Song credits: "Look What You've Done" by David Gates and Bread; "Let It Be Me," by the Everly Brothers. I wrote the version of "song of Ruth" that appears here, as well as the "Eulogy". And, just in case I forgot, part 4b contained "Reason to Believe," by Rod Stewart.

***********************************************************************

"COMMONPLACE EVILS" by Lorraine A. Balint

Part Four---CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

The men who'd been at the courthouse now headed to the hospital,

to see for themselves the results of their handiwork. Harold almost refused to join them. "I doubt I'm welcome there," he said with a regret that surprised himself.

His son-in-law was surprisingly sympathetic. "Had a real change of heart down there, because of that Medorah, huh, Harold?"

"I dunno," the father-in-law replied. "I guess I was really looking at a kid, and the way life's supposed to be for a kid. . . You could say, my own life flashed in front of my eyes. Now, I'm not going to get all gooey, and beg for forgiveness and stuff. It wouldn't be right, and it wouldn't be real. But when you tell Fran, and maybe Addie, if you want to, say that the old man tried to do right by a least one little girl. Maybe Fran won't think so nasty about me. I'm tryin' real hard not to think nasty thoughts about her, or your kid, or my daughter-in-law, anymore. Don't know how long this repent-and-reform stage is goin' to last, but I did work hard all my life, even if it wasn't always for my kids. I'll keep pluggin' at it, and maybe I'll get it right sometime."

"Tell THAT to your son and daughter-in-law," Pavlos urged, as he

got into Walter Hoffman's rented car with Steve. "Come with me, and I will help you." Harold reluctantly climbed into the back seat of the car with the Greek. With the two heavy bodies side-by-side, Harold felt stifled and uncomfortable. He asked Walter how far the hospital was from the courthouse.

"Three miles," Walter replied. Pavlos gave him directions that included short cuts through side streets, to reduce the amount of time they had to spend in the crowded car.

They arrived in record time, and were met at the front door of the hospital by Julia, who had been ordered by Virginia to get out of her hot, heavy suit, and take a rest in the brisk March air. She rose from her seat to embrace her brother, Pavlos, and Steve. Rather more hesitantly, she gave her hand to Harold Loomis. "I'm glad to see you could make it, Harold," she said in a forced tone. "After we parted on such sour terms the last time we saw each other---"

"Yeah, well," Harold began, shuffling his feet and looking anywhere but in his former physician's eyes, "I had a lot of time to think that all over. For a lady doc, you were right on the money then."

"He gave sterling service this day," Pavlos assured Julia. The others nodded.

"And it worked out, except for--- except for Sarah Teresa," Julia announced sadly.

"You mean, we went through all that shit, and that poor little Medorah had to die, and THAT wasn't enough to save my grand-kid?" Harold cried.

"My grand-daughter, too, Harold," Walter reminded him. "Julia, what are you saying? Is Sarah Teresa--- is she--- is she DEAD?" Tears sprang from his eyes.

"No, Walter, not yet, anyway," his sister sighed. "The other children are recovering, some more slowly than others, and some who may carry long-term effects of this epidemic the rest of their lives. But they ARE recovering. Sarah Teresa, alas, is still consumed by fever, and wracked by convulsions. . . I keep telling Cellie not to take them on anymore, but you know how she is. Her husband no longer has the influence to stop her, any more than I do."

Just then, the Sheriff's car swept up to the curb nearby, and discharged Elliot Stokes, Reverend Newton, and Marcus Sherbrooke. Lester Arliss called out the window briefly, for the latest news. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I have to get back to the station right now, but I promise I'll return by evening. Call me if-- if anything changes. For better or worse." He drove away slowly.

Elliot, Pavlos, and Julia walked together closely, ahead of the others. Pavlos asked, "Is my wife here?"

"Yes," Julia replied. "She was in the room with Cellie and the baby, the last time I saw her, trying to convince your stepdaughter to take another rest, before the next convulsion. . . She may still be there."

"That is good, in a way, and bad in another."

"What do you mean by that, Pavlos?" Julia inquired.

"What he means, Julia, is that Pavlos is under an interdict, as well as Sarah Teresa," Elliot explained. "It was the last curse Anissa-Desiree uttered, before the spirit of Medea was purged from her soul. She declared that Pavlos and Sarah Teresa would be the ones to pay for her demise."

"Is the curse still valid, Elliot? The bane on the other children must have been lifted the instant she 'passed away'. I merely assumed that the only reason Sarah Teresa's still sick, is because Nicholas himself is ushering the ailment to its inevitable conclusion. There's still a chance we can get to him, before then."

The Professor replied, "Medea was, and is, an immortal, the near-relative of the most powerful, and baleful deities of the ancient world. Her mortal forms have perished---"

"As have Angelique's," Julia mused. "Yet, her spirit once drifted about, seeking a new host---MY GOD!" She stopped in her tracks.

"Yes," Elliot said, nodding vigorously. "My thoughts exactly.

I fear we have congratulated ourselves prematurely, over the defeat of Anissa-Desiree."

"What do you mean?" Pavlos asked. The others stood behind him, at close attention.

"It did strike me, before," Elliot began, "how easy it was to capture Anissa-Desiree, but I thought that was because of what Cellie had done to expose her greatest vulnerabilities. I never suspected, until now, that Nicholas may have, indeed, set her up. There would be some risk to himself, given the Yin-and-Yang balance of their relationship, but the rewards to himself and his Dark Master would balance the risk nicely, and serve both their ends."

"What you're telling us, is that Nicholas actually intended Anissa to fail in her own objectives all along?" Walter asked incredulously.

"Not only that, Walter," Julia replied. "It's come to both Elliot and myself, that Nicholas may have wanted the Medean spirit to occupy Sarah Teresa's body, all along."

"Yes, think of the possibilities!" Elliot exclaimed. "That would be a far headier coup than the mere re-introduction of a Danielle Roget, or an Agrippina, or a Countess Bathory. . . Medea was the most powerful survivor of the 'old regime', so to speak. She was full of noxious powers that Satan would have loved to exploit, but she was too much her own woman. So, he played and played on her only soft spot.

"Then," he continued, came the opportunity of a millenium. There was to be a child, naturally gifted as another Child born two thousand years earlier, but conceived in original sin, and thus, all mortal, and therefore easily subject to the whims of the Dark Ones. What better way to unite these two forces, than to drive the Medean Spirit from her immortalized shell, and into the soft, pliable being of a helpless infant? Nicholas would have been eager to raise this child, because he, himself, has weaknesses which he has demonstrated several times. There is still, in him, a fondness for Earthly creature comforts and pleasures, as well as Earthly power and influence. There is also, in him, a fear of his greatest Earthly weakness being exposed. Once Sarah Teresa is Medea, that fear would be wiped clean, as chalk from a slate."

"So, what are we to do?" Pavlos asked, his newly-returned self confidence faltering. "I have pledged to seek the spirit of Sarah Collins. Will that be enough?"

"Anissa-Desiree has given an indication that she will make that extremely difficult for you. You will need help. Perhaps Sarah Collins will respond to another person. Who else amongst this company, has also seen her?"

"I have," Julia said. "It's been a long time, but maybe she won't turn from me."

"I KNOW I have," Walter said. "She saved me for my family, and for Maggie, just last October."

"I never saw her, but I know she appeared to my wife Margene a couple of times last year," Marcus said. "She gave Margene the medicine for our son."

"Then, all of you must spread out, and visit all the locations she's been known to appear in the past," Elliot declared. "The Old House, her tomb at the Mausoleum---"

"The Mausoleum," Julia said. "About the Mausoleum---" Suddenly,

a heavy cloud settled on her mind, blotting out the warning she'd been about to give.

"What about the Mausoleum, Julia?" Elliot said.

"Just--just be careful out there. It can be hazardous at night," Julia temporized in a tone of confusion. What was it she was supposed to remember about the place? Something about green lights. . .

"Of course we'll take the greatest care, Julia," Elliot said. "We must also go through the Antique Shoppe, the Koffeehaus, Collinwood itself. . . I know David was Sarah's little friend in the past. He will surely be willing to join the search. Is he here in the Hospital, Julia?"

"Yes. He was with Willie, the last I saw him, heading for the Cafeteria for coffee. Willie and Cellie can barely be in the same room together for long, anymore." Her tone was regretful.

"I want to see my daughter and grand-daughter, before I set out," Walter said. "Pavlos, I want you to join me when I search. I know you have a heart condition. As it happens, my daughter-in-law gave both Maggie and myself C.P.R. lessons. They must have been more for my wife's benefit than mine, since I'm closer to the age where I might be on the receiving end." He smiled sadly. "Anyway, we practiced together, and I think I can do it if I have to."

"And I, also, my friend," Pavlos assured him. "Janice and I were both made acutely aware of the necessity recently. Let us go, then, and hold back our fear." He clapped a hand on the shoulder of his wife's ex-husband, and they walked into the hospital together.

Walter peeked into the door of the chapel room. Janice hovered over their grand-daughter's bassinet, while their daughter lay on a cot nearby, staring at the ceiling. There was something about this scene, so poignantly reminiscent of Sarah Teresa's first days of life in this hospital, that Walter's eyes streamed openly. He still felt Pavlos's warm hand on his back, as they both went to don the gowns and masks.

Cellie saw her father and step-father come through the door first. She jumped from her cot and flew to her father's arms. "Daddy, Daddy," she sobbed, "she's going to die. She's going to be someone else. She's--she's--" Cellie began to cry again, a painfully restrained keening that reminded Walter of his mother's grief at the death of his father.

He cuddled his daughter gently, sitting on a chair with her on his lap, as he had in the old days, when she'd skinned her knee. "You just get it out of your system, baby," he whispered, stroking her hair. "You won't get strong again unless you do. Remember what I told you, the last time you were here."

"What doesn't kill me will make me strong," she mumbled into his shoulder. In a few minutes, her tears subsided. "Thank you, Daddy," she sighed. "Everybody else is always telling me to rest or be tough or forgive Will or something. . ."

"What exactly did he do, Princess?"

"Can't tell you, in front of Mom. . . Pavlos already knows," she whispered directly into his ear.

"Janice, could we be alone for a little while?" Walter asked. She hesitated, but Pavlos walked her firmly out the door. Walter and Cellie stood over the bassinet containing the nearly-lifeless infant, as the daughter softly related the events of the last twenty-four hours to her father.

"Oh, my God," Walter gasped, too surprised to even be angry at his

son-in-law. "Listen, Cecily," he said, after further consideration. "You were there, I wasn't. But I know what a shock it must have been for you. I came home from a weekend business trip to find Madeline in bed with my junior partner in the firm. I wasn't exactly in love with her, the same way you were with your husband, but I was attached to her, and it hurt like crazy. In a way, it worked out in the end, because I did meet Maggie, but until then. . . Anyway, Cecily, I was in that courthouse when that-- that creature was destroyed, or, at least, her incarnation. I know what she was, as much as you do. Your husband's a weakling and a coward and you know I never thought he was good enough for you. But when we were all together in Boston, I saw that he really did love you terribly. If Anissa-Desiree-Medorah had been just another woman, do you really believe Willie would have chosen her in preference to you?"

"I-- I don't know. Nobody like that ever paid him that much favorable attention before, except for me. If somebody did--- Then, he was still sore about what almost happened between Lester and myself. But I DID choose Will over Lester in the end, Daddy! Even though Will beat him up, and-- and he-- he hurt me. . . I thought we were making it up okay, while he was still in WindCliff. Even when he took Sarah Teresa from my room at Collinwood, I knew it was because he was worried about her. I also knew Anissa-Desiree had put him up to it, and I went to the Antique Shoppe because I believed he needed my help. And I saw the whole thing. . . I couldn't stop them---" She began to cry again. "He told me to shut the baby up--- He interrupted me when I was trying to finish Anissa off--- I HATED him! I don't want to hate him now, but the pain hurts too much, and I can't push it aside, even though I really tried, at first, when the baby got sick, and he came to the hospital for us. I KNOW what's at stake here."

Walter wondered if Julia had shared the new theory about Medea's spirit and Sarah Teresa with his daughter. He decided not to mention it, unless Cecily brought it up first. There was no point in getting her more upset. Instead, he said, as brightly as he could, "Listen, Princess. We're all going out to look for Sarah Collins now. We're hoping that we can convince her to come back, whether or not you and Willie are ready to patch it up. Like most little children, she has to be reminded of her responsibilities--- that you can't go running off every time there's a crisis."

"Maybe you should give that lecture to Will," Cellie replied with a faint smile.

"Maybe I'll let his father give it to him," Walter smiled back.

"HAROLD'S here?" Cellie asked in amazement. "He's nobody who should be giving such a lecture to anybody!"

"I wonder about that. He showed up, out of the blue this morning, having had the same dream as the rest of us, all the way down in Florida! After some initial reservations, he joined our project, and performed his part brilliantly. I think you'll find him quite different than however he was, the last time he was up here."

"I don't think I want him in here with my daughter. You don't know about him like I do. He wasn't even sorry about what he'd done to his wife and children. Especially what he did to Fran!" Cellie's face flushed very red.

"Well, that's up to you, Princess. Now, I have to go search. Our little one here needs me to go." Walter bent over Sarah Teresa, and kissed her through his mask. The baby made some faint warbling noises in response.

"Those are the first sounds she's made in hours!" Cellie exclaimed, her face alight with renewed hope.

"I can't say I'm responsible, but I'm glad I got to hear her voice before I had to leave again." Walter kissed Cellie. "We'll do our best, Princess. And if that doesn't work, we'll do our damnedest. Whatever it takes to get the job done."

* * * * * * * * * * *

David stood with Willie, as Elliot explained the rest of the plan. "Of course I'll go," David said eagerly. "I'll take Julia right now, and we'll comb Collinwood from top to bottom. I just wish Carolyn could be in on this. She saw Sarah Collins once."

"I wish Maggie could be here, also," Willie said, dispiritedly. "They were real close, once. Sarah would have done anything for her, I'll bet."

"Willie, you know it wouldn't have been safe for Maggie to come back with Walter," Julia admonished. "Still, you're right, she might have been the one to draw Sarah back."

"I wish I could go myself," Willie sighed. "I can't do much of anything for either my Peanut or my Cecily. I still think of her as 'my Cecily'. I don't know why," he said forlornly. "If I went, and found Sarah, maybe she'd want to be mine again."

"You'll have to try to work that out here, Willie," Julia said. "If you spend enough time with Cellie, she may come around, and then, nobody will need to search anymore. Besides, what if the baby does--does pass away while you're gone? You would never get over the guilt, and Cellie probably would never forgive you, for sure."

"Okay, okay," Willie conceded. "I just feel useless, that's all.

I made this all happen, and I just wanted a chance to risk it all and make it better, somehow, like a hero. I'm just being selfish. Again."

"No, Willie, you're just trying to be a good father and husband. Those are aspirations any normal man might have," Elliot assured him.

Willie shambled back down to his daughter's room, when he heard a familiar voice call to him. It was his own voice, he knew; David had gotten a new cassette player for Christmas, and made some recordings of Willie and Cellie talking and singing to their baby, and Sarah Teresa's delighted, cooing replies. The voice Willie heard sounded like the one on the cassettes. He turned at the sound. "Dad," he sputtered, in disbelief, when he glimpsed Harold standing before him.

"Hello again, son," the older man began, "I know you said once that I shouldn't call you that, but, hey, when did I ever listen to anything you told me to do?" He smirked briefly, but his face soon fell into lines of sorrow and care, features Willie though he would never see on his father's countenance.

"You okay, Dad?" Willie asked with the slightest solicitude.

"If you mean my ticker or, maybe, did I run into a certain witchy-woman who likes to jazz up a date by poisoning a guy, it's 'No' to the first question, and 'Yes' to the second. Only, this time, we turned the tables on her."

Cellie walked from her daughter's room, as soon as she heard Harold's voice. He spoke first, before she had a chance to utter a word. "Yeah, Cecily, you heard right," he announced in a shaky tone. "I don't blame you, or even the Greek, anymore, for laying me low, last fall. I found out the truth in spades today. Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Well, not exactly the witch, but the miserable kid she was living in went to Heaven, I guess. The witch part just vanished."

Cellie had been reading her father-in-law. Was that REMORSE she

saw in him, that prickly green that obliterated the sickening salmon-pink of justifiably-forbidden lust? He certainly seemed to have been deflated. Whatever experience he'd just been through had extinguished much of his cockiness. Like father, like son, she thought. Harold had evidently been through a crucible that had changed him in much the same way as being with Barnabas had changed Willie. Still, she wasn't about to let her guard down around him. "Thanks for your efforts," she said in a hesitant fashion.

"It was a waste, though," Harold complained. "Our kid's still sick."

Cellie had to control her irritation about Harold's referring to Sarah Teresa as "our kid". "You helped make the others well. That was worth something. And you can't imagine my relief when you claimed that you'd seen the light about your seizure."

"Is that all you think about?" Harold started to sound angry. "After I put in a good word for you a while ago, at the courthouse?"

"You're not hassling my wife again, are you?" Willie was getting

angry, too. "She's under a strain---"

Pavlos came up behind the trio. "Willie," he said sternly, "your father gave the most of himself to rid us of Anissa. Perhaps you 'd like to show him the baby, so he pay his respects."

"Well, if you want me to, Pavlos," Willie quailed.

"It's not just what I want. It's what's right. This is NO time to re-hash old wrongs."

Willie led his father down to the nurse's station, to get some protective clothing. "I don't know why they're bothering with this stuff now," he complained to Harold. "It's not like all the rest of the kids are really sick anymore, or like they don't have a clue as to the cause."

"Your kid may still be 'catchy', though, Willie," Harold said. "You should'a' heard that Anissa, before her lights went out. She said some awful things about your-- our, ah, Sarah Teresa, that's it, and Pavlos. We're not out of the woods, yet. In fact, the Professor guy was sayin' something about her spirit floating around, until it hitches a ride in somebody's else's kid---

" 'Somebody else's'!" Willie cried. "He meant OURS! Oh, my God!

What you guys did, made things WORSE! Now, we're sunk. . ." He began

to blubber.

His father patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Oh, SHIT, I shouldn't'of said anything. I'm sorry, son, Christ, am I ever sorry!

Maybe it won't happen. They'll find that spirit, or whatever they're looking for. Willie, snap out of it, DAMN IT!" he ordered.

After nearly twenty-two years, Willie still recognized and feared that note in his father's voice. Next thing, the old man would be reaching for his belt, the one with the studs. . . He was wearing one like it, now--- NO! NOBODY was going to beat on Willie Loomis again! he thought wildly. Even if he lost everything else, his daughter, his wife, his own life. . . "Get off my back, Dad," he snarled.

"Oh, stop looking at me like I'm going to whale the tar out of you like when you were a kid, you dope," Harold sneered. "I'm not exactly going to smack you around in the hospital, when I'm gonna go see my sick grandkid. I guess I should be proud you got some spirit in you after all, anyway, after the last time we had a little father-son chat."

"Yeah, when you asked me for money, and said awful things about

my wife and my Mom---"

"Was I right then, son?"

"Only up to a point," Willie admitted. "But Cecily wasn't a whore! It was me, me, me all along, who was screwing things up. . . She didn't really want anyone else. I don't want anyone else, anymore, either. So you're still wrong about the rest of it."

His father's reply almost knocked him over.

"Good. That's real good. That witch didn't win the pot, yet, by God."

They walked into the chapel room. Cellie was reading the Catholic Bible in a strange, distracted manner; her eyes took in a couple of verses, then she stared blankly at the baby. She did come to life, when she saw her husband and his father. "Don't touch her," she warned Harold, but without much heat.

"I ain't gonna fool around with her," her father-in-law protested. "That's kind of beyond me now, anyway."

"Bullshit. You were writing to Adele, remember? Once a molester--"

"I ain't asking to take her on a weekend trip, Cecily. I tried to help her out today, and I just want to make sure she's okay. I don't like it when kids are sick, any more than you, 'specially if they got MY blood."

"Interesting how that should concern you now."

"Would you rather it was NOW, or NEVER, you self-righteous little---"

Harold pushed Willie's hand as it touched his arm. "Sorry, Cecily. Honest. Look, after this is over, I'll high-tail it back to Florida, and you won't even have to worry about me sendin' the brat a post card, okay? I dumped my last batch of kids without a thought, I admit it! Maybe after a while, I won't even think about this batch. But hey, I got the feeling today. Put up with it for now."

Willie pleaded, "Cecily, please. He's not going to touch Sarah Teresa with us right in the room. You made allowances for so many other rotten things, because you loved us. This isn't any worse than that. Just this once."

"Oh, alright," Cellie shrugged. "At least he can't pick her up."

Harold reached into the bassinet, and stroked the baby's face. Poor little thing looked starved, he thought, like those pictures of scrawny African and Indian kids they used to plug for charities. This Sarah's eyes were almost fused shut, but she made a faint noise when touched, a tiny, thin sigh. Her skin felt hard and stiff even through the rubber gloves he wore, again, a lot like those starving kids, he supposed. He felt sick now, himself. The strange sensation he'd

experienced when he held young Medorah's head on his lap returned.

"Sarah Teresa, wake up," he whispered. "You can't go, like that Medorah. You ain't out of time, kid. This is YOUR time. You gotta fight, so that witch person can't get in and screw you around. You wanta make a mistake, you should be able to mess things up like a normal person, not like a witch person. Being a Loomis, you prob'ly won't be able to help it too much. You gotta get better, and grow up, even

if it's only to drive that red-headed self-righteous bi--twit of a mother of yours crazy. At least, SHE won't whack you around, or your loser Dad either, the way I would have. So, are you gonna open your eyes for your 'other' Grandpa, or what? This could be the only time I get to see 'em."

Sarah Teresa's lashes parted a bit, and, through the slits, Harold could make out black pupils filling the irises. Not too good, he thought; he'd seen dead men in his time, and their pupils were all big like that, before they rolled up into the dead guys' heads. Still, the baby HAD moved her eyes for him. THAT was something, he thought with satisfaction. Yes, sir, that WAS something, alright.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Elliot took Marcus to look for Sarah at the Antique Shoppe first. Elliot had never seen the young ghost, either, but he could smooth the way for her return with one of the many methods at his command. Besides, both Cellie and Hallie had commented on how strongly he resembled the image of his ancestor Ben Stokes, whom they'd both seen in visions. Early in their association, Barnabas had treated him with a degree of diffidence, in part because, he later admitted, the resemblance had shocked him. Perhaps Sarah Collins would respond more easily to someone who reminded her of the old servant of whom she'd been so fond.

When they got to the Antique Shoppe, Marcus and Elliot split up. Marcus remembered the upstairs section pretty well, from the impromptu tour Barnabas had given him the previous summer. Elliot covered the rabbit-warren maze of the cellar. Elliot called out, and uttered a few soothing incantations, but Sarah Collins did not appear. Into the darkness of the underground passage to the backyard shed, he pleaded in the vernacular his ancestor might have used.

"Sarah Collins, I know you were bad hurt when you were a little lass, and how ye suffered, for your brother's sake. Ye were so pure and

good, ye were the only one who could have stopped him from killin' and hurtin'--- If only ye'd had more time back then! But ye ran out, and got sick, and passed away, an' THAT was when the curse took up in earnest, I believe. You were a guardian angel, like the Papists believe, but ye kept runnin' off when things got too hot, and ye kept fergettin' your job. Ye left your cousin Daniel, who was so sweet as a lad, to kill his poor silly wife, who was your best friend Harriet. Ye left for years on end, and then, when ye were supposed to keep Mr. Barnabas from hurtin' and killin' again, ye ran off because ye couldn't stand the sight.

"I'm terrible sorry nobody listened to ye when ye tried to do your duty. But we WERE listenin' this time around. And what did ye do? Ye threw away your one chance to live to be a woman, and marry and have chillren and gran'-chillren, and get old and die knowin' ye lived a full life. Far worse, ye left the world open to temptations and killin' and hurtin' the likes of which it thinks it knows, but is way beyond even the stuff people have always done to each other. We talked about this at times, Miss Sarah. If ye be here, show thyself. If not, let us know where ye be."

When he'd finished, Elliot felt dizzy. He realized he'd said some things that he'd had no personal knowledge of, such as Sarah's leaving when her cousin killed his wife, who had been her best friend when both were children together, and her afterlife chats with her old servant.

"Ben! Ben Stokes!" he murmurred. "Do YOU know where Sarah's gone?"

A faint light appeared in the darkest corner of the underground passage, and Elliot heard a voice like his, coming from that direction. "She's in chains, and she cries against the green lights," the voice said. "There's great danger for those who cross the green lights."

"Anissa's eyes!" Elliot exclaimed. "Please, Ben, tell me where the green lights are! I can deal with them. But Sarah Collins must be brought back!"

"Where Miss Cecily left them. Ye must ask Miss Cecily where she

left the green lights." The faint apparition vanished.

Elliot rushed upstairs. He picked up the phone in the kitchen, but there was no dialtone; Barnabas must have had the service shut off when he closed the Shoppe. Elliot stood at the foot of the stairs to the bedrooms, calling, "MARCUS GARVEY SHERBROOKE! WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO THE HOSPITAL AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

The ormulu clock on the mantel in the parlor of the Henderson house struck 5:30, just after sundown. Nicholas Blair paced impatiently around it. He'd left Carolyn upstairs to raid Anissa's abandoned wardrobe, while he awaited an important visitor he didn't want her to see. Just in case his fiancee had any notion to come downstairs, Nicholas fixed her with a spell to induce confusion. In his mind's eye, he could see her futilely pawing through drawers and closets, only to start all over again for the fifth time.

Nicholas flung himself into his favorite over-stuffed chair facing the fire. He uttered the same summons over and over again. "I know you have risen. You will come to me now. You cannot refuse." He turned his head quickly, in response to a faint, feathery rustling behind his chair.

Barnabas gazed down at Nicholas with defiance in his expression.

"Why have you called me so soon after my awakening?" he demanded.

"I thirst terribly. I wished to go forth and slake it, before I had to perform any further chores for YOU."

"Oh, Barnabas, I'm sure Lester will wait patiently enough for you.

That young man palpitates for your attentions like a lover."

Barnabas sprung at Nicholas, only to be flung backwards, against the wall. When he rose from the floor, he realized that his tormentor had not even moved from his chair.

"As I was saying, Barnabas," Nicholas continued, not missing a beat, "the Sheriff certainly thrives on your favor, if not your actual caress. There must be some common, latent femininity in all the men you've ever had under your power."

"How can you even imply such a thing?" Barnabas hissed angrily.

"You are just as capable of lusting after both sexes in your condition, my old acquaintance. It's all a part and parcel of the necessity of total control. Total control requires total humiliation and submission. There must be a special satisfaction in imposing your will upon the male gender. Mortal men can have such a laughable sense of what they fancy is their dominant position in the world. Females just happen to be a more natural, acceptable target. Did you have it in

mind to pursue a lady this evening, this very special evening?"

"What's so special about?--- oh," Barnabas said, remembering the date. "I suppose there's nothing such an old acquaintance as myself can do or say to dissuade you from wedding my cousin, and introducing her to a life of Darkness such as we share?"

"You should say, 're-introducing her.' She's been down a similar road before, with both of us, at different times. This time it's for keeps, and I can promise you, as her concerned relative, that she will enjoy great benefits from her new position. That is, if she passes the intitiation."

"I can imagine what that will be like," Barnabas commented ruefully. "There being nothing I can do to stop it, I can only wish it goes easier for her, than it did for me. Now, what did you have in mind for me, tonight? Am I invited to the 'ceremony'?"

"On the off chance you might be tempted to interfere, I'm afraid not. But, in celebration of my nuptials, I am inclined to be generous to all my acquaintances. I already sent our Desiree out to a new life. And as for you, I have a special treat in store. Remember how I promised you an hour in the daylight, if you did my bidding in regards to Lester? Well, I believe our mutual Master will grant me the power to allow you an even more generous boon. You long for a permanent companion in your misery, don't you, Barnabas?"

"Will I be allowed to dwell with my wife, even as I am? That would be the most logical choice."

"You would inflict your curse on the mother of your son?"

"Of course not! That's why I chose this existence, to save Julia and our son from such a fate. YOU KNOW THAT! But she could guard me during the day, and I would have the pleasure of her company, and our child's, at night---"

"After a hard evening of preying upon attractive young women and pretty young boys? I doubt you'd want your son exposed to such a way of life. You WILL spend quality time with your family, Barnabas, but in the meantime you will have the advantage of a companion who shares

your nocturnal interests. I'm sure you know which favored lady I mean." Nicholas's eyes glittered with cruel mirth.

Barnabas's already pale face turned parchment-white. "NO!

A THOUSAND TIMES NO! I said it last year, and I say it again!"

"Barnabas," Nicholas said in a patronizingly patient tone, "things have changed since then. I am, as they say in Bridge, about to win the trick. I will have Sarah Teresa in my care by tomorrow morning. I won't be requiring any additional help to care for her at present, so that leaves you a great deal of leeway to pursue what you have always longed for, in your secret heart of hearts. And YOU WILL DO SO. Because, if you don't accept this gift, I will see to it that all the other favors I was willing to give you are permanently with-held. And, what's more, your wife and child will be left destitute and bereft, at the mercy of whatever fate Our Master deems appropriate for the family of an infidel."

Barnabas hung his head with all the human sorrow and shame he had left. "As before, I am being offered a choice which is, in reality, NO choice. And, as before, we both know there is only one answer."

"You needn't abase yourself by uttering your consent, Barnabas," Nicholas said with satisfaction. "Your very attitude implies it, and that's all that's necessary. Now, get on with your business. I'm sure Lester will be delighted to help you. Then, he'll have the devoted 'attentions' of his two favorite people in the world."

* * * * * * * * * * *

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

When Barnabas returned to his coffin room, he found the Sheriff already in attendance. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you got up," Lester apologized breathlessly. "You won't be angry when you hear why!"

"Tell me, Lester," Barnabas said, without much interest. He was still smarting from his last conversation with Nicholas.

"I helped get rid of Anissa!" Lester announced. "Aren't you pleased?"

" 'Get rid of Anissa'? What do you mean?"

"I mean that I, and Professor Stokes, and Pavlos and Walter Hoffman and Willie's father, and a couple of other men, caught Anissa, and put her on trial for witchcraft. We tied her up, and the minister put a big Bible on her, and she burned up, just like that! Then, a little girl appeared in her place, and somebody who looked like an angel made her disappear! I don't know what that all meant, but she's gone for good, I guess."

Barnabas thought. An angel, taking Desiree away--- that had to be Angelique, tending to her younger sister. Barnabas couldn't say he was displeased by this turn of events. But he was disturbed that his two servants were so easily drawn into a ritual that surely involved Christian references, in order to bring down a seemingly invincible member of the Underworld. If they could conquer Desiree, what guarantee had he that they wouldn't eventually turn against him, the way Willie and Maggie, and others, had in their time? "I'm not entirely sure you should have taken part in that event, Lester," Barnabas said at last, a menacing tone creeping into his voice.

"But, Barnabas, I thought it was what you wanted," the Sheriff protested.

"I won't miss Anissa-Desiree, make no mistake about THAT! But you are to be about MY business, not the Church's!"

"He said you'd be pleased, because she made Julia and your child sick, and now, Sarah Teresa---" Lester began to shake and sweat.

"WHO said I'd be pleased?" Barnabas snarled, ignoring the reference to his grand-niece for the moment.

"Why, Pavlos did," the younger man answered anxiously. "He all but said it was your command---"

"HE WHAT!"

"Barnabas, Barnabas, aren't you happy she's dead? She made a whole bunch of kids sick, not just yours and poor little Sarah Teresa. The others got better, but Sarah's still sick, the last I heard---"

"Of course she is, you IDIOT! I see it all now! Nicholas will have the baby AND Desiree under his power, in one neat package, that you and your clique of FOOLS wrapped and tied and presented to him, without realizing it! And now, there's NOTHING I can do to prevent it! I should kill you now!"

"Barnabas, you know I would never have thought up something like that on my own, any more than, say, Willie would have," Lester wheedled. "Don't kill me! It's all Pavlos's fault---"

"I WILL deal with Pavlos in due time. As for you, no, Lester, I won't kill you at this time. I need you alive. There IS only one way you can get back into my good graces, such as they are, now. " Barnabas drew close to the Sheriff, and explained.

Lester's face blanched. "NO, Barnabas. Anything but that! That's--that's INHUMAN!"

"Am I human, Lester?"

"I don't---I don't know. . . I went to college and I thought I'd seen quite a lot as a cop, but I don't understand what's happened to me, any more than Sarah Teresa would at this point. . . You WERE human once, I know that."

"Maybe I never was. . . That's not the issue here. You WILL do as

I say, or you will suffer a death more painful and lingering that you can imagine."

"I don't think I will ask just what kind of death that might be," Lester said, forcing himself to a professional calm. "I don't believe I'll be able to help you, in any case. It will be impossible---"

"DON'T use the word 'impossible' to ME, of all people!" Barnabas snapped. "YOU are the Sheriff. YOU have the authority, and the trust, and the brains. You only have to get from Point 'A' to Point 'B', and I will do the rest."

"I don't know---" the Sheriff repeated.

"You will know, when you get there," Barnabas said. "Now, let us

seal our 'agreement'. I know you've been waiting for this moment. I certainly have."

He drew close to the Sheriff, who'd unbuttoned his collar in preparation. Lester closed his eyes in painful ecstasy. When Barnabas pulled himself away, he said, "You'd better get upstairs, and clean that up. Then go. And don't fret, Lester, my friend. This will be to your benefit as much as it will be to mine."

* * * * * * * * * * *

David Collins stood over the bassinet, looking down at his God-daughter, trying to project some of his will to live into the tiny being. Once, he believed he had special powers of his own, a concept reinforced by his fleeting, flickering memories of his mother Laura. There had been something special about her, too, he thought; he remembered how she could "call" to him without words, from another room, or her last home in the caretaker's cottage, as long as there was a fire burning somewhere nearby. Those memories had be consumed by some overwhelming sense of a disaster survived, a catastrophe also involving fire. . . David shook the thought off, and concentrated on Sarah Teresa.

Cellie came back into the room, from the lavatory down the hall. "Thanks for watching her, Muffinhead," she said. Her use of the old nick-name was comforting to David, rather than irreverent and inappropriate. "Now, you'd better get a move on, with Aunt Jule and Steve."

David held her tight in his arms. "There's something you have to do for me in return, Torchtop," he said, hoping to convey warmth and familiarity by using Cellie's old nickname. It worked: she snuggled more closely to him. Once, that would have made him jump for joy. His feelings had changed since then. Now, her action made it imperative to say what he had on his mind. "Cellie, you've probably heard this before. You have to love Willie. I know it's damned hard. I guess all of

us are pretty pissed off at him now. But I still care for him, and everyone else, too. Even his scummy old Dad is being nice to him."

"I'm so sick of being told to love him, like it's some disgusting medicine I have to take," Cellie complained.

"I KNOW you can't force it. Just close your eyes, and let it happen. It will. It happened before."

" 'Just close my eyes'," she repeated sarcastically. "Should I click the heels of my ruby-red slippers three times, too? After all, there's no place like Home."

"Shut up, Cellie," David warned. "You're getting hard. I don't mean, in a nasty way. But you always were kind of judgmental. It's only because you were so gentle and just that we never really noticed."

"Perhaps that's because I was judging blindly, like a juror in a trial. Until now, I never really saw the ugliness, just imagined it, or watched somebody else's memory pictures. Now, I'm bearing witness. . . Now, I know what that phrase really means. It's becoming a real burden to bear my own memories." Cellie smiled sadly. "I guess I'm kind of getting like Barnabas in his wonder years, huh?"

"Maybe. You have to snap out of it."

"I'm trying every minute! Sometimes I get so close, then Will says something that drives me back. Maybe I am a 'self-righteous bitch' like Harold says."

"Admitting it is half the battle. Letting yourself give up control would be the other half. You just have to re-discover whatever the Hell it was that made you love Willie in the first place, and run with it. Now," David said, kissing Cellie on the top of her head, "I have to go find a very small, frightened girl ghost who's lost her way. In the meantime, get to work on that buried love. Happy digging." He reached into the bassinet to touch his God-daughter's right hand. Sarah Teresa's fingers flinched under his caress.

Then, David went out to find Julia and Steve. They had a lot of ground to cover: Collinwood, the old House, three cottages, the house Nicholas had once lived in when David's father was married to Cassandra, the garages and the boarded-up carriage house between the two main houses. Sarah hadn't been to all these places, but David remembered well, how the youthful spirit had loved to hide. He thought it might be worthwhile to convince his aunt Elizabeth to join the search. It would distract her from crying about Carolyn and Sarah Teresa.

He almost ran into Professor Stokes and Marcus Sherbrooke, who'd both literally burst from the elevator down the hall. "David, where's Cellie?" Elliot asked breathlessly.

"In the room with the baby, where else? You didn't find Sarah Collins, did you?"

"No, alas," Elliot replied. "But we've got a clue. We just need Cellie to fill in the blanks." He hurried down to the chapel room.

Cellie was alone with her child. "Will went to get black coffee for me," she explained. "I take it you didn't find Sarah," she observed.

"That's very true, Cellie, but I received a valuable piece of information. All I need is an explanation. I felt, and saw the presence of Ben Stokes. He told me that Sarah is being held captive in a place where there are chains and green lights. He said it was a dangerous place where you'd left the green lights. When, and how, could you have left Anissa's green lights, Cellie?"

Cellie stared into space.

Elliot shook her shoulders. "Cellie! You must tell me. Where are the green lights?"

Of course she knew! Cellie remembered--- then, a greenish fog blew into her mind's eye. "It was only a few weeks ago," she said, dismayed, "but my mind is cloggy. I know what you mean, though."

"Cellie," Elliot said firmly. He looked directly into her eyes.

"I don't know if those green lights are 'clogging' your brain now. But you must concentrate." He pulled his crucifix from his packet, and placed it on her forehead. "Remember, Cellie. Tell me."

"The green lights. . . Will hit me, and bit me, and he--he raped me," Cellie mourned. "He left me. . . in the tomb. Jason---Jason---"

"Your husband's old partner-in-crime. What about Jason?"

"He's dead. Barnabas killed him, and had Will bury him in the 'secret room' in Joshua Collins's mausoleum."

"That's the room where Willie originally found Barnabas, correct?"

Cellie nodded. "After my Dad got stuck in there, Will and Barnabas moved Jason's remains, but his spirit was still imprisoned there. Jason's spirit tricked me. . . Got into me, along with the green lights. He took me out of the mausoleum, and talked to Will through me. Then, some spirit--- a woman, I think, got into my head, and helped me wrestle him out---"

"Angelique, perhaps?"

"I don't know. It seems she's more likely to go after people she

already knows. Angelique never met Jason, as far as I know. It had to be someone else who knew and loathed him, and had something on him."

"So, you had this fight going on in your head, out in the cemetery."

"But I left Will, so he wouldn't have to see me struggle."

"Where were you when the fight was over?"

"Oh. Oh, my God."

"Cellie, where are the green lights now? The ones the unknown spirit helped tear from your mind?" In a flash, Elliot recalled Julia's odd, distracted, truncated warning. . .

"JASON absorbed the green lights. Professor, you have to get out to Eagle Hill right away!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

Walter and Pavlos arrived at Eagle Hill Cemetery at eight-thirty, by the dashboard clock in Walter's rented car. "Good God," Walter breathed. "This place was misty enough in the daylight. I haven't seen this kind of pea-soup fog since London. But then, I shouldn't be surprised. There's a big swamp behind the cemetery."

"Cellie told me this was part of Indian ceremonial ground," Pavlos said. "Odd, how such places are often located near swamps and bogs. The significance is the same in both Europe and New England, a misty wet place that can give or take life."

"Like a woman's body. How Freudian," Walter commented, trying to distract himself from his anxiety.

"Certain symbols are universal. Freud was one who could see the universality, and apply it on a personal basis."

"My God, Pavlos," Walter said in amazement. "Where did you learn

all this?"

"I know what you're thinking, Walter. I'm just a simple tavern-keeper from the wrong side of the ruins in Athens--- who learned to read early and often. Like your daughter."

"You're two of a kind, alright. I always thought I was pretty smart. My sister's a walking brain. I don't know if Janice ever told you this, but she had the highest S.A.T. scores recorded in her hometown. So, I sort of expected my kids to be bright. Ernest's smart and steady. But my Cecily is another manner of being altogether. It's a little humbling, and I could be jealous of anyone else who tries to teach her besides myself. I WAS for a while. But not of you, oddly enough."

"And I am not jealous of YOU, Walter." Pavlos's bright eyes twinkled in the dashboard light. "I overheard your little talk with your daughter earlier. There's some tender loving care, and guidance, she can still get only from you."

"If this was a year ago, maybe you wouldn't have said that."

"It was there all along. She wouldn't have turned to you so readily, if it wasn't."

"If this was a year ago, she wouldn't have been around to turn to me. I threatened to make her have an abortion, and send her away to school. Not very T.L.C. As it was, I made her live in a maternity home, where she almost pined away, and my grand-daughter with her. . . I disowned her when she ended up marrying Willie. . ." Walter sighed.

"You would have come around eventually, I have no doubt. You are here because you HAVE come around. We must go on, and complete the circle."

The two men emerged from the car. "The circle. My wife was part of the circle. She was in that place--" Walter pointed to the mausoleum, "--an innocent prisoner, a hostage to the fortunes of people who should have been gone on to oblivion long ago, but thanks to some bizarre atmospheric quirk---"

"You were a prisoner and hostage there, later, Walter. It brought you closer to Maggie in the end. It's part of the balance of things. Maybe this isn't a vortex, as the Professor says, but a great scale of judgement. Now, we must try to save your savior, who saved your wife once, and your grand-daughter and daughter."

Flashlight in hand, Walter, who was more familiar with the cemetery, led Pavlos down the frosty path to the mausoleum. Pavlos trained his torch on certain tombstones along the way. He recognized some of the names Cellie, Elliot and Barnabas had mentioned at various times: Ben Stokes, Josette Collins, Natalie Du Pres, Jeremiah

Collins. . . He was, as Walter and Cellie before him, surprised to discover that Maggie's father was buried in this dismal spot. But that was appropriate, the Greek reflected; Sam Evans was resting amongst members of the family that had most affected his and his daughter's life in his final years. Besides, Pavlos speculated, perhaps this particular spot was really pleasant during the day. There WAS a fresh spray of hot-house flowers, still encased in florist's plastic wrap, nestled under the tombstone.

"Maggie sends those," Walter said. "Her mother's also buried there, and it was her birthday recently. I promised I'd get someone out here to put the other name on the stone by this summer."

Pavlos commented, "The florists in these parts must be courageous souls, coming to this remote spot to drop a bouquet on a grave."

"THEY'RE not. My daughter received the flowers, and brought them.

It's not all that bad out here in the daylight." They arrived at the steps of the mausoleum. "The original pull-chain was cut away, and the latch inside the hidden room was destroyed by my extremely confused son-in-law," Walter said. "So, I brought this." He pulled a heavy wrench from his pocket. "We just have to be careful not to get stuck in the room itself. A peek inside should be sufficient."

He mounted the steps, feeling the familiar pounding of his heart, which had troubled him the last time he was here. He was worried then, and his fears had turned out to be justified. If only he could feel confidence in his present mission! All he had to go on was the memory of his wife, urging him to return to Collinsport ("Never ignore a dream about that place, Walter," those were Maggie's very words!); his daughter, crying in his arms like a six-year-old, but pulling herself together at the last minute; and his grand-daughter, her once lively, cuddly, sturdy little body now still and wizened as a mummy's. Not one of these thoughts was strengthening, but they did provide incentive, and tightened his resolve.

Walter fitted the wrench to the tiny fragment of chain, and tightened the grip. He gave the wrench a mighty pull, and was rewarded with the grating sound of unoiled hinges moving and stone scraping against stone, as the heavy door slowly opened.

Pavlos stood behind him, watching, amazement on his face. "That's quite a complex mechanism, considering this tomb was erected well over two hundred years ago."

"And yet, it's all just simple levers. Whoever designed this place was as subtle as whoever designed the Pyramids," Walter commented. "Given the history of this place, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same fellow."

As the door opened, the two men became aware of a soft, sobbing

issuing from behind it. As soon as the door was fully open, Pavlos and Walter crowded close together in the opening, to discover the source of the sound. Walter gasped. "My God! Pavlos, look!"

In the furthest corner of the hidden room, almost obscured by the

stone catalfalque in its center, crouched a small figure clad in a white gown and cap. "That must be Sarah," Walter whispered, as the weeping and sniffling coming from the corner assumed a distinctly girlish tone. "This was almost too easy," he mused.

"Well, if it is she, we must get her, irregardless of the circumstances of her presence here," Pavlos urged. "Sarah!" he said softly. "Sarah Collins! It is I, Pavlos, and Walter. You know who we are. You surely know why we're here. You must come with us, and return to Sarah Teresa. She is going to die, if you don't."

"Can't," the figure in the corner muttered, without turning its head.

"Sarah," Walter said, "listen. I know my daughter and her husband aren't getting along, but they ARE of one mind, when it comes to their baby's life. If you come back now, I believe I can promise that they WILL work hard to overcome the memory of the incident at the Antique Shoppe."

"I know," came the reply. "But I can't go back. I CAN'T."

"Do you know what will happen if you don't come back, Sarah?" Pavlos asked. "There is a spirit loose in the world, the spirit of the evil witch who seduced Willie and caused Cellie to injure him. Little Sarah Teresa is barely alive now. If, and when she passes, this same witch will inhabit her body. The original spirit of Sarah Teresa Loomis, the spirit you were upholding and assisting to a sunlit way of life, will be completely gone, and the new spirit will drag her body down a path of darkness, the same darkness your brother once knew. The same one he knows now. Barnabas has returned to the darkness, Sarah." As soon as he said this, Pavlos's face darkened visibly in his companion's flashlight beam, and he clutched his chest.

Walter said, aghast, "What are you talking about, Pavlos? Barnabas is missing, that much I know. You mean he's-- he's what he was, again?" He was more grateful than ever, that Maggie had stayed home.

Pavlos nodded. Then, he drew a deep breath. "I cannot speak of it much," he whispered. "He sends me heart pains when I do. But it is necessary to convince Sarah that she must return. She was the one person who ever truly had any influence over Barnabas at his worst."

"Are you suggesting that she return to my grand-daughter, and that Barnabas should have access to her?" Walter inquired fearfully.

"God, NO! I would suggest, however, that it might be a good idea for Sarah to contact her brother BEFORE she returns to our Little Flame's body."

"THAT could be a trap! My grand-daughter may well die in the meantime."

"Time for spirits is not the same as our time, Walter. One such as Sarah could deliver the Gettysburg address in the blink of an eye."

"If she can do that, why can't she seem to move?"

"Sarah, you must get up!" Pavlos said, his voice uncharacteristically stern.

"I WANT to!" the youthful spirit asserted. "But I can't! Look closer!"

The two men stepped cautiously onto the first step, poised to flee if the door moved, or made the slightest noise. From that vantage point, they could see all of Sarah Collins's small body. To their horror, they saw thick shackles, attached to heavy chains, which didn't appear to be attached to the wall or floor, but which held Sarah's limbs in place whenever she tried to move out of the corner. "You can't help me," she sniffled. "Go, please."

"We're going to have to carry her out of here, somehow," Walter said. "But those chains are stuck in place. I don't know how we'll manage. And then, there's whole point of staying up here on the

steps--- What if the door closes on us?"

"I will go in, first, and prepare her." Pavlos pulled a cross from his neck. He slowly walked to Sarah's corner.

She gazed up at him sadly. "Please, Pavlos, you must go. It's

dangerous--- " She began to wail in agony. "Can't talk---sorry---Please, go!"

Pavlos crouched at her side, and kissed her. Sarah's cheek felt like cobwebs, he thought, ephemeral and substantial at the same time. "This may break your bonds," he said, touching the cross to the shackles. To his pleased surprise, they fell easily from Sarah's wrists and ankles. "Can you stand, little one?" he asked.

"Go away," she said. "It's almost too late---"

"Pavlos," Walter said nervously, "maybe you should leave her be.

She's free now, maybe she can get out on her own. She knows better about what's going on than we do."

Pavlos said, "I cannot leave her here, Walter. Something tells me, she must be carried. Come, Sarah," he said, firmly, picking her up. Sarah didn't move. She was as limp and heavy in his arms as a living child.

"Oh, damn it, Pavlos," Walter said. "I'll help you. Hold on." He went down the step without thinking. When he'd reached the corner, he heard a familiar, sickening sound. "Dear God," he whispered, as the door clanged shut. Harsh laughter in an equally-familiar baritone answered his prayer. "Jason McGuire!" Walter snarled.

The room was suddenly suffused with a bright green-yellow light. In the brightness, so intense that it stung both men's eyes, a male figure appeared. "Ah, Walter!" the spirit exclaimed happily. "Once more ye have come to keep this lonely soul company. I was making do with the little lass, but she kept sniveling and crying about Cecily and Willie and the 'bad woman'! That Willie! Just when ye think he's got it under control south of the Equator, so to speak, then he's after somebody else in a skirt. I guess his little red-head wasn't enough to satisfy his fancy! And serves her right, too, for what she did to me!" Jason said this last in a tone of wounded dignity.

"What could my daughter possibly have done to YOU!"

"Why, she went back on her bargain, she did! We made the same deal I once offered YOU, and she allowed me to enter her delightful body. But, wouldn't ye know it, the instant she sees Willie, the same bastard that dropped her in this foul hole in the first place, she goes all soft and finds a way to return me here. What's more, she had help, a vile spirit who inflicted me with these damned green lights. They tear at my ectoplasm as flails tear at human flesh! I exist in agony, but there is one lonely advantage. I can make people, and ghosts, stay with me now. She who created the lights came to me just a while ago, and vowed I'd have plenty of company in a short while."

"Her name wasn't Anissa, was it?" Pavlos asked in a faltering voice. He still embraced Sarah Collins tightly.

"The name she gave me, was Desiree! And, indeed, she was the very

picture of desire, even for a spirit! I begged to to stay, but she had other business. While she visited, this little mite--" he indicated Sarah "--showed up, crying as she is now, looking for a place to hide out. Desiree showed me how to lock her up."

"Jason! You HAVE to let us go! My grand-daughter will die, if Sarah doesn't come to see her!"

"What do I care for that, Walter?"

"Listen, Jason," Walter said urgently. "I'll make a deal. This little girl isn't going to stop crying, ever, if she stays. How annoying that must be for you! I'll tell you what. You let my friend take her out of here, and I'll stay with you, forever. I'll DIE here, if need be."

"That's BULL, Walter! Your Levantine friend here will surely send help, long before ye pass on! I will muzzle the brat, and ye'll ALL stay."

"Jason! Please!" Pavlos begged. "BARNABAS is out and about, as he was when he killed you! If HE should hear that his sister is being held here---"

"What could he do, Pavlos?" Jason sneered. "I'm already dead, and

I have to protect me, the damned green, green lights, like the green, green fields of old Eire. How I wish now, that I'd never left 'em!"

"We WILL find a way, because we MUST!" Walter declared stoutly.

He dashed to the step under which the switch to the door was located. he pulled the brick, thinking that there must be SOME way to operate it, even if it was broken. He was horrified to see the neatly-broken toggle. He had no tools to stick into the slot to move it; a trowel he found in a corner of the room had too large a handle to fit into it.

"Ye're stuck, all right!" Jason declared triumphantly. At that moment, there was a loud banging on the door.

"Walter! Pavlos!" came the muffled voice of Professor Stokes.

"I saw your car out on the road, so I know you're in there! Can you hear me?"

"YES!" Walter yelled. "Sarah's in here. McGuire has us all prisoner."

"I can work this wrench," Elliot hollered back.

"NO! Not yet!" Walter answered. "Jason has the power of Anissa's

green lights!"

"I WILL KILL THE LOT OF YE IF HE ENTERS!"

"Did you hear that, Professor Stokes?" Walter cried.

"Alas, I did. . . But you can't stay in there. Let me think. . ."

"Just tell us! Is Sarah Teresa still alive?"

"Yes, but barely, Walter. . . I'm thinking." A few agonizing moments passed. Then, the door opened.

"I WARNED YE!" Jason bellowed. Walter reached toward the door, when he was tossed up against the low ceiling of the hidden room. He fell, stunned, to the brick floor.

"Walter!" Pavlos yelled, carrying Sarah to where his friend lay.

"STAY IN YOUR CORNER, YE FILTHY GREEK! AND THE BRAT, TOO!"

Pavlos clutched at his chest, though he still tried to carry Sarah Collins. He gave up the effort, and dropped her to the floor. She landed on both feet, and followed as he crawled back to the corner. He fell, unconscious, his head grazing the rough back wall, which was constructed of rough granite rather than smooth marble.

Elliot peered in through the doorway, protesting "I DIDN'T TOUCH THE DOOR! LET THEM ALONE!" He was about to dash into the room to aid his fallen friends, but found he was rooted to the spot. He struggled vainly, panting with fear, when he saw that the heavy door was headed right toward him.

A soft female voice whispered in his ear. "Use your Cross."

Elliot thought the voice was familiar, but had no time to speculate on whose it might be. He reached into his pocket. Whatever had worked on the Desiree in Julia's mind must surely work on this remnant of one of her spells. He tossed it at Jason's spirit, praying that it would touch him. His aim was better than he'd hoped for; the cross smacked the arrogant ghost squarely on the forehead.

Jason howled in anguish, grabbing at the simple crucifix, which had somehow adhered to his face. The bright green lights flared up with the brilliance of a nuclear blast. Elliot shielded his eyes, and shouted at his companions to do the same. A sharp, pungent odor assailed his nostrils.

A few minutes later, the odor dissipated. The light no longer

penetrated Elliot's eyelids. He opened them cautiously.

The hidden room was dark, except for where the dropped flashlights

lay. Elliot picked one up, and surveyed the scene.

Walter Hoffman was still lying face-down. Elliot gently touched the vertebrae of the lawyer's thick neck. There appeared to be no break. He then touched Walter's pulse. There was a steady beat. "Walter, can you get up?" Elliot demanded.

"I--I think---I think so." Walter slowly raised himself with his hands, as though he was doing push-ups. Elliot lifted him to a sitting position. "How's Pavlos?" Walter asked.

Sarah Collins stood like a sentinel over where the Greek lay. Pavlos's forehead bled a little, a very little, where it had brushed against the stone wall. Walter and Elliot both knew facial wounds were supposed to bleed like crazy. This could only mean one thing. . .

Walter reached his friend first, and felt for his pulse. "Dear God," he mourned. "How the Hell will I be able to tell Janice, and Cecily. . ." He began a futile effort at C.P.R., but gave it up a few minutes later.

"Walter, it wasn't our fault," Elliot said sadly. "Janice and Cellie knew what we were trying to do. It WILL be hard, but we'll get by, somehow." He looked at Sarah Collins. "Sarah, you're free now. You must come with us."

The dainty ghost seemed to be immobilized with shock. "It's MY fault," she said in a tiny voice. "I was bad, because I ran away. I loved him. He had such nice music. He was real good to Cecily and Willie and Sarah Teresa."

"Come with us," Walter urged. "Sarah, if you really loved Pavlos, you MUST come. He would have wanted you to help Sarah Teresa." He reached for her, but she wouldn't or couldn't move.

"Let's get Pavlos out of here," Elliot suggested. "She'll probably follow." The two men grunted and struggled, as they dragged the heavy body toward the steps. "I guess we'll have to leave him, after all," Elliot announced regretfully. "Why doesn't she move from that spot, I wonder?" He looked back. "Dear Lord, there's still a little green light, like a laser beam!"

Walter ran back to Sarah, and tried again to lift her, but it was as though she weighed a ton. He gazed despairingly at Elliot.

There was a soft shuffling noise, and a white light that appeared on the steps. A shimmering female figure appeared in the light. Her face wasn't clear, but both Walter and Elliot knew she wasn't Angelique. She called out to to the child, "Sarah, you know who I am, don't you?"

The girlish spirit smiled in recognition, and nodded. "You went away for the longest time. I missed you so much when you went away."

"I was never really far away, Sarah. I was in a bad place, like this one. But we're both free now. You must come to me. Don't be afraid of the green light. I will protect you." The figure approached Sarah, and held her arms open.

Sarah gazed fearfuly at the tiny green ray in her path. Then, she swallowed hard, and forced herself to cross it. She cried out with the pain of it, but she survived. She ran to the welcoming embrace of the other spirit.

"Now, there's something that you must do, Sarah," the adult spirit admonished. "Pavlos himself must take you to Sarah Teresa. You under-

stand, don't you?"

Sarah gazed on the fallen Greek. "Yes, ma'am," she replied. "You always knew best, even if nobody else believed in you." She knelt at Pavlos's side, and took his lifeless hand in hers. As she slowly vanished, the Greek's eyes opened, and the woman's spirit vanished also. As her nimbus faded, Elliot became aware that she must have had dark hair. Walter saw the hair, and noticed something else.

"My God," he whispered. "She sure looks a lot like my daughter."

"There's a reason for that, Walter," Elliot began, but was interrupted by Pavlos's stirring back to life. Elliot and Walter both helped him to his feet.

"I feel her inside me," Pavlos said weakly. "That must not be! She must return to the Little Flame!"

"You'll die then, for sure, Pavlos," Walter said.

"What other choice do I have, my friend?"

"None," Walter sighed resignedly. He and Elliot lifted the weakened Koffeehaus owner up the steps, and followed him closely as he stepped out into the atrium. Pavlos wandered out through the iron-grille gate to catch great gulps of the frosty March night air, while Walter closed the door to the secret room. Elliot was explaining something to the lawyer.

A growling whisper came out of the fog. "Don't move, you TRAITOR!"

Pavlos froze, his heart straining and aching, as Barnabas stepped out from behind a yew tree growing near Josette Collins's grave.

Barnabas transfixed the Greek with his penetrating gaze. Pavlos moved his lips but no sound came. "You won't be able to call your friends," the vampire admonished, "though it hardly matters whether they come to your aid, or not. It will be too late. Now, take off those crosses. You are very much weakened, I can tell. You won't be able to resist, this time."

Pavlos fumbled with the clasps of the chains. They dropped, one by one, to the ground. "May I ask one question?" he rasped. "Why do you choose this moment to do me harm, my friend?"

"You consort with ministers and exorcists and you have the NERVE to call me your friend!" Barnabas placed his hands around Pavlos's throat.

"You have always been. You still are," Pavlos gagged. "You will NOT be able to kill me now, anyway."

"Perhaps, instead of killing you, it's high time I made you my thrall, though you'll likely pass away before you have the chance to make restitution to me."

"Try it," Pavlos muttered defiantly.

Barnabas lowered his lips to the Greek's throat, as Walter and Elliot came out of the mausoleum. "NO! NO!" Walter cried. He tried to run toward the struggling pair, but the Professor held him back.

"Watch," Elliot said calmly. "You had faith when we captured and tried Anissa. Have faith now."

Barnabas touched Pavlos's throat with his teeth, then jerked his head back, as though he'd been subjected to an electric shock. "Violets," the vampire whispered. "Sarah's favorite scent. . ." He released Pavlos, and gazed, once more into the Greek's eyes. "Now I see her eyes. . . They're looking at me. . . The same way she looked at me, just before she died! How did she come to be in YOU?"

"I have to bring her back to Sarah Teresa."

"I can't allow that. Nicholas has decreed---" Barnabas howled in pain, and fell back completely, clawing behind himself futilely, at the gold cross Elliot held against his shoulder. The vampire turned on his other former friend, but cringed when he saw the cross, one of Pavlos's, which Elliot had plucked from the ground.

"You will NOT interfere, Barnabas!" Elliot cried. "We don't want to put an end to you, but we WILL keep you out of our way. You cannot destroy your sister, no matter what form she inhabits. Now, let us pass. Walter has a gun in his pocket loaded with silver bullets."

"And I know how to use it. You remember, Barnabas," Walter said.

He tried to make a convincing bulge in his coat pocket. This trick works for bank robbers--- Don't let him ask me to show him the gun, he prayed silently.

To his relief, Barnabas gasped, "Very well. Go forth, for all the good it will do. There will be retribution exacted!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

CHAPTER SEVENTY

Nicholas Blair put the finishing touches on the cellar chamber. The altar/ bed was beautifully draped in black and purple silk, with a fleur-de-lys pattern embroidered in the center of the cloth. The black candles, goblets, and special knives he would need lay on an antique table. There was even a tiny crawlspace against the outside wall where he could safely build a ceremonial fire, as a beacon to his Master.

He went upstairs, to watch Carolyn parade around his bedroom in an array of Anissa's discarded lingerie. He filled two glasses with champagne, as he had promised, though he put an extra ingredient into his fiancee's libation. Finally, Carolyn came out of the private bathroom in the master suite clad in a peignoir set, with a robe that looked as chaste as a child's housecoat, but, when she opened it, revealed a strapless see-though nightgown. "This has snaps disguised

as satin buttons on both the gown and the panties, for easy removal, I guess," she giggled uneasily.

Nicholas handed her a slim crystal goblet. "That's the very one!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Now, let us drink to our wedding, and then, I'll leave you to change into your wedding dress. You did select one, didn't you?"

"Yes, Nicholas," Carolyn answered meekly, sipping at her champagne. "It's a good thing Anissa had so many white clothes, and in the finest fabrics. I'm sure you'll be just as pleased with my wedding dress, as you are with my wedding-NIGHT dress." She sighed with a sudden weariness that had come over her. "I do wish my mother could attend. Will you have a picture taken of us in our wedding-clothes, so I can send her that much, at least?"

"We'll get on that project, tomorrow." Nicholas watched with satisfaction, as his fiancee lay back on his red-silk covered pillows, and closed her eyes.

"Oh, dear," Carolyn said in a faltering voice, "I CAN'T go to sleep. It's nearly eleven, and the wedding's at twelve, and I'm not dressed at all. . ." Nicholas heard her preliminary snore.

He quickly went into another room to change. He put on a crisp, sulfur-pungent black robe. He had a small cap and sandals to wear. Before he went back to get Carolyn, he doused himself with musk, and took a swig of the drug with which he'd been plying her for the past week. The narcotic component had no effect on him, but he needed the aphrodisiac, just in case that odd lack of desire impeded him during the ceremony.

Nicholas slowly carried the unconscious Carolyn down the narrow cellar steps, carefully easing her head around corners. He laid her on the altar, and bolted the door. He tied her wrists to small hooks affixed to the corners at the head of the table. He drew up her knees, and trussed her ankles to more hooks, to hold them in place. He then pulled the modest robe open over her heart. He pulled the strapless bodice of the gown down to reveal her chest, but left the robe over the rest of her bosom. That could wait for later. Besides, the potion-induced lust was already pounding in his veins. If he looked at her too much, he might make a mess of the ceremony in order to possess her all the sooner. THAT would not do, at all!

After he lit the candles, he lost no time beginning the incantation. "I call upon all those Enlightened Ones whom the infidels call the Damned, and all the creatures who roam our Day, which others call the Night, to witness these nuptials and their consummation. I call upon my combined fraternity and sorority to make clear the path, and speed the arrival of Our Master, He who has borne many names, Lucifer, Satan, Hades, Beelzebub, Loki, Siva, Diablos--- That He may officiate at these nuptials, that He may grant this, our new-made Sister and Queen, eternal life, and that He shall have the Right of the First Night, in order to seal her initiation to our universal Coven, before he permits myself, His very humble servant, to reap that which I have gathered and sown for Him. May this offering of this perfect female please Him, and spur Him to grant further favors for this, His most faithful Slave."

At this, Nicholas touched Carolyn's shoulder gently. "Awaken, Our Sister. You must be aware, now."

Carolyn opened her eyes. In her dazed state, she tried to bring her hand to her face, to wipe her sleep-filled eyes. As she tugged at her bonds, realization set in. She glanced wildly down at her prone body, and up at her fiance. "WHAT--WHAT ARE YOU DOING, NICHOLAS?" she screamed, wriggling around futilely.

"You will know the truth at last," he replied, smirking. "You must be awake for the 'service', annoying as your cries of fear and pain will be for the time being. Shortly, they will turn to moans of ecstasy the likes of which you have NEVER known in your earthly relationships."

"What pain?" Carolyn whimpered.

"I promise you, my dear, the agony will be of the briefest duration. I went through it, and Anissa-Desiree, and her sister Angelique, whom you knew as Cassandra---"

"The one you once called your sister!"

"Yes," Nicholas said with distaste. "I never had a REAL sister. May Satan spare me from ever having one such! Anyway, many have gone through this crucible, to discover unimaginable rewards, including Anissa's beloved Lasha. Alas, I had to withdraw his gift of perpetual youth and health, to punish his lover, and he lies at death's door, even as we speak. If you cooperate fully, such a penalty will not fall upon YOU, as I, your protector, have been faithful to my Dark Lord for three-hundred thirty years tonight."

"You're not telling me what you're actually going to DO!"

"Do you know exactly what kind of ritual this is, Carolyn?"

"A Black Mass, I guess that's what it's called--"

"It's rather more than that. This is in the nature of those elaborate High Masses your Pope conducts in that mausoleum they call St, Peter's Basilica." Nicholas spat out the last words irritably. "All our Masses require sacrifices, but, like those of the Church, they are, for the most part, symbolic. Killing a living being, usually an animal, is reserved for our Holy Days, Candlemas Eve, Midsummer's Eve, Samhain, which you call Halloween. . . Human sacrifices are seldom called for, except when a special favor is required. That's because, even though we Infernals and our disciples are seldom caught, acquiring a suitable victim can be a damned nuisance! It's hardly because of our respect

for human life!"

"You're going to kill me! NO! Nicholas, please, don't do this! I'll do ANYTHING you ask. . ." Carolyn began to cry. "I don't want to die. . ."

"But that's just it, Carolyn! It will only be for a minute! I will draw your life from you so gently, that will feel like a mere paper cut. Then, another victim will absorb your death---"

"Who? Who is going to die for me? You can't do this, Nicholas, killing two innocent people, and making one of them die twice!"

"Don't fret, my dear. The individual who will absorb your death, is nearly dead, anyway. This will liberate her spirit."

"You've killed Cellie, that's it!"

"No, someone close to her--- anyway, that's the first part of the ceremony. When your original soul is gone, your new Master will appear, in a human-like form you can comprehend, instead of in all His Infernal Beauty. He will repair your fleshly wounds, and then, will take on the far more pleasant task of completing your initiation. He has, shall we say, the 'Droit de siegneur' over those who would be immortal. You want to be immortal, don't you? With no further worries about getting old, or sick, or bearing children? As I've said, you will help me raise a very Special Little One, but she will hardly obtrude on your other activities."

"That's what I might have said, but this isn't what I meant! I don't want anyone to die. I don't want to take Sarah Teresa from Cellie! I don't want to be raped by someone you say is the Devil!"

"What about me, Carolyn?" Nicholas asked softly. "You still want

me, don't you?"

"I don't know!" she wailed. "I know I don't want anyone with us on our wedding night! We've been together before, I know that, even though I don't really remember anything but the feeling. . . You've said Anissa was with us, but I can't remember that either. . . Now that's she's gone, I want to be alone with you. Then, maybe the memories of the other times will come back---"

"Carolyn, there were no 'other times'."

"WHAT?" This shocked Carolyn, almost as much as her impending sacrifice.

"I said, my dear fiancee, that there were no other times. We've never actually, to put it crudely, 'done the nasty'. There were never any other times, either with us alone, or with Anissa, though she wanted to as much as I did. Last summer, you would have been far more co-operative, and the ceremony far less complicated. But there WAS an intervention, and the game plan changed. You would have endured the same 'treatment', but you would have been fully consenting. With such a time constraint as we faced, we couldn't count on your co-operation this time around. I had to make you stay from shame, rather than from desire. And it worked beautifully."

"I can't--- I can't believe that!" Carolyn wailed. "That first night, when I rinsed myself with that water, and you took me to your bedroom, and the next morning, when you said we'd been--- and you said I had to get rid of Tony and marry you--- OH, GOD! OH, GOD!"

"STOP SAYING THAT THIS INSTANT, YOU INSOLENT BITCH!"

Nicholas smacked Carolyn with the back of his hand. "I offer you an existence that will bring you treasures and pleasures you never imagined existed, and you weep over a little necessary deception?" A large welt formed on Carolyn's face, where he'd struck her. Nicholas turned from her in disgust, and picked up an elaborately-embossed golden chalice. "Oh, well, my dear, neither your consent or your co-operation are necessary from this point on. The ceremony will go forth as my Master has decreed, you will taste of the sharpness of my knife, and then, you'd better hope that mark I had to put on your silly face doesn't dampen our Dark Lord's desire for you, or the death-transference will be aborted. In short, you will be dead for good, and at this point, I cannot say THAT will be such a terrible disappointment for ME!"

"NO! PLEASE, NICHOLAS, PLEASE, LET ME GO! PUT A HEX ON ME TO FORGET ALL THIS! YOU'LL FIND ANOTHER WOMAN WHO'LL PROBABLY WANT TO DO THIS! NICHOLAS, DON'T KILL ME!"

Nicholas replied, "I have searched the world over, and believe me if you can--- If you can't that's too bad, but it's the truth! There CAN be nobody else!" He ignored her further pleas as he walked to the fire, and raised his goblet to the ceiling. "Master, You must give me a sign that this little outburst will not turn you away from this ceremony, and that you will appear at the moment of the bloodletting. Give me a sign that SHE is still the one!"

The flames flared up, and threatened to scorch the hem of Nicholas's robe. A deep voice issued from the fireplace, saying, "BEGIN. I WILL RESERVE JUDGEMENT."

Nicholas turned back to the altar, where Carolyn's increasingly strained cries had faded. She now stared up at him with the glazed, terrifed eyes of an animal about to be run over by a truck, as she whimpered hoarsely. "I see that we WILL be able to proceed, without further sound effects," Nicholas said with satisfaction, "and the bruise is fading already. There's hope for you yet, my dear Carolyn, but understand, it's MY brand of hope that I speak of." He held the goblet over the exposed portion of her chest, and poured the contents, a golden syrup that smelled of brimstone, in a straight line from the hollow of her throat to her navel.

"Burns," she rasped, tears rolling down the sides of her face, to form tiny stains on the silk near her ears. "Please, Nicholas, for the last time, don't---" She gazed wildly toward the little fire, where she could already see a definite head-shape set on thick shoulders, which appeared to be watching the proceedings. As Nicholas lifted a long-bladed, razor-sharp-looking knife over Carolyn's chest, her back arched in her terror, and she began to hitch her rear end around the altar. Her last thought, before he brought the knife down, was, "Can't thread a moving needle---"

* * * * * * * * * * *

Walter drove as quickly as he could back to the hospital. Pavlos hunched in his seat belt, his hand clawing at his chest. When they'd arrived in the hospital parking lot, Walter glanced at his companion under a lamppost. Even under such a poor light, he could see that the Greek's lips were turning blue.

Elliot drove into the lot at that moment, and both the Professor and the lawyer conveyed their friend directly into the chapel room. Cellie and her mother, who'd been sitting by the bassinet, holding hands, rose at their entrance. Willie, who'd been leaning against the wall, came forward.

Janice took one look at her husband, and cried out in anguish at

the sight of his grey face, his navy-colored lips, the blue half-moons on his fingernails as he still held his heart. "Sweetheart, we have to get Dr. Hurley," she pleaded. "Your heart is giving out!"

"Can't now, my Little One," he gasped. "I bear the one thing that might save Sarah Teresa."

"Where? Where?" Janice yelped, searching her husband's arms, and looked in his pocket.

"In my heart, weak as it it," he answered. "I carry our baby's guiding spirit. I must give it back to her---" Pavlos reached past his wife, and took Sarah Teresa's tiny hand.

"You're--you're going to die for her," Janice wept with realization. "I don't want to let you do this!"

"But you must, beloved." Pavlos turned back to his wife, and

embraced her tightly.

"Yes. Of course. My God," Janice sobbed in his arms. "Why must there be these choices?"

Cellie looked directly at her stepfather. "Pavlos," she began, "give Sarah Collins to me, and I will transfer her. Perhaps you might survive, that way."

"I cannot, my Flame," he shook his head sadly. "She must come

from me."

"Then let me hold your hand while you do it," Cellie pleaded. "Maybe that will help."

"No, Cecily," Willie warned. "Remember what Julia and Dr. Hurley

both told you while you were having all those convulsions. Your own heart was under a strain. One more step, and it's all over."

Janice cried, "I can't risk losing both of you!"

"I must do this alone," Pavlos said.

His wife drew a deep sigh. "All right, Constantinos. I'm ready to face whatever happens."

They held each other tightly for a minute. Pavlos kissed Janice, then gazed deeply into her eyes. Without another word, he leaned over the bassinet, and held Sarah Teresa's hand, once more. He closed his eyes. All at once, he crumpled to the floor. "I--I can't do it," he said weakly. "The Other is present, and holds Sarah Collins back far more strongly than she did at the Mausoleum."

Elliot, who'd been standing outside, rushed to his friend's side. "This is the appointed hour!" he gasped, as he stared at the clock. The lights in the chapel, already dimmed, blinked on and off. Light, loose items, such as the plastic vomit basin, and cups of water, flew across the room. The machines to which Sarah Teresa was connected began to beep, blink, flair, and whir. Willie, afraid the machines themselves might kill his daughter, yelled for a doctor or nurse to remove the tubes that connected the baby to them. Dr. Hurley came running, followed by Louise Hackett, who'd been sitting with her sons' room as they recovered. They narrowly missed being hit by the aluminum water pitcher.

The Doctor and Louise quickly flicked the tubes out. Then, both hovered over Pavlos. The disturbance subsided in minutes. Elliot said, "That's not the last time that will happen. It is after ten o'clock on what would have been the Ides of March in 1643. Anissa-Desiree's spirit is near, I can feel it. She awaits the moment of opportunity to enter Sarah Teresa."

Cellie now cradled her daughter's still body, vaguely grateful she had this last chance to hold Sarah Teresa before the inevitable---

"I know your look, Cecily," Willie said. "It's NOT over. We got time. You have to be like you used to be, thinking on your feet, like He would have. He always came up with some kind of solution at the last minute, and nobody here is more like Him than You."

"Look at the solution Barnabas settled on, to work out his last problem, Will," Cellie said bitterly. "The prospect of losing his only child ruined His judgment, as it will mine. That's just the way it is! The only hope is to interrupt Nicholas's so-called 'wedding', and I'm just not clear on how we can do that!"

Elliot said eagerly, "I can contact David. He's still at Collinwood. I was meaning to call him in any case, to tell him we found Sarah Collins."

"I hope you don't mean he should storm Nicholas's gates alone!"

Cellie exclaimed.

"Good heavens, no! He can get Roger. I will tell them to wait until I arrive."

"Have you any idea where in that house Nicholas will be having

his party?" Cellie asked. "I doubt he'll be saying his dirty little prayers right in the living room!"

"Cellie, we've both seen his house, from top to bottom. I know the place is fairly simple in architecture. Still, it was built over a long period of years, through tumultuous times, when people were hiding out, first, from the Indians, then later, during the wars with the British, and later still, when there were stops on the Underground Railroad."

"The Hendersons were slave traders."

"Early on," Elliot agreed, "but later generations were subject to

changes of heart. The point is, there MUST be a secret room there, as there are at Collinwood and the Old House. Nicholas would hardly pick a residence without at least one, given his predelictions."

Cellie didn't reply art first. She cuddled her baby to her shoulder, swaying a little, as if to rock the unresponsive infant. To Willie, his wife resembled nothing so much as a twelve-year-old girl preparing to part with a much-loved doll, to put it into a box to store in the cellar. . . "The cellar!" he shouted. "I was in his cellar, in a secret room. Hell, if I remember right, and this awful dream I had there was true, there's at least TWO! Penny--- I mean Anissa--- she brought me to a tiny room close to the downstairs living room. It wasn't too bad, there was a bathroom, even if there wasn't a window."

"That's one down, Willie," Elliot said, "but Nicholas himself may have planned on the possibility of your recalling that particular room. The other must be more obscure."

"That's the room I remember from my dream. At least, I thought it was a dream." Willie's voice fell to a whisper. Elliot drew closer to him. "I dreamed I was in a casket, like--" Willie caught himself just in time, as Janice was in the room. "--Like a dead person," he continued. "I was in a smaller room. . . I'm trying to remember how I got there. . . Oh, yeah! Nicholas dragged me in there. He must've put something in the oatmeal Pen--Anissa gave me. I was lyin' on the floor, half-dead, watchin' him move some shelves around in one corner. There was a door with a hidden bolt, so you couldn't see it if you were just looking at the shelves full of pickle jars---"

"I recall seeing those very jars!" Elliot gasped. "Now, if we only knew of some other way to get in there, besides through the house, or the garage."

Cellie finally spoke. "There ARE two ways. I saw them when I was exploring the outside of the house with Mr. Plavnicky. One's a fairly new metal door on an outer wall. But there's no door knob or even a pull-handle. It must open from the inside only. Then, there was the tunnel--- It had to be a tunnel, leading from the road in front of the Henderson place, past the front door, right up to some part of the cellar!"

"It's dark, but we'll locate this tunnel's entrance," Elliot vowed. "Now, I must make haste---"

"I'll go with you, Professor," Willie offered.

"No, Willie, you must stay here. I have the feeling the transference won't go forward without your presence. I know where the room must be."

Elliot left the chapel, and dashed to Virginia Hurley's office, where he could call David in privacy. He got the young man right away,and explained the situation. "Tell your father to wait for me," he instructed. "And is Julia there? She's resting, but not sleeping? Well, just make sure your aunt and Mrs. Johnson keep her there for the time being. The fewer people involved at this point, the better. There's no time to get Reverend Brand or Father Rondini, anyway."

The Professor ran out to the parking lot, and hurled himself into his car. He turned the key in the ignition. There was a hollow rattling sound. The engine wouldn't turn over. Elliot glanced at his control panel, and gave a cry of dismay, as he noticed his gas-tank was empty. He realized that he'd been so extremely distracted over the last few days, that he'd simply forgotten to visit a filling station.

There was no time to reflect on how such trivial matters influenced the outcome of major crises. Elliot would have to run back into the hospital to get a ride from Walter Hoffman, reluctant as he was to drag the unhappy grandfather from his family's vigil once more.

Elliot stepped out of his car. He heard the roar of a motorcycle nearby, a clear violation of hospital's "Quiet Zone." "Don't those bikers know how to read signs?" he thought, irritably.

The rider and his vehicle drew closer. The Professor recognized Buzz Hackett and his Harley. Buzz recognized the Professor as well, and eased his Hog as quietly as he could into the parking lot alongside his car.

"Buzz! You're married to a nurse! How could you be so inconsiderate of hospital rules, and at this hour!" Elliot admonished.

"Relax, Prof," Buzz replied amiably. "You know like I do, the hospital's three-quarters empty. The Kids' ward is way in back somewhere. They get more racket from Main street, down that end! I just needed a ride to clear my head, after sitting up with my kids until they got better."

"That's rather immature of you." The Professor glanced anxiously at his watch, trying to think of a way to extricate himself from this inconvenient conversation.

"What do they say in church, Prof? 'Don't judge, unless you be judged'? Anyway, Louise said my pacing around was making her antsy, so she MADE me go. She knows what's good for her Buzz-man. What's more, she knows I'm a good Daddy to our kids."

A flash of inspiration went off in Elliot's brain. "Alright, Buzz," he said in a conciliatory tone. "I've just been under such a strain, you know, trying to help solve the mystery of this epidemic. Poor little Sarah Teresa's still deathly ill, you know."

"Yeah," Buzz sighed sympathetically. "Poor Roja and Willie. That kid's their one and only shot at the parent game, too. It kind of kills my own happiness about MY kids' getting better, to know they're still suffering. That's another reason I was so antsy. I'd do anything to help if I could. But I'm no fancy doctor."

"Perhaps, this situation doesn't call for another doctor, Buzz. We've got plenty of those on hand. There is another key to solving Sarah's problem, and I was on my way to finding it, when I ran into a little car trouble. No gas!"

"I'll siphon you a little from Louise's car, if you want."

"I haven't much time. Buzz, how much weight does that Harley carry?"

"You want a RIDE? How much do you weigh, Professor? I'm not asking you to be nosy, and I swear, the truth will die with me, but---"

"Two hundred forty at my last check-up. That's down from two-seventy, I'll have you know." The Professor thought briefly, but tenderly of Fatima Texeira, and her special, low-fat version of Portuguese cuisine.

"Well. . . I'm one-seventy soaking wet. That comes to just over four hundred, but this IS the biggest Hog on the market, and I just filled it up. . . Okay. Hop on, and let's rock."

Elliot eased himself into the space between Buzz's rear end, and the sissy-bar on the back of the seat. "You haven't an extra helmet, do you?" he asked timidly, the reality of what he was about to do settling in on him.

"Nah. Sorry, but I wasn't expecting to give anybody a lift tonight. Don't worry, I haven't had a spill since before I married Louise. So, where to, Professor?"

"Collinwood. A. S. A. P., within reason, of course."

"I'm a reasonable guy," Buzz chuckled as he revved his engine to life. "Hang on, Professor-man."

* * * * * * * * * * *

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

Buzz made it to Collinwood in record time, wobbling all the way. Elliot came to believe that, if his heart, still overburdened with cholesterol despite his weight loss, could withstand the trauma of that ride, he could survive anything.

David Collins stood on the granite step. He tugged on Elliot's arm, pulling him into the foyer. They were followed by a bemused Buzz. "Thanks for delivering the Professor safely, Buzz-man," David said, "but you'd better get back to the hospital."

"Sure you won't need me or the Hog, anymore?" Buzz asked.

"I don't think so," Elliot said. "Thanks so much."

Buzz turned to leave, when he overheard David whisper to Elliot before they opened the drawing room doors. "Found him, drunk, wandering. . . Just stared at Henderson. . . Worried sick about Carolyn. . ."

Buzz turned back. "Now, what's this about Carolyn? What's she got to do with what happened to my kids, and Sarah Teresa?" he demanded.

"Nothing, Buzz," Elliot answered as calmly as he could. "She IS having some problems, but it's a separate issue---"

"Don't give me that bull, Professor-man. And who d'you have in that room, who's drunk 'cause he's so worried about her?" Buzz pushed past the two men, and opened the door. He stared at the disheveled man on the couch. "Tony the Legal Tiger!" Buzz shouted. "What the Hell's down with YOU!"

Tony gazed up at his former fiancee's former lover with red, runny eyes. "Nothing," he mumbled. "Don't know why I did it. Don't know why she did--- why she--- It hurts more tonight, than the other nights. Why does it hurt so much?" he pleaded. "It hurts right here," he insisted, running his hand from the hollow of his throat in a straight line to just above his groin. "Something's hurting her there, I know it!" he sobbed.

"He isn't like Roja, is he?" Buzz asked, puzzled. "I guess he's busted up with Carolyn, that much I can tell. I know how it feels. It happened to me, once."

"No, he's not empathic," the Professor replied, "at least, not naturally. And yes, he has broken from Carolyn, but that, like his pain, was neither of their doing. She was forced to leave him, but his current condition indicates they still have some kind of bond. It's very likely a clue to her own situation."

"She's in that Henderson House?"

"Yes," David said. "She's been living there with a man called Nicholas Blair, and this chick called Anissa, but Anissa's gone now."

"I remember seeing her around," Buzz said. "She even came to my shop. She cleared out fast when Louise came home in her Karate robes."

"Anyway," David continued, "Nicholas made Carolyn get engaged to him."

"And tonight's the wedding," the Professor said.

"Well," Buzz said sympathetically, "that's tough, but the lady does have a long history of changing her mind P.D.Q. about that institution."

"This isn't quite the same thing as an ordinary jilting, or an ordinary wedding, Buzz," Elliot said. "I had hesitated to take you into our full confidence, but you may be a help, at that. We believe that what ever Nicholas and Anissa have done, or are doing in that house right now, is the true reason the children became sick, and, if this wedding goes forth, Sarah Teresa Loomis will die."

"I-- I can't believe that junk!" Buzz gasped.

"Buzz, you're a native of this area, are you not?" Elliot asked.

"Sure am. My folks go back a long way around here. I even have some Indian blood, on my Mom's side," Buzz said proudly.

"That may be an advantage," Elliot said. "So, as a Collinsporter, you know the legends and rumors. Well, accept them as fact, this one night, at least. We have to move fast, and that's where your motorcycle may come in handy."

"Hey!" Buzz protested. "It's not fully paid for!"

"I'LL pay you for it," David shouted. "Are you with us, or not?"

Buzz asked nervously, "What about Louise and the kids?"

"We will give you the safest assignment we can think of," Elliot assured him. "I can guarantee, though, if we succeed, your sons' recovery will be total, as will Sarah Teresa's."

"Okay, okay! I believe! What happens now? Does Tinkerbell come back to life?" Buzz pointed at Tony. "And what about him? Carolyn's HIS girl, after all."

"Please, let me come," Tony drawled. "I won' interrupt--- I'll watch!"

"Well, if he could find the place in the dark, drunk as a sailor, in the first place, he may be of some use as a spotter," Elliot said. "But no noise, Tony!"

Mrs. Johnson came running from the kitchen passage, clutching a mug whose steaming contents she kept from spilling with her bare hand. "Quick, Tony, drink this," she urged breathlessly. "Sorry it took so long."

"We haven't time," Elliot said, glancing at his watch.

"I had a drunken sailor for a husband," the housekeeper said sternly, as she watched the intoxicated lawyer chug the cup's contents. "Tony won't be able to move, otherwise."

In a minute, Tony finished the coffee. "Okay," he said in a slightly steadier voice. "Let's get out there."

As the four men ran out the oaken doors, Elliot asked David, "Just

what DOES she put in that coffee?"

"Damned if I know," the younger man said. "But it always works. Ask my Dad!" He looked behind, to see his father emerge from the house, bearing a rifle.

Roger panted, "Sorry I'm late. I had to load the gun."

"Who did you plan to shoot, Roger?" Elliot asked.

"Well, I KNOW this won't work against my former brother-in-law, that much you've dunned into me! But the man who attacked Hallie and the other girls is still at large. Who knows where he'll turn up next?"

"All right, it's too late to put it back, and it's hardly safe to just drop it," Elliot concluded.

"What's he doing out here?" Roger asked, indicating Buzz.

"He's joined our band, and we're glad to have him," Elliot said. "He has a most valuable piece of artillery. And, now that I think about it, you will fit right in with the plans I'm making for it."

Elliot gave some instructions to Buzz and the reluctant Roger, who clung tightly to his rifle, as they mounted the Harley. "Find that tunnel door, and try to break in!"

"And watch out for green lights!" Tony shouted. He no longer sounded drunk at all.

"I know! Elizabeth told me already!" Roger yelled, as Buzz fired up the engines, and zoomed down the road.

Elliot lead the others down the path to the lookout point between the Great House and the Old House. In single file, he, David, and Tony trooped down to the Henderson house.

"No green lights, yet," Tony observed.

"Either Nicholas is extremely distracted, or something's lurking," Elliot said. "I'd bet on the latter--- What!" he shouted.

David had stopped dead in his tracks. "I see--- I see her," he whispered fearfully.

"Who do you see, David?" Elliot asked. "Not Anissa, surely. Her spirit's quite busy at the hospital now, trying to destroy your God-daughter."

"No," the shivering teenager said. "I see my mother. . . She's--she's burning!" His "special" mother stood before him, writhing in agony, as flames licked at the robe he remembered she wore when she--when she DIED! He remembered everything now! She WAS dead! Well, not yet. There was still a chance to save her, even though her blistered flesh was starting to char and flake from her outstretched arms. "Can't you see her? She's crying to me! She's in pain! I have to--to save her!" David perspired so heavily, the sheen on his face was visible in the moonlight. "Vicky stopped me from saving her before---NO! I HATE HER! SHE LET MY MOTHER DIE!" He sank to his knees, and wept brokenly. "Mother. . . she let you die. . ."

Elliot said, soothingly, "David, this isn't the time to experience a buried memory! It's an ILLUSION! And you didn't hate Vicky Winters for saving you that time! Your mother was trying to kill you!" He shook the young man's shoulders. "Dear God, I wish Roger was with us, after all. He could tell you all about your mother---"

"And his stepmother," Tony said. "She's here. Cassandra." There

was something wrong with Cassandra. Her glossy black hair had turned white, and her bright ocean-blue eyes peered from rheumy sockets sunk in a wrinkled visage. Her arms, once so welcoming to him, were shaking as she reached for him. She, too, was crying. "Why can't you see her?"

"THIS IS FALSE!" Elliot yelled. A wailing noise now caught his attention. He turned to his right. Two figures, male and female, horribly burned and mangled, clawed at the air with handless arms. They approached him on footless legs. An ear was missing from the man's head. The woman's nose and one eye were gone, leaving gaping, bloody holes. "Herbert. . . Emily. . ." Elliot whimpered, recognizing his brother and sister-in-law, as they must have appeared after their plane crash. He had never actually viewed their remains; the bodies, identified by dental records, were already sealed in their caskets before their arrival back in Collinsport.

"We want to see our baby!" the Emily figure demanded shrilly.

"We know where she is! We are going to see her!"

"And you can't stop us, you HEATHEN!" Herbert shouted spitefully.

"You can't raise her to be a heathen too!"

"NO!" Elliot screamed. "You CAN'T see Hallie as