are supposed to stay here."

"She's not been locked up in a coffin for one hundred and fifty years. She doesn't know what it's like. Willie, I don't think I can take it."

"You'll make it. I won't leave you alone if that worries you." Willie squeezed his shoulder, the good one. "Make believe that you are in the hospital, in traction."

"Willie, I can't..."

"I got a TV set from my shop. It plays cassettes. And I got plenty of those. In fact, I got a Bogart festival, for starters. And then Bugs Bunn. Also there are my slides. You never got around to see them before."