Subj: DS Mirror/Mirror Chapter 2
Date: 11/25/98 5:37:01 PM Central Standard Time
From: erulon

Quentin had no idea then how much he would regret it-had no idea it would cost him the ability to see his loved ones because to touch them would mean death. Until he was cured he couldn't risk coming near any of them. "I don't know how much more of this I can stand Barnabas," Quentin said, hitting the wall again with his fist. He wore gloves all the time now even though he still would not bring himself to touch anyone again until-if-they came up with a cure for this affliction. So far, there'd been no real progress.

"You mustn't give up hope, Quentin," Barnabas said, trying to sound encouraging.

"Hope is all I have after killing my grandfather and my aunt."

"That wasn't you, Quentin-we know that."

It was hard not to feel guilty about it though-not discovering the nature of Vicki's curse on him until after he'd killed three people. The first was an innocent kiss on the cheek of his beloved Aunt Cassandra, who'd been helping Marissa in the hothouse. Marissa herself-thank God-had been on her knees and up to her elbows in dirt. "Oh, no, you don't want to get this all over your suit, darling! Go to your meeting!" She blew him a kiss with her lips and he pretended to catch it. There had been a hysterical call from Marissa later that morning.

"Cassandra's had a heart attack! The ambulance has just left with her! Meet us at Collinsport Hospital." Stunned, he'd gotten up from his desk and gone to his grandfather's office to tell him. Old Jamison was shocked at the news as well. "How can that be? She was so young!" He'd gotten up and staggered a little. Quentin rushed forward to support the old man, who began to thank him and then clutched at his chest. He collapsed in Quentin's arms.

Frightened, Quentin lowered him to the ground. He got up and ran into the outer office, calling to Jamison's secretary: "Call an ambulance! I think my grandfather's had a heart attack!"

He paced the office waiting those seemingly long minutes for the ambulance to arrive, unable to grasp any of it. The paramedics hurried in with their stretcher, checking Jamison, placing an oxygen mask over his face and then placing him on the stretcher to take him away. Bill Malloy, still the plant manager after all these years, had followed the paramedics into Jamison's office. He and Jamison had been close friends for years. He was distraught as the paramedics wheeled Jamison out.

Quentin stopped to talk to him. "Don't worry," he assured the old man. "They'll take good care of him. I'll call from the hospital and let you know how he is."

"Thank you, Mr. Collins, I'd appreciate it." The old man reached out and grasped Quentin's hand. The paramedics were already on their way to the ambulance. Quentin was following when the secretary gasped and cried out. Turning back, he saw Malloy slowly sinking to the floor. Wait a damn minute...Quentin thought...what is this? The secretary was bending over Malloy's prostrate from. Quentin shouted out for the paramedics, one of whom raced back.

"What the hell?" the paramedic exclaimed. He bent over Malloy, doing a quick examination. "Good Lord! Same thing as Mr. Collins-he's got an erratic pulse, too!"

The phone began ringing. Quentin stood stock still, too stunned to move, feeling as if he was in the middle of a nightmare. He had a bad feeling about that phone call...The secretary eventually got up from the floor to answer it. "Yes, he's here. Who is calling?" A shocked look crossed her face. "It's your wife, Mr. Collins..."

No, not Marissa, too, Quentin thought, anguished, reaching for the phone. He took it from the secretary, instinctively avoiding touching her hand. "Hello, Marissa?"

"No, darling, this is your real wife," he heard Victoria purr at the end of the line. "Aren't you sorry you lost me now?"

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. This was insane! What was she doing calling him in the middle of this mad nightmare? "You lost me, you bitch! I told you not to let the door hit you on the way out!"

"It didn't. And that's witch, not bitch. When you've decided that you are sorry enough, you'll come back to me. You'll know how to reach me, Quentin. Until then, I wouldn't touch anyone else if I were you."

"What?" he roared. "What have you done?"

"Give your precious Marissa a kiss. Caress her breast. You'll see!"

Vicki laughed maliciously. Then her voice turned hard. "But don't you dare hug or kiss David, do you hear me, Quentin?" She laughed again. "When you've had enough, call me and I'll come to you." She hung up in his ear.

The room began spinning but he managed to keep his balance. He couldn't risk the secretary or one of the paramedics touching him, too...

"I'll drive myself," he heard himself saying to the paramedic. He drove to Cyrus' home instead. His friend Cyrus Longworth was a brilliant physician who turned his skills to research. His hobby was paranormal research. He and Cyrus had been friends for years, ever since they were boys. Quentin had been no one special then; he hadn't claimed his birthright as a Collins yet. Quentin banged on Cyrus' door, extremely agitated.

Cyrus came to the door, looking disheveled and ungroomed. That was Cyrus. He was totally the absent-minded professor. "Quentin!" He could see something was wrong. He didn't need to ask. He pulled the door open all the way and moved aside to admit his friend. The inside of the house looked as messy as Cyrus did. Once inside, Quentin blurted out the story. "Help me!" He begged his friend.

"Quentin-it can't be! It's got to be a coincidence! You've got to calm down!" Cyrus exclaimed.

"Is it?" Frantically, Quentin looked around the room. Cyrus kept a number of animals for his experiments. He cared for them lovingly although he conducted the most bizarre types of experiments on them. The animals lived in comfort in tanks lined with soft cedar chips. They always had plenty of food and water. Cyrus had even made wooden runways for them to "amuse" themselves. Quentin went to one of the tanks holding the gerbils. He reached inside and picked up one of the small rodents, cupping it in his hands. "I can feel it, Cy," Quentin whispered. It felt as if a current was passing from his hand to the rodent. It quivered and then rolled over onto the palm of one hand.

"Oh, my God," Cyrus muttered. He started to reach for the animal.

"No, you fool! Don't touch me!" Quentin shouted. Cyrus pulled his hand back. Quentin put the animal down on the counter. He reached into the tank for another one as Cyrus picked up the body of the first gerbil. When the second body had quivered its last, Cyrus looked at Quentin with real fear in his eyes. "What am I going to do? My grandfather and my Aunt Cassandra are in the emergency room!"

"Let me think," Cyrus muttered, his eyes wide with shock. Already though, his curiosity was beginning to take hold. "I'll autopsy the animals and see what killed them."

"How long will that take? What am I to do?"

"I don't know, Quentin. You're going to have to stay here. There must be something you can say..." He snapped his fingers. "I have it! Julia can help!"

"Julia?" Quentin repeated incredulously. Julia Hoffman was his Cousin Barnabas' doctor.

"Ah, Quentin, there's much you don't know about Julia. We're both interested in paranormal research, and we've...helped each other before. Trust me."

There was nothing else he could do. Cyrus made two calls. Too stunned to listen to the entire conversation, Quentin heard him call Julia first and then the Collinsport Hospital. His friend approached him and then stopped within two feet of him. He put two heavy workman's gloves on the table. "Put these on, Quentin, would you?" As he pulled the gloves on, he listened as his friend continued, "Julia believes that Victoria did, indeed, put some kind of curse on you. Since it has to do with touching, you mustn't touch anything or anyone else. We have to determine what exactly has happened to you."

"What about my family?" Quentin cried, distraught.

Cyrus held up a hand to calm him. "Dr. Hoffman is making arrangements for the hospital to admit you with a rare illness-Legionnaire's Disease-very contagious. You'd have to be isolated."

"What?"

"Obviously, it's an untruth-it's a cover so that your family can't see you now. It's a reason why you can't see your family members. Only Dr. Hoffman will be able to get in and out of your room. Don't worry-this will work. I'll drive you there now."

He didn't have to put on a very convincing act. Cyrus took him into the hospital from a side entrance. They bypassed the emergency room and went directly to a private hospital room. Julia met them there.

"Nurses will come in to bring your meals, but they'll be completely gowned and masked. They won't take any vitals-they will be instructed that only Dr. Longworth or I will do that. They won't touch you, don't worry."

"I need to know about my aunt and my grandfather," Quentin said, distraught.

Julia looked at him with compassion in her eyes. "It's too soon to tell," she said softly.

He knew it then. They were dead-all of them. Aunt Cassandra, his grandfather, and Malloy. He fought back tears of terror and grief, asking thickly, "Marissa?"

"She's all right, Quentin. She's here, with your mother, the children-you understand, though, you can't see her." He nodded. "I will tell her that you're resting comfortably and are expected to recover. Hopefully, by then, we'll understand what's happened."

That had been three months ago. Cyrus had been able to determine that the two gerbils died of heart attacks. The same had been determined in the cases of Cassandra and Jamison Collins, and of Bill Malloy. Cyrus and Julia conspired to manipulate the medical records to show that the arythmias causing the heart attacks of Jamison Collins and Bill Malloy had been due to complications arising from Legionnaire's Disease.

Together they wrote a report for the CDC in Atlanta reporting that the contamination stemmed from a heating and air conditioning filter which had been immediately replaced. There were no other deaths. Quentin Collins recovered completely but was called away on urgent business before he got home from the hospital. The call he'd made to Marissa explaining why he was going to the airport and not home had been made from this room that had become his prison
cell.

Now he looked Barnabas in the face. He'd learned so much from his cousin these last few months about curses and suffering and what Barnabas himself had been through because of the jealous love of a woman. "I won't call her back, Barnabas," he swore. "If I do, it'll be to strangle her with my bare hands!" Barnabas nodded with compassion, unable to put his arms around the younger man to comfort him.

Marissa hung up the phone and sighed. She missed Quentin terribly. It was more than just the physical side of their relationship she missed. It was also the warm looks that passed between them, the easy going teasing, and the feel of his fingers caressing her face. She missed the warmth of his body at night and the tousled look of his hair sticking up all over in the morning before he woke. She missed his help with the twins. She missed his friendship.

Elizabeth came into the room and saw Marissa fighting back the tears. "Oh, dear, I know this separation is so hard for you," she said with compassion, putting her arms around her daughter-in-law. "I wish there was something more I could do. I miss him, too." For most of her life, Elizabeth had ached for the baby she had born out of wedlock. When he came back into her life, a young man, she had thought her heart would break with joy. She missed him, too. She mourned her father and her devoted sister-in-law, and felt the loss all the more because her son had been away for so long. It's almost like he died, too, Elizabeth thought. She was shocked at that and quickly put it out of her mind. What an awful thing! It must be the stress...

The train pulled into the Collinsport Station, and a single man got off the train with his bags. He paused for a moment and then crossed the street to the Collinsport Inn. Although he was not exceptionally tall or powerful looking, he had an aura of danger about him and people give him a wide berth. He grinned sardonically. It was the same where ever he went. He seemed to exude extraordinary power from his every pore.

He enjoyed the surge of control he felt from intimidating others. He strolled into the Inn and set his bags down. The clerk lazed behind the counter, half-asleep in his chair. He looked up irritably when the man rang the bell. As soon as the clerk met the man's eyes, he leaped to his feet.

"May I help you, sir?" the clerk asked in a fawning tone. "A room, please."

"Yes, sir! Please sign the ledger, if you would, sir."

The man pulled the ledger toward him and signed with a flourish, pushing the ledger back at the clerk. "I want a room with a view of the street."

"Yes, sir, Mr..." the clerk looked down at the ledger. He finished: "Trask. How long will you be staying, Mr. Trask?"

"Until I have finished my business, of course," Claudius Trask smiled craftily and coldly at the clerk, chilling his blood. "I have much business here that has been left -- undone." The time has come to complete it-now, he thought.