Chapter 21

Barnabas, Quentin and Elliott sat in the drawing room; Ellie was working this evening and had moved in to ask them if they needed anything. Hearing a knock on the door she excused herself. Eric Lang stood smiling warmly as the pretty little island girl opened the door.

"Is Mrs. Collins home?" Ellie smiled at the hero of Martinique, he was responsible for bringing modern medicine to the island and saving her mother's life. "Mr. Collins is in the drawing room, won't you please come in?"

Ellie led he into the drawing room where the men gathered over liquors and cigars. Quentin noted Barnabas tensing up when Lang entered, Quentin moved quickly to make welcome the doctor. Quentin felt he needed to make Lang believe that Vicki was still here. "Hello Eric, welcome do come in."

Quentin moved extending his hand to the doctor in welcome. Eric took his hand Quentin smiled and offered, "Drink? Cigar?"

Eric waved off both. "I just came by to see how Vicki was doing?"

Barnabas moved to the veranda door. His tone was cold and impersonal he refused to look at the doctor, "She is resting she has been through a lot."

Eric felt his smile freeze and he tensed. "I see, I am sorry to hear about her troubles."

Quentin entreated, "Please sit, join us. We are having our guilty pleasures out of the fine sensibilities of the ladies."

Eric moved to sit in one of the casual chairs close to the fireplace. "I thought I heard that Julia and you had left today Elliott."

Elliott cocked his head and quirked a curious brow. "Oh and who was the deliverer of such news?"

Eric waved it off, "I don't recall. I just thought you and Julia had decided to head back to the states."

Elliott laughed, "Well my dear chap it would appear your sources were misinformed as you can see I am here."

Eric nodded, "Yes, so It would seem."

Quentin moved to refresh drinks. "So, Eric, what brings you out on a night when most would be enjoying the water or the company of a fine young woman. That is unless like Elliott and Barnabas they have wives and are settled into a routine."

Eric laughed, "Well I was in the neighborhood and thought I would come by. I did want to invite you gentlemen out on my boat. I was thinking of taking a little moonlight drive out to one of the minor islands and maybe do some night fishing."

Barnabas wrinkled his nose; "I personally am not much of a fisherman so I would pass, perhaps some other time."

Eric glanced at the refine gentleman noting again his voice was devoid of emotion when he addressed him.

Quentin looked at Elliott, "Are you up for a fishing trip Elliott?"

Elliott sipped his sherry and shook his head; "Actually I too am not much of the sports fisherman so I too would have to decline."

Barnabas continued to watch out the door, he wanted very much to take Lang by the throat and watch his eyes bulge out while he squeezed the very life out of him.

Quentin offered a drink to Eric watching the straight set of Barnabas shoulders. Eric rising smiled, "I suppose I could have one drink."

He moved to the liquor bottle. Pouring himself a drink, Lang used his body to block the view of the others with a casualness of appearing to out of habit slid his hand into his pocket and curled his fingers around a small reached into his pocket palmed a little vial. "Is anyone else ready for a refill?" Using his body as the distraction he deftly clear water like substance into the bottle. Turning with a smile he lifted the decanter lifting it up.

Asking for a second time he smiled, "Could I refresh anyone else?" Noting Elliott was drinking sherry he turned back to the sherry bottle had added the same clear liquid substance into Elliott's sherry bottle.

"I would like a bit more sherry if you don't mind. Topping off Quentin's drink he also topped off Elliott's. Turning to Barnabas he smiled and looked at the only one not drinking.

"Barnabas how about you?"

Barnabas frowned, "No I don't think I care for anything now."

Lang locked his cordial look in place lowered the bottle and moved to sit and wait. H did not have long to wait, Quentin was the first to fall.

Barnabas rushed to his cousin's side. "Quentin?" Quentin lay unconscious at his feet and then Elliott fell to the floor unconscious. Barnabas turned narrowing his eyes. "You, I should have killed you when we first met!"

Barnabas rushed Eric going for his throat when from the veranda a dark figure rushed forward hitting Barnabas over the head knocking him unconscious. The three men all lay unconscious on the floor. Eric Lang smiled. His plan had been slightly mused up but now he knew he was close to fulfilling his life's ambition.

Looking up at Jeff he ordered, "Tell Danielle to bring the car to the side of the house so we can load them in the car." Feeling lucky that others had not joined their relatives in the drawing room moved to help of Clark load all three men in the car.

"Go up and get Vicki." Lang ordered while he and Danielle secured the three men in car.

"What are you going to do?"

Lang sighed, "We are going to set them adrift with no gas in the dingy."

Clark frowned, "I do not plan to be a party to murder Lang, just as long as you realize this. I will refuse to be a party to any kind of murder." Clark's tone had taken on a more ominous tone.

Lang sighed, "I want them out of the way. We can take them out set them adrift and I will come back and report that Quentin borrowed my boat and he is missing and I am worried about them."

With each word he spoke he was controlling his desire to throttle Clark. "The authorities will do a sea and land search and they will be rescued. By the time they are rescued, I will have my life force for my creation and they can all be back together as one big happy family. Now do as you are told and go get Vicki." Lang had gritted his teeth when he spoke harshly to Jeff.

Jeff moved up the stairs to the master suite. Looking around it was apparent she was not there when he entered the room and a self-satisfied smile edged his lips. Moving more sedately down the stairs he looked at Lang. "She ain't there."

Lang frowned; looking around the room he took the alcohol and sherry dumping over the end of the veranda. " They must have moved her this morning. I have a pretty good idea where they taken her. We need to get ready to move and quickly. Come on."

Elliott drove them to his private launch area. Moving quickly and together they unloaded Elliott, Barnabas, and Quentin out to their car. They had put Elliott in the backseat with Quentin. Danielle had been forced to ride in the backseat with the two unconscious bigger men.

Lang feeling piqued with Barnabas had unceremoniously dumped him in the trunk. Now removing them from his car, he placed then in the five men dingy Lang towed behind his boat. "Meet me at my private boathouse in an hour. " Lang ordered Jeff then set his boat in motion heading out of the port. Danielle and Clark watched as Lang set his heading out to sea. "I don't like this and I don't like him. If they die we could be charged with accessory for murder."

Taking the boat about ten miles out with the dingy being towed, Lang moved to the boar and cut the tow line. Stood and watched the dingy begin to drift away from him. He smiled watching the three problems disappear into the darkness]

Jeff was growing more and more aggravated with Lang ordering him about and demanding he do things he loathed and hated to do. Danielle pressed her body into Jeff's "Look sweetie, we just need to keep him happy and we can find our own happiness." Her breath was hot against his cheek.

"I don't think he will ever allow me to have any happiness." He moved away from Danielle's cloying body to the car. "Come on we need to get to his boathouse. I don't want him mad again."

The boat glided into the docking port of the boathouse. Using a precision of familiarity, Lang put the boat into the cradle and disembarked from his boat. Standing back he pressed a button and watched the boat rise out of the water. Pressing another button he smiled watching his boat glide inside the boathouse and from sight. "Perfect, secure the boathouse and lock it. Then I can report my boat missing."

Turning to Danielle he spoke to her but included Clark. "Now, we prepare to leave, you Jeff," He turned his attention back to Jeff. "You will go and pick up my little trawler and set it adrift from the beach. It should easily drift to sea and will be swamped by the bigger waves. That way if this one get's found we can say that Collins took the trawler."

"Danielle you will go back to the lab and begin to pack up that list of things I need back in Collinsport. Clark when you get back, you will need to secure the body and dry ice him and get him boxed up and ready for transport back to the States."

"You know Lang, you could have used my life force or Danielle's or yours why do you want Vicki?"

Lang frowned, "That is really none of your business. However since you asked Vicki Collins has the blood of a vampire flowing in her veins. Not just any vampire but the blood of Vlad Tepes, which was the most powerful vampire of all time. That blood almost allows her a state of immortality and other special powers. Now hurry up before some one sees us."

Danielle looked to Lang, "May I go with my husband?" She looked anxiously to Lang. He thought a moment. " OH how utterly and nauseatingly loving."

He sighed with an exasperation and muttered, "Damn these human emotions!"

Then he turned to the two. "I suppose you could go with him, it will take the both of you to pack up my equipment and the body. Be quick about it we have to be ready to leave within the next four hours. I have chartered you and I a plane Danielle. Clark will follow with the equipment behind us."

Jeff navigated the canal to the back area of where he had held Vicki. The shanty faced the ocean side and the boat shed sat at the T connection to the canal that emptied into the ocean.

"Look Jeff you just need to do as he says and we can move on with our lives and leave him behind. As soon as he gets what he wants he won't care about us."

Jeff thought about what he was planning to do to a woman he had formed an attachment with and she was pregnant. It ate at his conscious. Jeff kept his attention to the waterway. "Doesn't it bother you that he might kill her or her baby?"

Danielle shook her head. "No, what matters to me is that if we don't do as he says he could kill us."

Jeff laughed with no humor. "I don't care what he does to me. I could not live with myself if he hurt that woman in any way."

Danielle turned in anger glaring at him. "I don't care about Vicki Winters Collins, I care about us, that is I have always cared about us from the first moment we met and became lovers."

Jeff was thunderstruck by her outburst. 'What do you mean when we first met and became lovers?. We met here in Collinsport and rushed off to get married. We were never lovers before that time."

Danni filled with anger shouted, "No you damn fool, we met in 1795 when you were Peter Bradford."

Jeff was floored. His world seemed to be unfolding around him. "What are you talking about? I am Jeff Clark, always have been." Guiding the car to the point Lang had directed them. "You have lost your mind." He snapped, then backed the boat trailer into the water.

Getting out of the car, he moved to release the boat and stood watching it drift away from them. He was filled with so many conflicting emotions with what Danielle had just said. How the hell could she think he lived almost two hundred years ago?

Danielle moved to stand next to Jeff. Taking his face in her hands she looked him direct in his eyes. "Jeff you were born Peter Bradford in the year 1770 on January 18 to Caleb and Nora Bradford, in 1795 we became lovers you met Vicki Winters while guarding her and you acted as her lawyer in a witchcraft trial."

Jeff jerked away from her sliding into the car to drive the trailer back the land and parking area. He felt like he was going crazy with all the crazy crap she was saying. A part of him felt she had told him the truth. Another part of him knew she was lying. He held to his denial sitting in the car.

Danielle joined him in the car and spoke softly, "You lost her trial and she was condemned to death. On the night she was suppose to be hanged you made a vow that you would find her so you could be together."

"You came to me and asked me to help you. Before we could discuss your misdirected emotional attachment. You were arrested for the murder of Noah Gifford."

Danielle found it hard to recount this part of her life. "You were hanged after you were found guilty of the murder of Noah Gifford. A murder you never committed but Victoria did. You were hanged on April 5 1795."

Jeff looked at Danielle like she had lost her mind. "It was on the day of your death I was able to make a deal with the dark forces that were available then. I made promises if after your death you cold be reborn in this century and I could follow. I found a way to follow you

"The problem is, you have to die and sell your soul to come here just as I did following you to this time. You got here and you found she was in love with Barnabas Collins. I had a chance to get you back and I am not about to give up what I fought so hard and sacrificed to get. Now, just do as he says and we can move on in this time and be happy together."

Jeff shook his head, what he had just heard was too preposterous to believe. Jeff sighed and looked around and started his drive back to the clinic hoping that they had beat hm back. With a hint of anger and a voice filled with contained rage he observed, "There is his car, come on lets go."

Helping Danielle out of the car he moved towards the service road where Lang had parked. "Come on, we have to get Adam ready to transport." Jeff followed Lang to the side entrance. "Where are we going?

Lang smiled, "Back to Collinwood and away from interference." Jeff shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "Did you call to report the boat missing?"

Lang shook his head. "I will do it tomorrow before we leave." Jeff slumped down on one of the exam tables. His thoughts had grown very dark as he thought of Lang and what he contemplated. Closing his eyes, the only thing he could think of was Vicki Winters and what Danni had said earlier. Some of it did sound familiar and some of it sounded too crazy to be true.

Lang left him in the cellar of the clinic. With Danielle's help Jeff methodically began packaging up the cadaver. Securing the body in viscous fluid he shut down his emotions so he did not have to think he just did things automatically.

He was making his plans carefully as he prepared to head back to the United Sates. He would follow Lang, this he knew and he would need to take the body to his lab. Once he arrived, he would do exactly as he was instructed. However, he would get to Vicki Winters Collins and hide her from Lang.

Sunlight penetrated Quentin's eyelids and he opened them to bright sunlight and the feeling of movement under his body he moved and felt another body. He felt lethargic with a really nasty dry taste in his mouth. Looking around at his surroundings he discovered he was in a dingy with Barnabas and Elliott.

"Elliott!" Quentin leaned forward and shook the older man. "Elliott wake up."

Elliott moaned and opened his eyes. He felt disassociated from his mind and body and struggled to an upright position to make the same discovery that Quentin had made. They were in a dingy. "Quentin dear boy."

Relieve that Elliott was awake and somewhat alert, he turned his attention to Barnabas who lay unmoving and the tell tale signs of coagulated blood on the back of his head. Elliott shifted and examined the unconscious man.

"It would appear we were drugged, Barnabas must have been hit over the head. The head wound looks superficial otherwise not as damaged except under certain circumstances infection could pose a problem."

Quentin began to search the folds of the dingy and found some paddles, a first aid kit and a couple of canteens of water. "Now to figure out where we are and try to make our way back to the island.

Elliott took the first aid bag and rummaged through it. "Ah, just as I suspected, we have a compass, now lets figure out how we can find some land somewhere and get out of this sun before it boils our brains."

Elliott handed the first aid bag back to Quentin and began to bandage Barnabas' head. Quentin looked around the area and saw the outcropping of a landmass to what the compass said was the south.

Taking the paddles he threaded them through the eyelets on the dingy and began to row towards the tiny dot that he hoped was land mass. Glancing up at the location of the sun he estimated they were still in the early part of the morning and knew unless he got them under shelter, Elliott could be under a threat of heat stroke or worse death from dehydration.

Elliott began to pat Barnabas' face calling to him. "Barnabas dear boy wake up."

He watched Barnabas' eyelashes moved and then opened. "Oh what happened?" He raised his hand and felt the bandage on the back of his head.

"I think dear boy that Eric Lang has been up to some nasty chicanery at our expense."

Barnabas sighed and slowly moved himself up to sitting position.

Elliott chuckled and said, "I must say that we are some of the best dressed stranded victims on the high seas. If it were not so pitiful that we have fallen to his criminal actions I would almost be amused by this set of circumstances."

Barnabas looked down at his 3-piece suit then looked at Elliott in his white linen suit and Quentin in his dress short sleeve shirt and dress pants.

"Apparently, I find myself in good company. Quentin when you grow tired of rowing please allow me to spell you for a while."

Quentin smiled at his cousin. "I just want you to rest you got the worse end of our adventure. Apparently, Lang hit you over the head he just drugged Elliott and myself."

Barnabas frowned deeply. "You should have let me kill him when we had the chance."

Quentin going with the droll mood of his cousin said softly, "We still may be able to end him, we are not dead and from the looks of the horizon over there we have land."

Elliott and Barnabas turned to see a lush tropical island appearing slowly on the southern horizon. Elliott smiled, "Its not Martinique but its land and if we get there we can explore to see if it has inhabitants. If not we can build a signal fire and get under shade."

Barnabas frowned and looked at Quentin, "Hand me one of those paddles, together I am sure we can get there faster than just one of us paddling."

Vicki paced the drawing room floor rubbing her stomach. "Josette! Sarah! Someone please tell me what is going on?" She paused and listened. Nothing. The old house was feeling empty. The outside was showing signs of winter wanting to show its last hurrah with spring wanting to make its entrance. She was remembering an old adage of winter going out like a lamb and spring coming in like a lion.

Looking at the sky she was being proven right. The clouds hung heavy and looked meancing. For her it was becoming a typical Maine Spring. Sighing softly she moved to the drawing room and looked out the bay windows. Folding her arms over her chest she rested them on the swell of her belly.

She watched out the front window the dark clouds were building to the east. Roger was at the cannery, Carolyn was at school, and Penny, Jason, and Thomas were away at school in New York. Feeling restless she moved to the kitchen where cook was planning lunch. "Hello Vicki, can I get you anything?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Have you seen Mrs. Hudson?"

Cook, which Vicki found it ironic that was her title and her last name thought "Today is Wednesday so she will be picking up groceries. I gave her a list last night before you got home with Miss Daphne and Julia."

Vicki nodded, "I think I am going over to Collinwood to see David and Maggie. Then I might run into town. Please tell Mrs. Hudson I would like the rooms aired in case we have company tonight. By the looks of that cloud bank I am sure we are going to be getting some ice or snow in the next few hours."

Cook fussed about the kitchen. "I thought this was the beginning of spring. It has been a while since we had a spring snow."

Vicki nodded, "I know, I was spoiled by the warm island sun. Here I feel snowbound and restless."

Vicki had Willie bring the car around to the front and took the keys from him moved to the driver's side and got into her car. Willie bent over leaning inside her car window, "Vicki do you think you should be driving with that snow storm coming?" Vicki kissed Willie's cheek. "I will be fine. You might want to lie in a cord of wood in the cellar; I know we have a gas generator. I think though it would be nice to have a fire ready. I am hoping that Barnabas and Quentin will be home in a day or so."

Willie felt the bite of the wind as it nipped at him through his coat. "Oh, ok. Well you be careful."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped back. Watching her drive down the roadway he sighed. "Yeah, be careful."

Vicki pulled under the Porte concher. Getting out she let herself into Collinwood. Meeting Roger in the hallway looking harassed Vicki showed her concern.

"Roger?" He smiled brightly for his niece planting a light kiss on her cheek.

"Oh hello poppet. Its good to see you."

Smiling when he used his nickname for her making her Poppet and Carolyn Kitten just seemed to be right for them both. She looked around the house and had that feeling of de-ja-vue. "Is David or Maggie around? Why aren't you at the cannery."

Roger sighed deeply. "Maggie is out trying to find David. He got angry with me last night and took off. He has been a handful since we returned home from the island. This is the fourth time he has gone missing only now he has been gone for a whole day."

Vicki sighed looking around she frowned, "You don't think he is hurt do you?"

Roger did look concerned. "I pray he is fine and I have to admit I am worried about him."

Vicki nodded, "Well did you think about contacting the Sheriff's Department? Chris could get some men together and search the grounds. I know of a couple of places he could have gone to. If he was really upset he might be hiding to just make you anxious."

Roger thought a moment and nodded, "Perhaps you are right, look I hate to put you out but if you could go and find him he might come to you. He has been giving Maggie fits."

Vicki exited Collinwood and knew the first place she was going was Eagle Hill Cemetery. Navigating her car down the rutted lane she parked and got out. Looking up at the Caretakers cottage, she looked past to the mausoleum that held the records. Moving towards the records room she paused, there was the familiar scent she had missed. Jasmine. "Josette?"

Slowing her pace she looked around calling again softly, "Josette?" Moving forward she saw the door cracked. "Josette?"

A figure moved behind the crack in the door and Vicki could hear soft sobbing. Rushing forward she pushed the door open and stepped through. This was the same place she and Frank had been led by Josette to find the numerous Laura Murdocks when David was in danger.