A spring evening in Collinsport was still met with the chill of a winter frost. The bite of the sea air floated across this sea-side town like a ghost passing through a wall undetected, unseen but felt. In the revitalized down-town area, the 8-story Collins Fishing Fleet office building stood as the tallest of the buildings in town and weathered every single icy cold wind that the Atlantic could muster. Inside this tall glass building, Siobhan Morgan Collins was visiting her husband just before the last few hours of his work day.
Siobhan sat on a large custard colored canvas sofa in David's 8th floor white painted office. The carpet was as white as the snow melting on the streets below. She kissed and coo-ed with little baby John in her arms as David signed off on a few Fishing Fleet documents and was about to leave for the evening for dinner with his wife and new son.
"Sorry hon, I'll be done in just a few seconds." David said smiling at his wife as his pen scratched the papers in front of him.
"He's so adorable!" David's secretary said sitting next to Siobhan and the baby.
"He's growing so fast. I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since this little man came into our lives." Siobhan said proudly.
"Has he gotten used to living in such a big house?" The secretary asked as he played "I got your nose" with little John.
"I don't think he's noticed yet!" Siobhan laughed at the secretary's silly question.
Just as the small talk continued, David's secretary Daniel, got a call on his desk telephone from the door man in the lobby. Daniel patched the phone through to the blue-tooth ear piece he was wearing that he used to answer phone calls when he was away from his desk.
"Yes Carl?" Daniel asked. "One second I'll ask him. Mr. Collins, there's a Detective Loomis McGovern here to see you from the police department, Carl from the front desk says the detective says he needs to talk to you about your son Christopher's case. Should I have Carl let him up?" Daniel asked.
"Yes, please!" David said putting down his pen.
After a few moments of nervous looks between David and Siobhan, David's glass office doors and Loomis walked in.
"Loo! Good to see you." David said shaking Loomis' hand.
"David, Siobhan." Loomis said shaking David's hand and greeting Siobhan who was still seated on the sofa with baby John.
"Whats up?" David asked.
"Well it's about Jeffery Shaw, I'm afraid. And it's not great news." Loomis began.
"Not great news? I hate when conversations start out this way." David said.
"It's really the D.A's office that's the bad news, they've read over the medical examiner's report and have agreed that Christopher's death was an accident. They're not going to press charges on Shaw." Loomis finished.
"That's ridiculous!" Siobhan scoffed.
"Why would they decide that it was an accident? Alex said someone pulled up in a car next to them both, shot them with tranquilizers and took Chris, when Chris was found he was dead! How is that an accident!" David replied angrily.
'I know, I know, I'm totally there with you. But they're saying that they don't have proof that person was Jeffery Shaw, and they say that Jeffery actually tried to save his life. There's no evidence that what Alex actually saw connects to Shaw and what happened to Chris." Loomis explained further.
"That is ....that's absurd!" David said throwing his pen on the desk.
"Clearly, Loomis, something is fishy here. We all know Jeffery had everything to do with Christopher's kidnapping and his death, not to mention the assault on Alexandra. Why would the DA not even attempt to look into it?" Siobhan asked as she rocked baby John in her arms.
"I don't know, Siobhan, and trust me, I'm with you on all of this. I don't know how the medical examiner came to his conclusion either but it's really hard to convince the DA when they've already decide not to file charges." Loomis said in a defeated tone.
"So there's nothing we can do? He's just going to get off?" David questioned.
"At this point, there is nothing we can do. I wanted to tell you both first before anyone else in town, or the papers found out." Loomis said.
"And Maggie and Sebastian? They're the ones who found Andrew, do they know?" Siobhan questioned.
"I'm going over to Maggie's cottage later to let her know." Loomis added.
"This just doesn't make any sense. None. How would could this happen?" David wondered.
"The guy's got a good lawyer, what can I say? She's one of those sprites that turn up somewhere and know how to turn a clear-cut manslaughter conviction into something like a parking violation." Loomis answered sarcastically.
"Who's his lawyer?" David wondered.
Loomis grabbed the papers from the reports that he had given David and began to skim through to find her name. He found the page and pulled it out to show David.
"I met her the night Shaw made bail." Loomis said handing over the paper signed by Jeffery's lawyer.
"Quinn Devereaux." David read aloud.
"That's her. Spit fire, I'll tell you. But listen, I'm going to keep my eyes on Shaw as long as he's in town and I'll make sure he get's no where near your family or Collinwood." Loomis reassured.
"Thank you Loo." Siobhan said smiling and rocking the baby.
"Yes, thanks, man." David said shaking Loomis' hand again just before he left.
"What's that look in your eyes?" Siobhan asked of David's expression as soon as Loomis left the office.
"What?" David said, coming out of his thoughts.
"What are you thinking?" Siobhan asked now going over to the desk with the baby in her arms. "I can always tell when you're thinking of something that might get you into trouble. Your left eyebrow goes up and you glaze over."
David took a deep breath and sat back in his chair and motioned for Siobhan to hand over baby John. She handed the baby to the new father and he looked down at his new son with a sparkle in his eyes.
"All I want to do is protect my kids. I've failed over the years with Caleb. I guess that's why he's so detached and traveling around the world with his own family and barley makes contact with us. Then when I adopted Chris after his father Victor died...I mean he's Caleb's half brother. I felt like I needed to protect him too. And then I let him die in this horrible way... I look down at this baby and all I can do is think about how much I want to protect him from all the horrors in this world. Like I should have done with Caleb, and how I should have done with Christopher." David said in a sad voice.
"Honey, Christopher's death wasn't your fault. You had no idea that was going to happen to him. How could you have known? And Caleb adores you. He's just on a very long vacation. After the whirl-wind he and Kat had before they left they deserve it. He doesn't blame you either for anything that happened in his past." Siobhan said to a guilty feeling David.
"You don't know that." David demurred.
"David..." Siobhan began before David interrupted.
"I could have done more. I could have done so much more to keep them safe. My own childhood was..." David paused to think. "I don't know, I can't really explain everything that happened to me without sounding insane. All those years with my mother's mental illness, and my father being so distant. All I had were My Aunt Elizabeth and Carolyn and Vicky. But...still I let it all just happen."
"Those things weren't your fault either and you can't say that you blame your own father for those things can you? You were all in it together and you all made it out." Siobhan asked.
"I can say that my father surly didn't help in times I needed him." David replied.
Siobhan sighed and sat on the arm of David's desk chair. They looked down at their new baby with glowing eyes, both parents knowing that they'd do anything and everything to protect this new life from all that could hurt him, that no one would come between them. No one at all.
David handed back the baby to Siobhan and grabbed the papers Loomis had brought to them of the report from the DA. He looked over them again and read Jeffery's lawyer's name.
"I'll be right back, I'm going to change the baby one more time before we leave to dinner." Siobhan said as she walked out of the office leaving David alone.
David watched as Siobhan walked into his office's waiting room through the glass doors and as soon as she disappeared behind one of the large white pillars, he grabbed his cell phone and dialed Loomis.
"Hey, Loo, Listen, I know you just left and but there's something I gotta ask you." David said.
"What's that?" Loomis asked over his cell phone.
"I need you to look into Quinn for me, I know that that may be against all sorts of ethical rules you and the department have but.....this whole thing isn't right. You know it's not right!" David said.
"Look into? You want me to secretly investigate her?" Loomis asked.
"There has to a connection between her and the DA and the medical examiner. That has to be why the DA would just drop charges on the man that killed my son. Loomis, please, is there anything you can do? You can see that there's something a-miss here!" David said.
Loomis thought for a second, and looked up at the Collins office building from the parking lot. He hadn't even left the grounds before David made the call. Loomis looked around the parking lot and turned away from people walking from their cars to the building so that they wouldn't hear his response.
"Alright. I'll see what I can dig up, but whatever we discover, you didn't get it from me." Loomis said as he hung up the phone.
****
As the wind's from the east picked up with an icy spring blast of air, the sky turned dark with clouds. It was as if the clouds around Collinsport were beginning to know that something was about to happen and that they needed to cover the sky and everything that in it from the horrors that were about to unfold.
At The Collinsport Inn, Jeffery Shaw was about to see what his experiments with Christopher's DNA were to produced.
Jeffery stared out of his hotel window looking out onto the ocean crashing against the rocky beach below. He drank from a tumbler of brandy when his lawyer Quinn Devereaux came in with a smug, yet irritated look on her face. She was dressed in a perfect power suite, a pencil skirt and matching jacket. She slapped down a stack of papers on the coffee table to get Jeffery's attention.
"Hope you're happy." She said as Jeffery turned to look at her.
"How'd you get in?" He said not remembering he gave her a key card.
"Jeffery sign these so that I can go back to Boston and get out of this town." She said rolling her eyes.
"You act as if I'm not paying you." He said just as annoyed with her.
"You're not, the people who employ you are paying me to make sure their company's name doesn't get dragged into the papers over a murder charge. Not that any of the little papers in this town would make it out of this area and cause them a scandal, but I digress." Quinn said pushing the documents over to Jeffery.
"What are they?" He asked sipping his brandy.
"It's from the DA. You have to sign them. I've convinced them not to press charges on you for anything that happened to Christopher so long as you leave town." She said.
"That was the one provision?" Jeffery asked as the sky began to darken with clouds and the night began sky began to turn a purple hue.
"They just want to make sure you and whatever kind of crazy crime you committed disappear as soon as possible. Jeffery, this wasn't easy and what I had to use against the DA was not something I want to keep remembering so if you could just please sign this so I can get out of here." Quinn said.
Jeffery looked at her with disdain and bent down and signed where the documents were marked for him to sign.
"I'm not leaving." He said to her surprise.
"What are you talking about? You have to." Quinn replied.
"My son is still here and I need to be with him. I'm not leaving without him." Jeffery answered.
"Fine, you can both leave. I don't care, do you understand me, you can't stay in Collinsport, there's too much around here that I choose not to remember and I've put too much of myself on the line to get you off these charges." She answered just as Andrew walked into the hotel room, breaking the court imposed restraining order that was on his father.
"Andrew!" Jeffery said happy,but shocked, to see his son finally walking in and brushing past Quinn. "You're not supposed to be here!" Jeffery added.
Andrew seemed nervous, his heart was pounding. He had been out all day and this was the first real interaction he had with his father since leaving the hospital weeks prior. Andrew stood in the foyer of the large hotel suite and was unsure where to go, he almost felt like a trapped rat as his father approached. He was feeling ill, and restraining order or not, he needed his dad.
"He can't be here!" Quinn, in frustrated lawyer mode said shaking her head throwing up her arms.
"How are you feeling?" Jeffery asked grabbing a quick one sided hug from Andrew and dismissing Quinn's objection to Andrew's restraining order defiance.
"Fine I guess. I mean I was feeling fine earlier, but just a little while ago I started to feel a little strange. Hot. But cold." Andrew said. "I didn't know what to do. So I came here. Could I get some water?" He added quickly making his way over to the small wet-bar and pouring himself a drink.
After Andrew and Alexandra's chance meeting on the dock's, Andrew began to feel strange. His heart was beating fast. His eyes felt like they were seeing things pass him by quickly, like in a blur.
"You do look like you have the flu." Quinn noticed as she gathered the papers on the coffee table.
"Who's this?" Andrew asked gulping down his water.
"No one. You look a little ill, son. It was good that you came here. Did you have anything to eat?" Jeffery asked reaching for his doctor's bag.
"Eat?" Andrew replied confused at the question.
"Yes, lunch? Did you have lunch? It's almost 8pm, if you haven't had a good lunch that could be why you've suddenly started to feel ill." Jeffery said pretending it could have been something normal that made Andrew ill, but he knew full well this could be direct side-effect to the DNA transplant.
"I don't remember." Andrew said in a fog.
"Your body has been through a lot in the last week. You're exhausted. Its been traumatic." Jeffery continued, his fatherly instincts mixing with this medical background knowing that Andrew had probably not had any big meals since his release from the hospital.
The thought of eating repulsed Andrew to his core. He stood there for a second and began to feel dizzy. Everything he was looking at began to spin. His eyes were blurry and the room and his father and Quinn began to look like they were double. He suddenly fell to his knees covered in sweat. His body was aching. His arms and legs especially.
"Andrew? What's wrong? What's happening?" Jeffery said falling to his knees next to his on.
"Jeffery?" Quinn said in a terrified voice. "Should I call an ambulance?"
"Andrew what is it? what do you feel? Jeffery said patting the sweat from Andrew brow.
As the panic filled the room, the moon in the sky finally peeked through the clouds. The fullness of the white orb that floated in the sky pressed it's soft white rays against the glass of the hotel windows and down into the hotel room where Andrew was now on all fours coughing and writhing in pain.
"Whats happening to me?!" Andrew said, now holding his stomach.
Before their very eyes, they began to see Andrew's teeth sharpen, his finger nails became longer, and the hair on his body suddenly thickened. Andrews eyes too quickly changed from a soft brown to a feverish yellow. His heart was beating fast, his body was convulsing and the clothes on his body were beginning to stretch.
"What is happening to me!!!" Andrew said again, the pain of his body changing was almost too much to bare.
"Hand me my bag! Hurry! Hand it to me!" Jeffery said pointing to his medical bag that was sitting next to one of the luxurious sofas.
Quinn stood frozen in panic at what she was seeing. She was seeing a complete transformation of a human being into something she could not explain. It was almost revolting to her, the young handsome man that had walked in just a few minutes earlier was now in between human and monster. She was petrified to move. She was shaking, so much so she dropped all of the legal papers Jeffery had signed on the floor, they scattered all around her.
"Damn it!" Jeffery said getting up from his son's side and rushing over to his medical bag himself.
Jeffery quickly opened the bag and pulled out a syringe and a vial of liquid. He stabbed the syringe into the liquid and with the plunger filled it then rushed back to Andrew who was quickly changing before their eyes. Jeffery grabbed one of Andrew's arms and penetrated his skin with the syringe then slowly filled the liquid from the vial into Andrew's body.
The reaction was almost instant. Andrew suddenly calmed and his body stopped it's convulsions. The hair began to go back to normal, his eyes too turned back to their normal color.
"Help me take him to the bed room." Jeffery said as Quinn silently obeyed.
They dragged the sleeping Andrew, now back to his normal self, into the other bedroom in the suite. They put him on the bed and slowly backed away from the room.
Quinn was still shaking like a leaf. She was stepping all over the papers that she had dropped and grabbed herself a brandy. She adjusted the hair on her face that had been sticking to her skin from the panic sweat, and leered over at Jeffery who grabbed a cigarette from his jacket pocket.
She walked over to Jeffery and grabbed the cigarette from his hand and puffed on hit herself then she put it out and slapped Jeffery across the face.
"What the hell have you done?" Quinn said with tears in her eyes.
Jeffery said nothing.
"What did you inject in him?" She asked but no answer. "Damn it Jeffery, what the hell is going on here? What happened to Andrew?"
Jeffery grabbed the brandy from Quinn's hand and quickly gulped the remaining alcohol in the cup. He wiped his mouth and sat on the sofa, still catching his breath.
"It's a reaction from the DNA that I gave him. When I did my research about different typed of genetic therapy I could use to bring Andrew back from his coma, I came across a journal from Dr. Kimberly Grayson-Collins. She had used this same type of therapy on her own son, who just happened to be Christopher Reed. I had no idea Christopher was in this town, but as my luck would have it, here he was." Jeffery explained.
"And the serum?" Quinn asked.
"It's a type of antidote. It represses the lycan impulses in his body from the transition. I made a few vials just in case this would happen." Explained.
"So you knew this would happen?" Quinn asked in shock.
"I know it was a possibility."
"You're a monster. You're a monster!" Quinn said in a loud voice. "I'm only going to tell you this one last time, get your things, get your son and get the hell out of Collinsport. Whatever you've done here I can't protect you from, whatever you have done to your son, I can't protect you from. When people find out...."
"No one is going to find out, do you under stand me!" Jeffery said quickly lunging at Quinn from the sofa and grabbing at her shirt.
Quinn pulled off Jeffery's hand and looked him directly in his eyes.
"Get out of Collinsport. Pack your things tonight and leave in the morning." She said.
"And if we don't?" Jeffery replied to Quinn's surprise.
Quinn didn't answer. All she did was pull out the last legal form from the District Attorney with Jeffery's deal. Quinn put the paper up in front of Jeffery's face and tore it in half.
"The deal is off if you stay, and I won't defend you otherwise." She said as she gathered her things and left the hotel room.
Jeffery poured himself another drink and walked over to the large windows that looked over the harbor. The large full moon sat over the town of Collinsport, glowing and framing the rain clouds around it like a perfect scene from a winter's painting, even if it were already spring.
Jeffery knew it wasn't leaving Collinsport. Not in the morning, and not any time soon. No, he had many more things to accomplish in his time in town, and Serena Bellmoore was first on his list.
****
As the moon quickly became covered up by a thin layer of cumulus clouds, the occupancy at the Blue Whale began to fill as the night progressed. Sitting alone in a booth, was Curtis Winters drinking his after work cocktail. He sat staring out of a window watching the ocean water splashing up against the sides of boats as they sat tied to the docks in their slips just outside.
"I hate to do this to you but can I join you?" A female voice the opposite side of Curtis. He quickly turned towards the voice and saw a beautiful blond with grey/blue eyes standing there with a grin on her face as bright as the lighthouse that brought ships into shore. It was Angelique Bouchard.
"Oh! Uhh, sure, please!" Curtis said standing for the young woman as she sat down on the others side of the both with Curtis.
"I know it's weird. Why would a stranger just all of a sudden want to sit down here, right? Well, I can see that you're alone and I'm alone and I don't know anyone in here so I thought I'd take a chance. My name is Cassandra."
"Curtis." He replied as they shook hands.
"What brings you here today?" She wondered, after using her fake name.
"Ugh... work. It was a bear. Sometimes I just need a break before I go home." He answered honestly.
"I bet." She replied.
"So you're knew to town?" He wondered.
"Mmhmm." She confirmed as she sipped from her beer.
"How do you like it so far?" Curtis asked as the music and noise in the bar got louder.
"Well, It almost feels like I've been here before, know what I mean? It's that kind of town. I guess if you've been to one you've been to them all." She answered.
Curtis smiled and drank from his beer while Angelique stared deep into Curtis' eyes. He began to feel as if something were locking his gaze directly o her. Nothing could break it. It was her eyes on him, his eyes on hers. It was as if no one else was around. The loud bar suddenly became silent. He could see in his peripheral all the people but there was not a sound in the room.
Her eyes were like two giant moons swimming in the bright sky. Angelique carefully reached over and grabbed his hand and placed it palm up in her hand, with her other hand she pulled a small pin from her jacket and pricked his finger. She pulled his hand up to her mouth and licked the tiny blood drop from his hand.
Her eyes were like two giant moons swimming in the bright sky. Angelique carefully reached over and grabbed his hand and placed it palm up in her hand, with her other hand she pulled a small pin from her jacket and pricked his finger. She pulled his hand up to her mouth and licked the tiny blood drop from his hand.
She smiled again and he smiled back, his gaze still locked on her. He began to feel like everything in the world revolved around her, there was no one else he needed and nothing else he wanted. Just this woman that called herself Cassandra.
"Cassandra." He whispered.
Angelique smiled and put her hand over his pricked finger, it quickly healed over. She stood up from the table and kissed him on the lips. They could taste the beer on each other's tongues.
"I think we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, won't we Curtis?" Angelique said as Curtis quickly came out of his trans and the noise in the room came back up to normal.
"I'd like that." Curtis said with a giant grin.
Angelique smiled and walked out of The Blue Whale leaving Curtis sitting alone again in the booth.
Her love spell complete.
****
In the drawing room of Collinwood, Carolyn stood at the large windows that faced the sea. She held them open allowing the fresh night air in filling the room with a the salty cool air from the sea the reflected the full move above. Carolyn crossed her arms around her body and warmed the exposed skin over harms. The quiet of the room was soon broken by Julia Hoffman entering the room.
"Carolyn." Julia said with a cold stern voice.
Carolyn turned to see the latest house guest enter the room.
"It's Barnabas." Julia said in a hushed tone.
"Barnabas?" Carolyn asked concerned, knowing that anything involving her un-dead cousin could mean danger.
"I had a slight run in with him earlier, have you seen him?" Julia asked.
"No. I haven't seen him in a while. Strangely I was hoping he'd left Collinwood. Although I know that was a bit of wishful thinking. What did he want?" Carolyn questioned with a snobbish tone in her voice.
"He knows." Julia said.
"Knows?" Carolyn replied as she moved to the sofa.
"He said that he knew that I tried to kill him. He said--specifically--that he knew that at the old house I tried to kill him. How could he know that?" Julia said concerned.
"What do you mean? You said you didn't find him. Neither of us did. Did you lie to me?" Carolyn questioned.
"No! Don't you see!? Someone else did. Someone else was at the old house and they tried to kill Barnabas too, only he doesn't know who and believes it was me. Carolyn, we are all in real danger here. When Barnabas wants something he gets it, no matter what it is. Good or bad." Julia explained.
"You don't have to remind me. I know all there is to that man. He's done horrible things to the people I love. I just can't believe I once trusted him." Carolyn answered. "Where do you think he is?" Carolyn questioned some more.
"I don't know. He left the house after our altercation, but I'm worried he'll try to get to Siobhan or the baby. I can't let him near that baby." Julia said.
"I agree." Carolyn answered. "But how do we keep him away? Barnabas can enter any place he wants without any of us knowing."
"There are ways. He's a man of shadows a person like that has their limits and there are ways to secure a place as sacred ground. I'll make sure John's room is protected. All our rooms." Julia said.
"That still leaves him on the grounds. I don't know if I feel safe with him here...not after what he did to Jude." Carolyn said, reminding Julia that she discovered Barnabas had killed the man she loved while they were in London.
"No one is safe so long as Barnabas Collins roams Collinwood grounds. We have to make sure it ends, Carolyn for the sake of our families. It's time that all of this ends." Julia said with an eyebrow lifted.
"I have to say, Julia, this new version of yourself surprises me. After all you married the man and raised a daughter together. Maybe I'm being foolish, maybe I'm falling for some kind of trap the two of you are setting. What's in it for you to get Barnabas out of the way? The Julia I remember was just as self-motivated as anyone else." Carolyn said, her mind quickly going to a place of rightful suspicion.
"You're right. You're absolutely right. I did marry him. We were very happy in those days. With the help of a doctor in Singapore I was able to cure him and we lived quite a normal life. That is, until Victoria showed up in my living room telling me Barnabas from the future needed me. I should have know better than to come... but..." Julia said trailing off in her sentence admitting to her mistake to have time traveled with Vicky.
"What do you think has changed?" Carolyn wondered.
"I don't know. But whatever it is, it turns my blood ice cold." Julia replied.
Carolyn sat for a second with the idea Julia had proposed. She could easily write Julia off and do what she wanted, but in truth, she knew deep down inside that two heads were better than one, and if Barnabas was going to be destroyed and the family protected she would need an ally that knew Barnabas down to his very core---Julia was that person.
"So what do you think we should do? If he thinks you were the people who tried to kill him he'll be watching you like a hawk." Carolyn reminded.
"Even Barnabas has his weaknesses. I've known him long enough to know where we can break him. It's just a matter of when." Julia said.
Carolyn stood up and went back to the window. She had felt this kind of fear before. It was the type that made her feel like spiders were crawling all over her skin. She knew that Barnabas' dangerous side was the side of him could destroy the whole family with a snap of his finger but she couldn't help remember the softer side of him. She was caught between a rock and hard place. She, like Julia, wanted to protect the family at all costs. She, like Julia, wanted to get justice for all the wrongs Barnabas has done in the past years but her heart felt heavy at the idea of reacting irrationally as they had at the old house a few weeks before as the two hunted for Barnabas with stakes in their hands ready to piece him in the heart, ending his reign of terror forever.
"What is it?" Julia said, standing directly behind Carolyn at the windows.
"I think about everything that he's done and I wonder if this is the right decision. Is this really where we've all come after all these years? I admit, I feel like he's gone too far in many aspects but..." Carolyn admitted as Julia interrupted.
"That is not how you felt when we searched for him at the old house. Think of Jude, think of Jack, think of all the people in your life he's hurt." Julia pointed out, reminder Carolyn Barnabas has a hand in the deaths of both men she loved.
Carolyn turned back to Julia, Jude's death the last straw, and Carolyn's turning point and Julia knew it. It was a perfect motivator.
"Carolyn listen to me, there are a lot of things we cannot control if Barnabas is free to just do what he wants with no repercussions there is absolutely no telling what will become of this family if this man is allowed to carry on. Think of your daughter, or my daughter, and now my grandson who happens to be your second cousin. Barnabas will stop at nothing, Carolyn, nothing to get what he wants and I don't know if we can continue to allow that." Julia explained, trying to ease out of the cold way she brought up Jude.
Carolyn walked past Julia and over to the portrait of her mother Elizabeth that hung over the fire place. Elizabeth stared down at her with warm eyes. She had a slight smirk on her face. It made Carolyn feel as if someone was watching over her. It almost gave her permission to go along with Julia's plan to end Barnabas' life once and for all for the safety and the survival of the Collins family. Elizabeth, more than anyone else on the modern Collins family tree, worked tirelessly to preserve the Collins family; a dynasty that was as treacherous as it was prestigious. It was Elizabeth's only wish, that all in her family could live with the dignity of their last name. To Carolyn, this version of Barnabas, was destroying that dream.
"So, I'm going to ask you again: What do you propose?" Carolyn asked turning away from the portrait and back at Julia.
Julia only grinned and crossed her arms satisfied with Carolyn's decision. Julia's plan would be set into motion soon, but as long as she had Carolyn in her corner she knew that nothing could get in their way. Carolyn, like her mother Elizabeth before her, was a force of nature and the best ally to have in a fight.
The women discussed their plan alone in the drawing room. They sat and felt safe that what they were sharing with each other was private and secret...except for the fact that deep in the shadows, just below the drawing room window hidden where no one could see him was Barnabas Collins listening in the ice cold Atlantic wind. His eyes glazed over with the knowledge of his impending doom orchestrated by the woman he believed attempted to kill him and his own beloved cousin, both at the moment hated his whole existence.
He listened, secretly, know their plan in full.
It was true Barnabas had weaknesses and Julia knew how to get at them, but it was also true that Barnabas was more cunning than he was reckless and cruel. He would not go without a fight and there would be a fight. A fight for life, and death and only time would tell which fate would apply to each member of the Collins family.
