In Darkness

A Dark Shadows 1970/1840 Fanfiction

Chapter Eight

Where is Quentin?

Barnabas asked himself that question, repeatedly and uselessly, as he walked the familiar route across the lawn and through the forest, from Collinwood to his own home.

Where is Quentin and what evil has befallen him?

There seemed no way to avoid the conclusion that they were running out of time.

One by one, the clues which Carolyn had given to Barnabas and Julia in 1995 had all come to pass. The "night of the sun and the moon" had come, on the night of an eclipse. The young people of the Collins family had gone on a picnic together—a picnic which appeared to have no sinister results, as seemingly innocent as nearly everything else that had taken place in these months since they returned from 1995. Sebastian Shaw had begun a horoscope for Carolyn, but had abandoned it unfinished. There had come the night when Carolyn "sang her song."

Then, last night, Rose Cottage had been partially destroyed, one side of the house gutted by a fire which extinguished itself as mysteriously as it began. It was fortunate that the fire had ended in that way, instead of igniting the forest and the rest of the estate. The Collinsport Volunteer Fire Department had been unable to drive their vehicles anywhere near to the house, due to the tangled thickness of the forest about it and the lack of any passable road. Bill Malloy had told Barnabas that before the fire died on its own, the Collinsport VFD called for assistance from the Maine Department of Forestry, who had been sending in one of their firefighting helicopters.

In Rose Cottage last night before the fire began, their enemy had finally shown himself to Barnabas. They had encountered each other face-to-face, for the first time since 1995—which meant that chronologically speaking, it had been their first face-to-face encounter. And it had, presumably, been their first encounter so far as the ghost was concerned. Finally, Barnabas had confronted the ghost they'd believed to be Gerard; the ghost whom they'd now learned was not Gerard Stiles at all, but a warlock who in 1840 had possessed a man who went by the name Gerard Stiles.

They had encountered each other, but that encounter achieved nothing. The ghost had seemingly appeared for no other purpose than to glower at Barnabas, with that same mocking glare of hate that Barnabas remembered from their 1995 confrontation in Collinwood's ruins. Then the ghost of the warlock disappeared again, only to lure Barnabas and Julia back to Rose Cottage later that night and use his powers to set the house on fire.

What else did the ghost do last night? Barnabas asked himself. In addition to destroying Rose Cottage, did he also capture Quentin Collins? Did he murder Quentin?

Only one of Carolyn's clues still remained: the murder. And they were as ignorant as ever on the question of who the murder's victim would be.

Is Quentin the one who will be murdered? Has he been murdered already?

It's not possible, Barnabas argued. We know that Quentin will still be alive in 1995. We saw him then. We spoke with him. He had been driven mad, but he was alive.

Of course, he reminded himself, the 1995 which he and Julia had visited was the result of a band of time in which the two of them had not been here in Collinsport during this fateful summer. Presumably, in that original 1970, they had still been in Parallel Time—or something of that nature. He knew that thinking too incessantly upon such matters would only lead to stultifying confusion.

At all events, according to their friends whom they encountered in 1995, Julia and Barnabas had not been here in that summer of 1970. Thus it was possible that Quentin had survived the destruction of Collinwood that first time, but that the presence of Julia and Barnabas here now had altered events in ways which led to Quentin being murdered.

Can Quentin even be murdered? Even if he received a mortal wound, wouldn't the wound be transferred to his magical portrait, and Quentin himself would survive?

Here we are, Barnabas thought bitterly, perhaps on the very eve of Collinwood's destruction, and we can do nothing but helplessly ask ourselves the same questions we have been asking for the past two months!

His visit to Collinwood just now had accomplished practically nothing. It had confirmed that both he and Bill Malloy were being driven to distraction by the knowledge that their world could be ending at any moment and they were doing nothing to stop it. But this was a fact which both he and Malloy had known perfectly well already.

Barnabas and Malloy had conversed in near-whispers in Collinwood's foyer, with the drawing room door standing open so Malloy could keep watch on the people inside. Mrs. Johnson and the two possessed children were seated at the drawing room's table. An empty chair which Malloy had just left was between Mrs. Johnson and the girl.

Frowning into the drawing room, Malloy muttered, "It feels like we're fiddling while Rome burns." With a rueful shake of his head, he added, "Never imagined I'd spend the eve of the apocalypse teaching a couple of kids from the 19th century how to play Scrabble and Parcheesi."

Barnabas had asked, "Do you get the impression that the children are watching for their opportunity to escape from you?"

Bill Malloy shrugged. "Not particularly. If anything, they seem grateful for our company. They aren't paying all that close attention to the games, but they're making some effort." He continued, as the two men gazed toward the table where the boy was currently placing some tiles down upon the game board, "If we get tired of these games, I guess we'll move on to cards. Maybe the kids can teach us how to play whist. The only other board game Sarah and I found around the place was Clue, and I'm not playing that with them. Who murdered whom in what room of a big, spooky house is too close to home around here." Glancing over at Barnabas, whose face must have been revealing far more than he wished it to reveal, Bill Malloy added, "Sorry, I meant Sarah Johnson."

"Yes, I know," Barnabas assured him. "Thank you. It is foolish of me; I am perfectly aware of Mrs. Johnson's Christian name. After all these years, it seems that I still half expect my Sarah to be the only person ever to bear that name."

"You haven't heard from her in a while, have you?" Malloy asked.

"No. It seems possible that she has moved on, and of course, I should hope that she has done so. But in our current situation, I would very much welcome her advice and help." With a glance at Malloy, who was watching him sympathetically, Barnabas confessed, "I would welcome her presence at any time."

Bill Malloy nodded. Barnabas himself did not remember it, for it had not happened in the timeline through which he'd lived, but he knew that Malloy also had lived through those vile days of 1795 and '96. He knew that in the last weeks of her life, little Sarah and the time-traveling Malloy had become friends—indeed, it had perhaps been Sarah's ghost who caused Bill Malloy to travel through time in the first place. Barnabas knew Malloy had done his utmost to save Sarah's life, and to defeat the evil that caused her death.

He had done his utmost, but he had failed. He had failed in 1795, and the conclusion seemed inescapable that all of them were also failing now.

Barnabas sighed and told Malloy, "I agree it feels as though we are doing nothing. But I still believe that in these circumstances, keeping close watch on the children and Daphne is something we must do. If they do not escape from us, they cannot perform another spell at our enemy's bidding. And it appears that he cannot accomplish his spells without their help."

"Ay-yuh," muttered Bill Malloy. "I guess it's a good thing Mr. Miller went AWOL—though I was pretty ticked about it at the time. Who knows what this warlock's range is, but I'm hoping Mr. Miller can get outside it. If he gets far enough away that the warlock can't possess him, maybe that'll derail the rest of the evil plan."

"Yes," said Barnabas. "It does seem possible." But a grim thought came into his mind.

Suppose the ghost is so maddened with anger over Mr. Miller escaping him, that this very escape is what leads to Collinwood's destruction?

He told himself there was no point in sharing that fear. Malloy had more than problems enough to deal with already.

At the moment, Malloy was saying in troubled tones, "I still haven't figured out what the hell was up with Liz telling Burke to bring the kids back home. Why didn't she tell me instead of Burke, if that was what she wanted? And why bring them back here, anyway? She says it's because the folks at Windcliff showed they couldn't be trusted to keep the kids safe, what with those fevers and then their running away. But it still bugs me. I guess it makes sense for us to have them here so we can keep an eye on them. But it just feels wrong. If we can keep an eye on them, the ghost can keep an eye on them, too."

"Yes," Barnabas said again, with a sigh. "But perhaps the ghost can keep an eye on them wherever they are." He straightened his coat, which likely did not require any straightening at all, in the effort to pull himself together. He said, "I should be returning to the Old House, to give Julia or Willie a break from guarding Daphne. You will let us know at once if you learn anything of Quentin?"

Malloy nodded. "And vice versa." Then he added, "That is, we'll let you know as soon as we can. You really do need to get phone service at your place, Barnabas. Like I've been telling you for the past two years."

Barnabas smiled at that. "Very well, Bill," he said. "I will make you a promise. If we succeed in averting the destruction of Collinwood, I will have telephone service installed in my house."

Bill Malloy gave a surprised grin. "I'll be a monkey's uncle," he remarked. "Never thought I'd see the day. There's another reason why we all need to survive this."

Yes, Barnabas thought now, as the familiar pillared form of his own house rose up before him through the trees. Yes, we do all need to survive this. But I fear there is no chance that all of us will.

No one was there to greet him as he hung up his cane and coat on the hall-tree just inside the door, but that did not surprise him. He presumed that Julia and Willie were both still upstairs with Daphne. Just at the moment when he started up the stairs himself, Julia raced out onto the landing.

"Barnabas!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you're back."

"Has something happened?" he demanded, hurrying up the stairs to her.

"No, no," she reassured him. "Daphne is still here, and Willie's with her. But I've just thought of something. Barnabas, I can't believe we didn't think of it before."

"Didn't think of what?"

"Quentin's portrait," Julia said, her eyes gleaming with excitement at the possibility of a useful idea. "We should check it to see if it gives any clue to what's happened to him."

Barnabas restrained a sigh. She was right, of course; they should check the portrait. But he thought it only too likely that the check would reveal nothing. Another brief hope would come to nothing, and they would be back where they had started—except that perhaps the latest failure would make them feel even more despair.

"Yes," he said, "you're right, we should have thought of it. Let's go check on it now."

They stopped off in Josette's room to check in with Willie and get candles to light their way to the third floor. Willie and Daphne were both seated by the fireplace. Daphne sat huddled in the armchair nearer the window, her legs tucked beneath her, staring into the dark and barren fireplace. Willie, in the chair closer to the door, had apparently been reading a book from Barnabas' collection, but he jumped up eagerly as soon as Barnabas and Julia entered the room.

"Anything new at Collinwood?" Willie asked. "Any news of Quentin?"

"No, I am afraid not," was Barnabas' quiet answer. He noticed that Daphne had immediately glanced toward them when Willie mentioned Quentin's name. For an instant, wild hope had sparked in her eyes, before it vanished again at Barnabas' reply. The beautiful, young former ghost went back to staring at the fireplace.

Barnabas continued, "But Julia's had the idea of checking Quentin's portrait, to learn if it will reveal anything of what's happened to him. We're going up to do that now."

Willie slumped dispiritedly at this lack of news. "Yeah," he said, "but even if the portrait shows something, it can't tell us where he is. Too bad Quentin can't talk through that thing, or write messages on it. The wizard you met back in 1897 should have made that be part of the portrait. The Quentin in the portrait could be holding a slate or something, and Quentin's astral body could write stuff on it like 'Please help, am being held prisoner in the abandoned lighthouse.'"

"Yes," Barnabas said dryly as he lit a candle for Julia and another for himself. "If ever I encounter Count Petofi again, I will be certain to mention that to him."

Barnabas led the way up to the old servants' quarters, looming shadows from the candle-light dancing about the staircase. Memories from 1995 played tauntingly through his mind. He saw the maddened Quentin desperately fighting to destroy his magical portrait. He heard Quentin's wild scream of fury as he launched himself at Professor Stokes, the madman's fingers closing inexorably around the old man's neck.

They reached the storeroom where Quentin's portrait was concealed. Before stepping toward the portrait and removing the green cloth which draped it, Barnabas cast an "Are you ready for this?" glance at Julia. Briskly, she nodded.

Barnabas lifted off the cloth. And both of them stared in horror.

"My God," Barnabas whispered. "Oh, my God."

The face in the portrait was as decayed and disease-marked as ever. But it had lost the lurid, ruddy flush it usually bore. The face was pale now, unnaturally pale, as white as a bleached skull.

The torso of the figure in the portrait was crimson with blood. Blood soaked the shirt and coat and dripped onto the figure's hands. That hideous flow gushed down from the painted Quentin's neck. And on that neck, starkly visible, were two livid, ragged puncture wounds. They were the sort of wounds inflicted by fangs; a manner of wound which Barnabas knew only too well.

Barnabas felt his fists clench and heard himself murmur, "The other vampire. The vampire we have been hunting. He has taken Quentin."

Beside him, Julia gasped and said, "That's what Carolyn—Leticia—must have meant when she tried to locate Quentin. She just kept moaning and saying, 'Blood. He's surrounded by so much blood.'"

"But where is he?" Barnabas demanded uselessly. "My God, Julia, where is he?"

Julia said in a rush of words, "Carolyn didn't have any luck finding him, but what about Sebastian Shaw? He might succeed where Carolyn failed."

"Yes." Barnabas forced himself to stop staring at the loathsome image. He draped the cloth over the portrait once more. "We should contact Sebastian now." Much against his usual inclinations, as they started down the stairs again he found himself thinking, Bill Malloy is right. A telephone really could be a useful thing to have, so we wouldn't have to go to Collinwood every time we wish to 'phone someone.

They were still in the second-floor corridor when they heard the front door slam downstairs. A man's voice shouted upward, "Mr. Collins! Dr. Hoffman! Are you here?"

For one instant, Barnabas thought, Quentin, until he realized, No, it can't be him. Quentin would call us "Barnabas" and "Julia."

As Barnabas hastened onto the landing, he recognized the man in the entryway below as Sebastian Shaw. The psychic was clad in brown leather trousers and a serape, looking to Barnabas' 18th-century-trained perceptions as if he were dressed in the garb of a frontiersman from Mexico.

Upstairs behind him, Barnabas heard Willie's voice calling out, "Barnabas, Julia, do you need help?"

Julia called back urgently, "No, Willie, it's all right; stay with Daphne! Don't let her out of your sight!"

"Mr. Shaw," Barnabas greeted him, hurrying down the stairs. "We were just about to telephone you."

"And here I am," the psychic answered, with a manic-seeming grin. "Isn't that fortuitous." The wild glimmer in the man's eyes made Barnabas wonder if he were drunk or under the influence of some narcotic.

Barnabas heard Julia's footsteps on the staircase behind him. He did not turn his gaze from the weirdly grinning Shaw, who was continuing, "And I even know what you were going to call me about."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, I do." Shaw walked into the parlor, and Barnabas and Julia—after a wary glance at each other—followed him. Their visitor took a few paces toward the fireplace; then he wheeled to face them. He was not grinning now, but his expression was no less disquieting. It seemed to combine the looks of a hunted animal, and a madman.

"You were going to call me for help in locating Quentin Collins." Shaw gave a little chuckle and smiled again. His smile this time seemed only weary and filled with irony. "That works out nicely, you see, because I know where Quentin Collins is."

"You do!" exclaimed Barnabas.

"Tell us," Julia urged him.

"Oh, yes; oh, yes, I'll tell you. That's why I've come here."

They waited for him to say more. A new desperation seemed to grow in Shaw's gaze, and Barnabas thought that the man must be on the verge of total collapse. His voice trembling, Shaw asked, "And don't you want to ask how I know where Quentin is?"

"Yes, Mr. Shaw," said Julia, in her deliberately calming tone. "We do want to know. Please tell us."

"I know," declared Sebastian Shaw, "because of this!" He reached up and yanked aside the colorful bandana he wore tied about his throat.

Two round, dark wounds marred the man's throat—wounds spaced at just the right distance apart to be the marks of a vampire's fangs.

Julia whispered, "Dear God."

Barnabas took a step toward the wildly-staring Shaw. "Who is it?" he demanded, in a fierce hiss. "Who is the vampire?"

Sebastian Shaw laughed. "Don't you know, Mr. Collins? Do you really not know?"

This time he heard Julia whisper, "Oh, no."

Barnabas realized the obvious implication an instant later. But he could not bring himself to believe in its truth.

"Who came to town with me?" Shaw asked tauntingly. "Who did you meet in my apartment? Who have you never seen except after dark?"

"No," Barnabas muttered, with the foolish instinct that saying "no" strongly enough might cause this hideous fact to be untrue. "My God, no, it can't be true."

"But it is true, Mr. Collins. I mean exactly the person you think I mean."

Barnabas suddenly felt that he had to get away from this young man's mocking face. He turned precipitously and strode toward his bookcase which concealed the secret room. Grabbing onto the edge of one shelf to steady himself, he stared at the books on that shelf without seeing them.

He whispered, "Roxanne."

Distantly he realized that Julia had walked closer to him. Her voice said quietly, "I'm sorry, Barnabas. I'm so sorry."

We should have seen it, Barnabas thought. Of course we should have seen it. I should have seen.

But I would not let myself realize it. My infatuation for her wouldn't let me see the truth.

She was too much like the Roxanne I loved in Parallel Time. I believed, in some way, that the two of them had to be the same.

He heard Julia demanding, a challenging ring in her voice, "So why are you here, Mr. Shaw? Did she send you to us, to lure us into her clutches?"

"Is that what you think?" Shaw countered, with that wild, ironic tone to his words. "Look at me, Mr. Collins; look at the wounds in my neck. Why do you think I'm here?"

Reluctantly, Barnabas turned. For the first time he looked, really looked, at the marks on Sebastian Shaw's throat.

"They're scabbed over," Barnabas said. "They are nearly healed."

With another, desperate chuckle, Shaw said, "That's right, Mr. Collins. They are. Roxanne has new interests now. She doesn't need me anymore."

Her tone sounding entirely unconvinced, Julia said, "Then you've turned against her out of jealousy."

"Yes—yes; maybe yes, I have. I don't know. But there's more to it than that," the young man continued with sudden earnestness. "There's much more."

"Tell us," Julia prompted him, in the quiet, unthreatening voice she would use when speaking to her patients.

"Victoria Winters," Shaw answered. "The first time I met her was before Roxanne got to her. She was so … vibrant. So beautiful. So alive. And then I saw how she changed … how she grew weaker and weaker, every time Roxanne summoned her. I saw how little of her was left. How she was barely more than a shell. So pale, so weak. I imagined all the other people Roxanne must have done that to, over all the years. I thought of all of them. They started haunting me, their faces, even though I never knew most of them. I saw all those pallid faces, drained of blood, drained of hope. And I thought of the people I've helped Roxanne to take. The lives she might never have destroyed, except for me."

Shaw's words sent anguish leaping upward in Barnabas' own heart. He clenched a fist and wished he had his cane to seize hold to; to clutch until its silver head hurt his hand, so the pain could keep him grounded in something resembling reality. The words of Sebastian Shaw summoned in Barnabas' mind the faces of his own ghosts—the faces of the many, many people who had died by his hands, or by his fangs.

Julia's voice came again, more challenging now, "And you want us to believe that you've truly turned against Roxanne? That now you're going to help us?"

The man gave a short, bitter laugh. "You can believe what you want. Because you'll come with me, no matter what. Won't you? You'll come with me because you want to save Quentin Collins, whether I'm leading you into a trap or not."

"Yes," Barnabas heard himself whispering. "Yes, we will."

He turned to face Shaw again, and saw that the young man now had a puzzled expression on his face. "There's something strange about your friend Quentin," Shaw said. "Something very strange. I don't understand what he is, and Roxanne doesn't understand, either. She says she has never encountered anyone like him before."

Barnabas and Julia glanced quickly at each other and then waited for Shaw to continue. "Every time she bites him, the wounds heal up at once. And she's bitten him again … and again … and again. She bites him, and she drinks deep, and when the blood is still wet on her mouth and still dribbling down his neck, the wounds close, and then they're gone. As if they were never there at all. And she can't control his thoughts, the way she does with … everyone else she bites. She had me chain him to the wall in her mausoleum, because otherwise he'd just get up and walk away from her. She can't compel him to stay, like she does with the rest of us."

"Her mausoleum?" Barnabas demanded. "Where?"

"I'm going to take you there," Sebastian Shaw said, looking surprised. "I told you I would."

Barnabas fought to focus on practical, down-to-earth details, instead of wandering into anguished, recriminating thoughts. "Julia," he said, "go tell Willie what we're doing." As she nodded and hastened upstairs, he walked to the door to retrieve his coat and cane.

Sebastian Shaw, walking alongside him, was saying, "It's at the old Drew Family Cemetery, up the road from the Drew House Bed and Breakfast, on Drew Street." The psychic chuckled. "Kind of funny, that. A little pocket of Collinsport that isn't named after you Collinses."

"There are many other such pockets," Barnabas told him, while at the same time he was thinking, The Drew Cemetery. Of course, I should have guessed. "There is Haskell Street, and Hackett Street, and Findley Avenue. Not all of Collinsport is our personal fiefdom."

"No; just most of it. Tell me, Mr. Collins: was it the chicken, or the egg?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Which one is to blame: the place, or the people? Is it this whole place that's evil, cursed, so the lives of all the people here are blighted, too? Or is it you; you Collinses? Did you bring the evil with you, and it's spread over the years, causing this whole place to rot?"

Mr. Shaw, Barnabas thought, I have no answers for you. I have only the same questions, which I have asked myself times without count.

Upstairs, he heard Julia calling parting injunctions to Willie, emphasizing yet again that he must not lose sight of Daphne for a moment. As she hurried down the stairs to him, he winced internally on seeing that she was carrying one of her medical bags with her.

That particular medical bag, he knew, she intended to use for one operation only: the operation which would bring final rest to a vampire. He suspected there was nothing inside that bag except for a hammer and a stake.

He wanted to tell Julia not to bring those things. But he told himself she was right to bring them.

He wondered miserably, Do we have any choice besides killing Roxanne?

If we do not kill her, will Vicki ever be able to live without fear?

Fortunately, Julia's car was just outside, so they neither had to trek up to Collinwood to reach it nor were all of them compelled to pile into Sebastian Shaw's car. At some level, Barnabas believed the astrologer's words to them were trustworthy. All the same, he much preferred that they not be too dependent upon Shaw's mercy in the journey ahead of them.

As she drove the winding road down the hill into Collinsport, with the tail lights of Shaw's convertible gleaming ahead of them like will o' the wisps, Julia said to him tensely, "You know what we have to do, Barnabas. We have to put an end to this. Vicki's life depends on us."

"Yes …" he said, with uncertainty, "but I keep thinking that there must be some other way. Some other answer. That perhaps I can … convince her to see reason."

"Reason?" Julia repeated, with bitterness in her tones. "Is it reasonable of you, Barnabas, to think you can get through to her, because of how she resembles Roxanne in Parallel Time? Is she—a woman you barely know—more important to you than Vicki's life? If we don't stop her, Vicki will never be free from her!"

He gave a quiet reply, "Three years ago, you could have said the same thing about Maggie and me. And about Vicki and me, too. And it would have been fair for you to say that. It would have been just as fair as what you're saying about Roxanne now. I have changed, Julia. I must believe it is possible that we could help Roxanne to change, just as I have."

Angrily sighing, Julia asked, "But Barnabas, can we afford to take that risk?"

He countered, "Have we any right not to take it?" He looked over at Julia's face, pale in the lights from Sebastian Shaw's car and her own; her face that was so familiar and so dear to him. She was staring fixedly ahead. He suspected she would not have turned to look at him during this point in their conversation, even had she not needed to keep her eyes on the road.

"Julia," he went on, "when you first learned what I was, when you first knew what I was doing to Maggie and to others, you would have been morally and logically justified in killing me. I know," he went on, as she started to object, "I threatened you; I blackmailed you into keeping silent and helping me. All the same—if you had truly been determined to do so, you could have found a way to kill me. I was a predator, preying on the people of this town, bringing terror to Collinsport. Wouldn't killing me have been the right thing to do? Wouldn't it have been just as right to kill me, as it is right for us to kill Roxanne now?"

"Barnabas," Julia countered, her voice taut with anger, "The only reason you're asking me this is because of who she is—or who you think she is. Not because of what she is, or because it's right for you to ask this. If you were so concerned about the 'right' of all of this, you would have asked me these same questions about Megan. And about Tom Jennings."

Yes, he thought, with a stab of anger and shame, and about Dirk Wilkins in 1897. I would have asked these same questions, and perhaps I should have asked them. Megan and Dirk were both my fault; I made them what they became. Perhaps it was my duty to help them; to search for a cure for them as diligently as Julia has sought a cure for me.

"Yes, Julia," he said quietly, "I failed to do what I should have done for them. Must we fail in that same way again, now?"

She cast a brief, furious glance over at him, an action which was less risky now that they had left the mountainous road and were driving in to Collinsport proper.

"What do you expect me to do, Barnabas?" she demanded. "Am I supposed to open a reform school for vampires? It's difficult enough to try and help you. It's difficult enough for you to control and direct your urges, when we don't even know if there's light at the end of the tunnel; when your condition keeps changing and growing more resistant to every treatment I come up with. Do you really believe it's worth the risk of trying to do that with two vampires—when we don't even know if Roxanne would be willing to try?"

"There's something else we mustn't forget," he answered. "Roxanne saved our lives last night. It was she who came to us in Rose Cottage and helped us to find our way out through the flames. After that, don't we owe it to her to at least give her the chance—to give her the option of working alongside us to find a better way? And, after all," he continued, as a new, powerful argument occurred to him, "having two of us to work with would add so much more to your knowledge. Perhaps this will provide the very break-through we have lacked, until now. You have only ever had one vampire's blood to study. How can we guess what discoveries you may make through studying the blood of two of us?"

Julia gave a brief, disbelieving laugh. "You're serious, Barnabas?" she demanded. "You're seriously trying to bribe me with the lure of scientific discovery?"

He schooled his face into the most innocent expression he could manage when she cast another glance toward him. "Yes, Julia, I suppose I am," he said. "Is it working?"

"My God," she muttered. "I don't know. I won't make any commitments to you on this. We don't know what the situation will require of us. We'll know better what we can or can't do … when we've seen what's ahead of us."

"Thank you, Julia," he told her.

"Don't thank me yet," she said grimly. "The night isn't over yet."

They were driving now along Drew Street, up its slight hill into one of the quieter neighborhoods of Collinsport. Sebastian Shaw parked his car outside the tall, metal fence of the cemetery at the end of the road. They followed suit.

When they had left the cars, the astrologer handed a ring of keys to Julia. "Here," he said, in a tense undertone. "The keys to the gate and the mausoleum. I'll stay out here. I'm staying out of it. I don't want to fight for her … but I know I can't fight against her."

"There's only the one mausoleum?" Julia asked him.

"Yes. Only the one. Be careful; there'll be a guard outside the mausoleum, to stop you getting in. I told you," Shaw continued in a distracted murmur as he rubbed his hand over the scabs on his neck, "she's found new interests recently."

"Are you ready, Barnabas?" Julia asked him as she stood there by the gate, the ring of keys in one hand and her medical bag in the other.

"Yes, Julia," he answered. "I am ready."

The hinges of the gate, unsurprisingly, gave a menacing wail as Julia opened it. In this quiet portion of town, Barnabas thought there was very little chance that the guard whom Sebastian Shaw had mentioned would not have heard that sound. They followed the white gravel path between the small clusters of gravestones toward the dark, shadowy mass of the Drew Mausoleum. Barnabas, of course, saw as clearly in the night as once he had seen in the daytime. But the streetlights on Drew Street were near enough to them that Julia could see to make her way, without needing to burden herself with a flashlight.

Beyond the mausoleum's small stained-glass windows there gleamed a warm, welcoming light. From the quality of that light, Barnabas guessed that the mausoleum's interior was lit by candles.

"Let me go first," Barnabas whispered to her as they neared the building. "Remember the guard."

She held back a moment to let him pass. When he had taken a few steps closer to the tomb's massive iron door, Barnabas realized that he did not need his keen vampiric senses to point out the guard's location. Tobacco smoke drifted to him on the soft night air. Over to the left of the path, by the mausoleum's wall, there glowed the light of a cigarette.

The man who was smoking that cigarette had been seated on the ground, leaning back against the wall. He stood up as Barnabas approached and he walked toward the path, casting his cigarette aside.

With a grim feeling of shock, Barnabas recognized him. He muttered, "Burke."

Burke Devlin planted himself in front of the door to the mausoleum, and gave the visitors a civil nod. "Evening, Barnabas. Julia," he said quietly. "I wish you hadn't come here."

"I wish we had no need to come here," Barnabas answered.

Devlin was making no effort to hide the vampire bite-marks on his throat. Those wounds, or the most recent iteration of them, were fresh. A small amount of blood still oozed from one of the holes. The tantalizing whiff of blood-scent from Devlin's wounds hit Barnabas with an automatic twinge of lust; the sort of twinge which he had long ago trained himself to ignore.

From beyond them, in the mausoleum, there came the scent of a far greater amount of blood. The smell struck Barnabas both with his expected reaction of desire, and with a horrible dread.

That is Quentin's blood, Barnabas thought. It is Quentin's blood, which Roxanne keeps taking from him—and his resistance to her power keeps goading her onward to take more from him, and more.

Is it this experience which will drive Quentin mad—which will send him into the desperate straits in which we found him in 1995?

Burke Devlin said to them, "Why don't you both leave now. Forget you ever came here. Then there won't be any problem."

"You know we can't do that, Burke," replied Barnabas. "We have to go in there."

Devlin countered, "You know I can't let you do that."

Trying to take advantage of the distraction caused by their conversation, Julia had been edging around to the side of them. Now she leaped toward the mausoleum door, key at the ready.

Burke lunged at her, seizing her by the wrist and dragging her hand away from the door.

Barnabas snarled at him, "Do not touch her." He took hold of Devlin by the throat—wincing slightly when his hand felt the alluring warmth from a drop of Burke Devlin's blood—and hurled Burke backward, away from Julia.

At first he thought that Burke fell to the ground. Then he saw Burke was retrieving some item off the ground, instead. With this item brandished in his hand, Burke sprang at Barnabas.

The item, Barnabas saw, was a metal tool of the type which Julia had told him was called a tire iron. She had demonstrated for him how such an object was meant to be used, once when she had changed a tire on her car with Barnabas as an interested and somewhat awe-stricken spectator. Now Burke Devlin was giving Barnabas tangible proof that tire irons could also be useful for the purposes of hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, they were not particularly useful for hand-to-hand combat against a vampire.

"I'm sorry, Barnabas," Burke grated, clearly intending to smash the tire iron down upon Barnabas' head. He never got close to reaching that goal. Reckoning that his cane was at more risk of damage from the tire iron than he was himself, Barnabas brought up his left arm, using his forearm to block the blow. Then, in the instant while Burke stared in astonishment, Barnabas delivered a blow of his own, striking Burke Devlin across the temple with the silver head of his cane.

Burke fell, unconscious before he hit the ground. He struck against a gravestone behind him, and the impact of his sizeable person broke off the unfortunate marker at its base. Burke Devlin lay prone atop the grave-marker broken by his fall.

"Julia," Barnabas said urgently, "give me the keys, and see what you can do for him."

Three years ago, he reflected, as Julia handed him the ring of keys and hurried to Burke's side, I would have been quite happy for Burke Devlin to die. I would not have felt the least qualm of conscience if I had caused his death. And when he did supposedly die, in that airplane crash in the Brazilian jungle, I felt primarily satisfaction—satisfaction at a rival removed from my path, without my having lifted a finger to remove him.

But many things have changed in those three years.

Now it is probably fair to say that I look upon Burke Devlin as a friend. Even if I did not look upon him as such, I would wish no harm to come to him, for Vicki's sake.

"I think he will be all right, Barnabas," was Julia's quiet report. "His pulse is steady, and I don't feel any trace of skull fracture." She paused a moment in frowning thought and then said, "I wouldn't normally risk doing this before knowing the extent of his injuries, but I'm going to give him a sedative. We can't afford him jumping us from behind, while we're inside the mausoleum." As Julia removed the syringe from her medical bag, Barnabas thought, Very well, then, it is not quite literally true that the bag held nothing but a stake and hammer.

When Julia was by his side once more, he selected the one of the three keys which seemed the right size. It turned easily in the iron door's lock. Barnabas pushed the door open and sprang inside in almost the same movement, brandishing his cane.

He had thought that perhaps another of Roxanne's servants, or even Roxanne, might have been waiting to attack him from just inside the door. It turned out that they were not. No one was there in the candle-lit mausoleum except for Roxanne Drew and Quentin Collins. Both of them were far too occupied to notice the intruder at the door.

The central object in the room was a coffin, but Barnabas paid no attention to that. He looked, instead, over to the left, to the wall beneath the row of small, stained glass windows.

Quentin was slumped on the floor, his wrists bound together with rope and a chain passed through the rope and fastened with a padlock to a decorative ring in the wall. Quentin's eyes were half open, and his face bore a vague, unfocused look of semi-conscious ecstasy.

The blood-smell was maddeningly strong. Barnabas shuddered at the amount of blood he could see soaking Quentin's shirt; some of it still wet and crimson, some dried, crusted and black.

Roxanne knelt before Quentin, her back toward Barnabas. She wore a long black hooded cloak, but the hood was flung back. He had no difficulty recognizing her by the pixie-like cut of her glorious auburn hair. He also had no question as to what she was doing, her head bent down as though to nuzzle at Quentin's throat.

The sight seemed to burn like fire through Barnabas' veins. It burned him with grief from knowing there was no mistake; that Roxanne truly was the vampire they had been hunting. But it also burned in him as painful, savage desire, in the primal vampiric urges which made Barnabas wish he could shove Roxanne to one side and join her in that feast.

"Roxanne," he heard his voice grating out. "Roxanne. You must stop."

With a feral snarl she whirled to face him, springing to her feet. He swallowed back a groan at the sight of her face.

That demoniac rage, he thought. That must be the same look which so many others have seen on my face.

Roxanne recognized him, and her fury faded. She even smiled slightly as she gazed at him. Barnabas hated the fact that his instincts told him the trickle of blood at one edge of her beautiful mouth made her even more desirable.

"Barnabas," she said softly. "I'm sorry you came here."

"I had no choice," he answered.

"And now I have no choice. You know what I am going to do to you."

"No, Roxanne. I know that you will not."

"Why will I not?" she questioned him, voice gently mocking.

"Try it," he said, "and I will show you."

She rushed at him, with a speed which no ordinary human would have been able to counteract. Her snarling mouth was opened wide, her fangs bared. He grabbed her wrists and held her hands up and away from him as she attempted to seize him. He felt her struggling against his grip with far more than human strength. And Barnabas snarled back at her, showing his own fangs.

They seemed frozen there for a moment separated from time, as Roxanne's astonished, disbelieving eyes stared into his. Seemingly miles away, but in reality a few feet from them, against the wall, poor Quentin was murmuring like one drugged, "I'm sorry, miss. I really am. I'd do what you want me to, if I could. I've got this portrait, you see. This stupid, rotten portrait. I keep telling you, it's the portrait's fault. It's the portrait's blood you keep on drinking, not mine …"

Barnabas felt the relaxing of Roxanne's arms as she ceased resisting him. He let go of her wrists, and she took a step back from him.

She was smiling again, but her gaze was ardent with sorrow. Her smile now seemed to mock herself.

"How ironic," she mused quietly. "I knew there was some connection between us. I always felt it, just as you did. I simply never dreamed what that connection was."

"Roxanne," was Barnabas' equally quiet reply. "Will you let Julia go to Quentin and help him?" He had seen, at the corner of his eye, that Julia was waiting just inside the mausoleum's door. "Will you allow us to free him?"

"Yes," Roxanne said. "Yes, I suppose I will. It is all over, now."

As Julia hastened over and knelt at Quentin's side, Barnabas asked, "What is all over now, Roxanne?"

"It is over for me," she said, pride and dignity sounding in her voice. "I will not fight you, Barnabas, now that I know what the bond is between us. I will not fight you for his sake."

"For whose sake?" he questioned her. "For Quentin's?"

She smiled and shook her head. "No," said Roxanne. "Him. The enemy whom all of you are fighting. The ghost at Collinwood."

Reverting to the habit of the past two months, Barnabas said, "Gerard."

"No," she answered. "Not Gerard Stiles. Judah Zachary."

The air about them seemed to grow colder at the sound of that name, although Barnabas felt certain that had to be an illusion of his imagination. He had read the name in the notes Julia had taken in the newspaper office and City Hall, but he had never heard it spoken. All of them had been taking care not to speak it, in deference to Stokes' endorsement of Mr. Miller's belief that the name should not be uttered aloud.

Quentin was still mumbling vaguely about his portrait. Julia was endeavoring to speak to him calming and reassuring words. Barnabas, meanwhile, knew a sudden, desperate feeling that they had only a few moments in which to learn crucial facts about their enemy; facts which they needed to know, and which only Roxanne Drew could tell.

He hazarded the guess, "You have been working for him?"

"Yes," Roxanne said, her head held high and a bitter tinge to her smile. "He is the reason I returned to Collinsport. When he returned, so did I. He summoned me. I had no choice but to obey. And my servants have been compelled to obey him also."

One piece of the puzzle slipped into place in Barnabas' mind. "He controlled what Mr. Shaw wrote in Elizabeth's horoscope."

"Yes," she confirmed. "He did. He gave his orders to me, and I passed them along to Sebastian. And Elizabeth Collins Malloy had a nice, safe, reassuring horoscope for the year 1970. A horoscope which did not tell her the children will die and everything she loves will be destroyed."

"And he told you to capture Quentin?"

"Yes," Roxanne said again, with new defiance in her voice. "I took Burke Devlin because I wanted him—and to punish him for keeping Vicki from me. But I took Quentin Collins on Judah's command. Although I think he must not know what Quentin Collins is, any more than I know it. If he did know, he would also have known that my efforts with Quentin would be useless."

"Why, Roxanne?" Barnabas asked, feeling that this was the most crucial question. "Why does the ghost have this power over you?"

"Don't you see?" she queried back at him. "Haven't you already guessed why? He has this power over me because he made me. It was his curse which made me what I am."

His curse, Barnabas thought, with a rush of amazement and hope. Roxanne was made a vampire through a curse; through witchcraft. She was made a vampire in the same manner as I was.

Then perhaps it is true that through studying Roxanne, Julia could learn answers crucial to both of us. Perhaps Julia truly can find the answers that will cure us both.

But the possibility of a cure was clearly the farthest thing from Roxanne Drew's mind. "You must finish this, Barnabas," she told him, her voice fierce with pride. "You don't have the time to be standing here talking. Finish me, and go. But it must be you who ends it for me. I will accept the stake from no other hand but yours."

He felt sick with horror at the proposition she was making to him. "No," he answered. "It doesn't have to be this way."

"But it does. If any other tries to take my life, I will fight, and I will destroy them. The only one I will not fight is you. I will only submit to my death at the hands of one of my own."

"No, Roxanne," he insisted. "There are other ways. You do not have to die." He hastened onward, desperate to convince her. "Julia has been working for years to find a cure for my condition. Our condition. She has succeeded in curing me on more than one occasion, for months at a time. She can help you. She and I can both help you. If she can work with both of us, it may help her to find a permanent solution the sooner—"

Smiling pityingly at him, Roxanne shook her head.

"You don't understand, Barnabas. It's not because I'm a vampire that I'm asking you to kill me. It's because of him. Judah Zachary. I am tired of serving him. But I must serve him. I must serve him until I die. If he orders me to fight all of you, to kill you, I will do it. I will have no other choice."

Voice flat and tense, Julia spoke up suddenly from where she crouched at Quentin's side. "A chained coffin, Barnabas," she said. "It's worked before. Why shouldn't it work again?"

Roxanne raised her eyebrows in question at Barnabas.

"Yes," he told her quietly. "It has been done to me, and it succeeded. If you are inside your coffin, and the coffin is chained and a cross placed atop it, you won't be able to get out. Then he can issue all the commands he likes, but it will do him no good. You will not be able to rise and do his bidding. And then," he hurried on, "I will come back to you, when we have defeated him, and I will free you. And you and I will seek our answers together."

Roxanne was gazing at him with a painfully sorrowful smile. "When you have defeated him?" she asked. "Oh, Barnabas. How little you know of him. I wish I could hope that you will never be forced to know him better." Then she impatiently shook her head. "But I will do what you ask. I don't want you delaying here with me any longer. I don't want to know that your cause was lost while you were here with me."

In two strides, she was beside her coffin. Barnabas thought with longing of what a beautiful vision she seemed: like a goddess of darkness and fire, with her long black skirt and cloak, the shimmering crimson of her blouse and the radiance of her hair. There was radiance also in her eyes and her smile as she looked at him. "I wish you luck, Barnabas," she said.

She raised her coffin's lid. Instinctively he reached out to assist her into the coffin, exactly in the same way as, long ago, he would as a matter of course have assisted any lady who was climbing into her carriage.

Her smile dimpled in amusement as she took his hand and settled gracefully into her coffin.

"I will come back to you, Roxanne," he promised, still keeping hold of her hand. "We will see each other again."

"Go, Barnabas," she told him, tightening her grip on his hand. "You must hurry. Go back to Collinwood. It may already be too late."

As he let go of Roxanne's hand and gently shut her coffin's lid, he was musing on the fact that her hand felt the same temperature as his own. Touching her hand did not bring with it the tantalizing, almost painful warmth he felt when a living human's skin made contact with his. When he held her hand it felt almost the same as if he had touched his own other hand.

Julia, he saw, had unbound the rope from around Quentin's wrists and was struggling to help him to his feet. Barnabas sprang to help her, going around to Quentin's other side.

"Hello, Barnabas," Quentin said wanderingly, as the two of them maneuvered him upright between them. "Do you think the young lady's angry at me? I kept telling her I was sorry. Kept telling her it wasn't my fault. I tried to make her understand about my portrait …"

"No, Quentin, do not worry," Barnabas endeavored to reassure him. "I don't believe she will hold it against you." Meeting Julia's gaze above the lolling head of Quentin, he asked her, "You have your cross with you, Julia?"

"Yes, Barnabas. I have it."

Between them, they got the staggering Quentin through the door of the Drew mausoleum. Outside, they found Roxanne's two servants. Burke lay unconscious where they had left him. Sebastian Shaw stood silently on the path a few feet from the mausoleum, watching them.

"Will you help me get Quentin to my car?" Julia asked him.

Shaw nodded. As they were transferring Quentin Collins from Barnabas' support to that of Shaw, Barnabas said to Shaw, "Roxanne has given us permission to chain her in her coffin. Have you any chains aside from the one you used on Quentin?"

Sebastian Shaw cast a look of surprise at him, but did not voice any question. "Yes," Shaw said. "There's another chain in my car. I'll bring it."

With the burden of Quentin transferred to Shaw, Barnabas walked inside the mausoleum once more. He had thought to simply tear loose from the wall the chain which had secured Quentin, but it occurred to him to check whether the third, smallest key on the ring would undo the padlock. It did. With his vampiric strength, it was the work of only a few moments for Barnabas to lift Roxanne's coffin enough to encircle it with the chain.

With a feeling almost of bashfulness, Barnabas rested one hand atop Roxanne's coffin while he waited for Sebastian Shaw to return. He knew that if he spoke now, Roxanne would hear him. But he could not think of what, if anything, he should say. And he suspected that if he did speak to her, Roxanne would tell him to shut up and get to Collinwood without wasting any more time.

Shaw returned swiftly with the second chain. As they worked together to pass the chain lengthwise around the coffin and padlock the two chains together, Barnabas noticed that several times Shaw paused to touch the scabbed-over wounds on his throat. When he did so, his expression was briefly swamped with pain.

When they had the chains secured, they left the mausoleum together. Julia was kneeling by Burke, again checking his pulse. "It is ready for the cross now," Barnabas told her. She nodded and went back inside to set the cross in place atop the coffin—an action which Barnabas, of course, could not be there to see.

Outside again, Julia nodded toward the unconscious Burke Devlin, and asked Sebastian Shaw, "Will you take him to the hospital? You can tell them we found him in the woods. He'd clearly been attacked by an animal, and the bite must have made him delirious, because he tried to fight us. That's why I had to give him a sedative. Tell them that."

His face stony and unreadable, Sebastian rubbed the wounds on his neck again. Then he gave what seemed to be a decisive nod. He pulled up his bandana to hide the wounds and re-tied it more tightly. "All right," Shaw said. "I'll take him to the hospital and tell them that. And I'll stay there to give him what help I can until he's well again." A pained-seeming smile briefly touched Shaw's mouth. He added in a murmur, "Until we're both well again."

Barnabas knelt and took Burke up in his arms. As he carried the unconscious man down the cemetery path toward Shaw's car, Burke's weight felt no heavier to him than that of a child. He strove not to think of the many times when Sarah had fallen asleep in the midst of her playing, and her big brother Barnabas had carried her to her bed. With Shaw's help, he laid Burke out on the convertible's back seat in what he hoped would at least approximate a comfortable position. As he turned away, he prayed in his thoughts that both Devlin and Shaw would indeed someday be well.

"We must go, Julia," he said. "Back to Collinwood."

In the back seat, as Julia started up the car and began the drive to Collinwood, Quentin Collins was rambling, "I really am sorry, miss. Honestly I am. I keep telling you, it's my portrait. Nasty, awful thing. I hate it. It ruins everything. I keep telling myself that maybe I'll destroy it. Only I'm afraid to. Funny, that, isn't it? Seems like the longer you live, the scarier it feels to die. Only I don't see why it ought to be that way. Do you? How can dying be any scarier than living?"

And as they started up the hill toward the great house of Collinwood, Barnabas kept hearing Roxanne's voice in his mind. He kept hearing her as she said to him, It may already be too late.