Subj: In The Shadows Of Hell's Gate-chapter 2
Date: 4/26/02 2:03:34 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Julianka

"Just a little pinch now." Warned Julia.

"OUCH!" Quentin exclaimed.

"Don't be such a baby." Julia finished drawing a vial of blood from Quentin's arm, removed the needle, placed a cotton ball and bent his arm to hold it in place. She reached to the counter and removed a band-aid to replace the cottonball. But in the few seconds she took to do that and remove the cottonball, the small puncture had stopped bleeding and begun to seal itself.

"The portrait strikes again." Joked Quentin.

"It's amazing. I wish I could figure out how it works." Julia replied thoughtfully. "Anyway, just sit there and don't roll down your sleeve until it finishes healing. No sense in ruining a good shirt."

"The ever practical Dr. Hoffman." Quentin teased. He watched Julia work for a few minutes, preparing a slide and adjusting the microscope.

Julia was once again at work trying to find a cure to Quentin's werewolf curse. She still felt guilty for not being able to help Chris Jennings. After his and Sabrina's death, Julia vowed to herself, she would find a cure for Quentin and by extension Amy. So that she wouldn't pass on the curse to her sons.

"You know, I'll never get use to the changes here." Quentin wasn't surprised when Julia's only answer was a distracted mumble.

He looked around the room. The basement of the Old House had been reborn. No longer the musty, dark sanctuary where Barnabas housed his coffin. Now the walls were painted a creamy white. The floor scrubbed to hospital cleanliness. One corner had been fitted up as an office. With a roll top desk, matching wood file cabinet and bookcase that housed Julia's medical reference library. Boston ferns in brass pots graced the cabinet and bookcase tops. A thick rug made up in muted shades of red, blue and gold covered that area of the floor. The opposite corner had been done as an examining area, complete with screens that could be pulled out for privacy. While the largest part of the room was used as a laboratory. Stainless steel counter tops and sinks. Test tubes in their racks, cabinets for supplies and medical paraphernaila. Different work stations geared for specific tasks, such as the one Julia was working at at that moment using the microscope. The whole place was brightly lit, which was the most amazing part.

"You know Julia, great as it is to have our own private mad scientist to work on these annoying curses, how can you stand ........well...you know?" Quentin indicated the upstairs occupants with a roll of his eyes to the ceiling.

Julia looked up over the eye pieces of the mircoscope at him. "What you mean is how can I work here with Angelique as
lady of the house?"

Quentin replied, "Very succinctly put."

"Angelique and I have made our own separate peace." She then simply stated, "Barnabas loves her."

Quentin knew that was as much as he was going to get out of her, so he changed the subject. "You'll be here tomorrow night when my friends arrive, right?"

Julia hung up her lab coat on a peg by the stairs and then washed her hands. "I wouldn't miss it. Eight o'clock, right?"

"More like 8:30. Eight's when their train comes in. I'll pick them up at the station and bring them straight here."

"It's passed lunch time and I'm hungry. Tell you what, let me treat you to lunch and you can tell me all about them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A half hour later Julia pulled her car into the Mug 'n Bun rootbeer stand.

"This is the last place I would have thought you'd pick Julia." Quentin laughed.

"Don't be a snob. This is the ultimate comfort food. Homemade rootbeer in frosted mugs, deluxe hamburgers, handdipped
onion rings and crispy french fries. Just you wait until you taste it. It's the best." She smiled at him. "Besides there's no danger of eavesdroppers, because we are eating in the car, unlike the Blue Whale or the coffee shop."

"Or Mrs. Johnson at Collinwood." He added.

"So..." Julia prodded him. "You said you'll tell me about your friends."

"Oh yes. I meet Larry Talbot and Maleva Ouspenskaye in a little village in Rumania, not far from Bucharest. It was 1937, I was trying to track down a cure. I knew as soon as I saw him that he suffered under the same thing I did."

"How was he afflicted?" Julia asked.

"To make a long story short, it happened like this. See he was the second son of an English Lord. There was bad blood between him and his older brother, so he was send to live with relatives in America. After his brother died in a hunting accident, his father called him home. His first day back he meet a beautiful girl and talked her into visiting a gypsy camp, to have their fortunes told. She brought along another girl, who may have started all Larry's troubles in a way. This girl picked a bouquet of wolf's bane. You know that old saying about wolf's bane?"

"No, what is it?"

"Even a man who is pure of heart
and says his prays by night,
may become a wolf
when the wolf's bane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright."

"I remember that. I came across that in my research. You mean to say this Larry Talbot became a werewolf from being around wolf's bane?"

"No. The wolf's bane and the moon did the trick for Bela, who was Malvea's son. I don't know for sure, but there may have been some family history of lycanthropes. Anyway Bela killed the girl after he transformed and Larry went to her aid. He was bitten. Malvea helped him and they traveled around much as I was doing, looking for a cure."

"That's some story! I'll be very interested to meet Larry and Malvea."

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.