Chapter 11

"You can't get away with it!" Adam shouted at Barnabas.

Barnabas sighed. "It is for your own good. You do not realize the danger you are in."

"This is kidnapping! This is a Federal Crime!"

"A few days from now you'll thank us for this."

Adam turned his back. They saw his back shiver and shake, and heard a deep sigh from their prisoner.

"You don't understand. I have to be there. It is my last chance for happiness."

'With the mermaid?" Barnabas asked gently.

"And what if it is a mermaid? What difference does it make? Because I am married to Carolyn? Did she ask you to do this? Why? She does not want me, not anymore. She has Roger, and Edmund, and now Eliot. What does she need me for?"

"Carolyn knows nothing of this."

"So why"

"Because the mermaid is not what she seems."

"I know. You are going to tell me all those tales of mermaids drowning sailors. She is not like that. You do not know her. I do."

"It is not a her. It is a him."

Adam laughed. "Of all the silly things! Of course it is a her! You only have to look at her!"

Barnabas wanted to say more, but suspected that mere words would not sway Adam. The mermaid had cast a very powerful spell on him. Strong enough to throw away the influence of his bite in record time..."

"You'll thank us for it one day." he repeated.

"So here it is where you live?" Urien asked David.

"Not much, eh? But at least is has modern conveniences."

"Yes. That helps But I thought that... that it would look more..."

"More expensive? Sorry, teaching assistants are not a very financially secure class. The University exploits us shamefully. And we put up with it because we hope to break into the magical circle of tenured professors. Or hold on until a better job comes along."

"I am not complaining..."

'No, you are not. But I am. I was raised wealthy, and while I tell myself that it does not matter, it still stings... oh, well. I am not going to complain about my childhood Compared to yours, it was a very good childhood."

Urien nodded. David's bitterness did get to him. But then, having been abandoned by his wife, and having turned over his child to his cousin to raise, he probably was bitter as Hell by now.

At least he had a place to stay...

"You know, I have not been admitted yet.."

"Don't worry, you'll get in. You got a good SAT score, and with the work you did in the Marine Lab, and the references you got from them, you are a good prospect. Not to mention the Collins name, which still carries weight... though not with me... I am the scapegrace disinherited one...

"I am sorry.."

"What for? You did not sell me any drugs. I was a drug seller once. And then after I straightened up and started going to college, I started getting high again. With a good cause, but still..

"And now?"

"Now. I do not need it yet. But when I think of how beautifully I screwed up my life, I am tempted... I wonder if Barnabas sent you to me so that you can watch over me, instead of me watching over you..."

The bracelet burned Adam's wrist. It was a leash, forcing him to go meet his fate, to try to slay the dragon and win the princess. But the walls and door of the cell were in the way, and not matter how much Adam screamed and kicked against them, they would not let him thought. And no matter how much the green bracelet buried itself in his skin, it could not make him leave.

But if somehow the walls were to yield, or the door open...

"Sabrina" Barnabas did not try to hide his shock. Sabrina in town meant that Maggie was in town, and if Maggie was in town, then Maggie was more than likely to show up at his house, and of all the times...

Even at the best times, there were problems with Maggie.

There was much that hen wanted to say to Maggie, starting by the fact that he was now going to church regularly. But now? Now with Adam locked downstairs, which was bound to bring her the kind of memories that would start them into a psychodrama with no resolution?

"I guess you know what this means." Sabrina said. "Maggie is in town. And you are as happy about it as I am."

"It is not that I do not like you..."

"It is that you and Maggie together are a recipe for disaster. I still recall the last scare we got. Try to figure out a way to avoid meeting her."

Carolyn faced George "I want to discuss what happened with Phillip."

"I am not going to charge Adam, so you don't need to worry. Phillip attacked him with a knife, and Adam defended himself. And Phillip is going to leave on a rest cure."

"Is there a way that you can keep Phillip around?"

'What for? He would be better off moving to a place not by the sea. Forcing him to remain in Collinsport could do serious damage to him."

"It is that he is leaving, and Vicky is leaving, and Adam..."

George shrugged. What did Carolyn want him to do? To straighten her relationship problems with her husband and her friends? That was not in his job description..

"As far as the law is concerned, there is nothing to be done."

"But apart from the law?"

" I am not the person to ask."

Of all the times that Maggie could have chosen to come, it was now when he had to deal with an angry Adam, and keep him safe from mermaids and gorgons.

The tuxedo cat climbed up his leg, asking to be petted. He stroked it absentmindedly.

Too bad that Maggie wasn't allergic to cats...

What was that Maggie really wanted from him? He knew that he owed her for what he had done in 1967. but what to pay, and in what form, neither he nor she seemed to have an idea what would be satisfactory. The only thing that they seemed to agree on was to keep on digging the wound, poking it, and trying to make sense of it...

Perhaps it had been better when she exploited it to have power over him. Then the arrangement was a simple one. But he had had to upset it, demanding that he should have the right to dissent from her dictates...

It had been better that way...

"Adam" Quentin insisted. "You must listen to me. She is not what you think she is."

"Hah!" Adam snorted. "I already heard that from Barnabas."

"It is true."

"I thought you were my friend."

"I am. We are friends. I am very fond of you, Adam."

"But you refuse to help me."

"I am helping you."

'How? By stealing my only chance for happiness? Do you want her for yourself?"

"Adam..."

It was like talking to a stone wall. No matter what he said, no matter how much proof he brought, Adam would refuse to see it. The spell that the mermaid had cast on him was a very potent one. He would have to ask Angelique to remove it, and see if that made Adam see reason.

"I was just leaving." Barnabas said as Maggie came up to his doorstep.

"Well, you can have it here, and invite me in." She undid her collar.

He winced. "I'd rather not, considering what happened last time."

"That was a problem you had. It is solved, now. There should be no reason..."

He shook his head. "No, too many bad memories. There is a lot of stuff that I do not want stirred up."

"You don't?"

"No. I am trying to get over it... Come walk with me/"

Walk with him? He did not want her to come inside. Why? What was he hiding, this time.

Did he have another prisoner in the cell?

Better humor him. Then when he was asleep she would sneak in and see what he was hiding.

So they walked towards her car, talking about Reagan and his incredible luck that allowed him to get away with things that others Presidents with less charisma would have had to pay dearly.