Series 9/Chapter 10: A WHO DONE IT

A cold wind blew across the waves and over the small fishing village of Collinsport, Maine. This winter was one of the coldest on record and froze everything exposed to the elements. The streets were slick and  light posts around town were like glass ornaments from a Christmas tree, and at Collinsport Medical Center, the busy Emergency room filled with the cold and the infirm.

Just as blizzard fell over the town, the doors of the ER burst open. It was David and Siobhan who was in labor with their baby. She was sweating despite the immense cold, and needed all the help she could get.

"Sit here down right here!" A nurse said rushing over a wheelchair.

"Please help her! The baby isn't due until next month!" David said, his heart pounding in his ears.

"We'll take good care of her sir!" The nurse rattled on while David and Siobhan's interlocked hands slowly separated as she was wheeled off into a delivery room.

"I love you." Siobhan mouthed David got smaller and smaller and she was wheeled further and further down the hall.

"Sir, Please sit down, we'll let you go back in the room with her as soon as we get her ready to deliver." Another nurse said to a nervous David as she handed him a clipboard and paperwork to fill out.

Just as David scribbled his wife's information down on the papers, Sebastian and Serena had come down for a quick snack as they sat vigil near Andrew's bedside. As Sebastian turned from the vending machine with his drink, he slowly walked over to David who he was surprised to see.

"Mr. Collins?" David said, being as polite as possible as he was present when David's adopted son Christopher  died a few days before.

David looked up and gave an awkward smile.

"Hey Sebastian." David said extending his hand.

"What are you doing here?"

"My wife! She's gone into labor." David said, another nervous grin hiding the pain.

"Well congratulations!" Sebastian said as Serena walked over.

"It's one of those things, isn't it? You lose a child then gain a child. The circle of life." David said, his hurt still palpable.

"I want to say how sorry about about your son." Serena said, hiding the fact she was the reason he was killed in the first place.  Sebastian knowing this quickly got up from the seat next to David and interrupted before David would start asking questions.

"We both are, we'll leave you alone, I know you must have a lot going on." Sebastian said trying to make a quick leave.

"Why are you two here?" David asked.

Serena and Sebastian both looked at each other, how would they say that they were there with the man who now carried David's son's DNA. How could they come up with the words to explain themselves.

"Well..." Sebastian started.

"We were at the warehouse when Christopher was found. We...we're with the young man who was found there too." Serena said, laying it all out honestly.

David stood up. He had not known what happened to the other young man, Andrew. He was confused and a bit taken-aback.

"You're here with the other person?" David asked, the other two confirmed.

"His name is Andrew." Serena said softly.

For a moment, for a split second, David felt almost like Chris was alive too. Andrew had Chris' stem cells, his DNA in his body. Christopher's cells were alive and flowing too.

"I'd like to see him." David said, with a strange sounding voice almost as if he were going to see Christopher laying in the hospital bed.

Sebastian and Serena only looked at each other but did not deny David this request. They nodded and slowly walked over to a separate triage room where Andrew had been in that was just four rooms down from the entrance to the hall where Siobhan had been taken. They walked slowly and quietly and arrived to see Andrew slowly open his eyes again and look directly at David.

There was a silence and David smiled as he looked over at the young man who wasn't more than 28 years old, the same age as Chris.

Andrew continued to stare at David and as he did flashes came into his mind. It was David's face, it was David smiling. It was David in the foyer or Collinwood opening the door to him, it was David lighting the fire place, and handing him a drink. These were more memories that belonged to Christopher, and just before David turned around to leave Andrew spoke.

"Dad?"

David turned and looked at Andrew in shock. Serena and Sebastian too were locked in place with the surprise and confusion from what came out of Andrew's mouth.

Andrew felt strange but he couldn't fight the feeling he had deep inside. Andrew knew this wasn't his real father, he knew this man was technically a stranger, but there was no way around this new side of him, this new side that was completely evolved from Christopher's own mind.

"Mr. Collins!!! Come quick!!!" A nurse down the hall yelled for David to come to Siobhan's room.

David stuttered strangely and didn't know what to do. He stood in the doorway of Andrew's room and just stared at the young man looking back at him with this ghostly expression. No one knew what was happening in that small room.

David snapped out the strange trans quickly then excused himself to find his wife but staggered out of Andrew's room.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. I........." David said still confused. "I have to go." He said again leaving Sebastian and Serena in the room with Andrew who closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Serena looked over at Sebastian and whispered softly: "What just happened?"

Andrew lay there confused and unsure, he turned away from Sebastian and Serena who stood at the foot of his bed, his eyes suddenly flashed a yellow glow before disappearing back into his warm brown natural color. The worry, however, remained on Andrew's face.

__

In the delivery room Siobhan was tossing and turning in her bed. She writhed and pulled on the sheets, screaming at the top of her lungs. She was sitting up with her legs up ready in the position for her baby to be born just as David walked in with the nurse. He rushed up to Siobhan and caressed her head, wiping the sweat away from her brow.


"He's coming. He's coming!" Siobhan said, her eyes filled with tears.

"He?" David asked with a grin. "How do you know it's a he?" He asked coyly.

Siobhan grimaced and growled a "I just do." right as the doctor came in.

"Alright Mr. and Mrs. Collins, are we ready for baby?" He said with a grin.

"Ready or not!" Siobhan said, her heart pounding in her chest.

"Mrs. Collins we're going to ask you to push now." The nurse said, her big blue eyes gazing down at Siobhan in the bed who nodded her head.

It seemed like it took a short quick time, but in reality, the baby's birth took three hours. Siobhan did all she could, she pushed, she screamed she yelled, she cried and David stood right by her side the whole time, holding her hand, kissing her head and loving on her the whole time. She was strong and she was powerful and just before the fourth hour of labor the baby was born.

"Well now!" The doctor said lifting the baby in the air for Siobhan to see. "You've got a boy here!"

"A boy!" David said, "I've got another son!"

"Let me hold him, let me hold him!" Siobhan said as the nurse with the big blue eyes passed the baby over to the mother.

The exhausted Siobhan kissed her baby on her bare chest. The little boy cuddles on her skin and looked up at her. His large eyes fixed on his mother's face then he began to cry.

"He's beautiful." The nurse said almost robotically.

"Ready dad?" The doctor said as he handed David scissors to cut the umbilical cord to which David smiled and snipped.

"Got a name yet?" The doctor asked.

"John. I want to name him John. John Collins." Siobhan answered.

"Well why don't I take baby John now wash him up and bring him back very shortly for mama's feeding? Ok?" The nurse said taking the baby with her.

Siobhan smiled and handed over her baby. The nurse took baby John and walked him down to the NIC-U where he would be washed and dressed and a photo of him would be taken. The nurse held the baby in her arms and lulled him to sleep with a sweet humming. She kissed his little head and put him down in a plastic bassinet marked with his name and as she passed a two-way mirror that allowed parents to look into the room with all the babies born that day, her reflection shot back not the face of the woman standing in the room but that of Angelique Bouchard, magically disguised as the nurse that helped deliver baby John.

"There, there baby John....don't cry." Angelique's voice said as the nurse. "I wont hurt you, no, no. That's not why I'm here. I have bigger plans for you and the Collins family. Much bigger plans." Then the nurse turned back to the two-way mirror but the real face reflected back, the cunning moon eyed glow of Angelique, smiling down at newborn John Collins.

****

The Collinsport Police station was old and smelled of dust and cigarette smoke that still lurked around the rafters from the 1960s. The walls were a limestone green and the windows were all encased in a grid that protected from people getting out---or was it from people getting in? The eight or nine uniformed police officers in the office were busily filling out paper work at their desks. There was a desk clerk at the front of the office nearest the door with a small fan on buzzing and buzzing pushing the stink of the old office away from his face. 

Then a woman walked in, chilled to the bone from the blizzard outside, and walked over to the clerk. She was beautiful. Her hair was dark and smooth and her eyes were like big brown pools of honey.

"I'm here to see Detective McGovern." She said to the clerk who looked up at her from his computer.

"Yeah? Who can I say is calling?" The clerk replied in a thick Boston accident as with bars of light crossing his face from the shades on the windows.

"Miss Devereaux. He's expecting me. I'm here to get my client out of jail with this bond." She said pulling out an envelope of money.

The clerk rolled his eyes, clearly hating his job, and buzzed Loomis McGovern's office. Loomis, who was recently promoted to Police Chief came out of his office and stood at the gate that separated the lobby from the actual area where the police officers were. He motioned for her to come to where he was.

"What can I do for you?" Loomis asked.

"For one you can get my client out of jail. Here." She said handing Loomis they money.

"Who's your client?" Loomis asked sarcastically.

"If you have more than one person back there that is expecting their lawyer I'll eat this money." Miss Devereaux said with a snarky tone joking on the small town's low crime rate--little did she know what town she was in.

"Well Miss..." Loomis said before being interrupted.

"My name is Quinn, ok? Look I don't have a lot of time. I came here to get my client out of jail and all the proper paperwork has been filed and is all set. You can call Judge Bennett if you want. But you're really starting to impede my on client's rights." Quinn answered. 

"Well, Miss Quinn Devereaux," Loomis said again attempting to buy time to keep Quinn's client locked up for as long as possible. "As soon as I sign off on his paperwork, he's yours." Loomis said, taking the envelope of money and handing it back to the clerk to process.

Two hours passed and Quinn was beginning to get more and more frustrated. She suddenly got up from her plush leather seat in the lobby and started walking over to the clerk when the front door opened and Alexandra Thorne walked in and cut her off. 

"I need to see Loomis. I need to see him right now!" She screamed at the Clerk as Quinn took a step back.

Loomis heard the commotion and quickly walked over.

"Alex? What's the matter?" Loomis asked grabbing her by both her forearms.

There was panic in her eyes. There was fear. There was an all out terror brewing inside of her. It had only been a few days since Chris had died but the trauma of his death and his kidnapping was still fresh in her mind and every waking moment she was tormented by his death. No matter how hard she tried to have a regular day, nothing seemed to fix it or at least calm the terrors. Nothing.

"I just need to see this man that did this to Chris. I need to talk to him and I need to know why! I need to know what he did and why he did it! Loomis, please!" Alex said, her voice clearly distressed.

"Alex you shouldn't have come down here. There's a blizzard and you're in no state to be out on the street driving. Where's your mom?" Loomis asked.

"I'm 25 years old. I'm not a child. I can do what I want." Alex said asserting herself while Quinn stood by listening. "Now are you going to let me see the man that killed Christopher or not?" 

"I'm not. Look, first of all it would be unethical for me to do that and second of all his lawyer is standing right be hind you." Loomis said as Alex turned to see Quinn.

"You're Jeffery Shaw's lawyer?" Alex asked Quinn who nodded yes. "How can you defend this man? He kinapped and killed my boyfriend!" Alex asked angrily. 

Quinn rolled her eyes slightly but said nothing but turned to Loomis and glared at him.

"I think its been long enough Chief McGovern. I want my client out now." Quinn scolded. 

"Out? Out? What is she talking about? Why is he going to be out?" Alex said as Jeffery began to make his way towards the front of the police station escorted by a police officer. 

"Finally." Quinn said under her breath. 

"Well, thank you for finally getting here." Jeffery said with an evil smirk to Quinn.

"I've been here for almost 3 hours." Quinn answered.

"You're Jeffery Shaw?" Alex asked.

"Who are you?" Jeffery asked turning to Alex who reached back with  her arm and swung it far across across Jeffery's face making a slap sound that echoed through the rafters of the old Collsinport police station.

"Alex! ALEX!" Loomis said as She lunged for Jeffery screaming at him.

"MURDERER! MURDERER!!!!" Alex screamed as Loomis and a police officer held her back.

"Let's go." Jeffery said as he massaged his face from Alex's slap. 

Quinn and Jeffery quickly got into her car and buckled up. She turned on the heater but kept the car in park.

"What the hell!" She screamed at him. "What am I going to do now? How am I going to get you off of this one?!" Quinn yelled at her client.

Jeffery never took his eyes off of the front door of the police station the whole time Quinn spoke to him. She continued to berate him about his lack of clarity and stupidity and how hard it was going to be for her to get him off murder charges. But Jeffery did say a word and continued to stare directly in front of him. 

"I can't promise you I can beat this charge!" Quinn yelled. "Jeffery. Jeffery! Are you listening?" She asked.

"All I want you to do is drive away from here and take me to my hotel." He growled as she sighed deeply. "Serena hasn't seen the last of me." He thought to himself. 

****

The Old House was dark. The lights in the drawing room were out. The candles burned slowly and were down to their last bits of wax that spilled and drizzled off their golden sticks and on to the carpeted floor. 

The wind from the blizzard caused the branches of the trees to scratch and slap the glass of the drawing room windows, suddenly a person dashed across in silhouette running towards the back of the room. 

Was it Carolyn? Was it Curtis? Was it Julia? The three of them roamed the house each looking for Barnabas, each with a weapon in hand ready to confront the man that had caused so much pain and sorrow. 

Carolyn angry and devastated from the book of transcendence she found. 

Curtis wanting to end Barnabas' control and manipulation of his mother Victoria.

And Julia, fueled by the notion deep in her gut that the Barnabas in this time was not the true Barnabas that she fell in love with. 

And for all of those things, they all unknowingly agreed. Barnabas had to die.

But where was he? 

The shadowy person slowly made their way down the final hallway that led to a back bedroom on the third floor of the mansion. The rooms in this area of the house had been set apart years ago for Barnabas and Josette but those plans and restorations never came to fruition for the obvious reasons of Josette's death and Barnabas' demise into the depths of the un-dead.

The person, cloaked in the shadows of The Old House, slowly turned the knob of the door to the room and pushed it open. The person walked in and saw a room dark and draped in midnight blue and purple. The person looked around and saw a coffin in the center of the room instead of a bed.

The coffin of Barnabas Collins. The person slowly made their way to the coffin and stood at it's side for what seemed like hours, the person put their hand on the coffin and thought about what was going to happen of what this moment really meant. But it had to be done. There was no turning back.

The person, still steeped in the darkness and shadows of The Old House slowly lifted the coffin of Barnabas Collins. And there he was deep in his slumber cold to the touch, his skin translucent and perfect. His eyes shut and pristine. 

All the years of evil and good, all the years of passion and power, and all the years of hurt and happiness all came down to this moment. The end was near. The closing of this chapter of the Collins family was finally coming to an end, there was no way around it. 

To find a cure for the cancer, the cancer needed to be cut out, and the cancer that plagued the Collins family was Barnabas himself. For all his good, for all his bad, he was the curse that continued to destroy the family that he said he loved but how often  he chose not to use that love for good. 

The person lifted their arms and stood over Barnabas' body then quickly plunged the steak deep into Barnabas' chest then twisted it so that it went so far in it came out the other side sticking his body to the inside of the coffin.

Then, like a gust of wind, the person: Carolyn, Curtis, or Julia, left the room leaving Barnabas alone in his coffin. His skin slowly turning to ask. His hair slowly turning to dust. This was death of the dead. This was the man from the depths of darkness slowly but surly disintegrate back into that crypt of darkness and shadows where no one could return. 

Barnabas was gasping, he was writing in his coffin but never once opened his eyes. His made a terrible gasping breaths like a fish searching for water, he was chocking, his eyes were bugging out from his skull, a side effect of a wooden stake plunging into the chest and piercing the heart of a man un-dead. 

Barnabas was slowly fading and with him the terrors and curses his name evoked on his whole family: Past. Present. And Future. 

There in his coffin of soft velvet and silks, there in his coffin of crafted fine oak, was the end of Barnabas Collins by the had of someone he knew, by the hand of someone he loved.

His body slowly began to wither away into dust and bone.

__

There is a moment where the paths of life and death cross. There is a moment where the living and the dead find there way to each other even if they never realize it. As someone dies, their spirit, like all energy leaves their bodies but does not leave this earth. They are with us always. Even if we don't always see them, they are there. This energy is infinite. And on the morning Barnabas died, his energy was present as if it had come from someone who had lived a normal un-cursed life. 

Just when all light in the room began to creep someone else pushed the great oak door of this room open and stepped in.

"Poor, poor Barnabas." the voice from this person said as they looked into the coffin where his body had withered like a dehydrated fruit. "It always seems I come exactly at the right moment, doesn't it? And here I am again." the voice said. 

The person slowly made their way around the coffin and shook their head. There was pity and a small bit of validation and cynical spite. 

As the person passed a large window, crowned with fine molding of the letters B and C a reflection gleamed in. It was Angelique Bouchard. She stood at the foot of Barnabas' coffin looking down on her former lover's dead body.

"You'll owe me Barnabas Collins. You'll owe me for ever and ever." Angelique said as she grabbed a hold of the stake that somebody struck with such hateful force into his chest then slowly put her hand down covering the gaping hole left by the stake. 

Her hand began to glow, there was a light the burned from deep inside her palm. It poured from her like water from a stream directly into Barnabas's body. 

It was like sunlight. It was like a warmth that came from the warmest of spring mornings, it flowed into Barnabas' body from Angelique's hand. Into his veins. Into his bones. Into his flesh. Into his heart. His body slowly regenerating back to how it was. 

Then silence again. 

Suddenly a giant gasp of air burst from the man in the coffin, his eyes flipped open and looked directly into the giant blue moon like eyes of the person who brought him back one more time. The one and only Angelique. 

"who............" Barnabas said, his voice raspy and chocked from lack of air. "who did ............this." he said, reaching for his chest where the giant hole from the stake once was.

"Oh, my love, welcome back." Angelique said with an eyebrow raised. Her hands slowly reaching for his face. She touched him.

Barnabas looked over at Angelique like he was seeing a ghost, and in a way he was. He had no idea She had come back from the beyond, and not only that but she had saved his life once again, this time reversed his death by staking. But who? Who could have done this?

Barnabas' mind was filled with anger and at the same time worry. Someone had come into the home he loved so much and had driven a stake deep into his chest hoping he would never see the light of the moon again.

"You?" Barnabas asked Angelique, his voice still struggling.

Angelique shook her head no. It wasn't she who stabbed Barnabas, but she knew who did. She knew everything, and she was about to use it to her advantage.

She grinned and helped him out of his coffin. She held his hand and kissed his cheek ans she lured him out of the bedroom where he was sleeping

"We have much to talk about." Angelique said as the two walked off into the shadows of the Old House together, and in hand, together. 

       

Series 9/Chapter 9: OF LIFE AND DEATH

It was a snowy cold day in Collinsport. The sky was a winter grey filled with clouds that had just released a freshly white powder down on the sea-side village leaving the ground frozen solid and encrusted with ice crystals shining and reflecting the early evening sun.

On this day, the Collins family invited only their closest friends to the mansion for a memorial service for Christopher. His life gone, but his memory never far away. Vicky and Curtis arrived to the mansion filled with nervous energy. Both dressed in mourners black, they both mustered the nerve to visit the family, Curtis the most nervous as he now knew he was directly related to them ad David's long lost Grandson.

Just before they entered, Vicky grabbed Curtis' arm.

"Are you going to be ok?" She asked.

"I think I'm just going to go in and remember that whatever happened in the past is gone now and I can't change it. I'll deal with the fall out later." He answered his mother.

"And you're not going to tell them you know that you're really Canan?" She asked, frightened of what might happen.

"I think that doing that would put us both in a difficult position. I might as well let things be as they are. David doesn't need any more stress that he's dealing with right now. His adopted son just died. He doesn't need to know anything more---your secret is safe." Curtis said, and Vicky smiled.

They entered the mansion and a housekeeper took their coats. Vicky then lead Curtis into the drawing room where Siobhan, David, Carolyn, Alex, Maggie and Loomis were all dressed in black were sitting around an enlarged photo of Chris.

Carolyn was the first to get up and greet Vicky--her half sister, they kissed each other, a double cheek kiss and hugged.

"Why didn't you tell me you were back in town?" Carolyn said as Curtis went over to greet the others.

"I didn't know how to tell you. Barnabas needed my help, I know how you feel about him sometimes. How could I explain that?" Vicky said.

"Vicky, I need you to tell me the truth. Julia....is that really her? Did you really bring back the real Julia Hoffman?" Carolyn asked to Vicky's surprise.

"You talked to David." Vicky said as Carolyn nodded. "It is her. It's really her. I don't know much more than you do about what Barnabas wants from her but it's her. She says she's lost her memory, It could be some kind of side effect from traveling back, I don't know, but yes, its really her." Vicky explained.

Carolyn shook her head in disbelief. She looked around and as the other's were chatting quietly she pulled Vicky aside so that no one could hear.

"I wish you had told me. I wish you had told me what was going on and that Barnabas was trying to get you to help him. I would have done everything to make sure you were safe. Barnabas doesn't pull one over when it comes to me. I would have helped you. What does he have over you honey?" Carolyn said rightly knowing that Barnabas must have blackmailed her.

"It doesn't matter now. He has no more power over me, trust me, he can't hurt me anymore." Vicky said noting that Curtis knew the truth, Barnabas' blackmail would no longer work against her.

Vicky gave Carolyn a quick smile of thanks and walked over to Maggie to greet her old friend They made small talk and Maggie explained the whole situation to Vicky about Christopher's death. It was a shocking story but Maggie left one major detail out. She oddly protected Serena's part in the story.

"So this Dr. Shaw person, he wanted Christopher's DNA to help his son live?" David questioned. "Why Christopher?" he added.

"Well, he had some idea that Chris' DNA was special, he knew of the experiments that were performed on him by Kimberly and Victor." Maggie stated, which made Victoria feel awkward.

Vicky was the reason Kim and Victor made Christopher a werewolf in the first place all those years ago. Vicky's Origination of the True Hearted was responsible for paying Victor and Kim to hunt the vampires of the Collins family by using Chris' body as a werewolf.

"Never-mind all that. We're here not to go back to the past but to the remember our sweet Christopher. He was kind and darling to us all no matter what his past was and no matter how it all came about that he should that way." Carolyn interjected attempting to break the awkwardness.

Alexandra smiled softly and snuggled up to her mother Carolyn for comfort.

"Here! Here!" Loomis said, raising his glass in a toast to Christopher.

"To Christopher!" Siobhan said, raising her water

After a few hours of talking and mingling, Maggie excused herself and said her goodbyes. She had to meet Serena and Sebastian at the hospital. They were there watching over Andrew Shaw. After the police came, Jeffery was taken to jail, and Andrew to the hospital. Andrews condition was still uncertain as the transfer of DNA had yet to fully bring him back to his 100% self.

"How are you holding up?" Siobhan asked Alex who was standing near the large French door that look out onto a courtyard that was kissed by the snow that fell earlier that day.

"I don't know what to think, Siobhan. Chris and I were together for almost 5 years and I just feel like things went too fast. How can he be gone? How can this be really happening?" Alex wondered.

"I understand. Life can throw us for a loop and as morbid as it sounds we have to sometimes be prepared for the worst of what life can offer us, no matter how hard it is to do, we have to. You’re not alone, that is the most important part for you to always remember." Siobhan answered in her psychologist hat firmly in place.

"Do you think he blames me for what happened?" Alex asked innocently.

"First of all, do you blame yourself? Because honey, there was nothing you could do? This Dr. Shaw person came out of no where, none of us would have ever know what he was planning, certainly not you or Chris." Siobhan confirmed.

"I just feel that maybe ...I just..." Alex couldn't bring herself to speak.

"Nothing was your fault, Alexandra. Nothing. Ok?" Siobhan said this time her motherly instinct pulling Alex in close for a tight hug as the sun from the outside shined in through the window making their hair glow and glisten like spun gold and amber.

Curtis, who wasn't far off had heard the two chatting. He was sad that Alex had been hurting so much. He was sad that his own mother Vicky had been hurt so much too. Everywhere he looked he felt the pain of people in one room not only because of their own had died, but because of the past traumas that still haunted them every single day of their lives. Nothing could do could keep the terrors of their past from coming back and wreaking havoc on their present lives. He knew that deep down inside there must have been a good reason for this, there must be a catalyst that always brought the darkness back into the their lives.

There was only one answer. Barnabas.

Curtis' heart started pumping he could feel his anger at the man that caused all these kind people so much distress building up inside of him. He needed to take a break, he needed to catch his breath and move away from the anger.

He set down his glass and excused himself. He went up the stairs and walked around the second then the third floor of the mansion that lead him to a study. He opened the door and pulled the dark beige draped allowing the natural sun light in. He looked around the old study. Above the fireplace was a painting of Roger Collins, David's father, and in reality, Curtis' great-grandfather. He stared up at the painting and wondered what Roger would do to help his family. But the answers did not come. He went over to the large oak desk that sat just in front of the bright windows and causally opened the drawers, not looking for anything specific and just as he did this, he found a large grey and black painted box engraved with fancy molding and a crucifix.

Curious, Curtis pulled the box out of the drawer and placed it on top of the desk. He looked at it for a moment, the shiny black corners sparkled in the sunlight. He thought about opening it, something inside of him told him he needed to open it. Something inside of him also told he he shouldn't go to that side of him. And just then, the winter clouds blew across the sky and draped Collinwood in a the shadow of a winter storm.

Curtis took this as a sign--he quickly opened the box revealing a beautiful white oak stake that was engraved with a "C" monogram on the handle.

Curtis wasted no time in his thought process. The time had come. He knew it. He knew it deep in his heart that the world he was living in now, the time he was living in now was meant for him to take a stand against all the evils that brought him to the this point in time.

He grabbed the stake.

Curtis shut the lid of the box and dashed out of the third floor study and headed for The Old House.

He was going to end his family's suffering at the hands--and fangs--of the one who brought the darkness in time after time. One way or another.

****

At Collinsport Hospital, Serena and Sebastian sat vigil at Andrews hospital room. They were pacing back and forth in the hall way as doctors and nurses checked in on him, hoping that whatever Shaw had done wasn't going to kill him, and that maybe the DNA and stem-cells that were taken from Christopher worked. 

"I'm really sorry all of this happened, I really am." Serena said stopping Sebastian as they passed each other in one of their pacing episodes outside the hospital room.

Sebastian smiled sweetly but said nothing. 

"Do you  hate me?" Serena asked in a devastatingly said voice.

"I just wish you had said something to me so that I could have helped you. We could have worked something out together to take down Shaw before anyone one died. Now Chris is gone." Sebastian explained.

"I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to tell you that because of a mistake I made years ago Andrew was in a coma and that his father was using it against me to help him bring him out of it. I did everything I could to make sure that you weren't the one he used, and when I saw Chris I saw a way out, I knew he would be good for the DNA too... and I NEVER thought he'd die." Serena said in a half truth.

"How did you not expect he'd die?" Sebastian asked confused.

"Shaw is cold, but he's also a doctor. Deep down I know that he would never have allowed anyone to die on purpose." Serena said naively. 

"Shaw has no regard for human life unless it directly has something to do with him. I can see that and I don't even know that man. You can't actually believe that he would have let Chris--or me--live." Sebastian answered.

Serena understood, she understood that what she had done was allow a man into madness and now a young and innocent man was dead. All because she did not stand up for herself and refuse to help Shaw.

"Thank you for not turning me in." Serena said after a brief moment of silence between them.

"Well if it were up to me you'd be rotting in jail next to Shaw." A voice said from behind Sebastian and Serena. 

It was Maggie, she had arrived from Collinwood and was there to make sure Serena didn't sink her hooks deeper into Sebastian as she already had.

"Mom." Sebastian said, placing himself between the two women.

"Ms. Evans, I don't know what to say." Serena said.

"How about you start from the beginning? How about you tell us what in the world really happened?" Maggie questioned.

"Everything I told you is the truth. A long time ago I made a huge mistake and drove my car while I was under the influence. While driving my car hit another car and that was Andrew who was pulling out of his father's house. Jeffery Shaw took pitting on me and allowed me to leave but then I found out Andrew was injured and Shaw came after me and made me promise to help him find a way to cure his son because they weren't sure he'd walk again. Eventually we found out about Sebastian and even Chris and we started to find away to take their DNA and stems cells to bring Andrew back. I never ever expected anyone to die." 

"Well you were wrong. You should see how terrible this has hit the Collins family. You should see how your actions have ruined so many lives." Maggie blasted.

"Ok that's enough. We all know that Serena would have done things differently had she the opportunity and we can't forget that none of us are that innocent of making mistakes." Sebastian said noting that he and Maggie too have a history of misleading others to protect themselves and their secrets. With this reminder, Maggie backed off but was sure to keep her eye one Serena none the less.

Just the one of the doctor's came out of the room where Andrew was in.

"Are you the family?" the doctor asked.

"No, there is no family. But we're going to take care of him. His father is the reason he is in this situation." Sebastian said.

"Well Christopher is doing very well after what he's been through. He's awake and talking." the Doctor said in tone of voice that showed his relief. 

"What? His name is Andrew." Maggie quipped back.

"Andrew?" the Doctor asked, looking down at his paperwork. "Oh that's very odd." He said again after realizing the name was Andrew.  "When we asked him basic questions he said his name was Christopher." 

Maggie looked at Sebastian then he looked at Serena. They didn't know what to think.

"Can we go in and see him?" Serena asked.

"Of course." The doctor said, motioning the other medical officials to leave the room.

Maggie, Sebastian and Serena all slowly made their way into the hospital room where Andrew was laying in. He was looking healthy and alert. His eyes were clear and fresh but he looked nervous and uncertain of what was going on.

"Hi. Andrew" Serena said, hoping she had chosen the right name.

"How are you feeling." Sebastian asked.

"Strange." Andrew replied after a few seconds of thought. "Where am I?" He asked.

"You're in the hospital. You've been in a coma for a long, long time. What is the last thing you remember?" "Maggie asked.

"I remember a crash. A car crash? I remember being in a car, bright lights. I don't know. My father's house? I think that's what I remember last." Andrew said, clearly with the correct memories.

"The doctor said you told him your name is Christopher. Why would you say that?" Serena asked.

Andrew shook his head. He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure why he would say that. He just looked up at them and couldn't answer. 

"Where's my father? Who are all of you" Andrew asked. 

"Your father is the reason why you're here. He did some very terrible things to get you here, and he's been taken away because someone died as a cause of what he did. We're the ones that found you." Maggie tried to explain. 

"I ....don't understand." Andrew answered confused.

"That's ok, honey, we'll explain more later. Why don't you lay back and relax for now. Get some rest and we'll explain later." Maggie said. 

Andrew smiled and followed Maggie's advice. He closed his eyes and almost instantly fell back a sleep. His mind began to flicker into dreams and flashes of things that had been seen and had not been seen. His car accident. The car. The lights. Then more flashes. Then the accident again. Then, a beautiful face---a face that was kind and fresh. A young blond. Her eyes blue like the ocean in the summer. Her hair like spun gold. 

It was Alexandra. Alex was somehow in Andrews dreams. She was smiling and laughing. He was seeing her in a townhouse, like the one in London. He was seeing her looking at him with love in her eyes as she giggled at a picnic in Hyde Park in London, then he saw her laughing with wind in her hair as they rode the London Eye Ferris wheel. 

Then a new flash of light a change in memory. He saw running in the woods. Fog, dust blowing in this air. Growling, cold. Blood. He heard a wolf howl. He saw the moon high in the sky. Then he saw the young woman again Alexandra, standing in a doorway. Then the moon again. Then another flash of light that woke him up still in his hospital bed. 

Andrew woke up breathing hard. It was night time now and he was alone in his hospital room with only the sound of his heart monitor bleeping away at his side. He was confused. Who was this blond he was remembering? Who was this beautiful girl that he was seeing all around London? Had he been in London? What was the wolf about? The moon?

Andrew was experiencing Christopher's life. Christopher's memories and Christopher's love. Andrew's mind was now filling and replacing all the years that he had missed while in a coma with the memories and life of the man who's DNA was now running through his body. 

Andrew stared at himself in the reflection of the hospital window. He had an odd sensation as the moon light beamed into his hospital room. Who was he really?

****

As the day rolled along, the moon began to sway over the silver Collinsport sky like a silver dollar in the middle of a black sparkly see. The ice cold air from the Atlantic sea sprayed across the landscape of Collinwood causing small little droplets of water sprinkle down on the land and turn to little bits of snow just before they hit the grown.

Christopher's memorial was over. David and Siobhan were up in their room getting ready for the evening. Exhausted Alexandra tried to fall asleep in her room hoping the nightmare of losing Chris would go away in the morning. Vicky had gone to look for Curtis at his house after he had seemingly gone missing from the memorial service and Carolyn was determined to confront Barnabas on what he had done to Vicky and Julia.

She bundled herself up and made her way through the frosty air across the long patch of land that separated the Old House from Collinwood. No element of weather would stop her. She needed this man to know how she felt and to know that what had done had no place around her or her family. In her mind, Barnabas had finally gone too far, but she wasn't going unnoticed. From a fourth floor window at Collinswood, Angelique grinned evilly as she watched Carolyn make her way out into the snow covered Collinwood grounds. Then Angelique vanished into thin air.

Carolyn arrived at the old house, her feet felt as if they were frozen solid. Determined to confront her wicked cousin, she forced the door open and made her way into the foyer.

"Barnabas?" Carolyn called. But no one answered.

She made her way up the stairs. The hallway was dark, only a bit of light coming from the tiny candles that hung on the walls with small burning flames the burned upwards only moved when the breeze Carolyn's body made as she passed them by.

"Barnabas?" She said, her voice now timid as she opened the door to a room.

Empty.

She continued on.

The house was eerily quiet. Too quiet. She opened another room, this one not as dark as the rest. She entered, it had two small candelabras in either end of a large table that had several open books. Carolyn slowly walked in and looked around for any sign of her centuries old cousin. But he was no where to be found.

She stepped up to the table and looked down at the books. She was confused. Some of the words were not in any language she understood. She flicked through a different book, this one was in a different language but still one she did not understand.

Then suddenly a shuffling sound came from the door that sounded like someone passing the door way. Carolyn quickly turned around.

"Who's there?!" She called to the darkened hall.

But no one answered.

In the dark hall enveloped in the shadows of the night Curtis stood. His hands firmly gripping David's engraved stake. He too was on the hunt for Barnabas Collins.

Carolyn was getting nervous. She knew that the Old House was not her domain, but Barnabas. He could be anywhere he wanted to be and she would never know it. But just before she turned around to leave she saw that the very last book was in English. It had writing on it. Barnabas' writing. She picked it up and ready from it.

"TRANSFERENCE---the act of sending one's spirit to another and causing that other harm, good or neither. This transference can be used to optimize the hold one has on another's well being and to cause a state of events to come in thine own favor." 

Then in Barnabas's handwriting the  name Carolyn did not expect to see. Jude Powell (London)

Carolyn's mind began to spin: "Could it be? Could Barnabas have sent  his own soul to London to kill Jude forcing us all to come back home to Collinwood? Did Barnabas cause Jude's death by transference?"

All these thoughts were running through Carolyn's mind. She couldn't believe it and yet she could. Why would he do it? Why would he need them all to come home? Why would he want Carolyn to suffer this way? Her mind began to fall into a tailspin. She began to feel her heart pound in her chest.

"BARNABAS!!" She screamed. "WHERE ARE YOU!"

She threw the book down, the thud of the thick book make a loud crash on the table that startled Julia who was locked in a back room on the second floor. Just above where Carolyn was.

"Help! HELP! I'm up here!!" Julia called to the stranger in the house that made the noise.

"What the?" Carolyn said, the nervous fear clinching her stomach like a vice around a bear's claw.

Carolyn wasn't sure what was going on. She was running on Adrenalin and fear and anger, Carolyn grabbed a letter opener and slowly made her way to where the voice was calling from. She slowly, step by step, made her way up the back staircase. She could feel the stress in her body begin to bump her blood even fast.

"HELP! I'M UP HERE!" Julia's muffled voice called from the room. It was getting louder and louder which meant to Carolyn she was getting closer and closer. But the long hall down to the room wasn't getting any brighter or bright.

"Who's there!?" Carolyn called, her hand firmly gripping the letter opener.

"Please, come to the last room down this hall. Please help  me!" Julia called.

Carolyn reached the room and cautiously unlocked and the and lifted her arm up into the air with the letter opener sharply in place to plunge down on anyone or anything that were to attack her.

The door opened and standing there, looking like she had the last time Carolyn saw her alive was Julia Hoffman.

"My god! It's true!" Carolyn said as the dimly lit Julia stepped forward into the hall.

"Oh thank you. Thank you. He's gone mad! We have to stop him. We have to stop him!!" Julia said. Then she looked at the woman in front of her and was astonished.  "Carolyn?"

"Julia." Carolyn said.

Julia rushed up to her and hugged her. It was an odd reunion. In the past the two often didn't get along but to see Carolyn again, and they were now practically the same age, didn't strike Julia as odd. She was happy to see someone she felt safe with.

Still she knew they had to get to Barnabas -- before he got to them.

"We have to go, Barnabas has lost his mind Carolyn. I don't know what's gotten into him. It’s as if he has lost all his moral compass. The man we knew is gone, this man is cold and more calculating than I've ever seen." Julia said.

"When I came back to Collinsport I sensed something was off about him, like something had changed in him but I couldn’t pin it down." Carolyn confirmed.

"I’m afraid he’ll put so many people in danger, more than ever, if he isn’t stopped there not telling what he is capable of. He's trying to recreate a time where we were all here together...he's trying to make us all live in a world that isn't realistic, as if we're all part of his fantasy. " Julia said, her mind fully aware what that meant.

"I won’t leave this house until I find him." Carolyn explained.

"He's not the same something is different." Julia kept repeating. "His eyes are colder. He... I think he means to kill me If I don’t do what he wants. "Julia warned.

"What does he want?" Carolyn asked cautiously.

"His family..." Julia answered cryptically. "...But he’s willing to eliminate anyone who gets in the way of having us all together again. It’s almost as if he’s trying to replicate what he had all those years ago." Julia said to Carolyn’s stoic image.

"He can’t control us anymore Julia. He can’t take what he wants all because he has the power to. Come on, we'll go down stairs and split up to look for him. Once one of us finds him we'll both confront him. I have a lot I need to get off my chest." Carolyn said.

"He's too dangerous!" Julia again warned, pulling away from Carolyn's grasp.

"No," Carolyn said confidently. "Not anymore."

Julia looked at Carolyn's face that the candle light from the hall flickered an orange glow on. Julia saw  just how confident and strong of a woman Carolyn had become.

"Your mother would be very proud of you." Julia said, her eyebrow lifted in observance. And with that, she agreed and followed Carolyn down stairs in their search for the illusive Vampire they both had such contrasting emotions for. They loved him but they hated him, they feared him but they trusted him. They knew him but all together he was a stranger. But thing was fore sure, Barnabas Collins plagued their lives. And it needed to end.

Just before her search, Julia grabbed the leg of an old chair that had thin wooden legs. She tipped it over so that the leg of the chair was at a right angle, and with all her might and the force of Adrenalin, she dropped her foot down on the leg of the chair breaking it off, then she did it to a second leg breaking a second leg creating two long pointy and sharp stakes.

She handed one to Carolyn.

"Be careful." Carolyn said.

"You too." Julia replied as they both set out the old house in search for Barnabas just as Curtis continued to search as well, the three of them looking for the man that caused so much pain in their lives.

****

While Carolyn, Julia and Curtis searched for Barnabas in the darkness of the Old House, Siobhan was in her bathroom brushing her hair. She had two scented candles lit. A tiny bit of black smoke circled around each of the burning wicks. Angelique coyly peeked around the corner from the door and saw Siobhan's big bell. Angelique stared at it intently. She remembered being pregnant with Claudia and how happy she was going to be when the baby was born, Siobhan's pregnancy brought back those happy memories. 

Angelique extended her arm and closed her open hand into a fist. Tighter and tighter her fist became and just as she did this Siobhan's water broke. Siobhan looked down and wasn't sure what to do. She put down her hair brush and felt her stomach. She felt pressure. She felt a tightness around her stomach. 

"David. David!!" She screamed. 

The tightness was Angelique's fist mystically putting pressure on Siobhan's baby. It was so much pressure that it felt like the baby was going to be born right there in the bathroom of her bedroom. Siobhan fell to her knees in pain.

"DAVID! COME QUICK! THE BABY!!" She screamed. 

And just as David entered, Angelique vanished into thin air unnoticed by anyone.

"What's wrong? Siobhan are you ok?" David said, rushing to Siobhan's side.

"We have to go to the hospital. It's the baby! Something isn't right." She said, her voice trembling in pain.

"Ok, ok, ok, come on. Ill help you up. Slowly Slowly." David said as the two made their way down stairs. 

This night would be another night to remember for the Collins family. There would be a life lost and life saved. But who would die and who would live? Only the stars in the sky sparkling like tiny specs of winter ice knew for sure.

    

Series 9/Chapter 8: THE LABORATORY

Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman-Collins 

A night so cold had never been recorded in Collinsport history, and this was the first snow fall of the  year. Just outside of town, closer to Bangor, Maine, a small car pulled up to a slushy side walk just half a block from a frosted over old warehouse. The streets were sleek and dangerous, but the small car had made it safely as it followed another more modern black sedan.
Maggie and Sebastian had successful followed Serena to Dr. Shaw's warehouse lab. The chill matched the icy likability of Dr. Jeffery Shaw, a man who's son Andrew was in desperate need of the DNA that was going to be extracted from Christopher to help save his life.

"What is this place?" Maggie wondered out loud. "What is Serena doing here?"

"I think you should stay in the car." Sebastian told his mom, there was worry in his voice.

"I won't let you go in there alone, we have no idea what this place could, be if there is two of us at least ..." Maggie paused knowing what she said next may scare Sebastian into insisting that she stay in the car.

"At least what?" He questioned.

"Well if something happens, most likely the slower one of us would stay behind. That would be me, you'd be able to get out and find help." Maggie finished.

"No, nothing is going to happen. Don't think that way. Whatever is going on I'm sure Serena has a good explanation." Sebastian answered.

They looked at each other knowing that could only be wishful thinking.

To his reluctance, Maggie refused to stay in the car and they both, as stealth as possible, sneaked their way over to the main entrance of the warehouse. The door was an acid washed green, scratched and old like it had been through a tornado and somehow reattached to the face of the building. The building itself was tall but not long. It had dark walls on the outside and what seemed like four large square windows at the top near the roof where lights were on.

Sebastian looked up towards the windows and pointed as if to tell his mother that's where they needed to go. She nodded that she understood and Sebastian grabbed the door handled covered in the icy frost of the night and pulled.

It opened.

The two slowly made their way thought winding dark corridors that smelled of rust and rancid water. Maggie took a gulp of air and covered her nose and mouth while Sebastian made sure she stayed a good two steps behind with his arm extended making sure he was the first to see what was ahead of them.

A staircase.

Sebastian took a deep breath and they both, mother and son, began their assent into the unknown warehouse of Dr. Shaw. After about 5 floors, they finally arrived to a mezzanine that lead to another door.

"What do we do?" Maggie whispered, Sebastian put his finger up to his mouth.

"Shhh."

Sebastian carefully grabbed the door handle and slowly, as best he could turned it without making any noise. He pushed the door opened and there was Dr. Shaw pointing a gun at them, lying in wait.

"Welcome! Looks like I got a two-for-one deal!" Shaw said, alluding to the fact he now had Chris and Sebastian's werewolf DNA in house. "We've been watching you on my security cameras." Shaw announced with Serena nervously standing to his side.

Sebastian and Maggie quickly looked around, they were confused, it was all something they couldn't put their minds to understand. They saw a table, someone laying on the table, and then someone else laying in a bed.

"I believe you know my associate." He added gesturing to Serena standing to the side with a terrible look of fright on her face.

"Serena, what's going on?" Sebastian asked as he and Maggie slowly made their way into the lab with their hands up.

"Now,  now,  now, now. There really isn't time for a Q & A session, Serena and I have a lot of work ahead of us and seeing that it's almost 2 in the morning I'm sure you two would really like to be asleep so why don't I help that along." Shaw said as the gun clicked in his hand ready to shoot.

"Jeffery, please don't! I'm helping you, I'll make sure everything is taken care of just don't hurt them." Serena demanded.

Shaw looked at her and knew he needed her help. He couldn't risk her trying to retaliate and he have to kill all three of them. Shaw huffed and pointed with his gun to a small room with a little square window in the metal door just off the side of the Lab and forced Sebastian and Maggie inside. He then locked them in.

Shaw and Serena, who kept looking back at Sebastian's face in the window, then began the long processes of what was a DNA transfer.

"What's going on?" Maggie asked Sebastian.

"That's...Christopher! That's Christopher Reed over there on the table!" Sebastian said in a shocked tone.

"He's here?? The police have been looking for him everywhere, what does this person want with Chris?" Maggie wondered.

"I don't know but we have to get out of here, before it's too late." Sebastian said looking around the small room. As he did, he noticed a air-duct just above his head that was too small for him to enter, but perfect for Maggie.

"You're kidding!" Maggie said, as she followed his eyes.

"It's the only way." Sebastian answered.

Maggie took a deep breath and removed her coat. She was going to need all the extra room possible to get through the air-duct.

Meanwhile, Jeffery and Serena put on their scrubs but said nothing to each other. The heart monitor attached to Christopher bleeped and bopped every time his heart beat. Serena, now dressed in light blue surgical scrubs watched as Dr. Shaw slowly and meticulously removed marrow from deep inside Christopher's thy bone. He then took another syringe and continued down the the other side of Chris' body and removed more marrow. After, he took an even bigger syringe and removed samples from Chris' spine and neck. In all there were 6 vials of pure DNA from inside of Chris' body that were ready to transplant into Shaw's son Andrew.

"I'll need you to flip him back over." Shaw said to Serena as she wondered how she would flip over poor Christopher.

Suddenly, as Serena was adjusting Chris' body back on the table, moving him face down to face up, she noticed his  blood pressure was slowing at an alarming rate as was his heart rate.

"How long has been been sedated?" Serena wondered, she had not seen him alert since she shot him at the Hotel, which was almost 9 hours before.

"Almost 10 hours." Shaw replied.

"That's too long. His BP...." Serena said as Chris' heart monitor began to ring an alarm.

"He's crashing." Shaw said, as he quickly turned from his Son's bedside.

____

In the art-duct Maggie carefully pushed her way through using her arms and pulling with her hands through the tight tube just above Shaw and Serena. Maggie finally came to the end of the air-duct and pushed the grate off and quickly grabbed it just before it fell to the ground exposing her. She pulled the grate in and inched her way out of the duct and on to a small metal latter that was attached to the wall. She climbed down the latter and dashed over to room Sebastian was still held in.

___

"What do I do?" Serena screamed.

Shaw did nothing.

"JEFFERY! You have to help him!" Serena screamed again.

Jefferey put all of the vials for Andrew in a machine that loaded the vials into what looked like I.V. bags that would then flow into Andrew's body hopefully allowing him to recover super-humanly from his coma.

"Jeffery!" Serena screamed.

Dr. Shaw finally came over from Andrew's bedside and began to start CPR on Christopher. He pressed down forcefully on his chest, he breathed into his mouth, he pressed down again on the chest, back to his mouth.

But it was too late. Christopher's heart stopped. The overdose of the sedative slowed his breathing and eventually caused his heart to stop.

"Its too late." Shaw said.

"You murderer. YOU MURDERER! This wasn't supposed to happen!!" Serena screamed. Her eyes widened, then she gasped just as Sebastian came from behind and smacked a steel pipe he had found down on Shaw's head knocking him to the ground.

Maggie was successful.

Maggie then went over to Chris and caressed his face, Serena rushed over to Sebastian, he pulled her into his arms.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry!" Serena said.

"What the hell happened here? What have you done?" Maggie asked but was soon interrupted by moaning over in the corner.

They all turned to look. With half of the DNA in the vials now in Andrew's body, the experiment had worked. The superhuman DNA had worked, Andrew Shaw was awake.

****

The sun was just about to cross over it's the mountains just at the edge of town brightening the sky and welcoming Collinsport to a new day. Over the course of the night secrets were revealed and one of the members of the Collins family had died. It would be another day that would bring sadness to the family but at the Old House a couple was about to reconnect, as best they could with one still holding her own secret.

Over the many times Barnabas has come back to Collinsport in the last 5 years, he had lost and retained many of his supernatural abilities. One of his afflictions was that the power of the sunlight would affect him negatively. This was now gone, he was now free to be awake in the day, just as long as he stayed away from direct sun light. His pale skin still very sensitive and almost translucent to the rays of light.

At the Old House, Julia looked around her new surroundings. Coming back from 1971 to 2018, she noticed just how much the Old house was the same but different. And most importantly, her mistrust of what was really happening needed to be kept safe--the play of memory loss from the transfer into the future needed to be kept up. She had no idea what the people in 2018 really intended to do with her. Her caution was true to form. Julia understood every danger that was around her.

"How are you feeling?" Barnabas said as he sat down in the drawing room where Julia was staring out of the front window.

"Oh, fine, thank you." She said coldly.

"Are you feeling more comfortable? I can't imagine what it's like to not have your memory." Barnabas prodded.

"I am thank you." Julia said again, her voice unwilling to open up to this Barnabas, a Barnabas of 2018, a man she recognized but did not trust, her gut telling her that something deep inside this version of the man she loved was cold and hardened. Her body language didn't hide it either.

"We must try and bring your memory back. It would mean so much for Siobhan and even myself. I think once you do, we can be a family again." Barnabas said.

"Is that what you want? To be a family again?" She questioned.

"Yes, that's what I've always wanted. My whole existence family was the connection that always alluded me. I was always a man who was surrounded by people who were related to me but me having my own family was something that escaped me each time I tried. Until that is you and I were in Singapore. We made it happen." Barnabas said.

"But how do you know this is what I would have wanted? How do you know that I would have wanted to leave 1971 and come here to be with this version of you? You took me away from my child. She was so small." Julia said, somewhat breaking from her pretend amnesia.

"Are you remembering something Julia?" Barnabas said, quickly catching on to her accidental break in character.

"What? No, what I mean is what Siobhan and I were talking about last night. She told me about how I left when she was very small, her memory is of me leaving, that's because of Vicky coming for me---on your behalf." Julia said trying to explain herself.

"Hmmm..." Barnabas lifted an eyebrow. He wasn't convinced. "What would bring you to that thought? why wouldn't Julia--you--want to be here? This is your family too." He wondered.

"I just think that perhaps I should have stayed where I was. Perhaps me agreed to come with Ms. Winters was a mistake, I shouldn't be here." Julia said her clear discomfort now obvious and annoying to Barnabas, he knew that once Julia had something set in her mind it would be hard convince her otherwise.

Barnabas slowly walked over Julia who carefully stepped backwards closer to the window. She was so close to the window she could feel the icy winter morning air chill through the glass. He looked deep into her eyes and wondered what she was thinking. He could see this Julia, this version of her was hiding something. It was a gift he had, to see the truth just by looking deep into their eyes. Something Carolyn also was able to do, which is why they often were at odds with each other.

"I feel like there's something you want to tell me Julia, something on your mind. I brought you here because I needed you, Siobhan needed you..." Barnabas said, his voice sounding quite frustrated, then Julia interrupted.

"But didn't they need me in 1971?" She pushed back.

"Julia you died in that timeline, bringing you here has saved your life. I brought you here not only to reconnect with your daughter but to save your life." Barnabas said emphatically highlighting his actions of what he saw as chivalrous. "What killed you all those years ago can practically be cured in this time, don't you understand that?" Barnabas pushed back some more.

"Barnabas, you can't go around breaking the rules of life forever, you can't do things to your whim just because you can. I don't belong here!" Julia shot back again, as she pushed her way free from Barnabas at the window.

"BUT YOU DO!" He yelled at her, now that she felt safer over by the fireplace.

"No, I don't. I came only because Vicky told me it would be the right thing for my daughter but now I see that she has thrived without me, and that is how it should have always been. I shouldn't have come with her and you shouldn't have forced Vicky to do what she did. The Barnabas I know would never have done this." She said once again breaking from her pretend amnesia.

Barnabas paused before he walked over to where Julia was. He could tell that what she was hiding was the fact that her memory was never gone. She was lying, perhaps buying time to find out if what she was experiencing was real. His frustration turned to anger at her lie and Julia could feel the energy in room suddenly change into a dangerous electricity. She did not feel safe.

"Julia...."Barnabas said, as he walked closer and closer to his wife, his mind going to a very dark place. "You do remember, don't you... You've been lying." Barnabas growled as he quickly rushed over to Julia at the fireplace.

Julia scoffed at Barnabas, she could see his was more interested in what she remembered or didn't then the actual damage he had done bringing her to another time.

"You don't even understand what you've done. You are cold again---the man I knew grew and learned that his dark ways were not the way to living a good life whatever that life was. He was a man who fought back from terrible disaster and became someone honorable. I don't know this Barnabas. I don't know who you are!" She screamed in his face.

"You don't know what I have gone through in the last 5 years, Julia, you haven't been here to see just how much I have had to survive without you. But you're here now and you can do what you've always done and help me survive." Barnabas said.

Julia looked over at Barnabas and shook her head. She was terrified of who this man was. His face was the same but the darkness in him she thought had dissipated with their love so long ago. Time had changed him, death and loss had changed him. All she wanted was to go back and return to the Barnabas she loved, not this hardened cold person she saw in front of her.

"Time has changed you. Send me back!" She said, hoping he would understand that this was all a mistake.

"That's impossible. You're not leaving. Not ever." Barnabas said.

"Barnabas you can't keep me here against my will, you have to have Vicky send me back. I don't belong here!!" Julia said, her voice loud and forceful.

"I can and will do anything I want!" Barnabas said equally as forceful as he grabbed her arm.

"What are you doing? Let me go!" Julia said.

He grabbed her and took her kicking and screaming down a long hallway and up and back staircase. She kept punching him on his arm for release but Barnabas was too strong. He looked over and his eyes had turned back, his angry inside to Julia's resistance fueled his fury and his teeth. He was in full vampire mode, hissing and thirsty for human blood. He was cold, hardened and angry all over again.

He brought her up the back staircase that lead to a large bedroom that stood at the back of the old house the faced the sea. He opened the door and pushed Julia in. His forceful push landed her on the floor as he closed the door and locked her in.

"Until you see how important you are to me and to my survival, Julia, until you see just how important you are for Siobhan, you won't be free from this room. You are the key Julia, you are the key to all things that make me who I need to be." Barnabas said, his veins bulging pumping his cold blood through his body.

Julia pounded on the door screaming.

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS! Barnabas!!! Let me out!!!" She screamed, but Barnabas was gone.

Julia looked around. She saw a window and went to it, but it was fused shut. She could not open it.

Barnabas' anger towards Julia's deceit and turned him to an evil side. A side that over the years had slowly returned. His darkness had slowly but surely returned and no one was safe, not even the people he loved, and Julia resisting his plan would only drag him further into this dark, cold shadow.

****

Collinwood was a buzz with electricity and movement. Detective Loomis McGovern had bad news for Carolyn and Alex on Christopher's case. In the drawing room over coffee and the soft light of the mid-morning he handed over his file.

"How can this be?" Carolyn asked as she read over the papers.

"Mother, what is it?" Alex questioned.

"I'm very sorry. Very early this morning we were called to a warehouse just outside of town and the news isn't good." Loomis said to Alex who was still confused.

"Honey, I need you to be very strong." Carolyn began. "They found Christopher." 

"Where is he? Where is he???" Alex started, not knowing what was going to come next.

"Honey, he was killed. The people that took him ...." Carolyn paused not knowing how to explain to her daughter what the police report had said. "The people that took him used his body for an experimental procedure and he didn't make it." Carolyn finished. 

"No. That can't be true. He....Chris is coming back to me. He has to! We've been through so much, he can't just be gone." Alex said, shaking in her chair as David and Siobhan walked in.

Alexandra burst into tears and ran into David's arms. He and Siobhan had heard the news as well. The devastation was written all over their faces. Kind, sweet Christopher had been taken, used and left to die in a bed in a warehouse. Alex's life was now in the same situation as Carolyn's was just a few weeks ago when she too lost the man she loved. It was like a vicious cycle that the women of this family were cursed to never be happy.

"I'll leave you all alone. I'm sure you have lots of arrangements." Loomis said as he handed over more paperwork of the closing of the investigation.

"Loomis, wait!" David said, as Siobhan took Alex. "Did you find who did this?" 

"We arrested a man named Jeffery Shaw. He used what we think were Chris' stem-cells to inject into his son who was at the time comatose. He's in jail now and we've charged him with 3 counts of kidnapping, extortion and murder." Loomis explained.

"Three counts?" David questioned.

"Maggie Evans and Sebastian Banning were actually the people that found Chris. He was holding them hostage too. Its a very complicated story that we're still connecting all the dots to, but once we figure it all out I'll let you know." Loomis explained to a shocked David. 

Carolyn walked over to David was now at the front door seeing Loomis out. She had overheard Loomis say Maggie was involved and was confused and wanted to know answers.

"Did I hear him say Maggie and Sebastian were there?" She said, her voice hushed as to not alarm Alex who was with Siobhan in the drawing room.

"I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm sure Maggie will tell us as soon as she can. I'm just glad we have what is as close to closure as possible. How are you holding up?" David said hugging Carolyn as he knew how hard it was for her to her daughter breaking down.

"I'll be fine. It's hard to go through another loss so soon after Jude but I have to there for Alex. She's the most important thing to me on this whole planet. I have to be there for her." Carolyn said, her strength pulling from the Collins blood the flowed through her veins.

"Well you're going to have to be a lot stronger when I tell you this next bit of news." David said, his tone turning worried about how Carolyn was going to react.

"What is it?" 

"It's Barnabas. It seems our crypt keeper of a cousin has done it again. Every time we think he's gotten around to be as normal as possible he pulls something out of his hat and turns our world upside down." David explained.

"What has he done?" Carolyn questioned again.

"Carolyn....uh....he's managed to bring Julia Hoffman back. She's alive Carolyn. She's here." David said point blank. 

Carolyn's face turned white as a ghost. Her heart sunk deep into her stomach. She was speechless but at the same time she almost felt like she hadn't heard something new at all. It was in Barnabas' wheelhouse to do these types of things, but it was shocking none-the-less.

"This is...I knew it. From the moment I came back I felt there was something different about him. I knew that he hand't changed like he promised. He is the same person he's always been. And now we have to worry about why he would do this? What in the world could his motive be for bringing back a dead woman?" Carolyn said, her angry and frustration pouring out of her like a leaking sieve. 

"There's more." David said, as Carolyn rolled her eyes. "He got Vicky to bring her back." 

"Vicky!?! Vicky is back in town too?" Carolyn exclaimed, to David nodding his head. "That's it. That's IT! I need to have a conversation with our dear old living dead cousin Barnabas. I've had just about enough of all of this. I've had enough of his turning our world upside down. This will be the last time Barnabas Collins takes what he wants, causes chaos and asks questions later, he's never answered for anything he's ever done. But now..............he's going to answer to me--once and for all." Carolyn finished, her face stone and firm as her words. She was determined to change the dynamic at Collinwood and end the curse...if it were the last thing she ever did. 

And just as the conversation between David and Carolyn ended and the two went back into the drawing room to comfort Alex, the mysterious being of light that had escaped the mirror from Carolyn's seance watched. It watched them talk from the top of the staircase, it watched them go back into the drawing room and it watched as the Collins family once again mourned another one of their members. 

The mysterious being wasn't new to the mansion. Not in the slightest. It had been there before. It had lived among the family and known them intimately. It had known the ins and outs of the mansion and all its secrets. 

As the mysteriouy being slowly floated through the halls undetected it entered the library where the walls were hung with portraits of the many faces of the past.

Naomi Collins, Jeremiah Collins, even little Sarah had a portrait, then a hand, a woman's hand reached over and touched the portrait of Barnabas on a horse outside of the Old House. A favorite panting of this mysterious female being.

"Soon..... soon it'll all come together and soon.... we'll meet again." She mysterious female said, with her glowing body slowly morphing into a living human person, the person she was many years ago.

Angelique Bouchard. 

         

Series 9/Chapter 7: REVELATIONS ABOUND

A moment of eerie silence is only made more so by the sounds of terror and screams just before it. Such are the events the basement of the Old House; a house cloaked in mysteries and darkness that only could have only been brought on by one man: Barnabas Collins.

Victoria's time-travel to 1971 Singapore to retrieve Julia Hoffman for Barnabas had worked, and Julia's corpse Barnabas held in a coffin had miraculously come back to life, in flesh and bone as if nothing had ever happened. The timelines had crossed, and Julia was not a ghost, not a figment of anyone's imagination, she was real, alive, and standing before them just as she did so many years ago.

As Barnabas and David stared at Julia with various amounts of emotions swirling through their minds, Victoria, the only person who could have done this for Barnabas slowly made her exit from the basement without anyone noticing and back up stairs to the main part of the Old House. While the others were distracted by Julia's return, she was going to gather her belongings and make her escape.

Siobhan started to get back up with David's help after she fainted. Her mother's face was so much like she had remembered yet so different. It was a shock to her whole system. Siobhan took deep breaths and cleaned the tears from her face.

"Siobhan, honey, are you ok? Siobhna?" David said to his wife as she started to ease the fog of shock from her system.

She felt the back of her head. She looked up at her handsome husband David and put  her hand on his scruffy face and smiled. She motioned that she was fine, as he helped her back up.

"What the hell have you done?" David said, as he held on to a shaky legged Siobhan and turned to Barnabas.

Barnabas only snarled at David who had almost ruined the whole project.

"How can this be? How can you be here in front of me like you are. It is you isn't it?" Siobhan asked of her mother.

Julia said nothing, her mind still a blur from her awakening.

"Julia, Julia are you ok?" David asked, his arm stretched out for Siobhan to hold as she was still feeling light headed.

"Julia has had a long travel, we shouldn't bog her down with questions. Would you like to go up to the drawing room?" Barnabas asked his back-from-the-dead wife.

"I...." Julia began and she looked around the basement room with it's concrete and brick walls, its low domed ceilings and its bevy of well lit candelabras. "I don't know anything. I feel very confused. Am I Julia?" She answered.

"She.... doesn't remember." Barnabas said slowly, his own shock evident in his words. "She doesn't remember!" He said again, this time angrily as he looked around the room for Victoria to explain how this could happen.

"Yes, you're my mother Julia Hoffman-Collins, this is your husband, and this is my husband. I'm Siobhan, this is David and Barnabas. Mother, you've ...." Sionban didn't know how to explain what had happened to a woman who had come back from the dead, not only back from the dead and from the past. She looked up at David for answers, his face was blank.

"It doesn't matter now." David said. "Why don't we just take you up to the drawing room where we can all clam down." David continued, his feverish anger towards Barnabas slowly subsiding as to not frighten the already unsteady Julia and Siobhan.

The foursome made their way into the drawing room where a fire was already lit and hot. They sat Julia down in the closest chair nearest the fire and she smiled calmly, yet obviously still nervous and confused at the three strangers staring back at her.

"I'm sorry, I can tell that I should remember something; you all are looking at me as if I should. There's obviously something that I am missing. I wish I could explain myself, but I ....I just can't. There's nothing that I can say. I feel so blank." Julia explained as Barnabas handed her tea.

"It will come back to you, all of it. Our time together in Singapore, your life here in Collinsport. It'll all come back." Barnabas said with a Cheshire cat grin.

"Collinsport, is that where we are?" Julia asked.

"Yes, this is where you lived before you and father left for Singapore. That's where the two of you adopted me. My parents were your friends, a couple of Americans who lived in Singapore too and they died in an accident. You took me in." Siobhan explained.

"Oh." Julia said with a smile and sipped her tea.

"Siobhan why don't we leave Julia to rest, I'm sure she is feeling a little tired." David interjected.

"No! I want to be here with her, this is my mother. I thought I'd never see her again. She left so abruptly when I was so young, I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye." Siobhan answered.

David looked over at Barnabas who excused himself while Siobhan and Julia talked alone. They're bonding was instant, even if Julia couldn't remember her, she could still feel the motherly instinct inside of her grow.

"Where are you going?" David said, quickly grabbing Barnabas' arm.

"I advise you to remove your hand from me young David, there's nothing more you can do. What's done is done. I need to speak with Victoria." He said staring at David's hand around his well suited arm.

"I swear to god, Barnabas, if you do anything more that will hurt Siobhan I don't know what I'll do but you won't like any of the thoughts running through my mind right now. How could you do this to her? How could you ---how? How could you do this?" David said in a whisper, his distrust and irate anger towards Barnabas at a full boil.

"Cousin David, when you're in a position like mine you do everything you can to survive and you surround yourself with those who have that same interest. Julia was one of those people. Without her, I would have perished decades ago. I would have never found my way home and we would never have found little Siobhan and you would have never married her. I need Julia...nothing in this world will ever stop me from getting what I need to survive." Barnabas explained.

"You're a selfish monster!" David said angry enough for Barnabas to see, but still in a whisper as to not disturb Siobhan and Julia's talk.

Barnabas, thrust his arm out of David's grasp and slowly made his way up the staircase into the main portion of the Old House. And as he turned the corner at the top of the staircase into the hallway he and Victoria collided.

"Ahhhhh now now now ...where are you off to Ms. Winters!?!" Barnabas said, pulling Victoria's body back into the dark second floor hallway where no one could see them.

"You have what you want, now leave me alone!" Vicky said.

Barnabas turned Vicky around and pinned her up against the wall, his large hand quickly locked around her throat, her suitcase fell to the floor spilling its contents all over the dark hallway.

"Did you think you'd get away so easily? What did you do to Julia? Why doesn't she remember?" Barnabas demanded to know.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I did nothing to her!" Vicky said through a slightly chocked out voice.

"You're LYING!" Barnabas growled. "You're lying to me Victoria, and you know I don't like when people lie to me. Whatever you did to you her must undo. She must be the Julia I knew!"  Barnabas hissed.

Vicky's fury was starting to boil just as David's did on the first floor. She was tired of his demands and blackmails. She had provided him with what he wanted and she was done being part of whatever Barnabas had planned for Julia's return. She sunk her finger nails into Barnabas' hand that was around her neck and peeled away his claws then pushed him off her so that they were now standing face to face in the hallway, with only the light beaming up from the foyer and the staircase below.

"You got what you wanted, you have Julia sitting in your house right now as we speak. That's what you asked for." Vicky said, her breathing labored from the quick scuffle removing Barnabas hand.

"Her memory loss was not part of the deal. She was to be returned to me the way she once was, not this...this...empty person with no history. Get Julia back. The Complete Julia!" Barnabas demanded.

"That's it Barnabas. You don't get second chances. Not this time. You've gone around living this existence getting what you wanted because people feared you, because people didn't know what you were capable of and they just sat there and took it. I've decided that I'm no longer going to fear you. I brought you  back what you wanted so that maybe you could find your own form of peace....but that's all you get from me. Nothing more." Vicky said as she picked up her things that fell in from her suitcase. "Deal with it."

Vicky stared deep into Barnabas' eyes and fearlessly continued on her way out of the Old House past Siobhan and David and Julia. Her part of the deal was done and her fear and control that Barnabas so cunningly held over her had vanished. She felt free. She felt like nothing could hold her back any longer, but she knew she still had to see her son Curtis.

Curtis needed to be protected, Vicky's fears were that Barnabas' raging anger would slowly turn into a revenge plot where Curtis would be victim number one bad the secret that she actually kidnapped him would destroy their closeness.

As for Julia she calmly sat and listened to Siobhan go on and on gleefully recounting their lives and filling in Julia on all that had happened over the years. Sioban's eyes were sparkling like two ravishing blue diamonds and the thought of how lucky she was that her mother was miraculously back in her life just as she was going to have a baby. It was all so perfect.

"Siobhan." Barnabas said as he walked back into the room.

David stood up and placed himself between his wife and her father.

"David." Siobhan nagged pulling David back down to the sofa.

"Do you remember receiving the paper work on a new patient to take on?" Barnabas asked.

"Yes." Siobhan answered confused as to how Barnabas knew, David looked over confused, he was not aware his wife was taking on a new client at Windcliff.

"Well, I sent you those papers. Your mother, is your new patient." Barnabas revealed. "I had suspected Julia may need help putting her life together now that she would be in the present, it would, of course be so much more different the other times she time traveled years ago. She would have a grown daughter and a grandchild on the way, needless to say I did not expect her to not remember anything...all the more important you help her."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"  David said, standing up again to Barnabas. "I will not have my pregnant wife get dragged into any of your god forsaken plans. NO!"

"David!"Siobhan said, looking over at her mother then back at Barnabas. "Even though this was an underhanded thing you've done, and even though I should have know that you could be capable of something like I can't help but thank you for bringing her back to us." She then grabbed David's hand. "She's the only  mother I really have ever know. If I can help her...I have to."

Julia sat silently in the chair looking up and her family, what they didn't notice was that she too had a little smirk in the corner of her mouth. Time travel may have changed Julia's surroundings, but it didn't change one very important thing --- her cunning disposition. Julia was lying. She had never lost a single ounce of her memory.

Julia had every intention of using the freedom of self-imposed amnesia to maneuver around the dangers of being back in Collinwood, things were about to get very interesting.

****

As the gloomy winter fog rolled in from the raging Atlantic sea, creeping into the sea-side town of Collinsport like pea soup Maggie and Sebastian sat together at the Evans family cottage wondering where Serena had been all this time. She had borrowed Sebastian's car to kidnap Chris but said she was running errands. That had been hours ago, and she hadn't returned anyone's phone calls. It was strange behavior, and Sebastian and Maggie were starting to become worried.

"I'm sure it's nothing. I'm sure she just got lost. She's never been to Collinsport. The streets all look the same maybe she just got turned around." Sebastian said nervously tapping his fingers on his knee.

"Uh..." Maggie said as with a wince "hon, I don't know how to say this without hurting your feelings."

"What?" Sebastian asked.

"Collinsport isn't really a big town, sweetheart, she wouldn't get lost. And besides, we've called her almost all night. I'm not saying you shouldn't be worried, because, I am too, but maybe instead of just waiting around we should call the police." His mother advised.

Sebastian took a deep breath. It was one of those moments when a person is faced with the feeling that they never want to feel. The moment when the truth is more terrifying than your worst nightmare---the truth is real---nightmares are often imagined.

"I just feel like..." As Sebastian spoke, car lights hit the window from the outside. "Oh thank god, it's her." He said noticing his own car pulling up.

Serena quickly made her way into the Evans cottage to the awaiting Evans family. Maggie sat back on the living room chair, her worry slowly churning in her stomach to suspicion, and Sebastian only displayed pure relief that she was ok.

"Where have you been!?" Sebastian asked as Serena walked in to the awaiting arms of Sebastian.

"I'm so so sorry. I know I should have called back. I had to leave town and take care of somethings and I literally just got back now." Serena said, lying.

"You left town?" Maggie said from her comfy chair.

"Yes, work had an emergency and I drove back to Boston." Serena said, again lying.

"WOW! That's almost a 7 hour round trip, you must be exhausted. My mom made dinner, it's still warm." Sebastian said with a happy grin.

Serena smiled and went into the kitchen with him as he helped her make a plate. He was totally in love, the signs of deception clearly passing him like like blaring red road alarms, his happiness was blocking all logic from entering his mind and allowing Serena to clearly fabricate what had happened. Maggie, on the other hand, had been lied before. She had lived with a cruel husband and she knew when she was being played a fool. She was not falling for any of it.

"What time did you get into Boston?" Maggie asked setting up her trap as she too stepping to the small kitchenette where dinner was prepared hours ago

"Oh, umm... I don't now, I guess I didn't pay attention to the clock." Serena said.

"Well you left here early in the day, and its about a 3 and half hour drive." Maggie said, offering Serena help with the math.

"I don't know." Serena said, turning coldly towards Maggie as she realized Maggie wasn't falling for it.

"And what time did you leave?" Maggie continued.

"Mom?" Sebastian shot back, seeing straight through Maggie's inquisition.

"What is this?" Serena asked point blank. "I told you I had to do something for work Ms. Evans that's where I was, I don't understand why you'd need a time line."

Maggie only glared at Serena hoping something else would come out of her mouth that she could use to counter but Serena was just as smart and stayed quiet, only starting back at Maggie both waiting for the next woman's move.

"I just think that perhaps there something you're not telling us. You haven't really explained the situation in any sort of way, Serena. We've been waiting around all day to hear back from you. We were worried." Maggie scolded.

Serena started to feel the tables turn. Had she taken advantage too long of Sebastian's kind side? Had she neglected to notice that Maggie would put negative thoughts in his mind about her while she was away? It was obvious that she had over estimated Maggie's welcoming side, and now she had to backtrack or risk exposure.

"You're right, you're both right. I should have called but the truth is I just wanted to make sure I took care of what I had to take care of for work and not interrupt your reunion. I know that the two of you really needed to be together again. It had been so long." Serena said, trying to ease out of the confrontation.

"Oh Serena....please!" Maggie began not believing one word of it.

"Alright! Alright!" Sebastian interjected. "It's been a long night, I think we're all just really tired, why don't we all head off to bed and let it go for now." Sebastian said attempting to calm the sea.

Maggie smiled coyly and walked over to her son that she loved so much and kissed him on the cheek. She turned back and looked at Serena who's green eyes hadn't left Maggie the whole time.

"Good night." Maggie said frigidly as she walked away back into her room.

"You ok?" Sebastian asked Serena as Maggie disappeared in to the bedrooms.

"She hates me." Serena said dryly.

"Noooo she doesn't, she's just very protective. You have no idea what she's been through in her life. My mother has a tendancy to over think thinks and sometimes, she goes a little dark." Sebastian explained without going into detail of Maggie's traumatizing past.

"Do you believe me?" Serena asked, hoping she had at least thwarted off Sebastian's suspicions.

"I Love you, and that's all I need you to know." He said sweetly.

"I love you too." She responded, it was the first thing she had said that was truth all night.

Look, I'm going to go off to bed, you get yourself more comfortable and everything will be fine in the morning, ok?" Sebastian said to a pouting Serena. "OK?" Sebastian asked again kissing her on her neck.

"Fine!!" Serena said, giggling at his short beard tickling her cheek.

Sebastian too left for the bed room and as Serena cleaned up her plate in the kitchen, from inside her bag, her phone rang. Serena knew only one person would have been calling her so late. One person and one person only. Dr. Jeffery Shaw.

She dashed over to her cell phone and pulled it out of her purse. She clicked it on and waited to see if anyone had heard it go off....just silence.

"What?" She said in a whisper seeing Shaw's name on the call log.

"I'm sending you a location of a warehouse I rented before I got here to make the transfer of DNA into my son's body. They've delivered him early, I need you here to help me." Shaw said.

"No, absolutely not. My part of the bargain was to bring you the DNA you needed to get Andrew back to normal and I've done that, so no, I will not help anymore." Serena said, mentioning Shaw's son by name.

"Are you...you're pushing me to the edge Miss Bellmoore! You  haven't finished with me yet, not by a long shot. Until Andrew opens his eyes and speaks his first words since he's been in this coma you still owe, me do you hear what I'm saying? If Chris' DNA doesn't work, you still OWE me."

Shaw was right. Serena had promised all of this to him years ago when the accident happened, the accident she was responsible for. But she had no idea how long and how much this promise of hers would take from her life, and now she was seeing what she thought would be the end of his power over her, much like that of Barnabas and Victoria, but unlike Victoria, Serena was still a slave Shaw's will.

She took a deep breath and bit her lip, making sure she doesn't say anything to anger him any further.

"Hurry up, text me the address. I'll be there tonight." Serena said as she hung up the phone.

She quickly grabbed a pen and paper from her purse and wrote Sebastian a note.

"Bash---work called again, I'm sorry. I'll back before breakfast, 
I promise. I'll make it up to you. 
Love Serena."

Serena grabbed Sebastian's keys, dropped the note on Maggie's coffee table and left the cottage.

Just as she did, Maggie came out of the hallway, she had heard every single word. Maggie walked over to her own purse and car keys and grabbed her coat to follow and just as she did, Sebastian grabbed his mother's arm and pulled her back.

"I'm going too." He said.

Sebastian's love for Serena was strong, but the suspicion that subsided just moments before had returned, like a wave crashing on a beach pulling grains of sand away like the reveal of the truth, it was now obvious Serena was hiding something.

****

Across town from the Evan's family cottage in "the Mists" neighborhood of Collinsport, Curtis Winters was settling in for the night after a long day of work at the office buildings of the Collins Fishing Co. He went around the living room turning off the lights and drawing the sheer lavender curtains that hung so freshly in his french door windows.

He picked up a news paper form the kitchen table and started on his way his bedroom when there was a knock at his front door. He looked at his watch and wondered who in the world could be coming over so late at night.

He walked over to the door slowly, butterflies fluttering in his stomach, he looked through the peep hole and bounced backwards, quickly unlocking the front door once he recognized his mother Victoria  on the other side.

"Mom, what are you doing here so late? Is everything alright.?" Curtis asked as the door swung open and the ice cold winter Collinsport air filtered in.

"I'm so sorry to come by so late, hon, I couldn't wait to talk to you in the morning. We have to leave town right away. Right away!" Vicky said in a panic.

"What? What are you talking about? Why? Whats the matter?" Curtis said placing his hands on his mother's shoulders trying to calm her.

"I don't know how to tell you this but ...." She paused.

"But what!?" Curtis insisted.

"Curtis, I have to tell you something and when I tell you there is a good chance you'll never want to have anything to do with me again." Vicky responded.

"Mom you're scaring me. What's going on?" Curtis questioned.

Vicky's big blue eyes began to well up. She had so much pent up emotions about what she had done for Barnabas all so that the secret of her betrayal would remain buried like a long lost Collins family member. In fact thats exactly what Curtis was, a long lost Collins family member.

Vicky wiped her eyes and walked over to the sofa that was laying in a deep cloud of darkness until Curtis turned on a side-table lamp. The room lit up in an orange glow shining on family photos of Curtis and Vicky on the table and shots of Collinsport Curtis had taken himself, he was an avid photographer on his spare time.

"Sit down." Vicky said patting the other side of the sofa, Curtis complied.

"What's that matter?" He asked.

"A long time ago, I came to Collinsport and I lived at Collinwood. I was a governess for a the family...I practically raised David for a good amount of years. His father ...well let's just say Roger had a lot of his own demons to deal with and David was a hand full. The family always thought I came to town on a whim, some kind of lucky break answering an ad to come and be the governess to this wealthy family. The truth is, I had was working for an organization that knew the of the Collins family's dark side. I had belonged to this organization and willingly came here to get information on them. Over the years I saw things that no one should ever see, I did things that no one should ever do and when I left just after 4 years I vowed that when I returned I would make sure the family that was so dangerous, so horrible and so filled with secrets would never hurt any innocent soul again. I vowed that....I wanted to keep that vow." Vicky explained to a transfixed Curtis.

"Go on..." he replied sensing there was more to the story.

"Well I did come back, about 4  years ago. I came back and Caleb Collins, David's son, had had a baby boy." Vicky said, all information Curtis knew for the most part. "When I found out, I just knew, I knew that couldn't live in this world knowing that this baby, this innocent baby would grow up in this house of horrors under the eyes of ...of a killer, no  matter how much of their own blood ran through my veins." She said.

"Your own blood?" Curtis questioned in shock.

"Yes, my mother Elizabeth. I never told you this...but as you can tell now, it wasn’t exactly openly known that I was part of the family. Elizabeth was in love with a man before she married Carolyn's father and to avoid scandal I was put up for adoption. But that's not all, honey, when I came back to Collinsport 4 years ago I did something that in a way I now regret." Vicky said.

"What?" Curtis asked waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"To protect this little baby, Caleb's baby, a boy he and his wife Kat named Canan, I took him. In the middle of the night; out of his little bed, out into the cold and I took him far far away. To save him from a life of only God knows what." Vicky confessed.

Curtis could see where the story was going, he knew he was that baby, but the way he ended up Vicky’s son was a secret. The actual kidnapping was kept a secret all this time.

 In truth, he has always known bits and pieces of his mother's past but now that she was finally coming clean with her back story he was beginning to see where is own origin story would eventually change.

"You kidnapped me. You always made it seem that I grew up with you because Kat needed your help to raise me because of some sort of darkness here... that she ASKED you to raise me. But you took me and switched me! It was all a lie. All of it." Curtis said softly.

Vicky began to cry and nodded 'yes'.

"I can’t believe I was so naive." He said

"You took me from my family? You took me and you....you raised me all those years and you never told me until ....until about 2 years ago. And even then it was only a half truth. You brought me here and had me pretended I didn't know things about the Collins family you...you lied to me! YOU LIED TO ME!" Curtis yelled.

"You don't understand Curtis!" Vicky said

"How could you lie to me??? You made me think you did all of this honorably. Like ... like it was for the best for Kat and Caleb...no wonder Kat refuses to tell Caleb about me it would hurt too much, the truth. All of that was a lie!" Curtis yelled back.

"I've raised you, I've loved you. You don't know what you have been saved from Barnabas, honey I don't know what your life would have been like if you had been raised around the evils that surround Collinsport and this family. Darling, I needed to keep you safe. Barnabas...I don't know what he would have done." Vicky explained.

"Why? What do you think he would have done?" Curtis questioned.

"Horrible things. Evil things. Things that should not be spoken out loud. His thirst for creating chaos and horror all around him absorbs even the most innocent of people, and a child like you, well, that is the most innocent." Vicky said.

"You're terrified of him. You really are." Curtis began to see.

Vicky turned and walked over to the window that was slightly open. The sea breeze slowly flowed through raising a sheer blue curtain up like a ghost flowing in mid air. The light of the village below glistened like tiny orange starts and reflected into the sea just off shore as a lighthouse flashed it's beacon in Vicky's eyes, round and round the light would flash.

"He's a monster." she said.

"What did he do to you? Did he hurt you?" Curtis questioned.

"A lot of people. Many. Over and over again year after year decade after decade. If I had left you here....Curtis there's more." Vicky said as she turned back to Curtis. "Barnabas threatened to tell you the truth about who you were and that I had taken you. He said that if I didn't do what he wanted he would tell you. I was sacred. I needed to tell you in my own way. But.....I did what he wanted anyway." &"What did you do?" Curtis said worried of her answer.

"I broke my promise to you and I went back in time and I brought some back with me for him. His wife. I had to. I had to get him away from me and finally allow myself to be free of his control. This was the last of it, honey. I'm free of him!" Vicky said.

"That is until he finds something else he can hold over you! Or someone else! What can we do? What can we do to stop him from hurting anyone else! I mean my god, Siobhan has a child on the way!"

"Shhh...." Vicky said, hushing her son who was now raising his voice in the middle of the night., "There's nothing we can do now, but what I want us to do in the morning, is leave Collinsport----forever." Vicky said.

Curtis stood in the center of the room while Vicky kissed his cheek and excused herself to Curtis' guest room. He paced around and around his small living room as the same ocean breeze oozed through the window and caressed his exposed arms. He turned to look out of the window and saw the same lighthouse down in the harbor flash in his ice blues eyes.

He would leave Collinsport with Vicky just as she wanted, but not after he and Barnabas met man to man. Tomorrow, he would confront the man that made his mother Victoria's life a living hell for over decades.

****

The grandfather clock at Collinwood struck 3am. Siobhan and David had returned to the house and were now in bed. Sionhan slept like a baby, but David lay in bed with  his eyes open staring at the ceiling. 

The police outside continued to patrol still believing Chris was abducted and Loomis was out following strange leads from random callers while Carolyn comforted Alex as she cried herself to sleep. 

The grandfather clock continued to tick away in the foyer. Ticking ticking all time away until the sunset, and in the drawing room the golden mirror that had rattled and shook while Carolyn did her seance began to glow a light from its glass that was brighter than even the fire in the hearth just hours before.

Suddenly, a bright light shot out of the mirror like a beam from the sun, bright and hot. Thea beam of light formed into a person made of that same light that eventually cooled into the shape of a woman. 

Carolyn's seance, although unfruitful in her attempt to contact Jude was successful at something else....reopening portal for someone--or something--to come out of the realm of the dead. 

The being slowly floated over to the painting of Barnabas Collins above the fireplace and let out a cackle that shook the entire house. 

Julia Hoffman wasn't the only one from the past returning.