To Natalie On Her Twenty-Seventh Birthday

April 1989

"Another quiet birthday, Nat," she told herself, changing into her scrubs in the morgue locker room. Another month and she would be up for review and full hire as a medical examiner, rather than just an elevated morgue technician.

She shivered; something didn’t feel right. It was if she knew something was about to happen, something strange and almost dangerous, but try as she might, she couldn’t think of what it was. All she knew was that it was her birthday, and once again she was alone.

Other birthdays hadn’t been so bad – last year she’d been with Richard and Amy and their little girl, Sarah. And the year before that, some of the other internists at the hospital had thrown a little party for her in the locker room. John Roca had given her a kiss, but nothing more had ever come of it.

She sighed as she entered the examination room. A body was already there, a large lump on the gurney under the sheet. Dr. Haakonson was already there, stripping his gloves from his hands. "Hello, Natalie," he said as she walked in.

"Sir," she replied. She finished tying the bow of her apron behind her neck.

"Why don’t you take this one on your own? I’ve done a rudimentary examination and I think it’s pretty self-explanatory." Dr. Haakonson had been this doing more and more; he was up for retirement, and if she was hired, she would fill the hole he would leave in the coroner’s office staff. "I’ll be in the office down the hall if anything unusual comes up." He handed her a clipboard that already had some writing on the pages. "It’s a male, between forty and sixty, no identification. He’d be in excellent physical condition if it hadn’t been for the car accident."

Natalie grimaced. "Car accident?" she asked.

Dr. Haakonson nodded. "Hit by a delivery truck going fifty miles an hour in a twenty-five zone in the warehouse district earlier this evening. Not sure what the guy was doing in the middle of the street like that, but... Well, I’ll let you take over here. Don’t get nervous; you know you have my vote next month," he added with a kind smile. She returned the smile; he had been a fatherly presence in the months she’d worked there, and she’d learned a lot from him.

Natalie watched him leave and then made her way to the gurney, slipping on her gloves as she went. The room felt cold. She pulled back the sheet and looked at the man’s face. He had a large nose and a strong-looking jawline. His hair was short, almost military in cut, and very, very pale in strong contrast to his eyebrows. His eyes were pale blue –

And they were looking right at her.

He wasn’t dead.

The corpse grinned as Natalie’s eyes grew wide in surprise and fear. His hand shot out, grabbing her by the arm, and then he sat up, pulling the sheet around him like a toga. "Don’t be afraid, doctor," he said in a mesmerizing tone. The faint English accent caught her by surprise and his voice drew her in more closely. "It won’t hurt a bit."

She should have expected the fangs.

 

Dr. Haakonson woke hours later to discover he had fallen asleep while finishing the report on the unidentified male car accident victim. There was a lingering thought that young Natalie Lambert should have done the post on him, but then he shook his head. Of course Natalie wouldn’t have been doing it. She’d taken the week off – a birthday cruise with some of her friends from her undergraduate days. He sighed and then signed off on the report. Pretty straightforward – massive trauma to the torso, consistent with being hit with a panel truck. No other suspicious trauma or chemical traces. He made a copy to be sent to missing persons for a check – but something told him not to expect any matches.

He smiled, thinking of how good a coroner Natalie was proving to be. She would be excellent for the permanent night shift when she returned.

 

April 1990

Yet another birthday in the morgue. Natalie Lambert slowly unzipped the body bag, debating what she would do when she got off duty in a few hours. Instead of finding a corpse damaged beyond all recognition, she found herself looking at a handsome, if soiled, young man with dark blonde hair. There was something familiar about him, she told herself, and stood back for a moment, contemplating the situation.

When she heard and saw what she expected, she smiled and moved over to the refrigerated supply cabinet on the other side of the room, selecting two bags. Turning around, she saw the last of the wounds to his face heal. Her grin grew as the man sat up suddenly and turned towards her with surprise on his face, showing his yellow eyes and his fangs. "Who are you?" he asked, clearly confused by the situation.

She gave a little laugh and tossed one of the bags to him. "Natalie Lambert, medical examiner for the city of Toronto. And your ticket out of here undetected."

He frowned, catching the bag of blood, but soon bit into it and began to drink.

Natalie watched him and then stepped forward as he finished, his eyes and teeth returning to normal, and handed him the second bag. "Thank you," he said.

"You’re welcome, Nicholas," she said. At his startled look, she continued. "You are Nicolas de Brabant, aren’t you?" Natalie asked. He nodded. "I thought you looked familiar," she told him. "Welcome to Toronto, my friend."

"Friend?" he said in a puzzled tone.

She winked at him. "Rumor has it you want to be a cop again. Try over at the 27^th precinct. The captain over there is relatively easy to whammy if you know what you’re doing, but be careful of the day shift guys. One of them always smells horribly of garlic." She shuddered, thinking of that particular detective. "And I have to work with the guy on a regular basis. It would almost be worth it to plant a sudden aversion to souvlaki in him."

Nicholas frowned again. "Why are you helping me? If you know who I am, then you know how much of an outcast I am."

Natalie turned from the garbage, where she’d tossed her now-unnecessary gloves. "Why not?" she said. "Besides, you should always help family." She walked up to him and ran her hand down his sooty cheek before giving him a kiss.

He responded, pulling away only when his eyes began to yellow again and she could feel his fangs in the kiss. "Family?" he said.

She nodded, showing her own fangs with her smile. "LaCroix says hi."

[finis]