Shadows on the Wall 

Chapter 42: This Is the Way the World Ends 

by Nicky 


(Voiceover by Alexandra Moltke): "My name is Victoria Winters.  I came to
Collinwood six months ago, but already I feel as though I have been here
forever.  In the course of my daily life in the great house I have met and
developed feelings for two of the Collins men, one a stranger from beyond the
darkness of death with haunted eyes and a tortured soul, and the other a man
with secrets that I may never uncover and eyes that make me burn for him and
fear him at the same time.  But a darkness has spread a blot across the entire
family, and already several innocent people have been lost to its taint, and
unless I act quickly, more people may die. Someone must go back.  To change
things.  To make them different.  And I’m so afraid that someone is me." 

1 (Vicki) 

Victoria Winters lay dreaming, her breasts rising and falling with slow,
deliberate intakes of breath, and her eyes rolled madly beneath closed lids,
like uneasy ghosts behind darkened draperies.  She was unaware of the violence
that had swelled in the room around her, unaware that a woman who loved a man
so much that she had fallen under a wicked spell was now driven by the
spellcaster to end the life of the man she valued with all her heart and the
tattered remnants of her soul, but Vicki would not have stirred even if she had
known.  What was going on in her mind — what she was seeing in this dream that
somehow wasn’t a dream at all — that was the truly important thing. 

Vicki stood on the far-reaching lawn of Collinwood, lost beneath a foot of
snow.  He will be loosed when the snow flies, Vicki thought madly, and looked
up.  Louise Collins stood before her, and Vicki knew that she was facing her
mother, a thin slip of a girl with bobbed black hair and a velvet bow of vivid
crimson in her hair.  Her eyes were great and dark and solemn, but her mouth
twitched in a smile, and she beckoned to Vicki from the doorway of Collinwood. 

"Come to me, my daughter," the woman-child sang in a voice of high, seductive
melody, "it’s time that you learned why you are at Collinwood.  It is time for
you to stand.  To stand and be true." 

"Stand?" Vicki cried, and felt that her voice was ripped from her mouth and
carried away by the vicious, bitter wind.  "Against what?  Tell me, please, I
don’t understand!" 

Louise looked at her with a terrible sort of compassion.  "I know you don’t, my
darling," she said, "but you will.  In time you will understand all things.  In
time.  In time." And the world gave a tremendous lurch, and Vicki — 

— was running down an endless corridor lined with portraits depicting
generations of the Collins family: here was a pale, sickly woman with blonde
ringlets, and the gold placard on her frame read, "Millicent Collins"; a dour,
patrician man scowled at her under a furrowed brow, and she saw that he was
"Joshua Collins"; here was "Daniel Collins", here was "Harriet Collins", here
was "Thaddeus" and "Flora" and "Naomi", and still Vicki ran and couldn’t stop
until Louise stopped her. 

The girl who was her mother stood before a section of portraits, and gestured
at them. "See," she said, and her voice echoed throughout the hall.  Her eyes
were vast and full of determination. "Remember." She held out her hand and
pointed at them, one by one: a man with a mustache who bore a startling
resemblance to Roger Collins, and he was "Edward"; a woman with her hair pulled
back tight and black eyes that seemed filled with not a little cunning, and she
was "Judith"; and here was a boy, her own grandfather she now knew, and this
was "Jamison", and beside Jamison, his sister "Nora"; and then she felt her
heart stop in her chest as she saw the image of the man she loved, but a man
who had disappeared eighty years ago and left only his descendent for her to
hold, and this was "Quentin". 

"There is so little time," Louise said.  "Time.  So little time.  Time." 

"Time," Vicki said dreamily. 

"Yes.  Someone must go back." 

Vicki frowned again, and pulled at her hair in an agony born of frustration. 
"Please," she sobbed, "please tell me, because I don’t know what that means! 
Go back where?" 

Louise tapped each portrait with her finger.  "See," she said sternly, and
"Remember." 

Vicki bowed her head.  "I see," she said, as if defeated, "Edward and Judith
and Jamison and Nora and ...  and Quentin ..." 

"Oh my darling," Louise said, her voice full of tears and an aching sorrow, and
stepped towards her daughter with her arms outstretched — 

— and Vicki found herself in Eagle Hill Cemetery.  She drew in her breath to
scream, for Barnabas Collins knelt at a grave before her, and Barnabas was a
murderer.  He had killed Elizabeth, after all — she had seen him cradling the
body, and the guilt on his face was all too apparent.  She knew this to be
true, just as she knew that Joe Haskell had been right when he had told her the
secret — Barnabas Collins was a vampire. 

He wore a long, flowing Inverness cape of the darkest, most secret jade, and
his white marble hands emerged from a frock-coat and a flurry of lace.  He wore
black leather riding boots, and his onyx ring sparkled on his finger.  His face
was pale and ghastly, and his eyes had sunken far back into their sockets and
stared at the gravestone before him.  Despite her fear, she was helpless to
stop herself, and knelt next to him.  She reached out to touch the gravestone;
JOSETTE COLLINS, it read, DIED AT WIDOW’S HILL, 1796.  SHE WAS A FLOWER
REACHING FOR THE SUN.  MAY SHE FIND EVERLASTING LIGHT. 

"You mustn’t touch her stone," Barnabas said in a voice that was only gently
reproving, and she snatched her hand away as though burned.  "It wouldn’t be
proper, I think.  Like a shadow on a sunny day." He sighed heavily.  "I shall
never see the sun again." He looked at her with eyes like shattered glass,
filled with a dark, poisonous sadness.  "You’re afraid of me," he said quietly.
"Maybe you should be.  It seems that I destroy everything I touch." 

"That isn’t true," Vicki protested.  I don’t love this man, she thought, do I? 
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know ...  but I can understand him, I
think.  No matter how it happened, he doesn’t want to be what he is, and
somehow he managed to change.  The curse was lifted, or someone found a way
around it.  "How did it happen?" she asked, her curiosity momentarily
superseding her good sense. 

"A woman’s love," he said, "and a woman’s jealousy condemned me to eternal
darkness.  She rides the night with the devil her lover, but even in death she
haunts me.  The devil has painted her hair, but still ...  I recognize her." 

That struck a chord, and suddenly she remembered a painting she had seen many
months ago, when Barnabas had first come to Collinwood soon after she herself
had arrived on her train, all innocent and unknowing.  David had brought it to
this same cemetery for some reason she never understood, and it had depicted a
beautiful blonde woman with ice-chip eyes that stung and froze. And then she
thought of a woman with more than an inordinate interest in Barnabas Collins,
and who seemed to seethe with hatred for him from the moment they had met. 
"Cassandra?" she cried.  "Cassandra Collins did this to you?" 

"She is no angel," Barnabas said, "and you must beware her, even now.  You will
see her again soon, I think." 

"But she’s gone!" Vicki said.  "She left Roger in the middle night, and all she
left behind her was a note telling him that she was never coming back.  Even
Mrs.  Stoddard believes it now." Evoking Mrs.  Stoddard’s name called up an
image of her in death, her eyes wide and empty, her neck raddled with purple
bruises.  "You killed her," Vicki said reprovingly, but with no real malice. 

"She jumped from the cliffs," Barnabas said, as if this were the most obvious
truth in all the universe.  "I didn’t want her to die." 

"No," Vicki frowned, "not Josette.  Mrs.  Stoddard.  You killed Mrs. 
Stoddard." But Barnabas seemed not to hear her.  He sighed heavily again and
reached out to gently stroke the tombstone of the woman who had captured his
heart and soul.  All those time he talked about his ancestor and the love he
felt for Josette DuPres, and even then I could sense the passion that was still
alive in him, even now, after nearly two centuries.  "Barnabas," she said,
shaking him, "Barnabas!" 

"He can’t hear you," Louise said sadly.  "He is trapped in the past, my darling
girl, as lost as anyone else in this house of dark shadows.  Barnabas Collins
is not the only one at Collinwood living under a curse." 

"He killed her," Vicki said, and felt her heart break a little as blood-stained
tears began to trickle down Barnabas’ gaunt, haunted face.  "He killed your
sister." 

"Because he had to," Louise said, and Vicki gasped.  "She would have killed
him, you see, because he knew.  He learned the truth, and Lizzie wouldn’t have
it.  She may be the birthday girl, but I’m the belle of the ball.  I’m the
hothouse flower, and she has killed again and again." Her face twisted with
disgust.  "Killed to protect him, that vile, loathsome spider, and now she’s as
dead as he is, and she has served him well." The disgust drained from Louise’s
voice, and now she was only sad.  "She thought to contain him, but he was only
waiting until the time was right, until you could be called back to Collinwood.
He wants to use you, my darling, to destroy Collinwood and everyone in it. 
You are a key, and once the lock has been turned, he’ll discard you without a
second thought." 

"None of this makes any sense," Vicki moaned, and looked up as Louise touched
her cheek.  The fingers of the ghost were icicles, and burned with a terrible
cold.  There was no mercy in the eyes of her mother, but that dreadful, heavy
compassion remained. 

"Part of this is my fault," Louise admitted.  "I was under his spell like
others have been, but I came to him of my own free will, and I take
responsibility for all that followed.  I have to fix things, Vicki, and I can
only do that if you help me make them right.  If you stand and be true, you can
undo all this harm." 

"If I stand and be true," Vicki repeated thoughtfully. 

"You will know him when you see him," Louise said, "though he will wear a face
dear to your own heart.  But he is a bringer of death, and the reek of death
will surround him like a charnel shroud.  It is too late right now to stop what
is to come, but you can change things.  You can make them different, Victoria. 
But you have to go back." She placed her cold, cold hands on Vicki’s shoulders,
and she cringed away, helpless, but Louise never relented.  "You have to go
back, Victoria.  If you don’t, then everyone at Collinwood will be lost,
including the men you love. 

"Go back, Victoria.  A way will open, and you must use it. 

"Go back. 

"Go back. 

"Go —" 

2 (Julia) 

The noose swung before her eyes temptingly, and Raymond reached out and teased
it with one finger, sending it swinging to and fro.  Barnabas didn’t see
Raymond, and he certainly didn’t see the noose.  For the first time in weeks,
perhaps the first time in their relationship, Barnabas was seeing Julia Hoffman
as a person — as a woman — with hopes and dreams and feelings, goddammit, real,
honest to goodness feelings, and maybe he was finally realizing what a shit he
had been. 

Not good enough, Julia decided, and the Voice outside chortled greedily, and
rasped, "Exactly, Dr.  Hoffman.  Not good enough.  You have to kill him.  Do it
now.  Quickly, before someone stops you." That Voice was stronger now, and it
hummed in her own body like writhing skeins of electricity. 

"I don’t know if I can," Julia whispered, and Barnabas frowned. 

"Julia, what is the matter?" he pressed.  Behind him, Raymond shook his head
warningly. 

"Get out of my way, Barnabas," she said in a voice of resolute authority.  She
tried to push past him, but he would not be balked, and placed both hands on
her shoulders.  Her face twisted up like a nest of snakes, and she struggled in
his grip, and screamed, "Let me go, let me go, you bastard, let me go!" 

He recoiled, stricken at the release of her venom, and released her.  She fell
back with an angry snarl, and covered her face with her hands.  Dear god, what
was happening to her?  What was wrong?  The smell of lemon drops gathered
around her in a cloud, choking her, and the Voice said, "Now, Doctor." 

"Julia," Barnabas said, and she could almost believe that his voice was tender,
"what’s happened to you?  I don’t understand why you’re acting like this." 

"Acting?" Julia screamed, and her face was the twisted visage of a harpy,
purple and straining. "I’m trying to tell you how I feel, Barnabas, but you
can’t listen, even now!" She felt something inside her break, and tears began
to course in savage streaks down her face.  She sobbed as though that would
bring back her humanity, as if that would salvage something in her worth
saving, despite the fact that she was about to kill the man she loved.  Inside
her there was only dark winter and black ice and a dreadful, screaming wind,
and gradually the tears died away.  She looked up at him with the cold, amoral
eyes of a dead woman. 

"I thought we were friends," he whispered. 

"We’re not friends," she spat, "and we’ll never be friends.  I’ll love you
until my heart has burned itself to dead ashes in my chest and you’ll still be
chasing a girl who will never love you like I can. I’ll love you until they
bury my cold body under pounds of heavy earth, but we are not friends, Barnabas
Collins.  Whatever else may happen, I will never be your friend." 

"Now, Jules," Raymond said, and a chaotic field of sores ruptured on his face;
yellow pus oozed out from his raddled, pock-marked Halloween mask visage, and
when he grinned his teeth were green with moss.  She felt her stomach twist
with horror, and thought she might vomit. "You can’t fight him, Jules, and you
know you can’t.  Give up.  It’ll be so much easier if you just —" 

"All right," Julia growled, and when she looked up, Barnabas was coming towards
her with his arms open. 

"Julia, please," he said, and enfolded her in his arms.  She saw her
opportunity and let herself be folded, then steered him gently in the direction
of the noose.  The grinning, purple corpse of her brother was nodding
enthusiastically, and lifted the noose above Barnabas’ head. 

"Go back," Vicki whimpered on the bed, tossing and thrashing, "go back, go
back, go back —" 

This is the end, Julia thought concretely, and when this is done I shall kill
myself.  I won’t be able to live after I’ve done this, even though I knew I had
to because he wanted me to.  All I want to do is die. 

"Barnabas," Julia whispered, just as Vicki sat up in bed, her eyes wide and her
mouth wider, and she screamed, "Go back, go back —" 

Barnabas jerked at the sound of his beloved’s voice, and pushed Julia aside in
his fervent dash for the bed.  Julia howled miserably and sank to her knees,
but even this was not enough to deter him. The air was redolent with the scent
of lemon drops.  He knelt beside Vicki, trying to ask her what was wrong, to
tell him what had happened, but she was pointing a shaking finger in Julia’s
direction, and cried, "Barnabas, look!" 

He turned his head and saw first that Julia had crumpled on the ground in a
quivering, shaking ball, but that wasn’t what widened his eyes and caused his
mouth to gape open.  The rotted, twisted corpse of a man towered above Julia
Hoffman, and he rolled his eyes and gnashed his stained and mottled teeth, and
snarled, "Die, die, all will die —" 

"Barnabas, my god," Vicki cried, and clutched at him, but Barnabas was too
stunned to move.  A noose swung in the air, impossible as that seemed, swung
from nowhere ...  and it swung just above where he’d been standing.  Where
Julia had directed him to stand, to be precise, he belatedly realized with a
sinking feeling of horror. 

The air before the gibbering creature shimmered, and for a moment he stood
before them as he must have in life, and they could both see the resemblance. 
Julia had mentioned a brother that died, Barnabas thought, but why has his
ghost returned?  And why would he want her to kill me? 

Then the illusion shattered, and the ghost of Raymond Hoffman stood before them
in the cerements of the grave, and he threw back his head and screamed his rage
...  and began to change.  The air pulsed and writhed as though it were alive,
and the corpse before them began to break up and dissolve and reform itself,
and suddenly a vague, shadowy form stood before them. Its features were barely
distinguishable, but they could tell that it was an enormous man with eyes far
too large that flashed and sparkled.  His mouth split into an enormous grin,
and the smell of lemondrops was gone, and they could smell only corruption,
like spoiled meat gone gray and sour. 

Then it was gone. 

Julia lifted her head, and her face was red and stained with tears.  "Where is
he?" she cried in the quavering, querulous voice of a five year old.  Both
Barnabas and Vicki realized that she didn’t sound wholly sane.  Her eyes rolled
madly in their sockets.  "Where is Raymie?  What have you done with him?" 

"Julia," Barnabas said, stepping towards her, "Julia —" 

She bared her teeth at him and shook her fist, then clambered heavily to her
feet, and stood before them, swaying.  "What did you to do to my brother, you
murdering bastard?" 

"Julia," Barnabas said softly, and wished that he were anyone else in the
world, "your brother is dead." 

She merely stared at him for a moment, then her eyes bulged and her face
flushed a hot scarlet. "No!" she screamed in a high, terrible voice, "no, no,
no!" Still shrieking, tearing at her hair and her face with pointed nails,
Julia turned and fled the room. 

Vicki was on her feet in an instant.  "We have to follow her, Barnabas," she
said, and ran towards the door. 

"Vicki," he said, terribly ashamed, "Vicki, you have to know that I didn’t mean
to —" 

"I know, Barnabas," she said, and smiled as she cupped his hand in hers.  "I
understand everything, now. And I forgive you.  But we have to go now,
Barnabas.  Something terrible is about to happen, and I have to stop it if I
can, before it’s too late to save everyone else at Collinwood ... including
myself." 

She turned to run again, and Barnabas followed her, and cried, "Vicki, where
are we going?" 

"To where Julia is going," she called over her shoulder, and her voice was hard
and grim.  "To where he waits.  Where all this started.  To the West Wing." 

3 (Quentin) 

The door was open.  He should have known it would be.  It gaped, and inside was
a darkness as hollow and empty as he was.  Not even the thought of Vicki could
spark warmth inside of him.  He thought he would be cold for eternity. 

He thought of his portrait and how it had come to exist, and knew that the time
had come to pay the piper. 

No one gets something for nothing, he had once been told, and now he knew it
was true. Some things are a disease, he thought grimly, and helplessly began to
walk through the door. That’s what he gave me.  A disease that looks like a
cure.  And in the end it will cost me everything I hold dear. 

He stepped through the door, and for a moment, before his eyes could adjust, he
saw only darkness.  But gradually the darkness faded, and the first thing he
saw lay like a bundle of sticks flung carelessly against a wall.  He knelt
beside it for closer examination and recoiled.  It was the corpse of Nicholas
Blair (or Evan Hanley, Quentin thought, both were the same man), but it was
almost unrecognizable.  The skin had withered, and was drawn back tightly
against the bones of the face like ancient parchment.  His eyes had fallen in,
leaving gaping, empty eyesockets.  His mouth was open in a silent scream, and
his teeth were chipped and yellowed.  His mustache remained only in patches
above his open mouth. 

"He was a fool," a familiar voice said conversationally, and Quentin was not at
all surprised to see the man that stepped out of the shadows clustered in a
corner.  He might have been alive, so real did he look, so solid, but Quentin
heard his voice only in his mind, and realized that, as life-like as he might
seem, Quentin could see the wall through his enormous bulk.  He wasn’t whole —
certainly wasn’t alive — and might still be banished forever.  There was a
glimmer of hope, no matter how slim.  "My dear boy, it has been a long time. 
How well you look." 

"You saw to that," he said.  "It was your idea to employ the services of the
mad Mr.  Tate, as I recall." 

The ghost chuckled humorously.  "And yet you seem so ungrateful.  My dear
Quentin, I provided you with a life much longer than the ordinary mortal.  I
tamed the beast within you. You’ve had an extended life, extended days of
youth, much more than the ordinary mortal is granted." 

Quentin sneered.  "Which you gave me out of the goodness of your own heart, I
suppose." 

"You know the answer to that," the ghost said. 

"How did you return to this place?" Quentin asked.  "How long have you been ...
existing here?" 

"Oh, a long, long time," the ghost said with a knowing smile.  "Your cousin
Elizabeth has been a most gracious host, though I fear that her tenure in my
service has regrettably come to an end.  She has spent the majority of the past
twenty years supplying me with the ...  fuel, I suppose you would say, that I
require to rebuild my strength." It gestured with its still-withered paw at the
corpse of the warlock in the corner.  "With the help of the disposable Mr. 
Blair I was able to finally gather enough strength to materialize." It stepped
forward, its eyes behind those grotesque lenses gleaming with hunger.  "To
materialize and to do what else I have to do." 

Quentin bowed his head.  "I know what that means," he said, and an interior
voice railed, Why don’t you fight him?  Why don’t you struggle? 

Because it would do no good, he told that voice.  He felt heavy and lethargic,
not himself at all, and that was good.  That was just fine.  All he really
wanted to do was sleep.  Whatever this monster had in mind ...  well, it was
out of Quentin’s hands now, wasn’t it? 

"Better to go on thinking that," the ghost said soothingly, and caressed
Quentin’s face with that terrible hand, though in reality it had crumbled to
ashes twenty years before as Elizabeth had fed his body to the hungry flames on
the pyre she had built in the middle of the woods one black midnight twenty
years ago.  "There isn’t really anything you can do to stop me, is there? No. 
And why would you want to?  You’re going to go on living, my boy, for a very
long time.  You’ll have Collinwood and the rest of the world.  Yes, the rest of
the world will come shortly." 

Fight him, you fool!  that forceful voice, the voice of the real Quentin
Collins who wanted to go on living and loving, screamed inside of him.  Fight
him!  Don’t let him take your life ...  you know what he wants ...  you know
what he’ll do ... 

"Shhhhh," the horror before him cooed, and Quentin knew that there was no hope,
that the beast would win, and there was nothing he could do.  He opened his
eyes, wide and blue and filled with childlike wonder, as that leering face swam
before him, blotting out the world.  "It’s almost over now." 

I love you, Vicki, he wanted to cry, and then he felt something slide onto his
finger, something cold and hard, and then he knew only darkness, nothing but
darkness, now, and forever and ever. 

4 (Stokes) 

He wanted to scream, but found that he was utterly unable to even open his
mouth. Damn this paralysis, he thought, damn this stupid, worthless body!  He
could feel the pain from the lacerations that ...  that demoness had
administered him, but they seemed dim and unimportant. Even the blood that
stained the sheets a dark crimson was unimportant.  Nothing mattered now but
the scene that was unfolding before him. 

The dripping, bloated corpse of what had been his beloved daughter had emerged
from the bathroom, her eyes onyx and her mouth fixed in a bloody grin.  She was
naked, and this was somehow the most horrible of all.  He could see that her
skin had gone a dusky purple, and seemed ready to slough off her bones. 

"Embecile," Carolyn spat in French, and wielded the tiny knife that was still
stained with the Professor’s blood.  "Why am I always interrupted?  Who are you
to come to this place to stop me?" 

Daddy, the thing that had been Alexis Stokes said with puffy lips.  You will
leave him alone.  It paused, as though thinking, and added, chillingly, He is
mine. 

Carolyn thrust out her chin defiantly.  Why is she speaking French?  Stokes
wondered, and when did Carolyn Stoddard become a murderess?  All the pieces had
come together now — it must have been Carolyn who had killed Mr.  Wells that
day when Quentin and Stokes had confronted Chris Jennings at the Inn, and he
bet that she’d had something to do with Mrs. Pettibone’s death as well, and
then he wondered if she hadn’t been somehow involved in the still unexplained
disappearance of Tony Trask all those months ago — but how had it happened? 

Then he remembered that day at the Old House so long ago, when Julia had nearly
succumbed to the demonic infection passed to her by her one-time monstrous
lover, the day when Carolyn, eavesdropping they had supposed, had been attacked
by ...  by something, but they never found out what, and she would never tell. 
Demonic possession?  he wondered now as the two women faced off.  Could that be
it?  But a demon that spoke French, of all things ...  was that even possible? 

One look at the corpse of his daughter in the doorway of the bathroom, and he
wondered at this point why he even bothered to think such a question. 

"You’re wrong, ma petit," Carolyn said smugly.  "Dear Professor Stokes is mine.
I have been thwarted at every turn these days, and I will not stand for this
...  his ..." Her face twisted into triumph as the word came to her.  "... 
insubordination!" she crowed, and brandished the stiletto at the approaching
corpse.  "In the name of Alhazard the unholy, I command you to leave this
place!" 

The advancing corpse merely looked at her impassively, and Carolyn threw her
head back and howled her fury. 

You can do nothing to me.  Leave this place while you still can.  Leave while I
still allow you to go. 

Carolyn scowled, her eyes blazing with madness and her mouth petulant, and at
last threw down the stiletto and screamed, "Fine!  Have it your own way!" She
wheeled to face the Professor, who’s face contorted with fear, and leveled a
finger at him with childish fury.  "But I will dance on your grave, old man,
mark my words.  I’ll ...  I’ll piss on it!  See if I don’t!" 

Go, the spirit growled, be gone from this place. 

Carolyn fled, stopping once only to retrieve the stiletto, and then she was
gone. 

The ghost of his daughter loomed above him, her eyes wide and feral and hollow
and black, and her mouth stretched into a grin as dark as her eyes. 

Alone at last, it said.  It reached out its wrinkled, pruny fingers, reaching
for his throat, and its head lowered towards his as though longing for a final
kiss ...  and then it just wasn’t there anymore. Without any warning at all the
thing that had been his daughter evaporated, leaving no trace of itself.  It
was as if the ghost of Alexis Stokes had never been. 

Stokes blinked, one of the only acts he was capable of these days.  Where had
she gone?  She hadn’t been summoned away, had she?  Had Blair some further use
for her? 

That’s not it and you know it, he thought, and realization dawned on him.  It’s
Blair that’s been summoned away, if that’s what happened to him, and I doubt
like hell that’s all it was. More likely than not he’s been disposed of in some
way.  Quentin?  Could it have been Quentin?  If Nicholas Blair had been burned
and his ashes scattered, then it was possible that a great deal of his spells
had been undone, which would explain why Alexis had vanished when she did. 

He felt an unexpected pang at that.  Even though he knew in his heart that the
thing that had saved him from Carolyn’s killer’s blade, the thing that would
have throttled him as he lay paralyzed in his bed, wasn’t his daughter at all,
it still hurt him to lose her again. 

I almost wish that something had happened to Blair, he thought ruefully.  I’d
like to kill that bastard myself. 

Now, if I could only move ... 

His right finger twitched, and he felt hope bloom in his heart like a rose in
early spring. 

The door to his room opened that moment, and a nurse poked her head in. 
"Everything okay in here?" she asked, and smiled at the Professor.  He wondered
if she hadn’t been his student at one time or another, and hoped that he had
given her some kind of decent mark.  She stood beside his bed, still smiling,
and in the dim light of the room she didn’t see the bloody slash wounds on his
chest. 

Then her eyes widened and she began to scream, and Stokes closed his eyes,
tired, and thought, Quentin, where the hell are you? 

5 (Petofi — Endgame) 

In the end they almost ran into Julia. 

Barnabas had followed Vicki, dashing through the house swifter than any deer,
up endless staircases and down a multitude of hallways, more than he was sure
Collinwood possessed, and he wondered for the first time if there wasn’t some
dark magic at work in this house that wanted to prevent them from reaching
their goal in time to stop ...  to stop what?  He still wasn’t sure.  If only I
hadn’t been so blinded by my feelings for Vicki, he thought, I may have been
able to stop this.  But then he knew that wasn’t true.  Whatever Cousin
Elizabeth had put into motion twenty years ago when she had murdered the man
responsible for destroying her beloved baby sister, most of the dark business
in this house the past few days was completely out of Barnabas Collins’
control.  All that mattered now was that they stop that same darkness from
spreading anymore than it already had. 

"Here!" Vicki shouted, then drew back, startled, and they both saw Julia
standing stock-still in the doorway to what they thought was an abandoned room
in an abandoned wing of the house.  You of all people should know that
appearances are deceptive, Barnabas thought reprovingly, but it was too late
for recriminations now. 

"Julia!" Barnabas cried, but she seemed not to hear.  She stepped forward, into
the room, and they followed her.  Barnabas’ heart was thudding a sickening
rhythm in his chest. 

A man stepped out of the shadows and stood before them, and he was grinning. 
His eyes glinted a cold, heartless blue. 

"Quentin!" Vicki cried.  "Quentin, you have to get out of here.  Something
terrible is about to happen!" 

Quentin ignored her.  His eyes were on Julia, and she was staring at him,
hypnotized, like a bird before the sparkling, jewel-like eyes of a swaying
cobra.  None of them knew that it wasn’t Quentin she saw.  "Jules," he purred
in a deadly soft voice.  "Jules, you let me down." 

"I — I didn’t mean to," she said in a sob, and held her hands before her mouth
like a terrified little girl who has just handed her daddy a switch she cut
herself. 

"I know you didn’t," Quentin said in that same soft voice that wasn’t his own. 
He placed his hands on Julia’s shoulders, and she looked up at him with wide
eyes.  "But that doesn’t matter. You failed me, and I don’t forgive mistakes."
Before any of them could stop him, and with an eerie speed that was serpent
quick, Quentin seized Julia’s head in his enormous hands and twisted it
savagely to the right.  They heard her neck snap, a dry sound like a pencil
breaking, and then she crumpled to the floor in a heap. 

"Julia!" Barnabas roared, and would’ve dashed forward, but Vicki stayed him. 
Her face was very pale, like cream, and she was breathing in heavy gasps. 

"No, Barnabas," she said.  "Stay away from him or he’ll kill you too." 

Tears ran down Barnabas’ face.  "But that bastard killed Julia!" he sobbed, his
voice torn with anguish. 

"That wasn’t Quentin," Vicki said, and repeated, "Stay away from him.  There’s
nothing you can do for her now." 

Oh yes I can, Barnabas thought, teeth gritted, I can hurt him in ways he never
dreamed of ...  I can show him more pain that he’s felt in a century of living
— 

"Very observant, my dear girl," the man who wasn’t Quentin said.  "You’ve been
doing your homework, I see." 

"You’ve been calling to me ever since I came to this house," Vicki said in a
steady, level voice. "You wanted me to release you, but in the end you didn’t
need me.  What have you done to Quentin?" 

"You needn’t worry about him anymore, my dear," the man replied.  He was
absently twisting a large silver ring on his finger, and she saw that it was
set with a ruby that was garishly oversized.  It was a ring Quentin had never
worn before.  "Quentin Collins has ceased to bother anyone else. Not the
unfortunate Miss Evans, not the regrettable Mr.  Blair, nor the
soon-to-be-dispensed-of Mr.  Barnabas Collins." His smiled faded.  "And you’re
wrong, my dear.  I do need you. Desperately." 

He’s right, you know, Louise said from behind him, but only Vicki heard.  He
does need you.  And once he’s taken what he wants from you, no one will be able
to stop him.  You’re a doorway, I’m afraid, and he knows it.  THEY know it too,
but you needn’t worry about THEM for the time being. 

"Run, Barnabas," Vicki said, and never turned around.  Her eyes weren’t on
Quentin, however, but on the ghost of the girl who had given her birth.  She
was wearing a pretty white dress, and her eyes were like violets.  "Get out of
this house and don’t come back.  There’s nothing you can do right now." 

Barnabas will help you, Louise said.  You’ll need him.  But not now. 

"But Vicki —" Barnabas protested, but she cut him off. 

"Barnabas, if you love me, leave me here," she said, and she knew that was
cold, but if he stayed here now he would die, or interfere with what was going
to happen.  She had only the dimmest idea of exactly what that was, but he
couldn’t be here when it happened. 

Stokes will help him, Louise said.  Stokes will come to him, but Barnabas must
get away, because this man before you will kill him without another thought. 
Barnabas is dangerous to him, and he knows it. 

"Barnabas, you have to go," Vicki said, and added, "Help will come to you soon,
but you have to run." 

"Yes, run, Barnabas," Quentin cried cheerfully, and flapped his arms like a
large bat. "You don’t want to boogeyman to get you." 

"Vicki," he said one last time, and she turned to face him.  Her face was very
white and calm, but her eyes blazed with purpose.  In the end it was that look
of determination in her eyes that convinced him.  Strength emanated from her
waves, and she would brook no argument. He felt that in his bones.  He nodded
once, and said not a word, but disappeared out the door. 

"I’m going to kill him anyway, you know," Quentin said.  "You won’t be able to
help him. No one will.  He can’t even help himself." He chuckled, a low, evil
sound that she knew wasn’t Quentin at all. 

You have to find the Gypsy woman, Louise said, and now she stood directly
behind Quentin.  Her name is Magda, and she will help you.  Find Magda.  That
will be your place to start. 

Quentin held out his hand, the one that was now heavy with that terrible jewel.
It pulsed an evil red,casting a feverish scarlet glow over his fingers and
palm.  "Take my hand, Victoria," he said, "my darling one.  Take my hand and
come with me, and the world will be ours from sea to sea." 

"You’re a fool," Vicki said.  "You’ll never win." 

Quentin looked honestly surprised, but didn’t withdraw his hand.  "But I
already have, my dear!" he said.  "Collinwood is mine as we speak, and soon
I’ll have the world.  And you will share it with me." 

"You lie," Vicki said, and thought of poor dead Elizabeth, and Roger’s ghost,
and her mother.  He had contaminated her mother somehow, she knew that much,
and left her to die.  And he would pay for that.  He would pay most dearly. 

But not now, Louise said, and Vicki couldn’t see her.  Quentin blocked her out
of view completely.  Now time has grown short.  It’s time that you got on your
way.  You have to go back, and you have to do it now. 

She still didn’t know what that meant, but she had an idea that she would know,
and shortly. 

Take his hand, Victoria.  Let him gloat, thinking he has won. 

"Take my hand, Victoria," Quentin said, and the smirk on his face twisted into
her heart like the twisted blade of a kris.  For a moment horrible doubts
assailed her, and her she almost retracted her hand as it floated in the air,
uncertain. 

Do it, my darling.  All will be well and all will be well and all manner of
things will be well. Trust me.  I love you, my darling Victoria, and if you
love me too you’ll trust me. 

"I trust you," Vicki said, and placed her hand in Quentin’s.  His face split
into an evil grin, thinking that she had spoken to him, but then the grin faded
and lapsed into confusion. Something was wrong — something was very, very
wrong, and he tried to draw his hand back. 

Now, my darling. 

Vicki knew what it was, and she smiled before the end, before oblivion crashed
over her in waves.  In the instant her hand dropped into Quentin’s, Louise’s
was there first, and she had used his own power against him, used it, refined
it, and lost herself in it in the one instant when the power flared up around
them, white instead of black, glorious, shining white, and in that instant she
sent her little girl back to where she was needed, where she had to go to save
all those she loved. 

Quentin’s howl of rage and loss was swept away in an icy wind that enveloped
Vicki and whirled her away, far out of his reach.  White light burst up around
them, brilliant, glowing radiance that the thing inside of Quentin could not
bear, a fire that burned away what was left of the ghost of Louise Collins, and
when it had died down, Quentin was alone in the room with the corpse of Julia
Hoffman. 

Vicki was gone. 

She had stood for the first time, had stood and stayed true, and now she had
gone back just as she was destined to do, swept away into the stream of a time
long dead, but a time that continually reached into the present with its icy,
calculating fingers, and now those same fingers had drawn her out of the world.


"My name is Victoria Winters.  My journey is beginning.  A journey that I hope
will open the doors of life to me and link my past with my future.  A journey
that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea ... 
high atop Widow’s Hill ...  to a house called Collinwood.  A world I’ve never
known, with people I’ve never met, people who are still only shadows in my
mind, but who will soon fill all the days and nights of my tomorrows." 

To Be Continued...