Chapter 16

1796

Victoria awoke in darkness; the room was pitch black, and she could feel that she was lying on a dirt floor, which was odd, the last she remembered she was in the old house. Waiting for eyes to adjust to her surroundings she waited, there were noises of tiny scurrying feet and the odor of gunpowder. Not a modern smell but one of a crude make of musket or flintlock gunpowder. Clearing her mind she tried to acclimate herself to her surroundings. This place also held the hint of death. Not an offensive smell but one of an over powering scent that would make one nauseated if it was inhaled for very long. Then she remembered that Barnabas was in danger, she sat up and gasped "Barnabas." Guiding her body up by bracing her back against the nearest stonewall. She stood for a moment to let the dizziness pass her.

There were other smells that now assailed her nose, the smell of dying flowers, the dampness that would seep into and be held by stone edifices and she was sure she had been in this place before. Pushing herself up from the floor she dusted her pants off and her jacket and tugged it into place, brushing her hand over her hair to knock the dirt from it, she reached out to feel along the wall and found a stand with candles and a flit and stone and she inhaled sharply, she knew where she was and the fact she was here and this place held the candles and flit and stone she knew she was no longer in her time. Striking the flit to the stone she was able to light one candle and then light more. She looked around and gasped there was a chained coffin in this room. What frightened her the most was there was movement in the coffin.

Walking to the coffin she knocked softly on the lid and said in a shaky whispery voice, "Hello?"

The voice that responded to her was muffled but one she knew very well, it was Barnabas Collins voice. "Please whomever is there help me, release me from this prison, I beg of you!" Victoria looked around for something to use to pry the chains from the coffin. Finding a metal bar, she lifted it and began to work the bar against the locks in earnest.

To reassure him, she tried to encourage him to be patient she was doing what she could to help him. There were so many questions she had. "Mr. Collins please be patient I am working as fast as I can. Please, just a few more minutes these locks are very hard to break." Working the bar against the locks she finally had the last lock opened and pushed the coffin lid up to look upon the shocked face of Barnabas Collins.

"Miss Winters! How? He sat up and removed his body from the offensive coffin and turned on her, looking at the shocked look that danced across her face. "I am ashamed that you found me this way. I have so many questions. Ben said they had hanged you but you had disappeared and in your place was one Miss Wick. How is this possible?"

Victoria stepped back and was more in the light of the flickering candles he could see she had changed, she now wore a garment that looked like pants and a jacket. "You are dressed oddly again Miss Winters is this a sign that you had returned to your time you spoke of and now you have come back?"

Vicki smiled tightly, "Yes and a lot has changed, you see I am no longer Miss Winters but Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Barnabas Collins, I married your great, great grandson and your namesake. He was in terrible danger and our house had been invaded by horrible creatures that were sent by an evil man called Vlad Tepes."

"Wait you say you married my great-great grandson who has my name?' He watched her nod and smile and he could tell she was in love with his grandson.

"Yes, and its amazing he looks very much like you, he could be your double, a man that looks like you one hundred seventy-five years in the future that has your name and your gentile manners, your looks he could be your twin." She had stopped pacing for a moment and her words had grown soft with the passion of her love for the man she was now married to in another time. Turning she smiled and looked at him with those open innocent eyes. That was when Vicki noted his eyes held a strange eerier glow to them while he watched her explain her story. "When I came back from this time, your Grandson and I were married and we have been happily married for almost a year now." She paced back and forth failing to notice he had grown very intense and was watching her movements.

Barnabas was astounded that he would be the one she married in the future but why her/ Why Victoria? It was Josette he loved, and it would be Josette he would seek out to make into his eternal bride, was is possible that this young woman had taken on Josette's tender sweet qualities and he would fall in love with her because he could no longer have his Josette? "Miss Winters," he paused and then smiled, "Child, of such innocence and purity." He stepped in front of her and held her by her shoulders peering into her eyes. "I cannot tell you how utterly confounded I am by such admissions that you traveled time not once but twice and that on this trip back you tell me I have heirs in the future." He saw her head nod slightly but her gaze held to his. Taking his fingertips he drew them down her face and smiled into that trusting gaze.

"Victoria? Do you trust me?" He spoke softly and his words were seductive to her ears and he watched her nod, her eyes fixed to his. He smiled, "Then look deeply into my eyes and close yours." She did as she was instructed and she slowly lowered her eyelids. Barnabas gently stroked her hair back from her shoulders and lowered his lips against her neck. At first he was tender with his penetration into her neck. Breaking the soft skin to find her artery and to draw a little blood at first, then the blood lust over took him. He drank deeply from her and held her head still so he would not tear the skin. Feeling her go limp he realized he had gone too far and taken too much for his first taste of blood in a while. Biting into his wrist he placed it against her mouth and encouraged her to drink. "Drink my dear drink deep and long from me." She weakly pressed her lips to his wound and drank from his wrist, until she could no longer maintain her consciousness.

Barnabas gently lifted her and placed her in his coffin. "You will rest for now my dear, you will not die and if you do, you will live again with me." He stroked her hair from her face and saw what he must have seen in her in another one hundred seventy five years. Leaning over the casket, he placed a light kiss on her lips tasting his blood there and he smiled. Closing the lid he knew he had to do two things, one was to get her some clothing so he could pass her off as his wife, and two let his father know he was back and he would not allow him to lock him away again. Grabbing up the obnoxious chains he used his cloak to remove the cross from inside the coffin, if she awoke while he was gone he wanted her to be able to open the coffin and he was not sure if she would not she had tasted his blood.

With a dramatic turn and a flourish flare of his cape he walked to the steps found the secret lever to open the door and went into the night. Leaving behind his bad memories of this place and now replaced with the sweet taste and memories of Victoria waiting for his return. With the closing of the door to the secret room, Sarah and Josette appeared and turned to look at the coffin. "Did we make a mistake bringing her back to this time? She carries his child and he nearly killed them both." Sarah spoke so innocently and opened the coffin lid to gently stroke Vicki's face.

Josette sighed deeply, "It is better that she is here with him now than with Vlad in the future." Josette drifted towards the coffin and peered down at the lovely woman that lay so still and pale in the soft candlelight. "We must guard her well now little one. I know Sorin will try to transcend time and look for her, if he comes we will make sure that she is protected from his evil magic and that of Angelique's evil magic too."

Sarah sighed, "I just don't want her to wake up here in this coffin, it will upset her, can we take her to the Old House and put her in your room?" Sarah looked up with her great sad eyes to Josette who smiled and nodded. "Come share your energy with me." They joined hands and closed their eyes and Vicki's body along with their bodies disappeared and reappeared at the Old House in Josette's room. Vicki lay reposed on the bed, Sarah drew the coverlet up over her body and Josette arranged the pillow under her head. Turning Josette drifted about her room. "He had such hopes for me living here in this house with him forever, I just could not take that step."

Sarah drifted to her side and took her hand. "You will have to tell Barnabas what we have done and he will need to protect her. He cannot be feeding from her while she carries his child and I fear for her now if she were to loose this baby, it would destroy her and just pave the way for her to go to Vlad." Sarah placed her small hand against Vicki's tummy and smiled. "I will be an Aunt!" She was excited about the thought.

The room grew cool and the wind blew through the window, the night was beginning to gather clouds and the distant was the sound of thunder. Josette looked up at her picture and smiled. "While she rests here, I shall occupy my portrait and watch over her little one, you should go and rest up we have done a lot and I do not wish to tax you any further this night." Josette stepped back and watched the sweet little sister of Barnabas Collins, which had died way too young slowly fade from view.

"Oh Mon chere, you must be all right do not make what we did a regret to be suffered." Josette set on the edge of the bed to watch the lovely young woman that captured the heart of her beloved Barnabas in the Twentieth Century. She heard the door open and then close she did not turn she heard his voice filled with sadness and shock.

"Josette?" The figure of Josette stood and pivoted and stood looking at the man she had loved in life and still felt a need to protect she folded her hands neatly in front of her watching him. His gaze went from Josette to the woman lying on the bed. "How? How did you get her here? I was going to go back and get her but I needed to get her proper clothing.."

Josette drifted to the fireplace and looked up at her portrait on the wall. "We brought her back in time to your Barnabas to protect the woman you love in 1968. She carries your child my love. She is the woman that made you happy and has now given you a chance at a full life but for. .." She paused and turned to look from Victoria to her lover.

"But for what? Tell me Josette you say she carries my child? She tells me she is married to my great, great grandson in that year. How is this possible?" He was stunned by the revelation that she is could be pregnant by him." Josette smiled looking from him to the portrait of her and then to Victoria.

"There is a great evil that awaits her in that time. That evil has plans to transform you back to what you were. She does not know about you Barnabas, you never told her anything other than you were a descendant of you. The evil that threatens her in that time will surely come to this time and take her from you to give over to an even greater evil and that my love will put your child in danger!"

Barnabas paced to the small settee and sat flipping his tails up so the would not sit on them and then leaned back crossing his knee over his other knee and to look ponderously at his fingernails trying to comprehend what Josette had just divulged. "You have to see Josette, that I am completely boggled by all that has transpired since my release from the prison my father had created for me. I am asked to accept that my sister's governess who was tried as a witch, hanged and disappeared is in fact from the year 1967 and now you say that two years for her and myself in that time has passed and we are now married and she is expecting my child and that I am as I was without so much as a by your leave to take it as the truth?"

Josette shook her head sadly, "I am asking you to trust what I say as the truth. In this form Barnabas I am not bound by the physical restraints of this time or world. I could not do anything for her until I died. You saw how I died. You know that Angelique is behind it all. She has come so far in trusting you and giving over her heart and you nearly lost her to another. One that looked so much like your Uncle Jeremiah."

Barnabas had grown quiet. He was mulling over all he had been told. "We no longer have to worry about Trask, I took care of him. My concerns are if Angelique shows up she will be in danger here." Josette drifted to sit next to him and laid her cold transparent hand over his.

"Cheri, she is capable of handling Angelique now. She has her own gifts, she is stronger than she was and smarter. The thing is she cannot be called Victoria in this time. There will be another that will come looking for her and he is far more powerful than Angelique or her kind." Barnabas tried to cover her hand and found it passed through her transparent image and rested on his own hand and he forced a sigh out and felt bereft of her touch.

"Who shall come to try and claim what is mine?" Barnabas' voice had grown thoughtful and it was tinged with anger, he had lost Josette to Jeremiah, and then lost her again because of Angelique and now he had a chance for happiness and he was not going to loose this to another.

"A man, an evil man called Sorin, he is from Romania and he is the henchman for Vlad Dracul Tepes, he does exist Barnabas and he has existed before you and he is like you."

Barnabas pursed his lips and stood abruptly and walked to the bed to peer down at the sleeping form of another beauty that obviously had captured his heart and his life in another time. He studied her. "Why her? Could I not find you reborn in another in that time?" He turned to look at Josette. Awaiting her answer he turned to look down and then slowly lowered his hip to the edge of the bed and gently took her hand in his. Lifting it he kissed it.

"Because Cheri, she was what you wanted, you saw me in her, you had taken another that did look like me. Her name was Maggie Evans and unfortunately she was not me in spirit as she was me in looks. You were attracted to her the first day you met her, but then you decided to try and make this Maggie Evans into me. That was a big mistake you later regretted. Then one day you saw how much she loved the past, you saw how truly lovely she was, and you saw she held all the tenderness you loved about me and you wanted her more than your life itself. So you pursued her."

Josette shifted from the settee and she drifted to the window to look out over the rose garden his mother had worked over with as much love for it as she had for the rest of her family. "You wanted her to be me. You tried to make her an image of what I was but Barnabas you could not change her for to do so would have changed what you loved about her. You could no more do that than you could make her over in my image. She had been through so much when she was here and saw so much that it had affected her. This tore at your consciousness and you decided it was her you loved and you had to let me go. You knew this when Vlad took her from you and tried to make her over in the image of his dead wife. I think that was the catalyst that brought about the realization that you loved her for being Victoria and not for being me."

Barnabas looked upon the sleeping form of his wife and then the hand he held he saw the wedding band and the engagement ring and they were from his mother and his beloved that stood by the window giving him the history of his life that was to come. Lifting her hand he kissed her fingers. Tenderly he placed her hands over her stomach and saw her cup her hands in a protective manner over her stomach. "I love her then, I loved you before and now what do I do?" He stood and walked to stand next to her at the window.

"You protect what is yours and you carry this knowledge because when Sorin comes he can destroy you. That would solve his problems in the future and clear the way for his Master to take Victoria and make her into what he is and that is a very ancient and very dangerous old vampire that loves his wife enough that he would make her over in his wife's image."

"Then perhaps I should do as father wrote in the family history and pack her and myself off to England. If we are not here, he . . ."

Josette solidified her hand and laid it over his. "He will find you there and you would not be on home ground where here you will have me and Sarah." She smiled watching the look of wonder and shock dance across his features.

"Sarah? She is here too?" He looked around half expecting to see her appear with Josette. He watched Josette smile and nod.

"She will come when it is time for her to tell you she is here. Until then you and Victoria must be content with my occasional company" She stood and walked towards her portrait. "Look for me when the portrait glows, I shall come to you if you have need of me." He watched her walk up in mid air to enter her portrait and then disappear, the portrait returned to normal and the room was filled with her perfume. He smiled, remembering how that smell used to make his heart race. Now he had no heartbeat but he still held strong tender feelings for her.

Looking around the room and then to the modern dressed woman that would bring unwanted attention to her, he walked form the room. His intentions were to find clothing that belonged to Josette that had been stored in the attic of the old house and bring them down for her to use while she was trapped here in his time. He wanted to get to know her all over again and this time would give her the benefit of the doubt when she wanted to speak of her time and her love his grandson Barnabas Collins that looked so much like him.

Bringing down four trunks of clothing he left them in the bedroom, then he turned, he had little time to find help for them in this house and he needed Ben Stokes, so shifting from human form to mist form he drifted over the estate locating Ben at the Eagles Nest, he closed his eyes and sent out a message, "Ben, Ben Stokes come to me Ben. Come out of the Eagles Nest and come to me Ben."

Ben had been in mid lift of his tankard when he felt a nudge at his mind and then he heard his voice. Ben nearly dropped his mug. Ben reached to his pocket and fished out a couple of coins dropped them on the bar and stood walking with a hint of fear and uncertainty towards the call. Opening the door he stepped out into the brisk night air and saw the sky was beginning to cloud over the moon. Looking around he saw the figure standing in his cape at the end of the building. The figure turned and walked towards the docks. Ben began to follow and did manage to finally catch up to him while he stood looking over the bay.

"Mr. Barnabas? How did ya. . . " Ben was afraid he was sure if Mr. Joshua knew he would be in trouble.

"Father knows about me Ben, I saw him earlier tonight after Miss Winters let me out."

Ben staggered back looking once again dumbfounded. "Miss Winters but she was hanged aye, and then she disappeared and that other woman was in her place. It has everyone upset!"

"I know Ben, Miss Winters went back to the future to Collinwood where she lived and she loved and she eventually married me Ben, she married me. She now carries my child and Josette and Little Sarah have brought her back in time to hide her from an evil that is threatening our happiness in the future. I need you Ben, I need your help." He turns and peered into Ben's shocked filled face. "Will you help me Ben?"

Ben nodded and smiled, "Aye, Mr. Barnabas I will help you, I will help Miss Winters too, just tell me what you need." Ben shifted from foot to foot.

"Follow me back to the Old House, Father knows I shall be residing there. I will need your help Ben removing my coffin from the secret room and brought to the tunnels under the Old House. It would appear that Miss Victoria has a very dangerous enemy that will find her and try to hurt her." Ben fell into step with Barnabas and they walked to the wagon that Ben had used to come to town earlier.

Both men seated themselves in the wagon and Ben started back to the Old House. "I will need servants Ben, to help Miss Victoria with what she will be doing and that is being the mistress of that house. She will be called Miss Katherine LeBlanc a cousin of Josette's. One that I will marry and claim as my wife here. If anyone asks and I am not so sure they will remember her as Victoria Winters if we manage to dress her in the clothing of a fine lady of breeding from Paris. All of Josette's clothing were made by the top houses in Paris so that would not be a problem, we must do her hair and give her some other pleasing attributes to make her less the servant girl no one paid attention to and as the Lady of Paris that she must become."

Ben listened intently to Barnabas and his plans while he drove towards the old house, he had a lot to do before daylight and Barnabas had to prepare for an enemy that would come to destroy him and take what was his.