10

Back at Eagle Hill, Sam Beckett was in the mausoleum helping Stokes put the chains on Barnabus's tomb. Joshua held the lantern close to his face and cast an eerie glow on the spectacle over the clandestine subterfuge. Barnabas Collins was in the tomb and in Sam’s mind he was laying it out ready for Willie Loomis to find it in the future.

"Thank you, Mr. Bradford." Joshua spoke. "You're one of the few most trustworthy individuals I've ever met. You'll be repaid for this trust."

"That's not necessary, sir." Sam beamed with humility and turned on his heel. Headed out of the crypt, he stopped and paused before it realizing what it looked like in 1967 when Willie Loomis would be here to open it. Al was outside as well waiting for the closure.

"You should have killed him." Al told him.

"I'm not getting into this whole vampire thing, but somehow, someway, his destiny is in the Twentieth Century." Sam replied. "I can't explain exactly what is going on here, but, I know he can get cured there and have a normal life.” He paused. “Why haven't I leaped?"

"Let's see," Al raised the comlink. "Ziggy can't get a lock on Vicki. Gooshie says she's back in 1967. This is interesting... she marries Peter Bradford in 1968, but their son is born in 1801."

"She comes back?"

"Apparently." Al puffed on his cigar. "Can't get a lock on Trask either. He's missing. Joshua Collins raises his last surviving son Daniel alone and he has three children: Josette Collins in 1810, Quentin Collins in 1812 and Gabriel Collins in 1814..........." There was a record in the comlink about another Barnabas Collins in 1840 and another with Gabriel’s heirs in 1897. Was it another descendant, or was Barnabas released and imprisoned two more times?

"Well," Sam talked out loud as he and Al wandered down the hill from the mausoleum. "If Vicki's safe, Trask is gone and Barnabus's future is preserved, why haven't I leaped?"

"Because I'm keeping you here, Dr. Beckett." A figure emerged out of the shadow of the caretaker's cottage. She was tall and blonde and very beautiful. She wore a very modern mink wrap and tailored clothes foreign to this century.

"Sam,” Al looked at his comlink. “This is Angelique Bouchard.......... She’s the witch…"

"But, I thought you said she was dead."

"Very astute, Admiral Kalavicci." A Martinique accent bounced on her words. “Former witch, however…” A proud grin formed on her lips.

"You know who I...” Sam stopped where he was as her royal blue eyes scanned over him. “You can see him ?"

"Of course," Angelique grinned in Al's direction as she took Sam's arm to escort her. "When Barnabas finally accepted me as his wife and took my hand in marriage in 1971, I promised him any gift in the world in addition to my everlasting love and devotion. When he asked that I save Josette, I balked and we finally settled on fair Mrs. Winters. That's why I leaped you into Bradford, and myself into my counterpart in this time. Otherwise, my counterpart in this time would have killed you the second you arrived."

"You still going to kill me?" Sam asked. Angelique giggled as if she were amused by these misunderstandings.

"I'm not the person I was once in this time." Angelique smiled. "The sinking of the Titanic taught me that. Yes, I lived through that too.” She gazed deeply upon Sam rapturously as if she were forcing him to fall in love with her. “When you leap, you will take Peter Bradford with you to rendezvous with Vicki in the future, and without you, he and Vicki will fall in love as they are meant to, and they will once again return to meet their destinies here in the past. Good bye, Dr. Beckett."

Angelique watched the brilliant flash of light envelope Sam, and then Al standing by him, but instead of leaving Bradford behind to ponder what he was doing here, they all vanished. Al just winked out as well when his link was severed. Angelique looked up to the mausoleum on the hill.

"My dearest Barnabas," she replied. "Selfish, I may be... Cruel and cold perhaps... but I was never evil." She spoke from her heart. "If a woman's heart drives her to do strange things, let it be know that all I did, was for love." She paused looking out over these events from her past. "Dinner will be on the table for you and our babies as I return to our time."

END