Chapter 11
Vicky screamed "Please, Phillip" she pleaded to Todd.
"Mixed breed" Todd said with scorn "Filthy nigger. I should give you to Haskell. But no, I can do it myself. I have seen him do it."
He cut her, a superficial cut, just to see her blood flow. Later there would be other cuts... he had plenty of time for it...
Barnabas could feel the distress, the pain. The screams came from so many places...
But Vicky wasn't there...
Where could she be? A scream like hers could only come from this place. It had to be here, in these cellars...
...Even if he found her, could he take her with him?"
From one of the closed doors came quiet sobs. he glided in.
It wasn't Vicky. It was a man, hanging from his wrists and covered in his own blood.
With a shock, he recognized George Brant's face.
"Are you all right?" he asked, stupidly.
"Are you a friend?" the man managed to ask.
"Yes."
"Then kill me. I can't hold on any longer."
Barnabas didn't protest. In this topsy-turvy world, murder was an act of mercy. He went to the man and quickly suffocated him. He sensed for the other man's mind. He felt an awareness of the lack of breath, of pain, then a small explosion in the brain, and one last thought addressed to him "God bless you".
He stood back, He still had not found Vicky.
"No, Phillip, no, Please" Victoria begged. Then she screamed again.
Blood covered the bed to which she was tied, spread-eagled. and naked. Strips of skin and flesh were strewn all over. On the night table laid three fingers and one ear.
Phillip kept cutting, caught in a frenzy, his hand frozen on the knife.
He didn't see her. He didn't hear her. He had known it would end like this... One day he would treat Vicky like Haskell did his prisoners.
It was the way it was supposed to be. The knife was hungry for Vicky and he was giving her to it.
She had deceived him, tainted him with her impure blood. Ended his career...
Let her pay for it. Let her suffer.
For a brief second he remembered his dream of a Universe of two. it was gone. It was only a dream...
"Where could she be?" Barnabas hung as mist over the corridor between the cells. He had seen Haskell at work, had to repress his desire to kill him. he had heard the screams, seen the bodies...The place was filled with the suffering he felt from Vicky. She had to be here...
He had stopped twice more to kill those whose suffering had been too great. It was a small thing that did not stop the activity of this evil place. It only slowed him. But when he had looked at those pained eyes he knew that he had to do it.
But where could Vicky be? If not here, where?
He had to think. He had to do what he usually did when trying to locate someone...
He had closed his mind to her, he realized. Shaken by her pain, he had drawn back. Instead of tracing her, he had gone to the logical place for such pain...
Only it wasn't.
He opened his mind to her again.
Pain cut though him as he did it. But now he knew where she was.
Vicky could not scream anymore. She couldn't struggle against her bindings. She just lay there, unable to do anything more than turn her head and moan each time the blade touched her again.
She would die soon, Phillip realized. And with this realization he felt the knife drop from his hand.
He saw what he had done. He bent over the bloody half-corpse in the bed. Was that Vicky? Was that the woman he loved?
...he had done that...
He did not hear the rustle of wings, he was not aware that Barnabas was there until he spoke.
"Is that Victoria Collins?" Barnabas tried to control his revulsion.
"Yes." Phillip said with a hollow voice. "She...she lied to me."
Barnabas felt like throwing up. He had never done so since the curse. But he had never seen such horror. What he had seen in the cells. And Victoria, mutilated by the man she loved... You could only recognize her by the hair.
"She loved you." he accused Phillip.
"She...she lied to me."
"Look into my eyes" Barnabas commanded him.
Phillip obeyed. His eyes were dead...
Vicky moaned, and Barnabas realized with horror that she was still alive.
"Take your knife." he told Phillip.
Phillip took it, still staring with dead eyes.
"Cut her throat and be done with it."
One flick of the knife, and Victoria was out of her pain.
"Good. Now look at me again and tell me all about it."
Phillip did, omitting nothing. he had no will, no desire to resist.
"She loved you." Barnabas said when Phillip had finished "I warned her about you, but she would not believe me. She trusted you. She lived in a fool's paradise." he shook his head sadly "Why should she suffer and not you? You deserve it more than she."
He controlled his desire to tear Phillip apart with his bare hands. No, not this way. He looked into Phillip's eyes.
"You made love to her. You took your pleasure with her. It was lust that led you to this."
Phillip took the knife again. His eyes were lost in Barnabas'. Barnabas watched impassively as Phillip castrated himself, and then kept cutting upwards, with deeper and deeper cuts.
"Keep cutting until you die of it." he commanded him.
Barnabas stepped back. There was blood all over the room, slowly coagulating. He hope none of it had splattered on him. He felt no desire for it, only revulsion...The blood was tainted with evil, with screams and suffering...
"This is Chris Collins' doing" Quentin said bleakly when Barnabas told him about Phillip and Victoria "He got rid of Todd because Todd was too slow for him."
"We are in danger" Roxanne said softly.
"What can we do?" Barnabas asked.
Quentin sighed. It was only a matter of time before they came to arrest him. He wanted Barnabas gone for what he needed to do. Fortunately the room would change this night.
"I have a few cards to play. I can try to get a decent replacement for Todd. There are those in the Party who listen to me."
"Will they work.?"
"They might. Barnabas, will you do something for me? Will you take Edmund to your world? I would be less hampered if I don't have to worry about his safety."
"Why don't you all come with me?
"We can't. We have to try. And it might well be that when you come back we will be safe again. But still I'd rather that Edmund not be in the line of fire."
Barnabas turned to Roxanne "And you?"
"I must stay, too."
He moved to her. "I can't leave you behind."
"You have to. But come back for me."
"You can take Buffy with you." Quentin offered. "This way Edmund will be less alone"
Buffy held a sleepy Edmund. She would be safe now. Haskell could not touch her now.
Yet she could not keep from shivering as she watched the set face of Barnabas Collins. She chided herself for it. He was taking her to safety, and that was all that mattered.
Barnabas held Roxanne in his arms. "You can still come with me"
"I told you I can't. Quentin needs me."
"Then, I'll stay too."
"Barnabas." she shook her head, saddened. "You can't ask Buffy and Edmund to find a place to stay, all by themselves, in the middle of the night."
"I want to help you both."
"You can help Quentin best by keeping his son safe." she embraced him, trying to control her bitterness over what she was losing. "Come back for me later, if you want."
She knew that by the time he came back all would be over. She would go to Dr. Blair, make the transition, then wait until they came to arrest her, run to Widow's Hill and jump. There she would have saved some of her won blood to throw on the rocks, and also leave scraps of her dress... and then she would be home free.
She ran her hands over Barnabas's face Why? Why couldn't she go with him? He loved her more than Quentin ever did. More than Quentin ever could. Why was she deceiving him for Quentin's sake?
But if she knew the failings of Quentin as a man, she could not deny his ideals. Her ideals. She would not deny what mattered most to her.
Yet, it could have been so easy to go with Barnabas...
"Barnabas" she whispered "did you feed tonight?"
"No. I was going to when this happened."
"Take it from me. For good luck."
"As a going away present" he said sadly.
"I want you to take a taste of me with you." she needed the fresh wounds for Dr. Blair, yes. But she needed this for herself, too.
They stood together, silently. The first time he had taken it from her was etched in his mind... It was the first time that he had felt like a human being in spite of everything... and this last time would also be etched in him.
But it would not be the last time. He would come back to her.
But still something insisted that it was indeed the last time. That Roxanne would never again rest he head on his shoulder, while the blood flowed out of her.
"You have to go" she said quickly "the room will change soon."
With regret he stepped back. He put his arm around Buffy to reassure her, but kept looking straight ahead at Roxanne, at that face looking sadly at him.
Roxanne hoped that the room would change quickly, that he would not see her cry...
The change occurred. The three of them were now standing in a different room.
Knowing that he could not see her now, Roxanne moved to the door, crying.
"Goodbye, my love."