Chapter 11

Megan shook her head in amazement. How could she not have suspected it? It was all there, all the odd thing that had been happening lately. Vicky returned as mysteriously as she had vanished. Returned as mysteriously as Phillip had been. Roger being unusually quiet. Derek keeping out of trouble, according to George Brant, while Delia acted as if scared of him. Angelique gone. The werewolves locked away...

And if there was one thing that the Leviathans feared, it was werewolves.

And Phillip's memory. Whatever it was, it had to do with a bottle, and very conveniently that memory had been blocked by his rape by Tom Jennings.

Why hadn't she seen it? Because it involved Phillip and it was painful to her to think about him?

Joe looked at Tammy. "Well, it seems to have worked. She's herself again."

Tammy bit her lip "Do you suppose...?"

"That it might be for real?"

Joe shook his head, but without conviction..

"When you think of all that has been happening lately" Tammy insisted "it makes kind of sense."

"Tammy. Joe" Megan called them.

They went to her.

"I have a bad feeling that we are going to be in danger" Megan said. "And we'd better be on our guard."

"Do we carry hardware?" Joe asked.

"Yes. But first open your collars. I want to know at all times where you are and what you are doing. I already lost Angelique and Chris. I don't want to lose you."


Carolyn smiled, looking up from the test results.

"It's positive" she announced triumph ally to Vicky "That means that I am pregnant!"

"Here it says that you should double-check with a doctor - "Vicky said cautiously.

"I am pregnant. I know it. I wonder what it will be, boy or girl? Well, if it is a girl, I can always find a poor cousin to marry her, so as to carry the family name. But I believe it will be a boy.

Carolyn felt happy. So happy that she decided to increase Quentin's allowance. After all, he was being very cooperative about the whole business..

"I only regret that it cannot be Jeb's child." Carolyn said wistfully.

Vicky smiled inwardly at this. Carolyn was wrong about that.

"Of course, you never knew him.

"I feel as if I did."


Willie stared ahead. it was lonely in his shop. If he closed his eyes he could imagine Louella in the back, taking inventory. He could almost see Barnabas coming through the door.

They would come back. They promised they would. That is, if he was a good boy.

But that was what they were supposed to cure him off, he realized. Was punishing him like a child the best way to stop him from throwing tantrums like a child?

Barnabas had goofed on that one. He would never truly learn responsibility that way. he shouldn't hit Louella because it was wrong, not because Barnabas would not talk to him if he did it.


"Something is bothering you." Barnabas said, quietly.

Louella shook her head "It is nothing." she lied "I just miss Willie."

"I know you do." Barnabas sat on the bed, watching how Louella brushed her hair. But it is not that long a wait. There is more to it that that, though.."

"Yes." Louella admitted "It is something I saw."

"What was it?"

She shook her head. "No, I can't tell you of it. It really shouldn't bother me. Not after all the trouble you have gone through for me."

"It isn't much trouble. And you have been a big help now that Phillip is gone. It is something you saw, you said. About me?"

Louella nodded.

Something you saw me do that bothered you." he grimaced. "There are sides of me that I find hard to live with."

"But your are such a nice person. I have no right to say it."

"Why not tell me about it, and then we decide if you have crossed a line or not."

Louella swallowed. "It was when Miss Innes was here...

"Something about her bothers you?"

"It isn't her... I saw when you made her like down on the couch and bent over her..."

Barnabas sighed. "That's why I don't like being watched when I do it."

"It looked like you two were making love."

"We were not. But it might look that way."

"And then I remember how it feels when you do it to me."

Barnabas sighed, deeply this time. "Yes, there is a certain erotic element in it. I learned not to pay attention to it, in order to keep my sanity. you see, I have to be promiscuous in my feeding for safety reasons, while sexually I tend towards monogamy, so I try to keep the two separate."

But sometimes I get these feelings about you. I begin fantasizing...

"About you and me?"

'Yes, but I love Willie."

"There is nothing wrong with fantasies, as long as you know that they are. You would not run away with me, would you?"

"No, I would not." she admitted.

"Do you know how many times I decided that I would make a better President than many of the turkeys running for the office? But you don't see me kissing babies and making speeches any time I can corral a crowd."

Louella nodded.

Later, when she had gone to sleep, and he had come down to deal with some paperwork that Davenport had given him, he found Megan standing in front of the fireplace.

"Hello, Barnabas" she said.

"There is no change in Phillip" he said "I am sorry.".

He could not lie to her. He knew the truth about Phillip's condition too well. Even if he had now shut off the link with Phillip's mind, he still somehow knew of what he was going through.

"Julia's optimistic about him. Thinks that with rest he will get better."

"I shouldn't have pushed him to play in public."

Inwardly Megan agreed. But she refrained from saying so. She had come here for information, not argument.

"It wasn't your fault. It was Tom's. Phillip and Angelique both... I can't get her out of my mind. And the fact that I never suspected that there was something wrong with Chris. I am not much of a detective these days. It wouldn't surprise me if Tammy stole the agency from me. And the way I feel about it, I don't think that I really care."

Barnabas sighed. Xavier's paperwork would have to wait. He had Megan's depression to worry about..

"You want a drink?" Alcohol always helped...

"Gin will do, if you have any... Somehow it helps..."

He wondered, as she drank it, what would happen if it helped too much... What if Megan became an alcoholic? From Roxanne, they knew that a vampire could become drug addicted...

"Something is eating you up." he said to her.

"Tom Jennings. Joe said the other day that he was justified in going after Angelique because she had turned him into a vampire."

Barnabas shook his head. "Joe does not know the whole ugly truth. From what Amy told me, he was already doing what he did to Sandy. There was at least one girl he killed before he even met Angelique. If she hadn't had fangs when he met her, he might have done the same thing to her he... he did now... I could sense his madness when I met him... But I did not know him from before. I thought he was the way he was because of the curse..."

"Well, you could have taken your cue from Angelique. Becoming a vampire did not improve her disposition, but did not spoil it either."

"That's why I tried to have you killed by Willie." he confessed. "I was afraid you'd turn out to be like Tom."

"Well," she shrugged " If the only other vampire I had ever met had been someone like that, I too would have a very low opinion of the whole breed. But you were a rather well meaning person, though awfully thickheaded."

"And then there was Rachel. When you went after Roger, I saw him as I had seen Rachel.."

"I only wanted Roger's money. You should have figured out that I chose for my victims rich men. But what was Rachel story? You never spoke of her."

"I didn't realize it then, but Dirk was mad... it wasn't his fault that Laura used him as she did... and that she had drained him to the point that an attack which left most unharmed would kill him..."

Slowly he told her of the 1897 events, Laura, Quentin, Jenny, Rachel, Beth...

"But you couldn't keep the werewolf curse from coming down to Chris and Tom."

"I came very close. If Carl hadn't found out about me and told Trask about me, I'd have removed the curse from Quentin. As it was, I lost time, and then Petofi got there. If it hadn't been for Carl finding out..."

"Couldn't you have handled Carl?"

"I strangled him!"

"But that was stupid!" Megan blurted out. "If he had told anybody, that was confirmation. If he hadn't, it was a good reason for people to ask questions and poke about in corners. You should have put him under your influence, found out who had he told, if he did, and make him deny everything."

"Instead, I ended at Quentin's mercy..." Barnabas sighed. "I still can't understand how it came about. He was a notorious practical joker. Once I got him under control it could have been easy to make him pretend it was another practical joke. They would have believed it."

"So how come?"

"I don't know." Barnabas admitted. "I was ready to bite him. And suddenly I found my hands around his neck. And his neck was broken."

Megan tensed up. It fitted somehow with what she was putting together. She wondered if she could go on making Barnabas talk without his being aware that she was getting information out of him.

"And then I told Edward that I would never harm him or his family. ...After I had killed his brother... I don't blame him for not believing a word I said. I wasn't any better than Dirk to him..."

"You probably saw both Dirk and Tom Jennings in Roxanne's face."

"When I saw Julia lying there... she looked so much like Rachel after Judith had shot her... I was so scared. So I told Randall how he could kill his sister..."

"I never heard the whole story. About what happened in 1840. Do you mind telling me about it?"