Series 4/Chapter 9: THE BONDS OF BLOOD Part 2

The night was late, and the only sounds in halls of Windcliff Sanitarium were the buzzing lights in the hallway. The storm in the mean time raged outside breaking down power-lines and causing small floods all around Bangor. And in the darkest moments of the storm within the flashing of lightening and thunder a being: dark and fierce stood still at the entrance of Windcliff. He was there to finally fulfill his will and destiny. Barnabas Collins was there for Maggie Evans.

The rain had not touched Barnabas, he was dry as a bone. He looked through the glass windows in the doors and saw no movement in the building but could feel all the heartbeats all around him like hundreds of humming birds carefully pricking his skin with their little beaks.

With one swipe of his hand the doors mystically opened and Barnabas walked through, the bottom of his shoes leaving wet foot prints on the floor as he quietly walked down the damp halls.

Barnabas turned a corner and saw one light at the end of the hall: Joanna's office. He turned without emotion and headed down the hall, as he got closer, the hall lights continued to flicker on off on off on off and then off again in a strange buzzing sound that reverberated and echoed in the quiet Sanitarium hall way. He could hear talking, it was Kim and Joanna.

"We have to fix this, do you understand me? Chancellor Winters cannot come back to Collinsport, it would ruin everything. All the research I have done all the years that I lived among the family would be gone in second if we just take the family out now." Barnabas heard Kim say through the door.

"Chancellor Winters has already decided to cut her losses and move on. Keeping any of them alive now is too risky and The Organization just doesn't want to deal with it anymore. It's over Kimberly." Joanna concluded.

"All of them? We have to kill all of them?" Kim asked.

"All of them. It's not our fault you ended up having Caleb with David. Unfortunately, he'll be just a casualty of this war." Joanna said coldly.

As Barnabas listened he finally understood everything: Victoria Winters came to Collinwood with such mystery 50 years ago as Elizabeth's governess was a complete ruse; a work of deception. In reality she employed by a mysterious organization hell bent on destroying the family Collins family in the name of ridding the earth of their supernatural connections. Victoria later died, or so everyone though, from a fall from Widow's Hill. Yet another covert way for the Organization to cover Victoria's tracks and have her escape and only regroup years later with Victor Reed, Kimberly Joanna and Sebastian.

How could he have been so foolish to trust Victoria all those years ago? How could he have trusted Kim now with continuing to try and save his life with blood tests that he and Julia started 50 years ago?

Barnabas felt betrayed. Furious. Angry.

In his furry his eyes started to change to all black, his anger started to boil over. His teeth began to pierce through his mouth, pointed and ready for feeding, his skin went white as snow. He opened his mouth and let out a horrible inhuman scream that was as loud as the thunder outside that blew open Joanna's office door, tearing through the wood with a power ferociousness that stunned the two sisters inside the office to the floor, covering them in dust and debris from Barnabas' furious explosion.

"Oh my god! Barnabas!!" Kim screamed from the floor as she pushed off wooden boards from the door and wall.

Joanna looked on in a horror as she finally came face to face with the most infamous vampire The Organization had ever monitored. Her eyes were giant circles, and the blood rushed to her feet like she was being drained. It was fear, a feeling she had not felt in years.

****

Carolyn and David's flight began to take off into the pouring rain on its way to London to find Alex. Claudia's lie had worked, and everyone believed that Alex was in London on her own when in reality she was in a secret room above a turret at Collinwood, bewitched by Claudia's poisonous tea leaves, that ravaged her face, skin and hair.

In the air the Collins' private plane rocked and bounced with the overwehlming storm that Alex created with her powers. The pilots had underestimated the storm they decided to fly in.

"Are you ok?" Caleb asked Carolyn who was grabbing onto the seat.

"I think so!" Carolyn said reaching over to Caleb's hand.

"Its going to be ok. The storm will let up soon once we get above it." Caleb said reassuring.

The plane continued to attempt to fly higher in the atmosphere to try and escape the storm but it was too difficult for the pilots. The storm was too strong. The small white private jet swung back and fourth in the air like a giant had grabbed hold of it and pulled it back down causing a terrifying moment in the cabin for Carolyn and Caleb that would have lifted them out of their seats had they not been strapped in.

"Dear god!" Carolyn said tightening her seat belt again.

"Stay calm , stay calm...." Caleb said now starting to feel some worry himself.

As the storm Alex created continued to surge in the sky with the air plane, it suddenly took an even more terryfying dip straight down and then back up again. 

Carolyn screamed and Caleb reached over to grab hold of her attempting to give her some comfort, but he knew this was no ordinary case of turbulence..it was too late. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the plane's wing causing it to spin out of control and start to go down.

The pilot came on the loud speaker and demanded Caleb and Carolyn put on their life jackets because the plane, that had not yet left the area of Maine, was going down into the Atlantic ocean. There was no ifs ands or buts. The plane was going to crash.

"Stay calm stay calm...we'll be ok!!!" Caleb said yelling over the loud speaker and alarms the plane was making.

Carolyn looked over at Caleb one last time, he was smiling and holding her hand every attempt to keep her calm in a terrible moment....then everything went dark.

****

At Collinwood, the power had gone out with the storm, and David and Chris went on a mission to find the breaker that handled the main part of the house where everyone was. They slowly made their way through the winding halls of the mansion flashlight in hand, carefully. Suddenly David had a strange feeling. He looked over a door that he remembered lead to a small staircase. He was drawn to the door and kept staring at it intently.

"Kat is ok, she's feeling a little better and has candles. What are you looking at?" Chris said noticing David staring at the door.

"This door.......where does it lead?" David said out loud to himself.

"I don't know, I've never gone in." Chris replied not knowing David was speaking to himself, almost in a trance, and fixated on the door.

As a boy at Collinwood, David would scavenge both the new and old houses on the Collinwood property and knew where every door led, even if no one else did. The secret passages and doorways were like new adventures for David when he was little. He memorized every tiny hall behind every wall that no one else did, and this door was no different. And just like that his memory returned.

He remembered this door led to a staircase that led to Naomi Collins' old chapel, and something told David to turn that knob and go in.

So he did.

"Hey wait up!" Chris said thinking David was going up to find the breaker.

The lock on the door was tight but old, something Claudia failed to realize. All David had to do was jerk the the door knob violently three times and the door lock would break from the door frame allowing David to pull the door open and walk up the staircase to where Alex was.

"Whats up there?" Chris said hearing a voice all the way up.

As David and Chris started to make their weary ways up the stair case Claudia came from around the corner and down the long hall way. She saw them and in a panic they would discover Alex rushed over and grabbed Chris' arm who was directly behind David in the stairwell.

"STOP!" Claudia screamed at them

"What's going on?" David said now sensing Claudia had something to hide.

"Don't go up there." Claudia warned.

"Claudia what's up here?" Chris asked her with an angry voice.

And suddenly, the human side of Claudia came back; her guilt came rushing back like a flood of water from Alex's storm. She looked into Chris' eyes, he was angry and disappointed that she was hiding something then she looked at David and she could tell he was starting to get angry too. She could no longer hold on to what she was hiding.

"It's Alex....she's up there. But, I'm warning you, she's not the same. She's not the same." Claudia said covering her mouth with fear of what had become of Alex since she poisoned her.

David quickly turned and ran up the steps into the turret Alex had been kept in. The staircase went straight up and creaked and cracked with age with every one of David's steps. His large manly body pushing his way through finally coming to the main door of the Turret.

"Alex!!! Are you in there?" David yelled.

She did not answer.

David begin to push on the door with his shoulder, harder and harder and with more and more force finally breaking open the door. And standing here dressed in a frightful all black with a dark veil covering her face was Alex.

"Alex!!" David said in a loud voice.

Alex, still holding her hands up against the wall causing the power storm over heard suddenly turned to see her mother's cousin standing in her cell. With the all her energy now depleted she fainted and fell to the floor.

"Claudia what have you done?" Chris said now with a confused and disheartened look on his face while David carried the veiled Alexandra past them down the staircase and taking her to her room.

Claudia knew it was all over and quickly made her way down the main staircase as Chris watched in a strange state of sadness and anger at what she had done.

Claudia grabbed her coat off a coat hanger by the door and slipped it on and tied it closed tightly around her small frame.. She looked up at Chris who was now staring at her from the top of the stairs one more last time

"I'm sorry." She quietly said to him.

 She then looked at the painting of Barnabas in the drawing room one last time and opened the front door and ran off into the wild storm.

 Never once looking back.

****

Back at Windcliff Barnabas hissed and fumed over what he had heard Joanna and Kim saying. All these years Victoria Winters had been part of a terrible organization that was out to kill him and his family ... Barnabas would not allow it.

"This is Barnabas!" Joanna said semi pleased at what she saw. "Remarkable." She added as Barnabas was in his full vampire furry.

"Barnabas calm down." Kimberly said holding her hand out to keep Barnabas away.

"You have betrayed my family. All these years. Victoria, you....this woman...you have all taken years from David and Caleb and you hide Maggie...." Barnabas said walking closer to the sisters as he pushed over fallen office furniture making a path towards the cowering two doctors.

"You don't understand Barnabas I had to...we had to!" Kim said in fear.

"LIES!" Barnabas yelled.

"You have to believe me!" Kim screamed back.

Barnabas growled at her in disgust and pushed all of the items on Joanna's desk to the floor without even touching them, he just swooped his hand over them effortlessly. He got into Kim's face, her hands trembled in fear, then grabbed her by the throat but just before he went into bite, heard the calking of a gun.

"The moment a single drop of my sister's blood hits your lips I will pull this trigger and you will be nothing but a fable." Joanna said pointing a gun filled with silver bullets.

Barnabas hissed and turned his attention to Joanna who's fear seemed not to fear Barnabas' wrath and was ready to take his life for the good of the Organization.

"That, Dr. Grayson will be the biggest mistake of your mortal life. A single bullet will not over take me, I can assure you." Barnabas said walking slowly over to Joanna. His telepathic powers noting the amount of bullets Joanna had.

Joanna looked at her gun and had no idea how powerful Barnabas really was, she knew there was only one bullet but she was certain she could kill him in just one shot.

"Come any closer and I'll shoot." Joanna yelled.

"Where is Maggie Evans??" Barnabas asked in a cold dark voice.

"Evans? She died, years ago. She's long gone." Joanna said still pointing the gun.

"I told you Barnabas, she died here at the hospital in an accident, I took you to her grave." Kim said from behind and she calmly picked up a chair to throw over Barnabas.

Barnabas was too smart for her and could sense her every movement even if he wasn't looking at her. As Kimberly lifted the chair over his head he swooped his hand up in the air levitating Kimberly and then suddenly dropping her to the ground causing her to lose consciousness.

"A chair." Barnabas smirked as Joanna's hands began to shake with the gun still pointed at him.

Barnabas could feel Maggie's life force, strong and power within the walls of Windcliff. in his anger and in his furry at Kim and Joanna for keeping his beloved away from him, he finally lunged at Joanna and plunged his teeth in her neck breaking skin. She shot the one bullet missing him.

The blood slowly trickled down into his throat. As he drank her blood it squirted on the wall and down her neck onto her white shirt.

Kim, waking up from her fall, screamed at the sight of her sister being attacked by Barnabas and covered her eyes. She cowered in fetal position as the thunder clapped, causing the rest of the hospital to lose power.

Barnabas released the lifeless Joanna from his grips, her body slowly slumping down to the ground, the gun still in her hand and walked over to Kimberly who was shaking with fear.

"Barnabas, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...." Kim said shaking and still covering her face.

Barnabas wiped the fresh blood from his mouth, his eyes still pitch black, his fangs still sharp and dangerous. He pulled Kimberly up by her arm and forced her to face him.

"Look into my eyes." he said calmly to a resistant Kimberly. "LOOK INTO MY EYES!" Barnabas yelled again.

Kimberly looked into his eyes and saw the deep black pools where his irises once were, she began to feel sleepy and slowly blink, the pools of black in Barnabas's pulling her deeper and deeper into a sort of trance taking her away from the trauma of the moment.

"You will go back to Collinwood and you will never come back here again. You will find David and you will not tell him of any of this. Do you understand?" The vampire asked.

Kimberly in her hypnotic state only nodded "yes" and carefully made her way out of Joanna's office. She walked down the empty halls of Windcliff and looked back to the office and saw now exiting ...he closed the door behind him and continued down the long darkened hall.

Kimberly turned back around and quietly walked out of Windcliff and into the rain outside. Back to Collinwod without another sound.


Barnabas made his way through all the hospital rooms and found sleeping patients. All patients Joanna had drugged to keep them asleep through the night.

He painstakingly searched and searched down each hall and each hospital room for Maggie. His one and only. But patient after patient was not who he needed, who he wanted.

Suddenly something scurried in the corner of his periferal vision. He turned quickly and saw a door to a patiente's room was left open. He quickly dashed down the hall and came to a door that was marked GLASSBERG, R. ---Maggie's alias at the hospital.

The room was empty, the sheets on the bed pulled from one corner down to the ground as if the sheets tried to leave with the person who was in that bad.

Barnabas slammed his fist against the wall and turned around into the hall and heard the slamming of a door  at the end of the hall. The red EXIT sign above it glowing a deep blood red. The open door led to the outside area, the wind and rain slamming the open door over and over again against the door frame.

Maggie had escaped.

Again.

**** 

The next morning Kat, who had been sick most of the day and night before, woke up to a whole new house at Collinwood. She came out of her bathroom with a smile on her face. She was feeling better after discovering the reason she was sick. She walked downstairs to tell Caleb her discovery and only found David, Chris, and Loomis McGovern her partner at the Police force.

They all had solemn looks on their faces.

"Loomis! What are you doing here....what's...going on?" She asked confused.

"Kat, we need you to sit down. There's some bad news." Christopher said.

"What's the matter?" Kat said concerned. "Where's Caleb?"

"Kat, there was a very big storm last night while you were sick and sleeping." Chris explained.

"Yeah I heard it. What's going on? Where's everyone else?" Kat continued as she looked around the room.

"Carolyn and Caleb were on a plane to London last night, a very last minute trip. It's a long story as to why they needed to go there but...." Loomis further explained.

"Ok???" Kat said in a confused voice as she looked over at David who had tears in his eyes.

"And....." Chris said picking up where Loomis left off before getting choked up.

"....And Carolyn and Caleb ....their private jet got caught in that storm. It was a bad storm Kat." Loomis said. 

"Loom...what the hell is going on. Tell me!" Kat demanded.

"The storm was too much Kat. Their plane crashed. Carolyn is in the hospital now, pretty serious. But the pilots and Caleb. Their bodies weren't found. Kat, Caleb is dead." Loomis said.

Kat's eyes instantly glazed over and she felt like she had the rug taken out from under her and Chris grabbed her to hold her up. She screamed in horror over the news, a scream the came from deep within her small body, then turned and ran back up the main staircase in absolute devastation. 

Kat ran into her room slamming the door behind her. She then dashed into the bathroom and closed and locked the bathroom door where she had been just minutes before the bad news.

She slumped down on the floor devastated in tears to think that she would never be able to see Caleb again. Her heart felt like it was going to explode in grief. 

From the bathroom floor, Kat reached up on the sink and picked up a pregnancy test. A pregnancy test that was positive.

Caleb was gone, on the same day Kat discovered she was having morning sickness. She was carrying his Caleb's baby.

****

The day light peeked through the shuttered windows of the old house causing little rays of light to stretch from the glass to the floor in rows of bright light stretching over the floor. In a peaceful slumber, Barnabas lay in his coffin, his quest to find Maggie the night before at Windcliff failed when she escaped, all he could do was sleep now, and wait for another day.

As the formidable vampire slept, a person walked into the old house and carefully made their way down the darkened hallway that led to the room where Barnabas lay. The person turned a corner into the room and saw the black coffin with the initials BC carved on it's lid and ran their fingers, clad in black leather gloves, along the ornate carved ridges that ran along the edges.

The person carefully, yet skillfully, slid the cover of the coffin over, allowing it to fall to the ground. Barnabas, laying there still and asleep, did not wake. The person carefully paced around the coffin looking at the body of the man that had done so much to so many, including them. His skin a perfect porcelain white glistened in the sparse sun light. 

Suddenly, with one giant heave, the person with the black gloves pulled out a thick wooden steak from inside their jacket and lifted it with both hands above their head. Without a second thought, the person in black plunged it down in the direction of Barnabas' body.

With the reflexes of a panther, Barnabas' eyes instantly flipped open as the stake made its quick entrance into his heart causing a sharp and cruel feeling to shake him fully awake. 

The intruder, dressed in all black, stepped away from the coffin and watched as Barnabas gasped for air and struggled in the coffin with the steak in his chest. He slowly lifted himself up, and looked up out of the coffin...standing in the corner of the room in all black was the face Barnabas never, ever expected to see again. The face of Victoria Winters.

Victoria was no stranger to Collinsport. She had come to the small seaport village many, many years ago at the request of Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard as Governess for a then 10 year old David Collins. Victoria knew the ins-and-outs of the town, mansion, and family. Her life, before she disappeared 50 years ago, was met with terrors and horrors that no one would ever believe. And Barnabas was the creature who brought these terrors on to her. Her life had never been the same since.

 But she also had a secret. Victoria was the leader of The Vampire hunting Organization that conviced her to take the employment at the Collins estate as to infiltrate the Collins family 50 years ago under the guise of a Governess. The rouse was clever, cunning, and the most dangerous thing Vickie had ever done. But her destiny was set.

Victoria stepped two stepped into Barnabas' direction, allowing herself to be fully revealed out of the shadowy corner and into the creeping light and only said three words to the fledgling Barnabas:

"Its over Barnabas."

Series 4/Chapter 8: THE BONDS OF BLOOD Part 1 Dark Shadows 50thAnniversary

The mid-day summer sun burst through the guilded windows of the main drawing room at Collinwood manor, but while the rest of the family joyously celebrated the return of David Collins to his family home, one family member was noticeably absent: Alexandra. Alex had been vengefully locked away in a old part of the house inside of a turret that was once Naomi Collins old chapel, a place hallowed and holy, a place where her captor, Claudia, knew she could no longer use her powers.

Sitting in the drawing room with Caleb and David, Carolyn had a bad feeling about so much that was happening around her. She feared what Barnabas would do with the information she had given him about Maggie's whereabouts. His obsession with her had over taken him many years before, and she feared it would happen again, and this time, she had no idea what the outcome would be.

"It's so good to be back!" David said grabbing his son Caleb again hugging him.

"I never thought I'd see you again, I just...I can't believe how amazing this feels." Caleb said with a smile that reached ear to ear.

"I'm so sorry that I haven't been here all these years for you and to be here to protect you all from what's been going on. Carolyn filled me in as best she could." David responded looking over at a worried Carolyn who was pouring a glass of wine for Christopher who had joined them.

"The important part is that you're back. And we have you here and the family can try and move on from everything that has happened. I have a very good feeling about this." Carolyn said hiding her worry about Alex and handing Chris his wine.

"I'd still love to see Alex! The last time I saw her she was just a little girl." David said.

"Where is she?" Chris asked concerned knowing they had just had yet another confrontation at the Blue Whale two nights before.

"I can't get a hold of her. She's not answering her cell phone." Carolyn said now showing her worried face.

"That's very unlike her. When was the last time you saw her?" Caleb asked.

"The other night. She came in and we spoke. But I don't remember her leaving Collinwood...I'm getting worried actually. David, I'm so sorry this is ruining your return party." Carolyn said with a grimace.

"Please! Don't apologize. We'll find Alex. Remember. We're family. Everything is going to change. We will no longer live divided. Even you Chris, Carolyn tells me your father recently died. He and I didn't exactly see eye to eye on in the past and ------your my son's half brother. You're connected to him, and he's connected to me. We're all family." David said to Christopher who felt happy to be welcomed this way.

"Speaking of which, where's Kim?" Chris asked of his and Caleb's mother.

"She left early this morning. Kat hasn't been feeling well, and she said she was going out to run some errands and would get her something to settle her stomach." Caleb said with a skeptical tone.

"You mean she didn't want to say hello to me?" David said sarcastically of his ex wife.

As the family continued to chat, and Carolyn sat on the sofa trying to get a hold of Alex by phone Claudia walked in, surprised to see everyone. She was hoping she'd be alone.

"Dad, this is Claudia. She's ....well.....she's also family." Caleb said introducing Barnabas' daughter.

"Is she? Well pleased to meet you. How are we related?" David asked shaking her hand.

"I'm Barnabas' daughter." She replied

David's eyes turned to saucers when he heard Claudia say that name. A name he was fearing would come back to haunt him. He couldn't believe what has hearing. How could this be Barnabas Collin's daughter? How was this possible?

In Carolyn's briefing of the events the family had endured in the last 6 months, she mentioned how Barnabas had never died back in the late 70s. He wasn't too surprised, he knew Barnabas' zest for staying in this world no matter what, but she had neglected to tell him about Claudia.

"Excuse me?" David said furrowing his brow and looking at Carolyn with confusion.

"It's a long story dad. I'll explain later." Caleb replyed.

"I don't know what to do, she's still not answer her phone." Carolyn said from the sofa where she had been trying to reach Alex's cell with the home's landline. "Caleb, can I ask a favor? Do you think Kat can get the police to help find Alex?" She asked Caleb.

"Of course! I'm sure she can make a call to Loomis and have them put a look out for her." Caleb said as he put down his drink to run upstairs to ask a sickly Kat for help.

From what the corner from of the room, Claudia carefully paced listening in on the chatter of Alex's sudden disappearance; a disappearance she was directly responsible for.

 "You're looking for Alexandra? I thought she told you. I ran into her late last night." Claudia said addressing the group of Collins family members. "She's gone."

"What do you mean she's gone?" Carolyn asked skeptically.

"She left Collinsport. Late last night. She ... Uhh...went back to London." Claudia said, lying through her teeth.

"That's ridiculous. Why would she do that Claudia?" Carolyn responded, in disbelief.

"Well, it's no secret that she and I haven't gotten along, and now that Christopher and I are together, she felt that it was best for her to go back to London. Away from us, away from here." Claudia said expanding on her lie, all the while Alex was trapped in the abandoned chapel turret above them all.

Carolyn was half in disbelief and half furious so that all this happened under her nose without her knowing. She looked at Claudia with a skeptic eye, but had no concrete reason not to believe her.

"That's it, I'm going after her. There's no one in London for her to be with. Her emotions have been in a terrible state, I can't just leave her alone." Carolyn responded.

"What are you doing?" Caleb asked Carolyn as she reached for the phone again.

"I'm calling up the driver, and I'm going to charter a flight to London on the company jet. I'm not going to let Alex be in London alone. I'm bringing her back. Something has been amiss with her for weeks now and I don't think she should be alone. No matter what she feels about Claudia and Chris." Carolyn said furiously dialing.

"Then I'm going with you." Caleb said in support.

Christopher began to worry. Something about Claudia's story didn't add up in his mind. He could sense it. He could feel it inside his bones that Claudia was keeping something hidden. But she was a well versed liar, she knew exactly how to control situations around her. It was a trait he once believed she had given up, her cunning, wicked side. But there was no doubt, something wasn't right.

****

As the day pressed on, and the sun began to dance in the sky, moving across and soon setting on past the hills that bordered Collinsport, Barnabas awoke. He lifted himself out of his coffin and prowled his room in the old house lighting candles. The lights flickering on his pale skin that glistened with iridescence. 

He knew tonight was the night he would be reunited with his beloved. The one woman that embodied Josette's spirit, the one woman he longed for all these years, the woman he felt all the world had taken from him. His love. His life.

As he prepared himself for the evening he walked over to the closet and pulled out the painting of Josette. She was beautiful. Youthful. Her eyes warn and calming. Barnabas kissed the tips of his fingers and placed them on the painting of her lips. A tender moment that would, hopefully, change once he found Maggie. Where ever she was.

Barnabas' destination of the night: Windcliff Sanitarium to retrieve Maggie Evans where he knew she was being hidden. He had forced Carolyn to disclose her location in an argument when he heard her talking to David upon his return. It would all culminate tonight, long after their 50 year separation. 

"Soon, my love. Soon." he whispered to the painting, as the candles continued their warm glowing, and the night crept on in stillness and in darkness. 

****

As the night progressed Alexandra remained locked away in the part of the house no one knew she was in. Sad, alone. and with her body mutilated with by spell she could not undo. A spell that locked her youthful body in an aged cage of skin and bones. A punishment of vanity. Claudia's last effort to weaken Alex and keep her away from Christopher.

Claudia's plan was two fold, locking Alex away, but making sure Alex could use her powers. In fact those powers were useless in the room that was blessed by god, a room where witchcraft and black magic had no place. But that didn't mean Alex wasn't still connected to the other side of her powers. Those that connected  her to nature and the elements. 

Alex, now dressed in the old black dress she found in the room from the 19th century, and veiled in black from her head to her hands covering her cursed skin and face by the poisonous tea leaves, placed her hand on the boarded up windows and took a deep, hearty breath in and out. 

"Worth a shot." Alex said to herself hoping she could reach the elements on the outside hoping the world would reveal her location. 

"Wind find me. Rain find me. Storms come. Make this undone." She said over and over and over again.

"Wind find me. Rain find me. Storms come. Make this undone."
"Wind find me. Rain find me. Storms come. Make this undone."
"Wind find me. Rain find me. Storms come. Make this undone."

Soon the night winds began to wail, and serge. They swirled and circled Collinsport; giant mountains of storm clouds, thick grey and angry.

Carolyn and Caleb sat at a small airport just outside of town seeing that the weather looked frightful for their flight to London.

"It doesn't look good out there." the co-pilot said to the pilot.

"It's just a little rain. Should be fine." The pilot responded.

Carolyn picked up her bag, nervous but determined to get to London to bring back Alex, took a gulp of air and walked herself to the airplane.

Caleb looked at Carolyn nervously and followed her in. The pilots followed too, the last ones to board and close the small door of the private jet. 

The winds and rain came pouring down, thunder clapped and slammed against each other in the sky.

Boats in the bay bobbled and bounced like toys in a bathtub, some even crushing themselves up against the rocky shore. 

Alex, with her hands on the walls of her prison cell in the turret chapel continued to reach the natural elements outside that was causing the storm. It was her one last hope for freedom, hoping that somehow the story would set her free. 

"Scared of a little thunder?" Chris said smiling at Claudia.

"No, not at all." Claudia responded looking out of Collinswood's perfect windows facing the wild sea.

"Hmm...you sure seem like something is bothering you. What is it?" Chris asked noting Claudia's nerves were on edge, and remembering he felt she was keeping something from him about Alex.

"Nothing. Just a little tired. I'm going to check on Kat. Kim was supposed to bring her home some medicine for her stomach ache but she hasn't been back all day. Excuse me." Claudia said making her exit.

"Your strange behavior wouldn't have anything to do with Alex would it?" Chris said to a surprised Claudia.

"What? No! Why would you say that?" Claudia said again lying.

"Just an observation." Chris said slyly.

"I assure you. Its not about Alexandra. I'm fine. I'll be right back, Kat needs me." Claudia said making her quick exit.

Christopher now felt his hunch was right, Claudia's behavior and Alex's sudden departure was too coincidental. Now he new for sure Claudia was keeping something from him.

****

As the stormed brewed and swirled around Collinsport, it's lasting effects too, spilled off to near by Bangor where everyone at Windcliff Sanitarium took cover. 

Kimberly had been there all day with her sister Joanna discussing what they would do about David's escape, what would he tell the family about his time at Windcliff? They wondered. It was all too much, and Kimberly began to feel like she was going to crack.

"What do you think he's going to do? Just not tell everyone what we've been doing?" Kim said panicking.

"I think you're jumping the gun a little. The Organization won't allow this to happen. I've worked too many years to pump David for information about this family in my hypnosis sessions with him for this to all just blow up in our faces. And unfortunately, the Chancellor is not happy with us." Joanna said.

"The Chancellor?" Kim said terrified.

"This situation has escalated to her. She called me this morning." Joanna said.

"What did she say?" Kim asked in fear of the answer.

"She said that the work she started 50 years ago with the Collins family has almost been destroyed thanks to our negligence. She said that 50 years ago when she first infiltrated the family's inner circle and began this journey for the Origination has been almost ruined by us. So basically, she's pissed Kim." Joanna said sarcastically.

"What do we do now?" Kim asked.

"The Organization has had a long storied history of Vampire hunting, ridding this planet of the most vial and ruthless beings from the depths of hell. The Collins family has done nothing but breed the evils and the wicked for centuries, and 50 years ago, our current Chancellor  did what no one else could. She penetrated this family's inner walls and sent back information to the Organization that helped us better understand our enemies. We have failed our leader, Kim, we have to redeem ourselves. We're going to go to Collinwood and we're going to kill every last one of them. Forget all the research you've done over the past 20 years. It's time they all die." Joanna announced grimly. 

Kim knew that the Chancellor had worked her way up to the most powerful position of The Organization and was now the leader, and they were sworn to do what the leader of the Vampire Hunters wanted. All of them. Victor. Kim. Joanna. Sebastian. All of them. But could Kim actually kill her own son Caleb, the son she had with David in the name of The Organization, in the name of the one and only Chancellor?

As the sisters, Joanna and Kim, contemplated their next move, Joanna removed a plaque from her drawer and walked over to place it on the wall of her office...a phrase in plaque read The Organization's Creed in Latin: VERA ENIM DE CORDE (for the true of heart) ...and just above the phrase the photo of current esteemed Chancellor........Victoria Winters. 

Series 4/Chapter 7: WITHERING OF SOULS

Often times Collinwood is left out on it's hill basking in the light of the many stars that shine down on it, like a glowing beacon and symbol of the Collins family wealth and power throughout the centuries. This night in particular was a vibrant one, filled with the familiar sounds of the sea crashing up against the rocks that filled the main drawing room where Carolyn sat with the widow open listening and reading. The lights dim. Her mind calm.

She had lived on this property for decades as a young woman and just up until the late 80s, before she moved to London where she met her husband Jack Thorne. She knew its every wall, its every secret passage and all its hidden treasure, but there were two other's who knew the place even better: Barnabas and her cousin David Collins.

In her quiet movement, Carolyn became distracted while reading by her own thoughts and dropped the book to her lap and stared out the open French doors and watched the tree's sway back and forth in the elegant summer breeze.

"Refreshing isn't it? I had forgotten how fresh the air was here in the summer." A voice said from behind.

Carolyn turned and saw David, free from his torture at Windcliff, standing in the foyer looking into the drawing room. At first she thought she was dreaming but as he came closer and into the light of the drawing room, dim as it was, she knew he was real. David had finally returned home.

"Oh my god! David!" Carolyn said, bouncing off the sofa and rushing in for a hug. "It's really you!"

"Who did you think I'd be? I guess after 20 years away there's no one else it could be." David laughed.

"You'd be surprised." Carolyn quipped back,

"I guess I would." David giggled, remembering stranger things have happened at Collinwood.

"Caleb and Kat are sleeping, but I know he wouldn't mind if I woke them to see you, oh he's going to be elated when he finds out you're here!" Carolyn said starting off to wake Caleb.

"No! Don't. It's ok. I'll wait until morning. I don't want to wake him." David said grabbing Carolyn's hand.

"Well, if you're sure. ...David where have you been? What happened? We've been so worried for so many years and then Caleb finds this letter and they trace it back to Windcliff. It's all so confusing!" Carolyn asked pulling herself back to the sofa and sitting David down with her.

"It's a very long story. All I remember is that I was taken from here by two men to Windcliff and there I've been ...all these years. I'm actually very interested in seeing Kimberly soon. I take it she's living here too." David said.

"She is. Something I actually fought against, I assure you. But Caleb insisted. I am so glad you're home." Carolyn said. "How did you escape that place?"

"You'll never believe it, if I told you, but it's true. Maggie. It was Maggie Evans! Apparently she's been there for a long time too and she helped me. I tried to bring her here but she wouldn't come." David explained.

"What are you talking about?" Carolyn said with a shocked expression.

"Maggie helped me escape." David said again.

"Maggie Evans? No. You must have thought it was here, because that's not possible." Carolyn said now standing up and walking towards the open French doors.

"What do you mean?"

"David, Maggie died a long time ago, in 1998 or 1999. I can't remember the exact date. But I know that when I heard the news shortly after I moved to England. So it couldn't be her." Carolyn said.

During their conversation, which began to switch from happy to bizarre, Barnabas had come in from the old house undetected. He saw David and Carolyn talking and instinctively hid so that he could hear them talk freely. He came in at the right moment, the moment that mattered to him most. Maggie Evans.

"No, Carolyn, it was her. I know it was her. She told me.....well, I just know it was her. I felt her body. We hugged good bye. Maggie is not dead." David said sternly.

"I don't know what to tell you. But it's true. She killed herself in that hospital. It was a very terrible thing." Carolyn said bowing her head.

"I know what I saw Carolyn. I saw her. We touched. She broke into the room I was in and she helped me escape. I don't know where she is now, but I know that she helped me." David continued.

"Ok! Ok! Well, whatever, or who ever it was, Maggie or not, I'm certainly glad she came to your rescue. And you must be exhausted and hungry. The cook was about to make me some tea before she left for the evening, why don't I ask her to make you a sandwich? It wont take long. Sit down. I'll be right back." Carolyn said trying to calm David.


David nodded in agreement and Carolyn went off into a hallway the stretched all the way down to the main kitchen. She walked quickly and from out of a shadowy corner, his eyes wide and serious jumped Barnabas, startling Carolyn so much she backed into the wall knocking over a vase.

"Barnabas!" She yelled.

"Good morning Cousin." He said noting the evening hour as his morning.

"What do you want?" Carolyn asked, her fear was that he would find David, and for some reason she did not want him to.

"I do not like when things are kept from me, you know. And when I returned I felt that you and I were on the same footing, the same common ground and that I could count on you." Barnabas said coldly.

"That was before I realized that you hadn't changed and that you were still the same soulless creature from 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, or from whatever world or time you belong. What do you want?" Carolyn said sternly.

"Maggie." he responded

"What? Barnabas please, I don't know what you're--" Carolyn said before Barnabas stopped her.

"I heard you and our returned Cousin David speaking of her, and I know she's alive. I know it! Last night Kimberly took me to her grave. I saw it, but I do not believe it. Maggie is alive and i want to know where she is!" Barnabas said.

Carolyn took a deep breath a realized that now something was definitely a miss. If David saw Maggie at Windcliff and, Barnabas saw some sort of vision of her that didn't convince him she was dead, than Maggie must be a live and hiding.

"If you saw her at her grave then she's dead!" Carolyn said sternly.

"You forget, I know what the dead are like. I know what if feels like to have the blood in your veins grow cold. What I saw at the cemetery was something different. She shivered in the cold, Carolyn. Her skin was peach and soft, just like this...?" Barnabas said grabbing Carolyn's arm tightly.

"I can't explain why she looked the way she did, so let go." Carolyn said thrusting her arm out of Barnabas' cold hand. "Whoever David saw or who ever helped him get away from that place, I am grateful for. But I know that Maggie Evans died. So why can't you let that go?" She added.

"Because it's a lie. Because it's something that is being hidden from me. Now tell me, Carolyn, tell me now, where is Maggie Evans?" Barnabas growled.

Carolyn had to make another impossible decision but she knew it had to be done. Her old friend Maggie, alive or dead, needed to be found in order to protect David who Carolyn wasn't even sure was in the right mind space after spending all those years trapped in a mental hospital.

"I want you to know one thing, you will leave David alone. I do not want him seeing you Barnabas." Carolyn said sternly.

Barnabas thought for a second and agreed to not reveal himself to David, just yet in exchange for the whereabouts of Maggie Evans.

"Where is she?" Barnabas growled again.

"Windcliff Sanitarium." Carolyn said with reluctantly, and in truth, she wasn't even sure Maggie was there. But David believed it, so to her it must be somewhat true.

Barnabas' eyes turned pitched black and in a puff of the blackest smoke, the darkest Carolyn had ever seen, disappeared as soon as he got the information he so desperately wanted. He had no intention of following through with possibly ending his own life by stepping into sunlight and vaporizing into the air now that there could be a possibility Maggie was alive. Barnabas' instincts were right, he felt her life force and now there was no stopping him.


Carolyn stood in the hall just outside the kitchen for a second, the feeling of guilt slowly reaching for her throat like she was being buried alive. Tightening like a noose. If Maggie was really still alive, had just just given Barnabas, the one man Maggie feared most in her entire life her location?

What had she done?

****

The evening progressed within the walls of Collinwood, even with David's return still mostly unknown to the rest of the house. Kimberly was out somewhere, Christopher, Caleb and Kat had turned into bed early. Claudia on the other hand had a certain job to do in regards to her rivalry with Alexandra who had returned home earlier that evening from the Blue Whale Pub.

Claudia carefully walked up the main staircase and down the hall to Alexandra's room. The door had been left slightly open, enough that Claudia could peek in without being seen. There, Alexandra sat in a chair looking over a small table as Claudia looked closer she could see Alexandra was reading Tarot Cards.

Alex's eyes were rolled back and she had 8 cards on the table with her hand slightly over them, she was humming something, something Claudia couldn't understand, suddenly a burst of energy flung the door open and pushed Claudia inside of the room where Alex was waiting for her.

"It's rude to lurk in doorways." Alexandra said as she slowly turned her head to see Claudia standing firmly now in the room.

"It's also bad luck to read your own fortune, didn't mummy ever teach you that?" Claudia responded equally as tart. "Given everything that's happened in this room--you remember that whole mirror thing--I wouldn't peg you for someone who would want to dabble in the dark arts ever again." Claudia added.

"I'm not reading my fortune.......... I'm reading yours." Alex said coldly.

"Well, how kind of you, but I already know what my fortune will bring. Much happiness. With Christopher." Claudia said digging into Alex's heart.

"You stole him from me!" Alex said in raised voice.

"He wasn't yours to steal Alexandra! It's a shame you can't understand that. All you'r life you've been given the royal treatment, haven't you? No one has ever asked you to take responsibility; I never made Christopher leave you for me, he chose to." Claudia responded.

Alexandra didn't react to what Claudia's cold malicious insult. All she did was sit at table and flip her Tarot cards over one by one so that now 12 were revealed.

"Tsk tsk tsk..." Alex hissed in disappointment of the results of her cards. "Doesn't look so good for you Claudia. But this 13th card will tell me your final fate. The most important card of all." Alex said as she slowly turned the card over revealing THE DEATH card.

"Uh oh! Death! So dramatic!" Alexandra giggled.

"You're losing your mind. I should have never given you these powers." Claudia responded as she fiddled with the small bag in her pocket with the red leaves meant to poison Alex's tea.

"You destroyed me when you made me like this!" Alex said in a deeper more sinister voice as she remembered when Claudia possessed  her and yielded  some of her powers to Alex.

"The death card doesn't always mean death you know. It represents Change. Alteration. Adjustment. And even sometimes new life. After all when the winter ice thaws, new life grows." Alex added cryptically as she got up from her table.

Alex had surely changed as a person since obtaining all of Claudia's powers, even if it was by accident. When she first came to Collinwood with her mother, she was sweet and innocent. A young lady who was in love and who wanted to make the best things for her family. After the dark forces of Claudia passed into her body she had never ever been the same. She was consumed by jealousy and vicious anger. And now, she would unleash them all on her Claudia, the woman who made her this way.

"I know what you're hiding......give them to me!" Alex referencing the poison tea leaves as she lifted her arm in the air causing Claudia to feel choked and levitating off the ground.

As Claudia began to feel chocked and instinctively lifted her hands from her pockets to her throat. The removal of her hands caused the small baggy to fall out of her pocket and on to the floor directly under her.

Alex looked down at the floor and saw the red tea leaves Weyxi gave Claudia and she slowly walked towards them.

"Where these for me?" Alex said with an evil grin then picking up the baggy and letting Claudia fall to the floor coughing and gasping for air.

Alex went over a separate table across her large bedroom that had several glass bottles of water and a container of tea. She carefully picked out two leaves and placed them in a small tea cup of water. The redness began to slowly dissolve into the water leaving only a brown leaf in the center floating alone in the middle. A toxic tea.

"Why don't you have the first drink?" Alex said as Claudia regained her composure.

"You don't know what you're doing!" Claudia said jumping up from the soft carpeted floor.

"I'm doing what you were going to do to me! I know what these leaves do." Alexandra said and in a split second move Claudia kicked Alexandra who stood above her in the legs causing her to lose her balance and fall to the floor. The tea, poisoned with the red leaves given to Claudia to use on Alexandra, spilled  on to Alex's face and hands.

Smoke filled the room, but a light smoke coming from Alex's body. She lay on all fours, her face towards the grown, there was no pain but there was smoke. Claudia, quickly stood up and watched as Alexandra's face and hands, arms and legs, begin to wither into old age just as Weyxi said it would.

Her hair turned to a dark grey, her face became wrinkled and ravaged by what looked like the hands of time only to have happened within seconds. In a way it shocked Claudia to see it happen so quickly.

Alex remained on the floor for a few seconds staring at her hands and not knowing what to do. She looked up and saw Claudia still standing over her with a glazed look on her face. Claudia it seemed was  not prepared for what the poisoned tea leaves would actually do. It was a stark comparison to how Alex looked just seconds ago.

Alex, sniffling and with tears in her eyes got up and walked over to the mirror, the same mirror that Angelique Bochard once tried to take the souls of Carolyn and Barnabas into.

The woman's face looking back at Alex was not the same 20-something young woman she recognized as her self. It was now the aged, wrinkled face of a woman in her 80s.

The shock was too much, Alexandra fainted on the spot.

It seemed like Claudia's job was done. Alex had turned into a person no one would ever recognize. No one would ever even dream would be the same young beautiful vibrant Alexandra Thorne. It had been done.

It the midst of it all, Claudia quickly gathered the remaining tea leaves, and cleaned the room up. Grabbed several of Alex's belongings and put them in a suitcase. She then dragged Alex by the arms down the hall as quiet as she could into an upstairs study that once belonged to Quentin Collins. A room that kept every secret of every family member since the dawn of the Collins family.

In that study was a secret passage to a secret Collinwood turret that no one had gone into for over 200 years.  Claudia dragged an unconscious Alex y through the tunnels that winded and turned within the walls of Collinwood, and pushed the turret door open. Inside was a room she had prepared to make Alex comfortable. A room Alex would never ever be able to escape.

Alex finally came to, confused and rubbing her head with pain; alone and in the turret. She scuffled around searching for some sort of light switch but found only candles and matches, so she lit a candle and looked around the room as the candle's light brightened up the turret.

The turret was the brightest room in the whole house, the first room to see the morning sun, as its two small windows pointed east over looking the sea. It was a room that for so many years no one went into except for centuries ago, when Barnabas' mother Naomi Collin' used it as her personal and beloved chapel. A room where dark magic couldn't be used. A place where Claudia knew it would be impossible for Alex to use her powers and escape.

Alexandra began to have a small panic attack when she realized no one knew where she went or when she left. She looked around the room hoping to find something she could use to alert whom ever was below, but then realized when she tried to push the windows open that they had been boarded up and closed off.

Then she walked over to a small mirror on the wall and saw what the tea leaves had done to her. Her face. Her hair. She had aged from a bright eyed blond beauty to a gray haired snarled old woman that she did not recognize.

Alex was a loss. She had lost her powers, lost her beauty and now lost her freedom. Destined to be locked away in a place no one would ever look to find her.

The tears fell from her face like water from a stream. And in the corner, on a dress form a 18th century black funeral dress with a long black veil.

Series 4/Chapter 6: THE SECRET NAME

Morning at Collinwood was not like morning around other homes in Collinsport, Maine. In most places the daytime would bring much relief to what the shadow's brought over night. But at Collinwood the light of day was only a reminder that soon night would fall again.

Caleb and Kat celebrated their possible discovery of Caleb's father with a passionate night together. They were closer then they had ever been before. Their connection was so solid that with every kiss and every loving touch they could feel each other's soul. It was a love they never thought they'd rekindle after so many years apart, after all who would ever believe two high school sweet-hearts would last this long after a long break up. But Caleb and Kat had.

They lay in their large pillowy canape bed, still snuggled close, Caleb resting his chin on Kat's head, Kat laying her head on his chest. They were glowing with love, and excitement. They had planned to go later that day to Windcliff again and demand to see David, no matter what Joanna had to say about it.

As they rested, Kat got a call from her detective partner Loomis McGovern. She bristled at the ringing phone interrupting her quiet time with Caleb, but she hadn't been back to work in weeks since Leopold attacked her, and now she was getting back into swing of things. She carefully rolled over, the sheets twisting around her small body and picked up the cell phone next to her.

"Hey, Loomis what's up?" She said with a sleepy voice.

"Morning! Hope I didn't wake you but I really need to talk to you. I did the digging you asked for on that Asylum up in Bangor, and I found something you should know." Loomis said looking down at a report that was handed to him from another police officer.

"What is it?" Kat asked intrigued noting Loomis' serious tone of voice.

"Did you know your brother works there? He's the head of the nursing and orderly staff." Loomis asked.

"What? Sebastian? No. He told me works for this adverting agency or something, not Windcliff." Kat said in disbelief.

"Well, unless he's moonlighting, I don't know. But he's definitely in charge in a big way over there. He works under a Dr. Grayson." Loomis confirmed.

"We had the misfortune of meeting Dr. Grayson actually. Not the warmest bedside manner. So you're sure Sebastian works there?" Kat asked for confirmation.

"Absolutely." Loomis confirmed. "I'll call you back if I get any more info, but if I were you, I'd get Sebastian on the line ASAP." He added.

Kat hung up the phone and turned to Caleb who was laying next to her in bed, still glowing from their passionate night. Even though he was inches away from her, he hadn't been paying attention to the conversation and totally missed what was happening.

"Did you hear that?" Kat asked adjusting the blankets that were twisted up around her waist.

"The call? Sort of. Not really. What did he say?" Caleb asked kissing Kat's exposed knee.

"So I asked Loomis to check in on some of the employees at Windcliff to see if we could ask anyone else around there about your dad and he told me my brother Sebastian was on the list of employees. Not only that, but he's like the head of a department there. He's never ever mention this to me." Kat said still in shock over her own connection to Windcliff.

"That's good news though, right!? He won't lie to you. He'll be able to tell you why my father has been there and where he is!" Caleb said excited.

"I don't know. Don't you think it's weird that he never told me he worked there? Not just that he never told me, but that he told me he worked somewhere completely different." Kat noted.

"You know your brother Sebastian better than I do, do you think there's a reason for him hiding this from you?" Caleb asked as he got out bed and picked up a pair of thrown pants from the floor.

Kat wasn't really sure. All she could do was wonder just how much Sebastian knew and how much he was going to tell her about David. They were close growing up but there was a period in their lives that he seemed to distance himself from her, and it was around the time she starting dating Caleb. But that was years and years ago when they were all in high-school and before their first breakup.

Kat knew that if she was going to look into Windcliff, and her own brother was involved, that something much larger loomed on the horizon, not only for the Collins family, but for her own as well.

****

The misty woods outside of Bangor were only 2 hours from Collinsport. Deep within the thick trees was a small cottage where Maggie and David were hiding. Maggie sat still on a chair in the room still watching over David who was starting to wake up after a very long and deep sleep. He turned over and noticed the fire had gone out and then turned towards the window that had a blaring morning light beaming into the cottage.

David squinted his eyes and stared at a silhouette of a woman who was sitting in a chair just above him. He jumped up forgetting Maggie was with him, instantly taking in a deep sigh of relief when he realized it wasn't Joanna.

"Good morning!" Maggie said with a kind smile.

"Sorry. For a minute there I forgot where I was." David said, flattening out the wrinkles in the clothes he was wearing.

"It's ok. I know the feeling. Sometimes you can't figure out what's what and where's where. I have a lot of history with that sort of thing. It happens to the best of us." She said with a small grin, handing him some fruit.

"Where'd you get this?" David asked as he bit into a fat juicy apple.

"Just outside. There's some nice apple trees just over the fence. You'll need your strength to get to Collinwood. I'm sure the hospital has already alerted your family about you, they'll probably be expecting you very soon." Maggie said as she watched him eat.

"You're coming with me aren't you?" David asked.

"David, listen, my time at Collinwood and in Collinsport is long gone. I'm just here to make sure you get back to the place you're meant to be. I'll find my own way, don't worry." Maggie said standing up and giving David a hug.

David felt sad that she wouldn't come along with him, he was sure Carolyn would have loved to see her old friend Maggie after so many years. But he felt deep inside that this was not something he should push. Maggie, was always someone who was strong willed. He knew she wouldn't be persuaded.

"Where will you go?" David asked sadly.

"Don't worry about me. I'll find my way, I always have. Here....I've packed you a few things. It's mostly fruits from around the cottage, but I also found this old jug back in one of these rooms and I put some water in it for you. You'll need it. The walk to Collinsport is about two miles but if you stick to the main road just out in front and go east, you'll be just fine." Maggie explained.

David grabbed the bag Maggie set up for him and reached over and pulled Maggie in for another tight hug, he was so grateful for all she had done for him. Without her he might have not ever made it out of Windcliff. And now he was free, and hopefully about to be reconnected with his family. A family he knew needed answers to so many questions.


"David, it's time." Maggie said in a whisper-like voice. "Its time you return to home."

David and Maggie looked at each other one last time while Maggie waved goodbye at the door of the cottage and he set off. Back to Collinwood.


As soon as David disappeared into the distance Maggie grabbed whatever she could and left the cottage herself. Her own journey was not over, and she would return to a place where she felt most safe from all the darkness of her past. All of the terrors, all of the nightmares. Safe from Barnabas and his cold, twisted sense of love and infatuation he had for her. She hoped that her meeting with him in the cemetery resonated with  him and that he took her advice, to end his own life by stepping into daylight and releasing the curse from Collinwood and the entire Collin's family.

****

The afternoon sun turned into an overcast evening, the clouds clustered around the coastline like a group of gray sheep scurrying down a rocky path. Claudia, too scurried to the home of an old friend, a Chinese mystic named Li Weyxi whom she often came to for potions and powerful elixirs when she had her powers. Now she needed something potent enough that would make sure Alexandra was no longer a threat to her relationship with Christopher.

Claudia carefully opened the door to the  Weyxi's shop, the bell on the knob dinged a tiny alarm to let him know he had a guest. The shop was adorned with thousands of green plants hanging from the ceiling, and growing all around. Plants Weyxi used in his potions, plants that were so powerful they could slow the breathing of man so much he could look dead. It was true, Weyxi's knowledge was often times used to bewitch and betray and that's why Claudia knew he could help her.

"Is that really you?" Weyxi asked as he carefully peeked through strands of beads that covered the doorway into a private room in his shop.

"Hello old friend." Claudia said as she carefully cupped the petals of a water lily growing wildly in the shop.

"After all these years, I did not believe I would ever see you again. Yet here you are. And you look so different. What is different about you? As I look at you I cannot see that special glow of yours. The Glow of your mother. What has happened?" The mystic said as he slowly pulled back several strands of beads and walked though.

Weyxi was a small man in stature but he had thick hands and legs, a strong face with deep dark eyes. He was bald and always wore what seemed like the same tan clothes and small bowler cap on  his head. His mustache was often trimmed and close to his porcelain perfect skin.

"You're right. That glow is long gone. I had to give up all my powers, which has cost me so much. More then I ever imagined it would." Claudia confessed.

"One never gives up their powers. It is also power that is in the eye of the beholder, not just beauty. Of which, you still have both." Weyxi said with a twinkle in  his eye.

Claudia looked over Weyxi's shoulder through the beaded doorway and saw that he was working on something in his private room, a room that he only allowed someone into if he truly trusted them.

"I need your help. This time it's very serious." Claudia said releasing him from her hug.

"What is it?" Weyxi asked, seeing the deep concern in Claudia's face.

"Now that I've been rendered powerless, I have come under an attack of sorts. I have nothing to combat this, but with your help I may be able to. Is there anything you can give me that I can use against this new enemy?" Claudia asked referencing Alexandra as her new enemy.

"It is not good to have enemies, my friend. Dealing with them could be costly." He said leaning down and pruning one of the plants.

"I'll do anything. I'll give anything. Whatever you need, you know that I will repay. I always have." Claudia assured.

"But you are powerless now, how can you repay me. With your powers you once did so much, and now, there seems to be no currency." The mystic made note of.

"If you have something that can work for Me Wey..." Claudia asked before being interrupted.

"There is always something that can work, what I need to know is how would I be compensated."

"What do you want?"

Weyxi thought for a second as he watered plants and meandered around the shop then looked over at Claudia: "The bee buzzes around flowers all spring long but does not get to pollinate unless the flower is bloomed and ready. Once the flower is ready to give it's pollen, that is when the bee can take what he wants. I want  Assurance that when the time comes for me to ask for this repayment, you will not close off.." He said still pruning the trees around him.

Claudia too thought for a split second but knew she had no choice. She had to agree to whatever terms Weyxi proposed.

"Fine. When the time comes, I will." Claudia agreed knowing that she had just struck a deal with one of the most powerful mystical men in all the world. A man who's natural and home elixirs could kill and bring back to life. Her heart was beating fast. Her mind raced. All she wanted was to be happy with Chrispher and now, she had made a deal that could do that, but at what cost? She wouldn't know until Weyxi came for his payment.

"Come. Sit. Have tea with me." Weyxi said pulling Claudia's arm into another room where had already set up a table for two people to share evening tea with.

Claudia removed her coat and sat down in the darkroom that had a dimmed light. Smoke from Weyxi's pip billowed and swirled around the room causing a thick fog to hover over their heads as Weyxi poured the tea into two tiny blue and white cups. He carefully pulled out leaves and dropped them into each glass and forced Claudia's hands to grab the warm glass on both sides.

"Think deep and profoundly of this enemy and close your eyes." he said as Claudia complied.

The leaves in the tea began to swirl and spin in the glass as if they were being stirred. Faster and faster the spun until they started to radiate a bright white light that beamed from Claudia's cup. Then the hot water began to boil in Claudia's hands but she felt no heat. Her eyes still tightly closed Weyxi leaned over and looked into the tea cup.

In the cup were the hopes, dreams, fears, and enemies of Claudia. And almost all of them ended with the face of Alexandra Thorne, the woman attempting to steal back Christopher from Claudia by crude manipulation.

Once Weyxi understood Claudia's plight he slammed a top onto the tea-cup, blackening out the light that came from inside. The noise startled Claudia and she snapped open her eyes to find Weyxi across the room in one of his many apothecary drawers pulling out little bags. He looked over all the bags and carefully chose one with thin red leaves in it and came back to the table.

"This is what you will need." He said handing Claudia the baggy of thin red leaves.

"What are they?" She said looking over the bag carefully.

"The leaves are from the withering tree of southern China. A tree that creates  beauty within to create beautiful strong fruits that nourish the people who live on those lands, The exterior of these tress area bleak and grey, thin and frail. These leaves, given to the person you wish, will wither them into an age beyond their years. To the world they will look frail and old, gaunt and sickly. Inside they will be the same but outside never again." The mystic said.

"How long does it last?" Claudia asked.

"The spell can only be broken if the one she loves touches her bare skin. Any exposed skin can reverse the withering and aging. It is meant to teach those of vanity that only the inside matters." Weyxi said grazing Claudia's hand with his finger tips.

"Thank you." Claudia said as she placed the small bag of leaves into her pocket.

"Claudia...remember. They must never touch again. If they do, everything will return to normal, and you may lose what you have now." Weyxi warned.

Claudia understood, and had no intention of Alexandra and Christopher ever touching or seeing each other ever again once she drank the tea with the mystic's red leaves.

Claudia gathered her things and quickly left Li Weyxi's shop to find Alexandra and hopefully share a cup of tea with her. A cup of tea Alexandra would never forget.

****

As dusk turned into the night, Maggie Evans stepped her way into Windcliff Sanitarium and opened the door. She walked herself to the nurses station and shocked the three overweight nurses with her return. To Maggie this wasn't a surrender. Windcliff was the only place she felt safe from so much torment in her life; from her past.

Maggie didn't hear any sounds. She stood there strong and silent and allowed the movements of the world to spin around her. Two of the nurses came up to her and checked her over for possible injuries, the other frantically called Dr. Grayson who was in her office.

Joanna quickly came out to see if it was true. To her delight, it was.

"Welcome back Rose. We're so glad you're back." Joanna said calling Maggie by the name Rose. "We were so worried about you." She added with a faux bedside manner.

"Now, Mrs. Glassburg, why don't you sit down here in this wheelchair and let Sebastian take you back into your room." One of the nurses with a Boston accent said as Maggie sat down.

"I thought she was a goner." Another nurse said in a lowered voice so Maggie wouldn't hear.

"Tell me about it! That Collins is wicked crazy, I thought we'd get her back in a body bag before this!" Another not so subtle nurse said in another not so lowered tone of voice.

A third nurse replaced Maggie's hospital ID wrist band with the name Rose Glassburg in thick black print leaving Sebastian to wheel Maggie in her secret identity quietly down the hall back to her room. Maggie never once said a word.

"Mrs. Glassburg we are so glad you're back, we were worried David Collins had hurt you. You know he's very dangerous. That's why he was kept in that room all these years. You remember the outburst when David tried escape the first time, right? Of course you do. Poor Maggie Evans died that night. What a horrible night that was."

Indeed it was a horrible night the night when "Maggie Evans" died, except it wasn't Maggie Evans. The truth was, the very first time David tried to escape Windcliff was in the first few years he was there. The night was stormy and the rain pounded up on the windows like fists attempting to thrust their way through glass doors. Maggie remembered it well and her mind went straight there when Sebastian reminded her.

**WINDCLIFF SANITARIUM NOVEMBER, 1986***

The noise of the storm was so loud in the hospital wreck room it was making the patients rowdy and anxious. Maggie had already been in the hospital for several years working on her mental health due to the trauma she had faced at Barnabas' hands and she had never noticed David until that night.

That night in the wreck room during the storm, the thunder clapped loud and a bright light lit the room in several quick bright flashes awakening David from a strange medically induced numbness. His eyes and mind suddenly became clear and he knew where he was; a hospital against his will.

From the corner, Maggie Evans saw him stand up and she instantly recognized him, but in a terrified confusion thought that he had come to take her back to Collinwood. Instead of running to him she coward in the corner and watched him fight with several of the orderlies, each of them attempting to prick him with needles filled with more sedative, but failing.

Eventually David broke free from the several orderlies and ran down the hall bursting through a metal door where a mute patient - a woman around Maggie's age - was coming in on the other side. David pushed it open, plowing through like a bull in a china shop. The woman, frail and weak from her own years of torment at Windcliff, immediately fell backwards a few steps and tumbled into  a large window that looked out into steep garden area.

The glass shattered, patients screamed and covered their ears. The thunder and broken glass piercing its way into the wreck room like a jumbo jet tearing through the building. Maggie watched the woman fall back and out of the window hitting her head on the hard ground, breaking her ribs, and snapping her neck. The woman died instantly.

But with that tragedy came an idea that Maggie knew would work due to the lack luster care they all received at the hospital. Maggie's ultimate escape plan.

Maggie sneaked through the chaotic wreck room and saw that all the on duty orderlies were pre-occupied and fighting with David to notice her at the end of the hall. This negligence left an open moment for Maggie to quickly make her getaway.

Maggie carefully stepped out of the broken window and slowly got her self down to the small garden embankment where the woman's body lay broken and contorted. In a swift, quick motion, as if she had been planning it for months, Maggie reached down and grabbed the woman's hand and switched ID bracelets with her, glancing one more time at the woman who now was Maggie Evans. Dead and alone.

Almost like a cat, sprinting to a higher place, Maggie dashed back into the hospital before ever being detected.

The hospital's care and interest in Maggie or Rose Glassburg was minuscule at best. No one ever even noticed. Dr. Grayson had always been much more interested in the events that David Collins brought to her life then any one else.


The scandal of a patient dying in the manner that she had would have shut down Windcliff Sanitarium due to any amount of Mal-Practice suits and would have exposed Joanna Grayson for the neglectful mental health professional that she was. "Maggie's" death would be fied as a suicide, and remain well guarded secret.

"Whatever happens, whom ever asks, this woman took her own life. Is that understood? Make sure you get everyone to sign on and be on board with this Sebastian." Joanna requested as looked out of the broken window as two orderlies carried the dead body of "Maggie Evans" back into the Asylum.

Later, Joanna  signed the final, forged, death notice for the official papers with Maggie's name on the top and filed them away.

"Who do we call? We can't just not tell her family that she died." Sebastian said as Joanna handed him Maggie's file.

"She supposedly had ties to the Collins family.  I'll have my contact at Collinwood notify who ever needs to know. Other than that we don't have to tell anyone else." Joanna said coldly as she closed the drawer of her filing cabinet.

On that day in 1986, Maggie Evans died, and Rose Glassburg lived. A perfect disguise, one that the real Maggie hoped would keep her safe from Barnabas and all her past demons...demons that haunted her every single day.

Series 4/Chapter 5: OUT OF THE DARK INTO THE LIGHT

There was an energy in the air, that could be felt from Bangor to Collinsport. Something was about to happen. Everyone around could feel it, even if they didn't want to admit it.

Over at the Blue Whale Pub Christopher and Claudia were having a quick drink, a night cap of sorts to ease the nerves they had over the blood samples Chris so desperately needed to rid himself of the wolf curse. Blood samples that needed to come from Claudia's father Barnabas Collins.

They sat at a round table, a window seat. Christopher looked out onto the cobble stone street that was wet from the misty ocean air that carried itself from sea to land as it did every night, moistening everything it touched along it's way.

"You're so quiet." Claudia said as she sipped from her glass of wine.

"I'm just thinking. There's so much we need to do and I can't seem to figure out where to start." Chris answered also sipping from his cold beer.

"Kimberly will do everything she can to get you the samples from Barnabas, Christopher, we just have to be patient." Claudia responded.

"How can I be? This is my life we're talking about Claude. Every single day all I can think about is the next full moon and what will happen then. I can't be controlled when that happens. You know that! You've seen me. Besides, what if the samples my mother gets from Barnabas aren't enough? What if I need more?" Christopher said in a frustrated tone.

"What are you asking me?" Claudia asked cautiously, trying to avoid the inevitable answer that she feared.

"Don't you think it's odd that Leopold had to be killed for me to supposedly get enough of his blood to be cured, but I only need some samples from Barnabas? Why is there a difference?" Christopher asked rhetorically.

"Chris, you cannot seriously be thinking about killing my father. After everything that you and I have gone through to be together, I would never expect you to do that. The samples will work. You wont have to go any further." Claudia said sternly.

"Then you're a fool and you're selfish." Christopher snapped back to a surprised Claudia.  "We've all been through so much, and we've all lost someone in our lives. Do you think I wanted to kill my father? I didn't! But it happened. What I'm saying is, if it comes down to it, if I have to ki---" Christopher continued before being interrupted by Claudia.

"Stop! I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear whatever you're thinking. Listen, I love you, and I want to help you but we can't kill Barnabas. The samples will work." Claudia said grabbing Chris' hand. "I have to go. It's getting late. Promise me, you'll try the samples strategy." She added.

"I can't promise you." Chris said with a sad look in his eyes.

Claudia released his hand then quickly grabbed her coat that was hanging on the back of her chair, without ever taking her eyes off of Chris. She began to see that he was going to stop at nothing to make sure he was cured, even kill her father. She could feel her heart breaking, another human emotion she was unaccustomed to.

Just before leaving him at the Blue Whale, she looked at him again and said "You're breaking my heart." But Christopher just looked the other way unable to register at the time the pain he was causing.

From just across the street, watching everything unfold through the window was Christopher's ex, Alexandra, the woman Claudia had terrorized and possessed when she had all her powers; through that possession Alexandra inherited Claudia's mystical powers and later she'd be deserted by Christopher. Since then, Alexandra had been set on revenge, even going as far as using an evil book of spells. With Chris and Claudia seeming to not see eye to eye on something, Alexandra saw her way back into his life.

Alexandra waited for Claudia to leave the pub and as soon as she did, dashed inside to catch Christopher before he finished his beer. She walked in and carefully removed her coat and hung it by the door, all the while pretending she had never seen Chris, but he saw her.

"Hey! Alex!" He said with a shy grin.

Alexandra again pretended not to know where to look but eventually found him still seated at the window that she watched the argument from.

"Oh! Christopher! Hi!" She said as she was handed her own beer.

"Come have a seat!" Christ motioned to her.

Alexandra was surprised that he was so warm to her so quickly. She had initially thought that it would have been more of an awkward encounter in the beginning considering their last meeting when she destroyed every last vial of the serum he needed to cure himself. But for whatever reason, Christopher was over-looking that moment, and had openly asked her to sit with him.

Alexandra ceased it!

"What are you doing here at this hour all alone?" She coyly asked, knowing he hadn't actually been alone.

"Had a lot on my mind. As usual. How's your mother holding up?" He questioned, making small talk over Carolyn's breakdown after Leopold was killed.

"You know, you don't have to avoid her. By now she's sort of used to even the most bizarre of situations. She's learned to live with them." Alexandra joked. "So, where's Claudia?" She added.

"Uh, she just left actually, we had a bit of a .....a bit of thing." Chris responded trying not to give away too much of his personal business to his ex girlfriend about his current girlfriend.

"Things happen. You know you can always come to me when you need a friend. I know that I haven't been exactly the most available or friendly in the past few weeks but, well, we've all had a lot to deal with." Alexandra said moving her hand to Christopher's.

As her hand touched his, she suddenly felt a jolt of energy serge through her hand and travel into her arm and up into her chest and through her neck and into her eyes, it was like a light bulb had burst in her brain and suddenly she could see into Christopher's mind. She was seeing his thoughts play out like a movie just for her to see.

It was all there; his pain, his anxiety, his anger towards his parents Victor and Kimberly for what they did to him. She saw images of Chris as baby, then a small boy, constantly going through various gene tests as Kim tried to create the perfect monster. The hope was that the werewolf boy who would grow up to one day destroy the Collins family, only to have it all fail and blow up in Kim and Victor's faces years later when Chris would kill Victor in one of his transformation to Kim's devastation.

Alex also so those images, the night Chris killed Victor in a bloody fight in the dark and in the fog on Collinwood's main law. She remembered well, she was there she saw it all in real life, but this time, from Chris' point of view there was an anger and then guilt she had not known.

Even Chris' thoughts about Barnabas and possibly having to kill him in an effort to save his own life and break the curse were there. Alexandra saw it all, and sensed Chris' frustration with Claudia, who did not see eye to eye with him on the possibility of using more than just a few vials of Barnabas' blood to cure Chris as a last resort. She saw scenes from his childhood and the genetic testing his mother and father did on him as an infant to change his body into the werewolf he was now. All the pain and anguish over killing his father during one of his transformations and the terrible feeling he got when Alex broke all the vials he needed to live. She let go and everything suddenly stopped.

The overload of Chris' emotions were too much and Alexandra took a deep breath and let go of Chris hand. She seemed frazzled, it felt like hours had past her by but it was only seconds.

"Are you OK?" Chris asked noticing that she sensing this.

"Fine! Fine....!" She said as she took a sip of beer to calm herself.

"I really appreciate you sitting with me, It's been a really bad day." Chris said easing himself back into her good graces.

"I should be the one to say I'm sorry. People make mistakes, you know, and for what it's worth I definitely know what I've done that's been wrong. Do you think you can say the same about everyone else?" Alex answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well Claudia for example. She's the reason most of this has happened. You do know she's the one that changed my father into Leopold, and she's the one that brought Barnabas back, don't you? If it wasn't for her, I don't know if anything would have ever happened." Alex responded.

Christopher had never thought of it that way before. He had always known that Claudia had at one time possessed powers beyond whatever he could imagine but that she had given those up somehow. That life, the one of sorcery and deceit was over according to her.

He began to see that Alex might be right, she hadn't atoned for much of anything, and now was somewhat choosing her father--a man who has been known to terrorize and destroy everything around him including Claudia's own mother--over him; the man she wanted to spend her life with.

"I think Claudia has a lot to work out...but..." Chris said stammering.

"Chris, listen to me. You deserve your freedom from this too. Do you think Claudia really, truly believes that?" Alex said, grabbing his hand again.


For her part, Claudia had turned back towards the Blue Whale. She felt terrible about how she had left things with Christopher. She needed to tell him that she would help him in all the ways she knew possible to make sure he was cured, and as she made her way there, she turned the corner and saw something she feared might happen. There, in the window of the Blue Whale pub was Chris and Alex, hand-in-hand, romantically linked as if Claudia didn't even exist.

Claudia felt a furious anger wash all over her. In the past when she had powers, Alexandra wouldn't have survived the night, she would have put a spell on her to end all spells, but now that she was mortal all she could do was feel every emotion run through her body like a rush of blood to the head.

Claudia gathered herself up and ran off into the dark Collinsport night.

Christopher suddenly noticed what Alexandra was doing, attempting to manipulate his feelings in a moment of sadness, and pulled away from her hands.

"I know what you're trying to do Alex, and even though I've forgiven you for destroying the vials of antidote that would finally cure me, I can't betray Claudia." He said standing up to leave.

"But you betrayed me." Alex quipped back.

Christopher regretted how he ended things with Alex, it was a mistake to have taken it as far as he did with Claudia before properly breaking up with Alex, and all he could say he was sorry. He got up and left a tip on the table and walked out, leaving Alexandra defeated once again, alone in at the Blue Whale Pub. Fuming with anger.


Claudia kept running off into the distance filled with frustration and anger over what she saw and ended up by the Collinsport docs. The dinging bells off the buoys rang in her ear loud and crisp as the cold ocean water splashed up against the wooden dock. The mist from the water wet her face, a sticky refreshing feeling that felt like a wet kiss from the sea. But the chill in the air still reminded her that the world was a cold place to love.

Claudia had only seen part of the conversation, and had not seen Chris pull away but all she could do was think "How could I allow myself to fall in love with someone that would just turn on me like this?"

Her anger was taking over her, she began to feel real rage. As long as Alexandra was around, she was a threat and without her magic, Claudia knew she was powerless.

But there was one thing she could do. She had to visit an old friend, that friend would know exactly what to do to remove Alexandra from Claudia and Chris' life forever.

****

The old house felt as if it had life back inside of it. Especially when it came to Barnabas and his feelings that Maggie was returning to him. Somehow. Barnabas got up from his chair and tossed the remains of the ashy piece of paper that had his name written on it in Maggie's writing back into the fire place, basking in the fire's orange glow.

"Barnabas." A woman's voice said from behind.

Barnabas turned quickly, and for a second thought it was actually Maggie, but to his surprise, it was Kimberly. 

"Kimberly, hello! I wasn't expecting company. How are you?" He asked as he motioned for her to sit with him in the room.

"Fine, I hope I'm not disturbing you. I had a few things I needed to talk to you about. Mainly about the tests we've been doing." Kimberly said pulling papers out of a briefcase for Barnabas to read.

 "Its no disruption at all. I'm actually very happy to see you." He said reaching for a glass to drink from. 

"Barnabas, I still haven't isolated the gene or the mutation inside of you that drives your body and cravings to do and want the things that they want. But if I continue on the path that I was with Chris' genes, I think I can finally crack the code. There is one more thing that I need your help on and it concerns Chris." Kimberly said handing Barnabas his test results.

"What is it?" He asked reading over his own papers.

"Christopher didn't ingest enough of Leopold's blood to cure him. He needs yours." Kimberly said bluntly.

Barnabas looked up from his paper work slightly surprised at the notion. The blood of a vampire would cure any werewolf of their curse, but it would take a lot of blood, and Barnabas knew it was almost impossible for him to give that much and survive himself. 

"What are you asking me?" He asked cautiously. 

"Well that's the thing, I don't know what I'm asking you. I know that the amount of blood Christopher needs is .....well, its a lot. But, I'm hoping we can figure something out as long as you are willing to help." Kimberly said.

Barnabas' affections for Kimberly had been growing in the last few months. Everything that she had been doing for him was something that he appreciated and found her to be kind and caring. But he was skeptical of what she was asking him, he could sense her nerves, she was being very carefully with her words. He stared at her intently, glaring at her trying to find any sort of sign of deception, but there was none. She was genuinely asking for his help, nothing more. Nothing less.

"Kimberly what ever you need to save your son. Of course. I will help." Barnabas said carefully noting in his mind that there was still a chance this could be a trap and to stay on guard.

Kimberly thanked him and began to gather up her papers, mentioning a date for them to continue their testing at the main house in her lab. As she gathered her papers, she looked over to the side of the sofa and saw leaned up against the wall the portrait of Josette, but recognized her as Maggie Evans.

"Why do you have a painting of Maggie Evans?" Kimberly asked as she walked over to the painting and picked it up for a closer look.

"Maggie Evans? How do you know that name?" Barnabas said quickly taking his beloved portrait from her hands. "And this isn't a painting of her. This is my former fiancee, Josette." He added.

"That's amazing, she looks so much like Maggie." Kimberly said.

"You didn't answer my question Kimberly. How do you know Maggie Evans?" Barnabas asked as he carefully placed the painting back inside the closet.

Kimberly had to remember to tread lightly on what she knew and what she didn't know because she knew Maggie from her involvement with Joanna and Windcliff Sanitarium.

"Well, just from town's people and David. David mentioned her to me a few times." Kimberly said lying, which Barnabas instantly detected.

"Really?" Barnabas said in an unconvinced tone of voice. "You know Kimberly, I can tell when things around me are being ....shall we say... concealed."

"What? No. I ---" Kimberly started before Barnabas interrupter.

"How do you know Maggie, Kimberly?"

Kimberly began to feel heat, the fire from the fireplace started to get larger and it almost looked like was breathing. It started to feel like it was all around her heating her body from top to bottom. She was terrified of revealing her connection to Windcliff, especially to Barnabas.

Barnabas started getting closer and closer to Kimberly, his suspicions growing more and more as Kim's nerves began to show, and Barnabas saw this, he could smell it, the deception from her was palpable.

The heat within the room was intensifying, Kimberly started to panic as Barnabas as drew near. As she backed up, she could feel the fire in the fireplace directly behind her, hotter and hotter it got as Barnabas got closer and closer, almost as if they were working together to trap her. Little did she know, they were.

As his rage began to rise, so did the fire: a living breathing manifestation of his anger towards Kim who he felt was keeping something from him. Something about Maggie, he betrothed.

Barnabas was directly in front of her, now only half a foot away.

"Tell me!" Barnabas said now in an angry voice, sensing Kimberly was hiding something.

"I don't know what you're talking about Barnabas, Maggie, is very much apart of the folklore of this house and this town!" Lied Kimberly in a panicked voice.

"Liar!" Barnabas said, his rage started to bubble up, his eyes turning to black, his teeth elongating and darting from his mouth.

"Barnabas! Calm down!" Kimberly said terrified.

Barnabas reached over and grabbed Kimberly by the neck and pulled her away from the fire, pulling her close, his cold breath on her neck chilled her to the bone.

"Where ....is......Maggie." Barnabas asked in an evil tone, knowing that Maggie was somewhere near, she was close to him again he could feel her. And Kimberly must know where.

"She's dead! She died Barnabas! She died in 1998!"

Barnabas' eyes became darker, he released Kimberly from his grip and threw her to the ground. She reached over and grabbed a fire poker and jumped to her feet, keeping the fire poker between her and Barnabas and slowly waked backwards around the sofa.

"That's impossible! I can feel her now. I can feel that she is around again." Barnabas said following Kimberly around the sofa his mouth watering for human blood.

"No Barnabas, I can assure you. She died at Windcliff Sanitarium in 1998. I can prove it to you, just please calm down....calm down." Kimberly said still walking backwards with the fire poker in both hands.

Then suddenly Barnabas felt Kimberly's vibes change, and knew that she must be telling the truth, in her last statement he detected no deception. His eyes began to change back and his teeth retracted. His rage under control. But he was still angry and he was still following Kimberly who was now pointing the poker at Barnabas but stuck up against the wall.

"How can you prove it?" he questioned.

"I used to work there many years ago, and I still have connections there. I was there when she came in and years after I left, I was notified of her death. Barnabas, I can take you to her grave. It's real." Kimberly said lowering the poker.

Barnabas furiously stared deep into Kim's eyes and growled:

"....Take me there now!"

****

In the abandoned cabin deep in the woods 2 miles outside of Bangor, a little fire still burned in the small fire place. David had fallen asleep wrapped in a blanket as he lay just near the fire in a sound sleep, something that he hadn't experienced in two decades locked away in the mental hospital. 

His breaths were hearty and deep, so deep in sleep that he didn't even dream. 

Maggie stood watch over him on an old sofa that had cigarette burns and stains from a life with the family that had once cuddled in it in snow storms of cold winters past. She watched David sleep, and felt content that she was able to help him escape. 

But something inside of her knew what was coming. She could feel in her soul where Barnabas was going at that very moment, and felt there was no where she could hide. Instead of hiding, Maggie got up from the sofa while David slept and wrapped herself in a warm blanket of her own then carefully made her way out of the cabin, quietly closing the door behind her.

****

In a steep shadowy lawn of Eaglehill cemetery, covered in large oak trees filled with tombstones of names forgotten stood Barnabas Collins glaring down at the grave of the object of his one time obsessions Maggie Evans. He looked down and wondered if it was true, or if Kimberly had made it all up and this was some sort of hoax, after all he could feel her energy, he could feel her vital signs. But how? How could he sense her so strongly if she were dead.

Barnabas got down on his knees, the light from the bright sky caressing his face and casting his shadow over her grave stone. It felt like a dream, there was no way Maggie could have been dead.

"There's not much you can do anymore, is there Barnabas." A voice said from directly in front of Barnabas who's head was down. 

Barnabas slowly lifted his head expecting it to be Kimberly who was waiting for him at the bottom of Eaglehill but it wasn't. There sitting on large cross made of stone was Maggie Evans. 

Barnabas jumped up at the sight of her, he was shocked but happy, because it was true, Maggie was alive, and sitting right in front of him.

"Maggie, its you!" He said starting to come closer to her.

"Stay back!" She said holding out her hand. "It's not what you think Barnabas. You're only seeing me because I'm allowing you to. I'm here, but I'm really not. The real me is right below your feet. Alone, gone. And I feel safer then I have ever felt before." She said with a peculiar grin.

"I don't understand." Barnabas responded.

"It happened along time ago, almost 20 years actually. Well you can see that on the grave. I died Barnabas, in 1998. Do you know how I died?" Maggie asked as she carefully jumped off the stone gross.

Barnabas nodded his head "no".

"Well, my doctor told a few of my family members, in a letter of course, that I had taken my own life inside of the mental hospital that I had been checked into about two years after we all thought you were dead." She confessed. "The people at Windcliff didn't even have the decency to call my family... Just a letter." Maggie said.

"I have waited for this moment for so many years Maggie. You deserved better." Barnabas said stepping closer to Maggie.

"NO! Stay back! I said not to come any closer." Maggie yelled. "I deserved to live a normal life. I deserved to be free from so much pain and suffering you caused." 

"All I wanted was for us to be together, that's all. I will do anything for that to happen again." Barnabas replied.

"Anything?" Maggie asked as she turned from Barnabas and looked off into the distance, the slow moving mist of low clouds rolling across the stones of hundreds of graves.

"That's right."

Maggie knew that this was her time to get even with Barnabas and avenge everything he had done while she was alive in Collinsport instead of haunting the halls of Windcliff Sanitarium for the last 20 years ago.

A cold air blew a shrill breeze over the cemetery and it swirled around Maggie and Barnabas who was waiting for Maggie's proposition. The sky was pitch black and the moon continued to cast shadows of stone angels and crosses over the dark green grass. 

He waited for a second and noticed her shiver, the air so cold it gave her goose bumps on her arms... Something he found odd for a spirit.

"The only way you can ever make peace Barnabas is if you end everything, and the only way a creature like you can do that is by coming out of the dark and into the light. Real light. Sun light. Get out of the shadows Barnabas get out of the shadows and step into the sun.... And leave this world in ashes." 

Maggie then wrapped the the blanket she brought from the cabin tightly and disappeared into the shadows herself - gone - leaving Barnabas alone at her grave shocked at her proposition. 

Maggie had just asked Barnabas to do the unthinkable to end all the pain and suffering, by killing himself and stepping into daylight for the first time in over 300 years. Thus breaking the curse on his own. 

Would he do it?..... For love?