Subj: Redemption/3
Date: 1/28/99 8:41:17 PM Central Standard Time
From: Daphne

Part Three

“Honestly now, safety’s just danger...out of place.” Harry Connick Jr.

3:12 a.m.

Julia was running down the corridor this time, finally reaching the door which had once seemed so far in the distance. Stopping to catch her breath, a sharp pang of fear seized her and was just as suddenly gone, to be replaced with intense curiosity as she wondered just what exactly she was supposed to be doing there. Reaching for the doorknob, Julia was startled when the massive wooden door swung open on its own, as though pushed by an invisible hand, and it creaked loudly on rusted hinges. Pausing for a brief moment, Julia wondered if she really wanted to know what was going on behind the door, but she stepped across the threshold anyway into a room that was reminiscent of the family crypt in the mausoleum. The air was stale and oppressive, as though the room had been sealed for a very long time, and pale moonlight filtered in through a small, dirty window, violently stabbing through the glass. When her eyes adjusted to the light, Julia could see the silhouette of a solitary coffin in the center of the room and was at a loss to understand what she was seeing---what did this mean? Certainly it couldn’t have anything to do with Barnabas... she’d known his secret for five years now. What else could there be for her to learn about him? Walking slowly across the room, she chided herself for thinking that this had anything at all to do with him; there were other members of the family she cared about, and they all had been in some sort of trouble at one time or another. Any of them could be in the danger that this place seemed to symbolize. Julia’s uncertain steps were brought to a halt as she tripped on an unseen obstacle and almost fell. Swearing, she knelt and put her hands out in front of her, letting them brush along the floor to see what her eyes could not. It was an eternity of unbearable seconds before the icy touch of metal whispered against her skin and she shivered as she grasped the object in her hand. As she stood, the moonlight viciously glinted into the room, making it clear just exactly what Julia had found.

“Oh my God, what in the hell is this doing here?” It was her gun, the revolver she’d gotten shortly after her arrival in
Collinsport...the one she had planned to use against Barnabas if his threats had ever gotten out of control. It had been difficult to ask the shop owner to make silver bullets for her, and next to impossible to dodge the man’s nosy questions, but Julia had been afraid of Barnabas’ temper and in those early days, she could have pulled the trigger without thinking twice about it. And now, after five years? She would have given her life to protect him, and even though she had never noticed exactly when her feelings had changed, Julia had known for a long time that she loved him. It didn’t matter that they could only be friends. She’d carefully hidden the gun when she decided that she could trust Barnabas, only keeping it in case some awful tragedy required her to use it, and she didn’t think anyone had ever seen it. She had almost forgotten about it herself and wondered who might have found it; absently dropping the gun, she turned to the coffin thinking it perhaps held the answer and she opened it to find Barnabas there.

“But you shouldn’t be here, not at this time of night,” Julia whispered, unable to think of a reason why he would still be there. Almost immediately, she found the answer when she noticed the hole in his shirt, just above the collarbone, the mark of a silver bullet that nobody else would have seen. If he had been human, a cherry-red bloodstain would have fanned out across his chest like a fiery blossom of death, but he had not been human for nearly 200 years. The wound actually was nothing more than a slight puncture...the real damage had come from the poisonous silver which had turned his body against itself.

“I’m sorry, Barnabas...I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed me...” Julia apologized, trying to figure out who had done this to him, and what forces had brought her to him when it was clear that she could no longer help him. Reaching down to brush a stray lock of hair from his face, Julia paused to caress his cheek, the gesture evoking memories of the way he had touched her on New Year’s Eve. He had been so gentle and forgiving, and for a moment, she had seen such love in his eyes that she’d almost convinced herself that this year they would find their way to each other. Now she would never know if that love had been real or merely an extension of the fantasies that had only been fulfilled in her dreams, and that realization brought blinding tears to her eyes which she could no longer hold back; Julia was so consumed by her pain that she never noticed that Barnabas was still slowly breathing and when he suddenly opened his eyes, she gasped and tried to pull her hand away from him. Even though his life-force was fading, Barnabas still possessed lightning-quick reflexes and he brutally grabbed her wrist to push her away from him.

“Get away from me! I don’t want you here...” His voice was hushed, almost as silent as death itself, but it conveyed enough anger that Julia was terrified of him.

“Barnabas, please let go of me. I can help you if you just let go of me.” Julia cried, tears of pain replacing the ones of loss which she had shed only moments before.

"I don’t want your help,” he snarled, “ not after what you did to me!”

“What I did to you? How could I hurt you? I love you!” Julia reached out to take his hand in a gesture of reassurance, and as she did so, his skin began to melt beneath her touch. Paralyzed by fear and disgust, she could only watch in silent horror as Barnabas’ flesh oozed away in puddles until nothing was left of him but a charred skeleton. Julia barely had enough time to contemplate the bizarre reality of her surroundings before she noticed that a thick gray fog had begun to permeate the room; turning from the coffin, she screamed as a figure appeared in the mist, taking the form of a being she’d hoped to never again encounter.

"Why Julia, what's wrong? Did I frighten you?" Angelique taunted as she stepped from the haze, a spectral bird of prey in search of its latest victim. Approaching the coffin, she looked inside, a smile of triumph coldly etched into her features; anyone else would have been repulsed by what they found there, but Angelique waspleased that her plan was working so perfectly. Soon Barnabas would be hers for eternity! She closed the lid and turned to tell her nemesis just what would be expected of her in the hours of the coming day, realizing that Julia would try to resist her. It wouldn't matter though. She'd had 130 years to perfect her newfound powers, and this time nothing would stop her.

"What are you doing here Angelique?" Julia whispered, the sudden adreneline rush choking her voice in her throat.

"Isn't it rather obvious? I'm here to get what I've always wanted, and you're going to help me get it."

The threat to Barnabas was barely a veiled one and Julia's fear was replaced with the anger and resentment she'd felt for Angelique since first learning of the ancient witch's evil powers. She could remember so clearly the night that Barnabas had taken her into his confidence and told her of the terrible tragedy that had befallen his family two centuries earlier. He had come to her on that night, as he had on so many others that had come before, to see if she'd made any progress in finding a cure for his curse. The thruth had wrapped around them in a shroud of silence as he contemplated her admission that she had merely discovered which of his cells were diseased and hadn't found a cure yet; finally, after a few tense moments in the drawing room, he had asked her to take a walk with him and the silence had followed them into the night. It wasn't until they reached a rusy iron gate that Julia had realized where he was taking her and she felt almost as if she were intruding upon his pain by being there at the mausoleum with him. When Barnabas pushed open the gate and entered the grounds, he had taken her hand in his and told her: "They would have loved you for caring about me. I want you to know my family, Julia." Then he'd led her into the crypt and in the half-light of the moon, she had read the names of three people she'd come to care greatly about, even though they had died over a century before her birth: Joshua Collins, 1750-1805; Naomi Collins, 1753-1795; Sarah Collins 1785-1795. He had spoken in a hushed, reverent voice about all of them, his suffering evident as the tragic story of the Collins family's downfall wove itself into the night. She had vowed then to put an end to Angelique's evil reign, regardless of the price she had to pay to do so.

"Just what makes you think I'll help you?" Julia snapped, angry that Angelique was once again testing her loyalty to Barnabas.

"Julia why do you waste my time with such simple-minded questions? After my death there was a trial of sorts, one that would determine my fate for eternity. The forces of Darkness didn't approve of how I helped Quentin and Desmond-they thought the path I was taking was leading away from them. Of course, the forces of Light didn't accept me either because they knew that I would have used my powers to get what I wanted if Judah hadn't taken them from me. I was condemned to an eternity in what you could call purgatory, and I'm sure you can see my dilemma. I want to be with Barnabas, but I can't return to him as I have before. The only alternative is for him to die and join me. I can assure you that he has committed enough sins to be considered an outcast and that he will enter purgatory as well. Fortunately, I do have control of the one power that all spirits have. The power to possess mortals for their own purposes....and that, my dear Julia is the reason why you have no choice but to do my bidding."

The idea that anyone could invade her mind and use her thoughts against her repulsed and frightened Julia, but letting her fear take control of her would only give Angelique the upper hand. To truly protect Barnabas, she had to remain strong-he deserved no less than that from her. Squaring her shoulders, Julia turned away from her adversary, determined not to let Angelique read her emotions any further.

"Well I don't care what excuses you think you have, Angelique, I won't let you use me to harm Barnabas. This is just some pathetic dream that you hope will keep me from trying to heal him, but I won't fall for your parlor tricks this time. I'm only asleep. I can wake up any time I want to."

"Oh really?" Angelique taunted, "You really think escaping me is that simple? Very well. Since you're so convinced that this isn't really happening, you can always leave the way you came in. Go ahead. If the door led you here from your living realm, you should be able to open it and return there."

Julia crossed the room as confidently as she could in the near-complete darkness and she defiantly grasped the doorknob, subconsiously willing the door to open. This isn't real-it's only a dream, she told herself, repeating the mantra as if the mere thought of the door creaking open would bring the image into reality. the doorknob refused to move, however, and Julia felt weak with panic as she realized that Angelique had created something far worse than her usual dream curse. "Oh no..."

"Oh yes, Julia," Angelique smirked. "This is very real. In a few moments you will enter a sleep that is far deeper than that of death itself. When you awaken, you'll remember nothing of our encounter, but I shall still be with you. I will make certain that you can think of nothin but the pain Barnabas has caused you because he doesn't love you...and together we will destroy him.

Suddenly feeling more exhuasted than she ever had, Julia felt herself collapse under the weight of the death-sleep, and the last sound she heard was a chorus of satanic demons raising their voices in praise of Angelique...

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production