Chapter 11

"I will do it." Barnabas told Julia. Quickly before he could talk himself into not doing it.

Tears formed in Julia's eyes. She wanted to say that he did not need to, to give him some sort of encouragement. She did not.

"I will be ready in a few days. I need certain equipment."

Barnabas did not ask. Sometimes it was better not to know."

"Waiting can be a torment of its own."

"I hope so. The more stress, the sooner we reach the point when your blood will restore them."

He nodded.

"I should not complain." he said. "I should be grateful that I am given this opportunity to help them. And to end once and for all my debt to Maggie."

Julia did not comment on that. There was no cut and dried payment that would make things right for Maggie and him. But it would give him leverage to keep Maggie from picking the same scabs over and over...

Maybe set her free from her need to make Barnabas suffer, and to concentrate in her future instead

She reached out to touch him, but he flinched. She looked on him with hurtt, but she understood. He was beginning to fear her, fear what she could do to him.

And while she ached to reassure him, she knew that it was better that he was not reassured, that he came to her laboratory trembling... because then she might have to torment less to reach the needed state...

She tried to imagine what torments to inflict on him. He healed quickly so she could do some truly vicious thinks to him...

She promised not to touch him below the waist... well, maybe the feet. But she would not tell him that. Let him worry about pain down there, too..

The more he worried and suffered in anticipation, the better for him later.

She would talk to Angelique. Get her to give her bindings that he could not break. And a quick acting painkiller to use as soon as the statues were restored. He would not make him suffer one moment more than she needed him to do so...

He left. Scared. but determined.

He went back to church to pray for the necessary courage.


Adam closed the envelope. He hoped that Vicky would look kindly on the note he had sent her.

He had to do it. He had to apologize to Phillip, and thank him, because he was the first to know the danger he had been in, the first who had tried to warn him. Instead he had been beaten and called insane...

He hoped that Phillip was doing better, away from the sea. He hoped that Vicky's school was prospering. He hoped that they both looked on him more kindly now, and that they no longer saw him as an obstacle to their friendship with Carolyn.

He hoped that they would come visit them. Or that when Carolyn went there, she would be welcome...

He hoped that one day he would be welcome too.


"I have the straps you need." Angelique told Julia :"they will keep him in place and will be unable to either break them or change shape in any form. He will be helpless."

Julia shivered. And yet felt excited. Completely helpless... at her mercy...Unable to threaten to strangle her...

"You all right?" Angelique asked, with concern.

"Yes. I am." Julia said, a bit bitterly. "Why shouldn't I? Nothing is going to happen to me." she shook her head. "He is being very brave about it."

Angelique decided that it was time to change conversation. Starting on that path might start Julia on a crying jag.

"We have to figure the setup to deliver the blood to Maggie and Joe quickly. And to make sure that they are recovered before you knock him out."

"Will this painkiller do that?"

"Yes. Once it hits him, he will be completely out of it."

Julia nodded, then sighed "There was a time when I would have loved to do this to him. Not for Maggie and Joe's sake, but for mine."

"I know those months in 1967 were rough on you... not that he was in better shape... And the death of Woodard did not help any."

"What do you know about that?"

"I once tired to raise him to use against you. I could not. I could raise Jeremiah once, but not him. Seems that he would not allow himself to be used... And I sensed behind him Bathia Mapes... and that she would fight me if I tried that again."

"Bathia Mapes... Barnabas is sure that it was her who made it possible to walk into a church again."

"Very likely. I killed her body, but her spirit is very much active... I would like to apologize to her now... I would like to tell her..."

"Tell her that you are a changed woman now? that you finally grew up?"

"Yes."

"She probably knows."


"I am afraid, George."

"You may yet pull out." George said with anguish.

"No. I have to. But I am afraid. Please hold me"

George did so.

"It will be painful, very painful. And she will be looking for ways to increase the pain. And I want to say no, but I must let her do it."

"Why?"

"Because of Tammy. Because I owe both Maggie and Joe... Because I was given this gift of being able to look at a cross and enter a church, and I must be worthy of it... But I am so afraid..."

George held him, wishing that he could things better, knowing that he could not.

And Barnabas made himself promise that he would have Julia knock George out before she started, so that George would not hear him scream.


Tonight, Julia thought.

Tonight she would pay for all her sins as an unethical physician. She would pay for all the patients that she had turned over as guinea pigs for the drug research companies. She would pay for her manipulation of Maggie to let her uncover an exciting hew study subject. She would pay for her lies to Sam and Joe, for quashing their hopes again and again. She would pay for the way she had betrayed her patients without a thought.

Now it had come to this.

Did it have to be this way?

Yes, because it had to hit her where it hurt most.


Barnabas knelt in church, praying for courage.

"Let thy will be done." he said "let it be done through me. Please let me have the strength to bear it. Let me have the courage to go in that door and not try to escape.."

He was silent a few moments.

"And let Julia find consolation. May I be able to offer it to her. Let me see past my own pain to hers. Let me not hate he for it... And may George's pain be eased."

He stayed there, kenneling, until he felt George's hand on his shoulder.

"It is time." George said.