Barnabas felt a warning chill grip him, something about David was vaguely familiar in an unpleasant way, and he searched the child's amused eyes.

"If I am attacked on the way --"

"Then she still dies." The warlock using David's body barely suppressed a sneer. "Do you play chess, 'cousin'?" When Barnabas stiffly nodded his head, David's body said, "Then you know that the most important and dangerous piece on the board in the Queen. She is a Warrior Queen, she can move in any direction to protect her King. When she is removed from the board, the King is left vulnerable."

"Vulnerable to what?"

David shrugged gracefully. "Perhaps to the enemy Queen. One thing is for certain -- the world is a far less interesting place without Julia's presence, don't you agree?"

Barnabas now knew he was playing a game with an opponent who would cheat even when not necessary in order to win. A frightening game with the promise of a valuable prize for the winner. "Can I believe the object will be where you say?"

David's eyebrows shot up and he chuckled. "It is as I described. You must awaken the power of the skull by holding it in your left hand, concentrate on the time and place you want to go, concentrate on her, draw yourself to her -- invoke the spirit in the skull and command that it obey you. 'As I will, so mote it be!' Don't let your focus be broken." David's voice lowered to a terrible whisper, "She won't come back to you a third time if you fail."

"What do you mean?

David rose from the table, and went to a cabinet, where he opened a drawer and selected a large white cross from many. "Do you think you'll need two?"

___________________

Barnabas hurried through the moon lit woods, hoping to get to Blair Cottage before any of the creatures of the night discovered him. Even though he carried a cross, (and there seemed to be a generous supply of them at Collinwood) he knew that the vampires might join forces and overpower him in spite of it. He walked quietly, staying to the shadows, and hoped they wouldn't smell his blood before he got to Nicholas Blair's cottage.

He was within sight of the front door, when Barnabas stopped abruptly, appalled at what confronted him. Quentin's large body was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, and Carolyn was greedily feeding at his throat. Her face was miraculously restored to its former beauty from the blood that she took from Quentin, the raw flesh was now once again covered with smooth, pale skin. Her eyes were rolled back in ecstasy, showing only the eerie whites as she sucked his veins dry.

Barnabas tried to move silently around them and get to the safety of the cottage, but Carolyn's head raised from her grisly feast, and she sniffed the air, as the pupils of her eyes rolled back into position with a direct, hypnotic stare into Barnabas' eyes.

"Cousin Barnabas. How nice of you to leave Collinwood. I still have that not quite full feeling." She rose from the ground as if floating. "This dear, handsome man was cooperative, but unfortunately he had already dined with Vickie, leaving appetizers for me but no entree. I hear your heart pounding, Barnabas. I can smell your blood racing through your veins." She approached him slowly, seductively, confident that beneath his stiff white collar throbbed a thick artery just waiting for her fangs to sink into. Hovering at neck level, she ignored his look of revulsion and teasingly gave him an appreciative sniff, saying, "You shouldn't wear cologne, Barnabas, your own natural copper scent is so much more enticing."

He wanted to pull the cross out of his pocket and shove it into her, but she had control of his actions -- control of his will. He felt her fetid breath on his neck, and he couldn't move -- but --

Carolyn glanced up for a satisfying look at his horrified expression before she plunged her fangs into him, but what she saw instead was the look often reserved for side-show freaks -- disgust, yet morbid fascination -- but not the delicious sexy horror she expected.

He found his voice and croaked out, "You've got hair growing from your face."

"What?" She reached up and stroked her own cheek, touching the unmistakable feel of coarse hair emerging from her face -- and ears. She screamed and released Barnabas, as the hair grew faster and began coming through the skin on her arms. "What is happening to me?" she screeched as her face began to extend into a muzzle.

Barnabas momentarily looked at Quentin lying on the ground with a peaceful smile on his face, drained of blood, but still protected by the painting, before he ran fo the door of the cottage, only looking back at the wolf-like creature Carolyn was becoming when he was inside the house.

With the door between them, he listened as Carolyn's screams turned into howls, and when her transformation was complete, he heard her sniffing -- sniffing Quentin's body but smelling no blood, then loping to the front entrance of the house and sniffing around the door, smelling warm blooded prey inside. She started scratching the door with an unearthly strength that warned Barnabas she would tear the wood into shreds soon. He quickly turned his attention to the study to search for the carved stone box.

The elegant desk was so typical of Nicholas Blair, artistically arranged with curios that bespoke of ancient civilizations, artifacts that upon close inspection appeared to have some connection with the blasphemous, carved relief and painted surfaces covered with the profane, the offensive.

Barnabas touched a box carved from blood red stone, the only stone box on the desk, and lifted the lid. Inside was a red glass skull that was slightly smaller than the head of a newborn child. Barnabas' heart sank, as he thought of Julia, and the terrible night that Ben had chosen to make his early entrance into the world. The formidable Dr. Hoffman had always appeared to the world to be larger than life, but in private, Julia Collins had been too delicate to carry her late-life baby to term, and was forced to endure restricted bed rest, to give the child as much time within his mother as possible. Only her strong will and determination had kept her restless energy contained in that canopy bed, until the night of the fiercest storm of the decade, when a bolt of lightning struck the venerable tree outside their bedroom window sending a limb through the glass into the room. He had met her on the steps as she frantically tried to get downstairs, her eyes wide with terror and pain. The baby was determined to make an unforgettable grand entrance. Barnabas had carried her to Josette's room, with the storm sealing them off from the rest of the world, drowning out her screams. That night was the first time he could remember praying in 175 years, he had prayed at her bedside until his knees were sore, begging for her life. Then just before dawn, she delivered their son into his hands. He held his own newborn son, red and wrinked, still wet, so small, so perfect. Hot tears began to burn his eyes remembering. Whatever he had to do, it would not be too great a price.

Remembering what David had told him, he picked up the red glass skull in his left hand and began visualizing Wyndcliffe Sanitarium as it was in 1951 - concentrate on December 31, 1951 -- Julia -- New Year's Eve, 1951 -- and he called on the spirit in the skull that could open the seperation in time.

The skull became increasingly hot in Barnabas' hand, and the longer he thought of Julia, young and unknown to him, and of Wyndcliffe, and ice on the ground in a year that had passed him by, the hotter the skull became until it had turned glowing orange and was scorching his hand. But David had warned him that if he dropped the skull, he would fail, and Julia would be lost to him forever.

Through gritted teeth he groaned the words outloud, when without warning, the window in the study shattered into a thousand particles of glass, and the white wolf creature that had been Carolyn burst into the room with its glowing eyes upon him. He stood still and continued to focus on his vision of Wyndcliffe while the wolf slunk around him snarling with fangs bared, but the wolf had no patience, and it crouched into a spring to leap at Barnabas' throat. Wth a last anguished cry of "Julia!", Barnabas fell a step backward from the wolf -- and passed through the clinging membrane that covered a soft spot in time.

to be continued.

Top of Page

Parts:

Back to the Fanfiction Index