November 1944

Hamelburg, Germany was about as far from the Eastern front as it wanted to be, but close enough that it was on the lines of information traveling to and from Berlin. The Gestapo controlled the city with an iron fist, but the underground had an annoying if not resourceful habit of vanishing and appearing in the shadows. Rumor had it the local stalag might have something to do with it along with some American G.I.'s hiding in the woods, but if anyone knew anything, they were too scared to talk, or too far away in the afterlife to have done any good.

Sergeant Hans Schultz meanwhile had his orders. He cut short the prisoners exercise time and had the other guards help them in routing the prisoners up and containing them in the barracks. He apprehended their basket ball as he herded the prisoners assigned to barracks two complaining and grousing. They might not have had their freedom, but at least the sports they indulged made them forget they were in the middle of a war. Colonel Robert Hogan, the commanding officer, heard the groans of disent and placed aside his novel as he wandered out to check on the trouble.

"Schultz," He looked to the tall, hefty guard. If it wasn't wartime, they might have been friends. "What's going on ? Why the restriction to barracks ?"

"Orders from the commandant..." Schultz responded. "I was told to round up the prisoners..."

"But we were in the middle of a game !" Corporal LeBeau screamed as did a lot of the others. Schultz just covered his ears to the noise as Hogan gave a silent look to Sergeant Andrew Carter. Carter recognized that look as British officer Sergeant Peter Newkirk blocked view of him as he lifted up the pipes in the sink and looked through the periscope in the faucet to what was occuring in the compound.

"Hold it..." Hogan calmed his men down. "Schultz is just doing his job following orders. He knows nothing."

"That's right..." Schultz answered. "I know nothing..." He watched as Hogan reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He smelled chocolate as the wily colonel discreetly ate a peice.

"I'm sorry, Schultz. Your diet..." Hogan started to put it away.

"That's okay..." The huge Luftwaffe officer savored for a taste. "I can at least smell it."

"Why were we restricted to quarters ?" Hogan asked as his frustrated men swarmed round.

"Klink got message from town about three American civilians wandering in the woods." Schultz blabbed. "They are going to be held here until the Gestapo shows up."

"Civilians ?" Hogan raised an interested eyebrow. "Scientists ?"

"I don't know," Schultz snatched up the chocolate for spilling the beans. "I don't care. I don't know nothing..." He bit into it hungrily and squeezed out the door as Hogan turned to Carter. He flipped the faucets back up to their camouflaged persicope.

"He's right, Colonel." Carter reported. "Three civilians. A man in a cape carrying a cane, a lady in very old clothes and a fat man with a monocle. All of them moved into barracks six."

"Fat man with a monocle ?" Hogan wondered. "Goering ?"

"Not the way they were treating him." Newkirk answered as things became more confusing.

"You got the bug to barracks six working ?" Hogan asked Corporal James Kinchloe.

"Yeah." Kinchloe lead the way to Hogan's quarters. "But you got to stop the guys from making coffee in the thing." Hogan sat in and plugged it into the wall as he selected the right wire and attached it. He pulled out the filter to the pot rigged to act as a speaker as Commandant Klink's voice came through it.

"I hope these quarters will be comfortable enough." He grinned as if he were a hotel concierge instead of a Luftwaffe officer. "I'm quite sure they will be a step up from the woods."

"How long will you hold us ?" A voice asked.

"A day or two until we are instructed with what are we to do with you." Klink's saluting gesture was not heard as he turned out. He ordered something to his officers about a strict guard at all times as the woman whimpered in fear in her close friend's arms. Barnabus Collins embraced Julia tighter as he found himself unable to think. He knew they were in the middle of World War Two and worse yet in the middle of Nazi Germany. He had read the history books, but he was still in his coffin in Collinsport as these things were happening beyond him.

"Elliott." He spoke. "What happened to the stairway ? For a second, it seemed to vanish around us. And then we found ourselves in those woods."

"I may have made a grievous error." Professor T. Elliot Stokes spoke. "When Desmond destroyed Quentin's stairway, it ceased to exist in our time. Without it linking 1840 to the present, it dumped us in time..." He looked around the wartime paraphernalia in these military barracks. "And in space."

"Then we get back to Collinsport." Julia looked up as if she were trying to come up with a plan. "We have to find a way to escape."

"We'd be shot if we tried." Stokes weighed the facts. "And if one of us succeeded ? Then what ? With no stairway, we'd just be stuck wherever we ended up. A stranger to the Collins of this time."

"Who lives in Collinwood now ?" Barnabus looked to Julia.

"Uh..." Julia thought as she tried to recall the Collins family tree. "Jamison would be master of Collinwood. His wife, Elizabeth would be a teenager, Roger a young boy... I think Nora..."

"Colonel..." Air Force Officer Paul Stoddard pushed his way through to the coffee pot. "They're talking about my home ! My family ! But... stairway ? I don't know what the heck they're talking about !"

"Travel...time ?" Hogan was a bit unnerved by the three stranger's conversation. He wondered the three civilians were speaking in code, but then, how could they know about the hidden microphones. "I've got weird feelings about this..."

PART TWO

Kilink's secretary grinned at Colonel Hogan as he lit up around her and pressed his way into Klink's office. He was up top something but she didn't care as she secretly realized who was really running the camp.

"Yes, I want Gestapo headquarters in Berlin." Klink grinned like a rat, but didn't look up from the phone. "Please put my call through. This is Colonel Wilheim Klink at Stalag... Klink. K-L-I-N-K." He quickly noticed Hogan. "I am very busy. Please show yourself out."

"I want to know why I was not informed of the prisoners you took in this morning." He stood above the desk displeased. "As Senior POW officer, I have a right..."

"They are not POWs and Schultz has a big mouth." Klink barely looked up as the lines to Berlin became even more tangled. "Yes, this Colonel Klink at... I got put on hold again..."

"Scientists again ?" Hogan glared a bit more. "Under the rules of the Geneva convention, you cannot..."

"They are not scientists." Klink looked up. "They are American civilians. Now, if you will leave, I will not get the Gestapo in Berlin to come question them on what they are doing here in Germany. Dismissed !" He started waiting for his line to get through.

"American civilians ?" Hogan absconded with a cigar as he sat on the desk. "I wonder how they got all the way here. Well, if that's the way you're going to do it." He planted just enough of a seed of doubt in the commandant's pliant mind as he turned for the door. As he did, Klink made a look, leaped up and stopped Hogan from leaving.

"What did you mean by that !" He pushed the door closed. "It is military procedure to report all espionage agents to the Gestapo."

"Well, yeah..." Hogan answered. "But what happens if the Gestapo interrogate them ? They take them out of here and you never hear a thing. On the other hand, if you were to interrogate them..."

"Yes," Klink's eyes lit up like a young Bavarian boy on Christmas. "Capturing three American spies would look very good on my record. It could make me a general. Hogan, did you know that I am the only one in my graduating class to never make general ?"

"No !" Hogan acted as if he were surprised. "How could they let a thing like that happen !" He pulled the door open and grinned to Hilda. He saluted her as she beamed back to him and she realized it was business as usual. Things were going to get interesting as Hogan pulled up his collar to this cold German weather and rejoined his men in the compound. They gathered around as he wandered back to the barracks.

"Okay," He acknowledged them. "Our friends aren't going anywhere and the Gestapo won't be arriving. Part two, how is our tunnel to barracks six ?"

"It collapsed a bit after last month's bombing..." Newkirk looked up. "But Carter and LeBeau are working on it."

"Good." Hogan stopped and turned. "Stoddard, how well do you know this Collinsport city they were talking about ?"

"Collinsport, Maine ?" Phillip Stoddard thought a second. "Well, it it was founded by the Collins family in the Sixteenth century, and today they own most of it. I was betrothed by a pre-nuptial agreement to Elizabeth Collins by our fathers and I was drafted a few months after we married."

"How'd they make their money ?"

"Ship-building originally..." Stoddard revealed. "Liz's father started a cannery though just before the World War One. They have a lot of money."

"You think the German's are trying to get some of that money." Newkirk asked outloud.

"I dunno." Hogan privately reflected on the time-placed conversation of the captives.

PART THREE

Julia sat and stared at what the German armies passed off as food. It looked like mashed beans with little or nothing left. She sighed wishing she had known her World History a bit better. If she had run across her name in a history book, this might not have happened, or she just might have felt she had discovered an ancestor. Barnabus nibbled at the concoction, cringed and pushed it away as Eliot just sort of studied it. He separated one unmashed bean from the rest and sliced through it with his wooden spoon.

"I think they're trying to kill us by food poisoning." he responded. "I'd swear these were left over from some World War One rations kit."

"Eliot," Julia stood and paced the floor. "We are so sorry!" She shook her head in disbelief still trying to rationalize things. "If you hadn't followed us back..." She sighed outloud. "You wouldn't be trapped here with us."

"It was still a grand adventure." Stokes looked up. "The hazards of... time travel, I guess." He stood and tried to lend her moral support. "Perhaps, just perhaps, if the parallel time room exists in this time, we could enter another time to another stairway and..."

"If Angelique hadn't taken the curse from me." Barnabus mumbled privately to himself as he tried to picture his future from here. "I could free us. I could have taken us to..." He looked to Stokes. He still did not know the entire truth on him. For now, he just thought he was trapped in time with two friends. He wondered if now was the time to reveal the truth as Julia lifted her head. She seemed to be listening to something.

"Does anyone else hear that scratching ?" She asked outloud.

"Could be rats." Stokes answered.

"No..." Julia stopped and looked at a trunk at the end of one of the bunks. Eliot heard the scratching himself as he stood at attention. Barnabus stood with them as the lid was pushed from the inside by a human arm.

"Don't fire, I'm on your side." He lifted himself from the trap door underneath. "Colonel Robert E. Hogan, Senior POW Officer." He shook Barnabus's hand as he scanned the room.

"Barnabus Collins," The former scion of Collinwood acknowledged him. "Allow me to introduce Dr. Julia Hoffman and Professor T. Eliot Stokes."

"Scientists ?"

"Not especially." Stokes marveled at his mode of entry. "My expertese is anthropology. Julia is a medical doctor."

"You can get us out of here, I hope." Barnabus asked eagerly as he wanted to forget this place.

"Not from here..." Hogan surreptiously peeked through the windows to the guards. "If you vanish from here, the Germans would rip this place apart and likely discover our secret operations. I'll have to contact the underground to liberate you once you're moved from camp, but first..." He gazed down the bottom of the trapdoor in the trunk. "Stoddard ?"

Barnabus glanced from Elliot to Julia as another figure came up from under the barracks. Her eyes widened as she slowly recognized him. It was Paul Stoddard, Liz's husband and Carolyn's father. She never knew he was a military officer as she nervously moved closer to Barnabus. The former vampire braced for a second as he recalled the events which would take his life in 1970.

"Colonel..." Paul acknowledged Hogan and then locked eyes on Barnabus. His jaw slightly dropped as he automatically recognized him. "You... that face... I've seen you before somewhere..."

"The portrait in the foyeur at Collinwood." Barnabus lightly smirked.

"There's no portrait in the foyeur at Collinwood." Paul responded as Barnabus gasped. That portrait hadn't been hung until a year before he arrived at Collinwood. Stoddard couldn't have seen it before the war because Edward had it removed in 1897. Hogan expressed a glance as he had doubts on the identities of these strangers.

"The Collins Family Yearbook !" Stoddard snapped his fingers. "Quentin... no. Barnaby...Barnabus. Barnabus Collins. You're Jamison's uncle or cousin. You ran off with with the Lady Hampshire or something."

"No." Barnabus had a bit of a wry grin. "That was my father. I've often been compared with him."

"Would you swear on this ?" Hogan was worried about the security of revealing his tunnels.

"I'd swear." Stoddard had a slight grin. "Liz and I used to discuss her family tree over coffee and cookies all the time we were dating." He looked back to Barnabus. "That's a face I cannot forget."

"How you get in the middle of Germany ?" Hogan asked.

"You could say..." Julia spoke up. "We are victims of... circumstance."

"You can return us to the States ?" Stokes asked.

"No," Hogan replied. "But I can get in touch with the Underground and they can get you to England. From there you can go anywhere you want."

"Thirty years to the future ?" Julia murmured under her breath as she turned away. As she poked her gaze down into the trunk, she saw another face coming up a ladder.

"Did someone say England ?" Newkirk was carrying a bottle of wine as Louis LeBeau carried the glasses behind. "Where's the lovely fraulein ?"

"She's short." Louis stuck his head up. "That means I get the first dance."

"Charm before height." Newkirk knocked the trunk shut as Julia became a bit amused. Barnabus noticed Hogan a bit dismayed at the cavalier and romantic ambitions of his men as Newkirk gave Julia a glass and poured her some wine. Stokes started wondering what sort of stalag this was.

"Did I hear that you were a doctor ?" Newkirk lightly danced with Julia. "Well, I've been homesick for the charms of a beautiful lady."

Hogan started to give an order as the worse thing to happen actually occurred. The door to the barracks opened and Colonel Wilmelm Klink stepped through ahead of Schultz. His jaw dropped, his monocle fell and he could not believe what he was saying.

"How did these men get in here !"

"We're having a party, Commodant." Hogan grinned to keep him confused. "It's not everyday we get American civilians !"

"Schultz !"

"Javolt !" He lifted his rifle. "Back to the barracks ! Back, back, back, back, back...!"

"Did you want to cut in ?" Newkirk looked straight into the eye, kissed Julia's hand and tilted his cap to her. He backed away as Klink started grumbling and fuming. Barnabus Collins stepped back as he acknowledged Stoddard and wondered what the worst was to happen next.

PART FOUR

Calvados was a small town to the north of Paris that had become occupied with Paris by the Germans. As they held the city, members of the underground movement scurried through old catacombs under the city and into deserted buildings as they worked to liberate their homes from the Nazi infestation. Claude Monet was one of these people as he operated a secret radio set in the basement of his father's bakery. As he secretly passed on messages, his attention was distracted by a rapping to the door of his tiny room. Someone was in the ruins of his shop as he froze where he was and tried not to make a noise. As he did, someone rapped with the secret knock to dissuade his fears. He gasped out of relief as he moved to the door, unbolted it three times and opened the door.

"Claude," Brother hugged brother as a figure entered behind him in shadow. "Allow me to introduce Angelique Miranda DuVal." His beautiful blonde companion pulled back her dark hood. "She wants to see the paintings you liberated from the brush."

"Yes," He gestured to a dark area of the room. "Go ahead and look, but there's not a Tate painting in the stack."

"Allow me to judge for myself." Angelique glided mysteriously to the paintings. "I have an affinity to these things."

"Angelique," Paul Monet's accent reverbed on her name. "What is so special about this portrait you are looking for ?"

"A very dear friend of mine hiding in Newfoundland would like to have it back." She lifted frame after frame. "You could say... he's connected to it."

"Everything is a mystery with you, isn't it, Angelique ?" Paul gazed longingly into her big blue azure eyes and thought he was falling in love with him. Claude meanwhile was distracted by beeping sounds from his radio. He turned in a hurry and sat as he pulled a crate to sit on as he worked. Angelique kept looking and minding her business as he took his message.

"Riding Hood to Papa Bear, Riding Hood to Papa Bear," They used code names over the link. "What is it, Papa Bear ?" Only he could hear the massage coming through his head phones as he jotted the massage. "Three American civilians ? What are their names ?" He pulled a new pad as he started jotting the message. "Barnabus Collins..."

Angelique suddenly became interested.

"Julia Hoffman..."

She became very interested and even a bit confused.

"Eliot Stokes... confirm." There was a bit of beeping and non-sensical scratching. "Three packages to fly the nest. We will deliver, over."

"What was that about ?" Paul Monet asked.

"Three American tourists got trapped behind enemy lines." Claude revealed. "The brush thinks they are spies and Hogan wants us to get them out of Germany to England."

"Wait..." Angelique turned around. The last time she had seen Barnabus was just before he vanished with the Lady Hampshire, but long before that, he, Julia and Stokes were by her side as Lamar Trask tried to kill her. How did they get here ? Why were they in this time ? She had to find out for herself.

"Angelique ?"

"Let me do this." She took the message.

"Angelique..." Paul looked at her. "You are just a lady. This could be dangerous. We will free the Americans."

"I am more than just a mere lady..."

"Your witchcraft ?" Paul grinned as he tried to humor her. "I'm afraid this means for a lot more than love potions and luck talismans."

"Paul..." Angelique grinned as her lit up. She gave him a quiet kiss for caring. "I am capable of far more than that." The door unbolted by itself and opened for her as she restored her hood and walked out through it. She she stepped through, it closed behind her and rebolted without the touch of human hands as Claude and Paul Monet stood amazed by the psychokinetic power.

"I kind of feel sorry for those Germans..." Claude smirked a bit.

PART FIVE

Barnabus Collins escorted Julia as a gentleman would in the era of warfare and indiscretion. A Luftwaffe truck had arrived to escort him, Julia and Stokes elsewhere as he looked up to Colonel Hogan watching from across the compound. Leaning against his barracks, Hogan just gave a assured salute to him as they parted company to never see each other again. Klink was coming out of his barracks ahead of General Albert Burkhalter from the Fuhrer's staff as Barnabus was rudely hastened to board the truck by a German soldier.

"General Burkhalter..." Klink followed his superior to a waiting car. "I don't understand. How did you know I had American civilians here ? I never sent in the paperwork yet."

"I had an anonymous phone call who told me they were here." Burkhalter entered the back of his staff vehicle and made a face like a man who had just swallowed a sour grape. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it sounded like your Colonel Hogan." He gave a silent glance to his driver to start driving. The thuck with the three Americans started up to as Klink slowly straightened up from nearly into his superior's vehicle. He slowly dropped his jaw as he looked over to the wily confidante Colonel Hogan.

"He couldn't have..." He tried to tell himself as the truck departed. "He couldn't have. But he would have..."

Hogan just gave another assured salute to the commodant as if he reminded him who was really running the camp. He then turned and entered his barracks as he noticed his men in German uniforms checking their gear and timing their watches.

"Okay," Hogan checked his watch as he had to stat behind. "The truck will reach the crossroads in five minutes. Wait till it turns on the Dusselheim road and then stop it at the Hamberg road."

"Who's our underground contact ?" LeBeau asked.

"New guy. Name's Saberhagen." Hogan announced. "Never heard of him but keep on your toes."

"Colonel Hogan..." Schultz opened the door and marched in as he saw the men in German uniforms. His eyes went round as his bottom lip started twitching. "I see nothing, I see nothing !" He stepped back out as he feared a transfer to the Russian Front.

"We got to teach him to knock !" Hogan quipped as he hit one of the barracks and the spring-loaded bunk popped up. His men piled into the opening down into their tunnels and were soon out to their concealed exit in the woods. A rushed jaunt through the woods took them toward the Hamberg road as the truck weaved through the first of a number of checkpoints closer to the camp. In the back of the truck Barnabus looked at the solitary guard on them and then toward Julia next to him and Stokes sitting across from him. They were still in their clothes from 1840 as they wondered if they would have to get used to the clothes of this era. Julia looked out the back toward the vanishing countryside as she wondered what was to happen next.

"Do you think..." She whispered. "We can get home."

"To Collinsport, maybe." Barnabus was dismayed by the shaking and jumping of the truck on these German roads. "From there..." He didn't have an answer as their armed convoy carried on for what seemed to be an hour. They suspected something was happening as they heard Burkhalter's car stopping ahead and then the truck motioning to a stop. The entire thing swayed as the General looked ahead to a check point and one guard on duty with another officer.

"What is going on here ?" He asked. "Who are you ?"

"Colonel Salem Saberhagen of the Fifth Infantry, general." The Underground officer lied. "The Underground has wired the tunnel ahead with explosives."

"But I must transfer these prisoners."

"I can transfer them myself if you like." Saberhagen answered as another of his people scurried out of sight. She was a shapely beauty with short blonde hair who poked her head into the truck.

"Hi cutie !"

"Fraulein, you cannot be here." The guard jumped out of the back and started to confront her. Barnabus then heard a pig squealing out of no where as he looked to Julia and wondered what was happening.

"Who among you is Barnabus Collins ?" The girl poked her head into the back of the truck.

"I am." Barnabus looked up. "Who are you ?"

"Hilda Spellcraft." She opened up the back and started to help them escape. "I'm here to help. Ang..." Gunfire broke out as something went wrong. Burkhalter started giving orders as his suspicions were correct. Not willing to reveal her powers yet, she gazed upon her friend Angelique's true love and his friends as they rushed for the woods. Julia looked back and realized something strange was going on when she saw the pig in a German Uniform.

James Kinchloe was a bit suspicious as a African American in a German Uniform. He covered Saberhagen's retreat into the woods as LeBeau noticed another lovely female stand and try to run then jumped and knocked her out of the line of fire. Angelique rolled as she looked into his darling brown eyes.

"You don't understand, LeBeau." She spoke to him obscured by the bushes of the woods as bullets strafed the leaves over their heads. "I must catch up with Barnabus. I must go with him."

"He sure is a very lucky man." LeBeau was a bit fond of her himself.

"He's my husband."

"The lucky bastard."

"Fire at them !" Burkhalter hid for cover behind his staff vehicle as he barked orders and reloaded his pistol. "Fire at them !"

His officers continued firing out of unison as their rilfes vibrated in their hands and then stopped. They were suddenly grabbing air as their guns vanished from their hands.

"What happened to your guns !"

"I do not know, Herr General."

"Charge them !" Burkhalter pulled out his sword. "I want those Americans back !"

"Stupid Nazi's." Saberhagen caught up with Hilda leading the way for Barnabus, Julia and Stokes. "I could give them a few tips on how to rule the world."

"Don't start that again." Hilda snipped.

"What about us ?" Barnabus looked to the round-faced Underground agent as they hurried for a obscured cabin in the distance.

"Yes," Stokes was quite a bit out of breath as he wished he could lose more weight. "We must get back to where we belong."

"Is that the future or Collinsport now ?" Hilda asked. Barnabus gasped at her.

"You know ?" He asked a bit shocked.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you." Hilda answered. "It was Ang..." The guns started firing at them again as they were discovered once more. They rushed to the cabin as Salem froze, felt a ball of magical energy crackling around his fingers and threw it at the Nazi's. He laughed as it exploded on impact and sent them flying through the air.

At the cabin chalet, Penelope Halliwell rushed to open the door as Hilda rushed in with the Americans. Another oof Angelique's closest friends, she watched as Salem allowed the trees and bushes of the forest to come to life and start swatting at the German soldiers.

"Is this them ?"

"Yes," Hilda answered. "I haven't had a chance to tell them much with the bullets flying everywhere."

"Where do we go from here ?" Stokes looked around as it looked them they were all trapped.

"We're going elsewhere." Penelope motioned quickly to a closet. "But you three go through here." She opened the closet to a puff of smoke and mist. Through the back of it seemed to be a shimmering image of a stairway suspened in time and space and beyond that was the image of a hallway. Julia's eyes widened as she recognized the door to Carolyn Stoddard's room by the table outside it.

"It's our time..." Julia gasped.

"Give or take a few months." Penelope turned to them as she heard gunfire through the woods once more.

"You're... witches ?" Stokes realized.

"We're not all bad." Hilda answered as she still heard gunfire in the distance getting closer.

"How can we ever thank you ?" Barnabus paused as Stokes and Julia stepped ahead through the closet.

"Invite us to the wedding." Penelope answered crypticly as Barnabus looked confused, stepped back and then followed Julia into the closet. He slowly vanished as the door was closed behind them. The windows then shattered by bullets as they hit the floor. The door sprung open as Angelique dived to the floor and crawled over to them.

"Did they make it ?" She asked as her friends dropped to the floor with her.

"Yes," Hilda answered as gunfire shot over their heads. "I'm sorry, Angelique, did you want to go with them ?"

A bullet struck the clock above them as it crashed to the floor near them.

"That's okay," Angelique smiled. "I'll catch up with them."

Outside the two story cabin, Salem screamed as one bullet strafed his shoulder. He dropped and rolled as he crawled to vanish under his powers. Burkhalter screamed the order to take the cabin as his last three men stormed it ahead of them. They ripped the place apart but there was no one inside. They had vanished into thin air.

"I don't believe it." Klink grinned as he heard the news an hour later on his phone. "I don't believe it !"

"What ?" Hogan asked as he stood nearby.

"You know those three American civilians ?" Klink hung up the phone nearly laughing. "Well, the undergound just liberated them from Colonel Burkhalter." He started laughing.

"Really." Hogan acted uninterested.

"Funny thing though." Klink added. "Of his twelve men, all but three vanished, but now there's nine pigs running loose in the woods in German uniforms !"

"He ought to get off that diet." Hogan quipped.

"Diet ?"

"He's seeing pork chops everywhere !"

END