"You see what happens when the writers make a bad decision?" Wendy asked. "They set themselves up for more and more ridiculous explanations".
"You mean sending Beverly bodily into the past?"
"Right. It was me reviving the history of Amos' curse. And I did not go back. I just remembered it. But they did not want that. They did not want Amos coming to his senses and releasing me. They wanted the big bad vampire that they were going to kill at the end. Except that they could not kill him and they needed another way to tell his story. And they could not have him remembering, because at that time his memory and his hallucinations got mixed up. So, solution! Send Beverly bodily, never mind that you have to have a cockamamie explanation. And take advantage that she too will be revisiting a previous life to send her back bodily again"
"And in love with Herb Whitby" Beverly sighed. "they should be shot for doing that."
"In any case Amos could go back to the same body. And that's what he did. Professor Romney did the necessary preparations and helped send him into a trance, to get back to the night when Nell Ferguson was killed"
-0-
He was back. He could see the wooden ships in the harbor and the period dresses. He also felt the hunger. He had to feed, because he had learned how dangerous it was to wait too long.
And he also felt the rage, and the despair deep in him. His old self was still there, under his twentieth century mind. The old Amos had not gone away. It was waiting for the intruder who had taken control of his body to leave.
He saw the woman by the docks. He recognized her. Tina Royce.
She had died because of him. She had been frightened of him and had fallen in the water, and drowned.
He felt again the rage and despair of his old self. That was what she feared. She had seen the strong emotions that wracked him and they frightened her. Frightened her enough that she ran and fell into the water.
But now he was in control. He would not scare her.
She let him approach. She noted that he looked sad, and he probably was, and there was still some of his rage, some of his despair coming through. But not enough to threaten her. He put her under his hypnotic control and then bit into her throat.
It was so easy. She could feel his emotions when he was doing this, so he tried to project calm at her, make her feel that things were right.
He let her go. He went for his purse… he would not need the money. He had not spent any of it in those days, and soon he would be locked up in the coffin. Better let her have it. A way to apologize for having killed her the last time.