Previously, on Forever Knight..

...The scene investigation continued about as well as he expected. Schanke made sarcastic comments at every turn. The assistant curator hadn’t seen anything. The only thing missing from the exhibit was a jade cup, used in a blood ceremony...
..."Have you ever noticed how you can take a simple thing like, oh, say, drinking tea, and turn it into this gigantic theatrical production?"
"I don’t see you trying your concoctions and potions, Natalie," he said.
"I’m not the one trying to become mortal again, Nicholas," she reminded him...
..."Wounds this size are not consistent with the amount of blood he lost. Two neat little holes." She suddenly turned serious. "Is this something I should be worrying about?"
..."The bodies of the Indian workers would be found the next morning completely drained of blood. It was only natural that the Indians believed that there were vampires in their midst..."
..."What happened last night, Nicholas?"
He was hesitant to answer, but knew that she could tell if he lied. "I kissed her."
"And?"
"And then I nearly killed her," he told her. "Ever kissed a mortal, Natalie? Hm? Felt the heat in their lips? There’s a reason why we don’t mix well with mortals. I’m sure you understand that much."
"Nicholas," she said softly. "Don't you think it's time we talked about some things?"
..."I want to know where he is, Janette."
"He hasn't been making these kills, if that's what you think. Nowadays nobody is that stupid."
Nick couldn’t let it drop. "Where is he?" he asked forcefully.
"I’d be careful, if I were you," she warned him. "Both of you," she added, looking at Natalie. She turned back to Nick. "He’s very disappointed in you, Nicolas..."
...Music. Anything. Something to distract him. Any music would do. He flipped on the radio and started trying stations –
//The Night Crawler, bringing you a little lead on CERK, metal for the ages. Three weeks in this town, and I still haven't seen my old friend. This next song is dedicated to you, Nicholas...my brother...my child.//
It was LaCroix.
He had to swerve to miss hitting the other car. Suddenly he heard it, the song LaCroix had played.
//The Night Crawler's...waiting for you...//

And now...

Dark of Knight – The Second Chapter

 

 

//Do you remember, Nicholas? Do you? That first dizziness, the rush of blood?

Why do you turn your back on it? Why do you turn away from my gifts, away from your family? Why do you seek love among them? What folly is this, my son?

I know you are thinking of me, Nicholas, but I am the one you are truly seeking, or are the old prejudices coming again to light? Is it me? Is it you? Do I have that which you so adamantly seek?

I have your answers, Nicholas. Return to me, my son.

Are you coming, Nicholas? Are you there? Are you seeking me out this very moment?

The Night Crawler’s waiting for you.//

 

There – yes, he could feel it now. He smirked at the microphone as he realized that things were finally coming together. A family reunion, with all his children, new and old, in one place once again. Oh, yes, this will be the time. I can feel you, Nicholas, and you are coming my way.

He stepped away from the soundboard and put on his long trench coat. After a moment, he bend over it again and slowly turned the volume on the instrumental track down. These modern mortal children certainly had a talent for inventive music. This one reminded him of the death-keens of Gauls, and the tattoo of the officers’ war-horses, the clanking of swords and armor in the background...

He flipped the switch on the microphone and whispered one time more, carefully enunciating each word, each syllable as if it was his native Latin, and not the vulgar modern tongue of the Northern Tribes:

//The Night Crawler’s waiting for you.//

Smiling, he switched it off again and left the studio to the preparations of the next radio host.

It was about time he had a little chat with his wayward son.

 

 

This was not the first time he had been in this part of town. As a police officer, he knew the dark alleyways and slums all too well.

What surprised him was that LaCroix seemed to have made himself at home there.

Nick sighed, closing the door to his car, and tucked his hands into his pockets. The cold didn’t affect him all that much, even in this cool weather, but at least it was something to do with his hands.

He stared up at the sign: CERK. He was in the right place, but where –

There.

He turned.

LaCroix was there.

It always amazed him that LaCroix was so unchanging. There was something about the man –

No. He’s not a man, he reminded himself.

He heard a mortal heartbeat and quick little steps about a block away, but he ignored it. In this part of town, it was probably a prostitute or a petty thief.

Figuring out what LaCroix was up to took precedence.

 

 

Wordlessly, LaCroix led him into a slaughterhouse. The smell of blood was everywhere. It didn’t matter that it was animal blood, some of it old and congealing; it was still blood, and he was still a vampire. It was a metallic, meaty scent that made him feel warm inside. And it was making him hungry.

The carcasses hung from the ceiling, gravity taking the precious fluid as gracefully as one of his kind could. Now and again he could hear the drip – drip – drip of the blood falling into a vat, like rainwater from an eave.

And there was LaCroix.

"I thought we might talk over a midnight snack." The elder vampire’s voice, eternally the same, broke the unnatural silence and echoed a little against the metal walls of the building. He drew a dipper from a barrel of blood and sipped at it.

"Where is it, LaCroix?"

LaCroix looked up, almost as if in surprise. But Nick knew better; nothing, after almost two thousand years, could surprise Lucius of Pompeii. "Is that any kind of hello?" LaCroix asked with a little smirk. "So long," he continued. "And I moved here especially for you. And of course, for Natalie. Tell me, how do you like your new sister, hm? She shows such promise, Nicholas, even if she insists on following in your footsteps and living among the mortals. She does have excellent control, especially for one so young."

Nick refused to dignify the jab with an answer.

LaCroix returned to the dipperful of blood and took another sip. "I guess it could be a...little more appetizing," he conceded and reached into his pocket.

He had been right.

LaCroix had the other cup. The jade cup.

"You look pale," his father said. "Are you sure you're not hungry?"

"All I want is the cup."

"I don't think you know what you want," LaCroix retorted angrily, dropping the dipper back into the barrel. "You never have. Immortality. Wasn't that your big wish? To live forever? To never have to wind up like this?" He whacked the pig carcass with his hand. "I gave that to you. What did I get in return? Desertion. Hatred. Contempt. Strange," he continued. "For all your wish for mortality, for humanity, for family, you are the only one who does this. Your sisters certainly do not. They have never tired of my gift."

"I couldn't kill anymore," Nick replied.

LaCroix laughed. "Who needs to kill?"

"You do."

LaCroix had the good sense to look vaguely guilty. "The guard, yes," he admitted. But not those pathetic others. Not the dregs of humanity, without any spirit to spice their blood."

"You're lying, LaCroix."

"Why would I lie?" said LaCroix indignantly. "Give me a reason. I've never been ashamed of killing."

"They were my friends."

"And what are we? We need to trust each other. We should trust each other. How long is the longest friendship? Do you trust Janette? Do you trust Natalie, hm? Am I not the same as them? Am I not father to all of you?"

"You abandoned Natalie, LaCroix," Nick whispered.

LaCroix laughed, a great booming sound that echoed. "I had business to attend to, mon fils, and entrusted her to the eldest of my children. Is that abandonment? Has Janette been a poor guardian? Tell me, Nicholas, has your sister been ill treated by her family?"

Nick closed his eyes. Like it or not, LaCroix was telling the truth about that, if nothing else. Natalie was well cared for. He swallowed. "I want the cup."

"Then come...and...get it!"

As he lunged, it was already too late – LaCroix lifted himself off the floor with greater speed than Nick had anticipated. He should have known better: LaCroix was perhaps even more determined than he, and subsisted on a diet of human blood as most of their kind did.

He should have known better.

"Feeling a little weak, are we?" his father taunted before rushing back and knocking him down to the floor, lodging a boot on his throat. The jade cup was ever in LaCroix’s hand, just out of Nick’s reach. "Is this what you want to be? A pathetic mortal cowering on the ground? Taste the blood on your face. Taste it. You can't deny what you are. You're never going to get this cup. You don't have the courage. No guts. No glory. Come on," taunted LaCroix again. "What's it going to take to get a rise out of you?"

The scream came out of nowhere – neither one of them seemed to have heard the now excruciatingly loud mortal heartbeat – the heartbeat of a mortal nearly scared to death.

It was Alyce – the assistant curator.

"Alyce, get out of here!"

LaCroix looked up at her with a calculating, evaluating gaze. "Is this someone I should meet?"

No. LaCroix wasn’t going to kill yet another mortal acquaintance. "Run!" he screamed to Alyce – but it was too late: LaCroix was already in the air, already standing on that balcony, already had Alyce in a death-hold. It was all too familiar a scene, one he’d been witness to again and again over eight hundred years.

"Maybe," said his father, "this is a good way to find out how much you want to be mortal. I'll give you a choice. Which do you want to save – the cup, or the girl?" He gave a devious laugh after the choice, a laugh that Nick would have given anything to never hear again, and then tossed the cup. It seemed to fall in slow motion, as if time were trying to stop, and in that moment Nick hesitated.

Looking back, he would always tell himself that if he hadn’t hesitated he could have saved both, and life as he knew it would have changed in an instant.

It was not meant to be.

Alyce cried out his name and the decision was made.

"Either way," LaCroix told him, "I've won."

The cup shattered.

The next few moments would always remain a blur. He was certain that Alyce said something, but he didn’t really hear it; he simply yelled at her to leave and she ran. He and LaCroix fought – it was different from their old fights, usually waged with words and the occasional fisticuffs. Nick wasn’t sure how he ended up back on the floor again, falling so many meters from the balcony, but it happened. It took a few moments for his ribs to start knitting themselves back together and LaCroix took advantage of it with another of his little monologues. It all made sense now: LaCroix was a radio host because he liked to hear himself talk.

His ribs hurt too much to laugh at his observation.

"You're weak. You need blood," LaCroix mused, almost sadly. "You want mortality, I'll give you mortality. With fire. A stake through the heart. The sun. All of these will do it, my friend."

In his mind, Nick frowned. Was this finally it? Had he finally pushed LaCroix over the edge?

"And one more – decapitation!"

There were too many things about this night that had passed too slowly or too quickly. This was one more moment that passed too quickly, blurred even in his immortal memory. One moment he was prone on the floor, certain of death, and the next he was standing and his father was hanging, impaled, on a rack, limp.

Father...

What have I done?

Did LaCroix regret making him his son?

//"I want to go back."

"It's far too late for that now."

"You've made me a murderer!"

"I made you a god. I made you eternal. I made you my brother. You need never fear anything again."

"I fear what's inside me now."

"Man is a predator, Nicholas. And we are the ultimate. You will live longer than in your wildest dreams. You will watch life begin, and end, and begin anew. I taught Nero the tune, and together we watched Rome burn. I rode with Charlemagne, and taught Genghis Khan lessons in war. All of these opportunities I have given to you. A life never threatened by age or disease. You are a blessed man, Nicholas. The Crusades you have endured will be but as a heartbeat in your lifetime."

"I will repay you."//

Had he ever repaid LaCroix, in those days before he decided that eternity was more curse than blessing? Had LaCroix come to regret him, having never regretted anything else before? Would he have been truly missed, if LaCroix had succeeded only moments ago?

Janette would miss me.

He turned and stared at the shards of the jade cup.

Natalie would miss me...

...I think.

He sighed, wiping the blood from his face, and turned toward the high window that was just now admitting early sunlight.

It was time to leave.

 

 

LaCroix watched his son’s silent retreat. Had he really wanted to rid himself of his only son? Oh, certainly not! But it had been an invigorating and enlightening experience. For all of Nicholas’s pandering about becoming mortal, he still wanted to live.

He could work with that.

Yes, returning to Toronto had truly been one of his better decisions. A smile began to grace his lips.

Now only to get down from this infernal rack...

 

 

 

Natalie had just arrived home, greeted anxiously by her cat, when the phone had rung, interrupting her usual sunrise ritual: dump her stuff, pet Sidney, shower (her heightened senses made the scent of formaldehyde even worse), eat, sleep. She knew that some vampires called it "feeding", but she felt that was too dehumanizing: she was still basically human, and humans eat. And drink. And sip.

Which is what she was doing as Captain Stonetree questioned her and Schanke.

Speakerphones left much to be desired, but at least she could quell her hunger in private.

"Are you telling me that you haven't seen him or heard from him since he stopped off?"

"I was asleep, sir," Schanke said. Natalie sighed; one of these days she was going to do something about Schanke – either the attitude or the garlic, she wasn’t sure which would come first. No, she told herself, wait for Nicholas to do it; maybe Janette’s up to a little bet... "I'm on the day shift, remember."

Silence. Oh. Her cue to talk. "He was pretty upset when he left," she said. "He knew the victim. He was blaming himself – um, but I think he was working on a lead!"

There: a little too perky, she supposed, but she was tired, and tired people – mortal and undead alike – aren’t quite themselves when they’re tired.

Right?

"Well, I hope I can make that sound all very rosy to the mayor," said Stonetree a little sarcastically. "Got a blood type?"

"O," Nat reported dutifully. She knew what Stonetree and Schanke were going to think, but things just didn’t add up. The guard and the homeless were just coincidence, she was certain of it.

"I'm telling you, that's the key," said Schanke. "The O, the homeless, the bloodmobile –"

"What about the guard?"

There was a scuffling in the background and Nat took the opportunity to sip at her glass again. God, she was tired. Was this conversation ever going to end? And where on earth had Nicholas disappeared to?

"Natalie, hang on for a sec – we’ve got something on another line."

She murmured the proper response and finally sat down on the couch. Sidney joined her after a moment. She could feel the vibration of his purring all through her body and it was comforting and calming. She hadn’t been that sensitive to it when she was mortal; it was one of the strange little unexpected things about being a vampire that she enjoyed.

"Natalie? You still there?"

Stonetree’s voice pulled her back to reality. "Ah, yeah."

"Well, they just found Nick’s car parked in an alley, illegally. They're towing it in. I’m gonna send Schanke down to check it out. Do you have any idea why Nick might have been down near the CERK recording studio? You know, the radio station?"

CERK?

Lucien.

Oh, God.

//"I’d be careful, if I were you. Both of you. He’s very disappointed in you, Nicolas..."//

After Nicholas had left, Janette had told her that their father had procured himself a spot on the radio station’s schedule – why, her sister did not know, but that had been where Nicholas was headed. He had made it there, evidenced by his car being there, but where was Nicholas? The sun was already up. Unless he had made it back to the car and jumped in the trunk...

She yawned – psychosomatic, she was certain, since vampires didn’t actually need to breathe except to talk – and set down her glass on the coffee table. How had she managed these insanely long shifts when she was mortal?

"Natalie?"

She shook herself. She had never been much prone to her mind wandering like that, staring off into space, when she was mortal, but she found herself doing it more and more often these last few years. It was expected of the older ones to be sure; Janette and Nicholas did it amusingly often. But was it normal for her to be doing this already at her early age? She’d have to ask one of them.

"No, sir, I don’t know why he’d be down there," she finally said after a moment. Lying was something else that she was doing more and more often, but getting Lucien LaCroix involved -–in any way whatsoever – in this investigation was just asking for trouble.

Trouble that she definitely did not need.

 

 

 

Nick had spent worse days, hiding from the sun, but listening to Schanke expound on his wild youth was not his definition of a day well spent. Luckily, he hadn’t been the only one unenthused by the stories, and soon he could feel the vehicle moving again.

Only Schanke would consider stopping by the blood bank at the hospital a ‘slight detour’ on his orders to deliver Nick’s car.

But at least it had given him the opportunity to use a line he’d been saving up for a while: "Well, it's a little bit cramped," he had told the elderly woman, "but you can't beat the rent."

The blood bank was only a floor up from the hospital morgue, and the scent of formaldehyde that wafted up from it reminded him of Natalie.

He’d been thinking altogether too much about Natalie these days.

"Look, could you get this Kipper guy on the phone?"

Schanke. Well, at least he was in the right place. "We are this close to nailing a suspect."

Kipper. Poor fellow to be named after a fish. That’s one name he’d never volunteer for from Aristotle. It was almost as bad as his would-be partner’s name. Who on earth willingly went around calling himself ‘Skanky’ day after day? He was all for ethnic representation, including proper pronunciation of surnames – certainly there were some days when he wished he could go around being Nicolas de Brabant around people other than Janette again – but this was the ‘nineties and this was an English-speaking country. Was ‘Shank’ or ‘Shanky’ really that bad?

"I am a cop. You can't give me access to the computers?" God, Schanke, get a clue!

"Not without Dr. Kipper's approval."

Kipper’s office was just down the corridor, and Nick was glad to see that the man had been graced with the pleasantly normal first name of David – up until the moment he opened the door and found the window blinds wide open, letting in the bright morning sunlight.

After a few moments, he was situated with the computer. He felt like he should call and check in with someone – not the station, because going AWOL was easier explained at the end of the day, when he could actually move about unhindered again. But who?

Natalie did not seem pleased that she had been his next choice.

"Nicholas, so help me, the next concoction I devise for you will produce a slow and painful death."

"Natalie –"

"Powdered garlic, maybe. Or sawdust. Sawdust is real cheap, and I’ve been meaning to explore the effects of wood particles on vampiric cells...or holy water. Does holy water really work on us?"

"Natalie –"

"How about some curare, some really nice big sedatives, pills ground down into a nice fine powder and then I stake you in your sleep? How’d you like that?"

"Nat –"

"Nicolas de Brabant, you woke me up! Do you have any idea what time it is? Huh? It’s time for all good little vampires – like myself – to be sleeping the sleep of the undead, remember? I just finished a horribly long shift in the morgue – a job that, yes, I do love, but a job all the same, with long, long hours, and I am horribly and terribly tired. And you! Woke! Me! Up!"

Silence.

"Natalie," he asked hesitantly, "are you going to cut me off this time, or can I actually talk?"

"Talk. I’m done ranting. For the moment."

"Look, I’m sorry I woke you, I wasn’t thinking." Silence. "I met with LaCroix, time ran out and I was stuck hiding in the trunk of my car."

"And how was Lucien?"

Nick closed his eyes. This was not a conversation he wanted to have over the phone.

Actually, it was a conversation he didn’t want to have in person, either.

"Look, we can talk about that later. I’m at the hospital now – Schanke’s got my car and decided to do a little joyriding. By the way, who told him he could drive my car?"

He could hear Natalie sigh over the phone. "Stonetree. There was nothing I could do. I was already home, sun was already up, and while I’d guessed you might have been in the trunk, I don’t think Stonetree or Schanke would have really understood why this would be a good thing. Of course, Schanke was supposed to bring the car back to the precinct..."

"Well, he was right about one thing: homeless type O's – that's the link."

"And Lucien?"

Now it was Nick’s turn to sigh. "Only the guard at the museum," he admitted. "And it was about the jade cup like I thought it was. The guy who did the other killings is still on the street." He paused, listening to his surroundings. "Hey, look, I think my ride's leaving. I've got to go."

"Wait a minute. You sound weak. Can you eat something?"

"You crazy? Hospital food? Listen, they were all blood donors. This is it." He paused, and then added: "Pleasant dreams."

"Oh, they will be. They will be. I’ve quite the devious mind, if you hadn’t noticed. I have to come up with the proper punishment for you somehow."

"Goodnight, Natalie."

She sighed. "Bye."

 

 

 

Would he get no sleep at all today? First the jingling sound, like keys on someone’s belt, and now this:

"God, Schanke, I'm gonna kill you!"

Polka music. Polka music.

He should have trusted his instincts and dealt with Schanke years ago, when Natalie had warned him about a homicide detective that always reeked of garlic. He should have done it then, when no one would have suspected him at all. He had places to hide the body that no one would ever think of. One of those little vampiric perks.

And now the music was only getting louder – and strangely accompanied by a scent that was ever so slightly familiar...

Brake fluid.

"Oh, no."

 

 

 

"Man, oh, man, oh, man, oh man. I feel sick."

Consciousness returned quickly, almost instantaneously, and his misery was increased by the realization that Schanke had crashed his car.

His car. His caddy!

Schanke was a dead man.

"Why don't ya just shoot it and put it out of its misery?"

"You can fix it, right? I mean, tell me you can fix it."

Yes, Nick thought to himself, please say you can fix it.

"Fix it? Are you crazy, man? This is a sculpture. People look at this and say, ‘What the hell is this?’ ‘Cause it sure don't look like no automobile. Look at that bumper!"

Oh, by all that’s holy –

"That's the Ferrari I took out. Never seen a grown man get so angry."

Justifiable homicide, and if the courts didn’t agree with him, a phone call to Aristotle or Larry Merlin would fix him up in a mortal heartbeat...

"And that fender?"

"Bread truck."

"Door?"

"Lincoln Town Car."

"Rear fender and bumper?"

"Totally escapes me why somebody would leave a thirty-foot cabin cruiser on their front lawn."

"Look at that trunk. Flat as a pancake. Gonna have to use a torch just to open it."

No. Not the trunk. Not with him still in it...

"Come on. I think you're exaggerating." There was a sound of scraping, as if the mechanic was trying to pry the trunk open with a crowbar. He held on as best he could, and luckily his strength held. The mechanic apparently gave up. "Yeah, I see," said Schanke, giving up.

"Look, man, find me a Caddy from some junkyard, and then maybe I can do something. Otherwise, you got two tons of scrap metal."

"Man, oh, man, oh man, he is gonna kill me." Schanke’s voice faded just a little and Nick took the opportunity to escape the trunk.

"Worse still, he's gonna make me pay for it."

Schanke, you don’t know the half of it...

Nick shrugged, wincing at his various slow-healing bruises. "Schanke."

"Oh..." The mortal drew it out painfully. "I'm a dead man."

"Schanke..."

The man began to panic; Nick hadn’t seen the like of it in years, and it amused him as much as it angered. "Honest to God, Nick, I was only gonna drive it to the station, but the hospital was on its way, and I – and I said, ‘Why not?’ This kills me, this kills me more than it kills you."

Having heard Schanke’s reminiscing earlier in the day, Nick knew that his new partner was not being entirely truthful.

Unfortunately, it was mostly the truth.

"The brakes failed, huh?" He already knew the extent of the damage to his car – he’d been inside it as it happened! – but he grasped his old instincts and pulled them forward. Mad, bad and dangerous to know...

Like any rabbit forced to stare down the hungry wolf, Schanke backed up very...very...very slowly. Unfortunately, his tongue did not follow suit.

"Absolutely! I was on that big hill on Deerborne Parkway, and I go to put on the brakes, and nothing! Nada! Niente! So I yank it over to the right, right? A – and – and – and I try to jam it against the curb, but no, this baby just jumps right over the sidewalk, so I yank it over left, and I almost hit this kid on a bike!"

"Is that when you hit the fire hydrant?"

Schanke didn’t catch on but just kept going. "Creamed it! Water all over the place, I'm slippin' and slidin' like Gretzky in a bad dream!" The man took a much-needed breath, and finally things began to click.

"Wait – wait. How did you know about the fire hydrant?"

 

 

With the evidence before them, things were finally coming clear: the cut break line simply made the facts adhere to each other better.

"I'm telling you, you're not going to get anywhere without a warrant," Schanke told him in the car. Nick held in his scowl: he was already missing his Caddy, and it would be some time before the repairs were finished.

What would Janette and Natalie say if they found out that he was moping over a car?

Ignoring that errant thought, he replied. "We won't need one. All of the victims were regular blood donors and only used the regular bloodmobiles."

"Who told you that?"

Nick hedged a little. "Dr. Kipper."

"Oh. So that's where he was."

Nick carefully tried to maneuver the conversation; he couldn’t let Schanke ask too many questions. "Have they found Jeannie?"

"Nothing yet," replied Schanke, who then did a bit of conversation-maneuvering himself. "Hey, what were you doing in the warehouse district last night?"

Oh, this was going to be fun, he thought sarcastically. "Anybody report anything unusual up there this morning?" He wondered if there was any chance LaCroix had survived; the last he had seen his father, the elder vampire had been nearly in direct sunlight.

It had been a bright dawn.

"No, why?"

"Alyce and I had a lead on the museum's Mayan cup." Suddenly he realized what exactly he had said and winced inside.

"Oh, ho, ho, ‘Alyce’? You were with ‘Alyce’ last night?" Schanke was practically crowing over this tidbit. Nick winced again; the last thing he wanted was to be part of the precinct rumor mill. He knew police officers. This was something that would spread quickly. Didn’t officers of the law, protectors of the people, have something better to do with their time?

Or was this one of those little ‘human’ things that Natalie kept saying he’d have to learn if he ever wanted to cross back over?

He reached over and turned on the radio. It had been about this time the night before when LaCroix had been airing his show; if he had survived the dawn, it was likely that he would have resumed the schedule.

//"Th-th-th-this is the Beamer, sitting in for Nightcrawler. Crawler, you listenin', man? Call in, say what? We're worried about you."//

He smiled a little, very secretively; the idea of some mortal worrying about LaCroix was amusing (albeit a tad disturbing as well). But this meant that there was a chance – a sliver of a chance – that LaCroix hadn’t survived.

Schanke remained oblivious to his improved mood. "Is there something going on between you and her?"

"Dr. Hunter and I?"

Schanke laughed. "No, no, no. I mean Alyce and you."

"You're the detective. What do you think?"

"I think you are suppressing evidence."

Now this he had missed: the bantering. Maybe Schanke wasn’t so awful after all.

He stilled that thought. That leads to insanity and all kinds of malevolence, he told himself, and then added, drawing on his growing knowledge of modern slang: Don’t go there.

 

 

The blood bank. God, was he ever going to have a chance to feed this evening? He wasn’t a heavy drinker, by the standards of his kind, and with his attempts to become human, he was constantly pushing himself to drink even less, even of rancid-tasting animal blood. Nick tried to reign in his hunger and continued questioning the nurse. "All we need from you are some answers to a few questions," he told her.

"Like?"

"Like," he replied, "who has access to the donor records?"

The nurse sighed and began listing everyone that apparently came to mind: "The blood bank staff, the physicians, hospital administrators–"

"Oh, that narrows the field," said Schanke.

Nick ignored Schanke’s comment; the sarcasm was apparently the man’s natural tone. "Anyone come in and out of here this afternoon while Detective Schanke was around?"

The nurse, leading them past some fresh delivery carts, thought on the question. "Well, there were several nurses. Dr. Edelman popped through."

The hunger was becoming extreme, and the sight of the bagged blood was not doing him any good. He faltered, catching his balance on the edge of a gurney. The nurse, a credit to her profession, noticed his distress immediately. "Are you all right?"

Schanke, having seen his earlier episode at the mechanic’s, brushed it off. "Oh, he's just hungry."

God, Schanke, you don’t know how right you are, Nick thought at him. Luckily, neither man was telepathic. Aloud, he tried to reassure the nurse. "I'll be fine," he told her, and changed the subject: "I think the person we're looking for is more like an orderly, or a lab technician. Someone who wears his keys on his belt," he added, remembering the clanking sound like keys he’d heard the day before.

The nurse thought on this for a moment. "Well, there was Michelle Brown, and Ronald DuBois. They brought in deliveries from the blood drive at the university."

"Anyone who’s worked with the homeless?" Nick asked.

"No, I don’t think they have. But Don Fenner stopped in with a delivery, and he sometimes does the homeless rounds."

"Fenner?" asked Schanke. "The guy who comes by the precincts?"

"I think so," said the nurse. "Let me check the files."

As she turned to the filing system, Nick nodded. "I think that’s who we’re looking for. Technician, keys, the homeless." And, he added silently, remembering his very brief encounter with the man at the precinct and later when he had heard the keys, he had the right scent.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," replied Schanke, "he was asking a lot of questions about the Caddy, but how'd you know about the keys?"

Luckily, he didn’t have to come up with an excuse, as the nurse finished her search and turned back to them. "Here," she said and handed Nick the file. "Don Fenner. He's a wonderful man," she added, as if she was trying to reassure herself.

"Yeah, Knight, he's just a regular guy," said Schanke. "Come on."

But Nick was resolute. Something wasn’t right about this Don Fenner. "Did anything happen to him this year?" he asked the nurse. "Maybe something that could have pushed him over the edge?"

"Well, he lost his mother."

This caught Schanke’s attention. "How?"

"A car accident. Well...not really." She seemed to grapple with the right way to tell them the facts. "See, she lost a lot of blood. What killed her, I guess, was the hepatitis that she contracted through the transfusion."

Transfusion. That was the key. Nick moved for the phone within a heartbeat. And for once, Schanke was quick on the uptake himself. "Ten to one she was type O," said the mortal, and for once Schanke’s voice wasn’t grating.

"Well, what does that have to do with anything?" asked the nurse.

"Type O's the universal donor, but can receive only type O blood," Nick replied, drawing on his unfortunate stock of hematological knowledge.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," said Schanke, putting together the clues. "So – so if you knew...if some of the blood used came from street people, maybe you'd blame them. Maybe you'd see to it that they couldn't ever donate again." The realization did not escape him.

"Yeah, this is Knight. We need to put out an APB Yeah. Donald Fenner." As quickly as possible he laid out the facts for dispatch and then to Captain Stonetree, who concurred with their hypothesis.

"Okay, we know he only works days," said Schanke when Nick was finished talking to the precinct. He turned to the nurse. "Do you know any of his friends, or acquaintances?" They started walking off, but Nick remained at the phone to check his messages.

//Yeah, Nick Knight. I'm either in bed or –//

He punched in his access code and the machine made the usual whirring sounds before beginning to play back the messages.

//Hi, it's Natalie. Look, I’m sorry I ranted at you this morning. It’s just been a couple of trying days, you know? Anyway, where are you? Will you please check in with me? I'm getting nervous –//

Someone picked up on the other end.

Why is someone in my loft? How did they get in?

His answer came in the form of a feminine voice saying his name. "Nick?"

"Alyce? What are you doing there?"

"Looking for you. Where are you? Are you okay?"

It was strange, a woman other than Janette (and Natalie) worrying about him. Particularly a mortal woman. "How'd you get in?"

"The Mayan numbers on the stela."

He thought back on their first conversation and gave himself a mental smack. You stupid excuse for a vampire! Out loud, he didn’t express his dismay, but instead humored her: "Very clever."

"Someone named Jeannie's here."

"She's alive?" Miracles!

"Barely. The guy who beat her left her for dead." Alyce took a breath. "She knows who's doing the murders, Nick."

"Have you called for an ambulance?"

"They're on their way up right now."

"If the paramedic says she's stable, don't move her."

"Hang on. The guy's here now." He heard the footsteps and the elevator through the phone, and then the door to the elevator –

And Alyce’s realization that whoever the person was, it wasn’t who she was expecting.

As Nick dropped the phone and began running, he surprised himself by realizing he wasn’t as worried for Alyce as he should have been, given the time they had been spending with her.

Was there something wrong with him?

He shook his head at the thought and threw his keys at a startled Schanke. "At my place!" he shouted. "Take the car and meet me there."

It took Schanke a moment to react beyond catching the keys, but when he did react, his response was loud. "Hey. Hey! Hey, Knight! You wanna tell me how you're gonna get there?

"Actually, I’d really rather not," Nick whispered under his breath. He didn’t think Schanke was ready to learn that his partner could fly.

 

 

He could hear Jeannie’s screams; they guided him and he reacted instinctively.

Damn. Another window.

He knocked Fenner down, likely sending the man into the land of the unconscious, fighting the urge to simply drain him dry and rid the world of his madness. He let the man fall to the ground and instantly looked for Jeannie. The poor girl could barely stand upright, but she’d probably make it with some medical attention; her heart still beat strong.

He realized that Alyce was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Alyce?" he asked.

Jeannie pointed to the far corner, behind his table of paints and other art supplies – into the fire. "Over there."

Damn. "You've got to get out of here. Can you make it to the stairs?" At Jeannie’s nod, he told her to run and watched as she struggled to make it to the stairs – and succeeded.

With great self-control, Nick went through the flames to where Alyce lay. Fire was not a vampire’s best friend. The curator awoke with a scream, but quickly gathered her wits together.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"I'm not sure."

Nick grimaced; he had to get her out of there. The smoke was growing, and the chemicals in the paints were not the best for mortals inhale. "Come on," he said, pulling her up to stand. He turned to figure out how they were going to escape the flames –

To see his father.

LaCroix was still alive. And clearly had no moral opposition to draining Don Fenner of his life’s blood. Nick grimaced again, but not at the man’s imminent death. A man so full of hate and confusion...it could not have been a pleasant meal.

"I believe he got what was coming to him," said his father, delicately, sophisticatedly wiping the few drops of blood from his lips with a finger. He turned his gaze to Nick, and in that moment Nick felt each one of his father’s nearly two thousand years. "Now it's your turn."

 

 

The feelings he was getting from his son were...perplexing at the very least. Nicholas had not been angry or guilty at seeing this...Donald Fenner’s death; if he didn’t know better – and Lucien LaCroix was not one to second guess himself – the boy might have entertained the thought of doing it himself.

This could get very interesting.

"Steel spikes can't kill a vampire, Nick. But fire can," he said. "Isn't it about time you came out, my son?"

Nicholas turned to the frightened mortal woman – was she not the one who had followed them the previous night? "Stay here," he told her. "He won't come through the flames." He seemed protective of her, but not greatly so; likely he protected her for the mere fact of her being mortal. He didn’t seem to have any kind of particular affection for her. It was an odd situation, to say the least.

"Nick –"

"When I get to the other side, try to make it to the stairs." Yes, this was part of what he was feeling from Nicholas: the weakness. The hunger. Nicholas had starved himself almost to the point of immobility.

"You look weak. When did you last feed? You need blood to fight, Nicholas," he told his son. "You need blood...to live."

Nicholas looked distressed. If his son lived to see the next moonrise, this would be the first thing he would aim to remove from Nicholas’s facial repertoire.

"Nick..." said the mortal woman. "Take me."

Lucien smirked at the suggestion. It was clear that the woman had no true understanding of what she was offering, but how many had made the same offer over the centuries and Nicholas had taken them? This was the next step in the right direction. "Yes! It's a wonderful offer. Take her." Perhaps he had been mistaken about Nicholas’s affection for the mortal? Perhaps he should make an appropriate suggestion in that direction? "Make her one of us. Mortals die. Does it really matter how, or when?"

The woman continued to dig her own grave. Oh, this would be delicious when it was over. "Take me. It's the only way you can fight him." For a mortal, she was surprisingly observant – not as observant as dear Natalie had been, but still she showed some promise.

"It will kill you, Alyce."

"Or make me...immortal."

Lucien LaCroix smiled.

 

 

 

What the hell kind of game was Alyce playing with him?

"Take me. Don't you see? I'm a scientist. I want to."

He tried to push her away. "You don't know what you're saying."

"I do! The chance to live through an entire civilization."

No, Alyce, you don’t understand. And I cannot assign that kind of affection to you. If I loved you, and were desperate to save you for eternity –

His thoughts and struggle were interrupted, first by his father’s enthusiastic approval and then Alyce’s continued cajoling. "To watch the world change, evolve."

"Listen to her," said LaCroix.

"Take me."

"Take her, Nicholas! Do it!"

Nick felt the hunger in him and bent over Alyce’s neck, smelling her rushing blood, hearing her heartbeat, feeling the change come over him and the driving need to drink –

"Nicholas!"

It was not his father’s voice, but it pulled him out of the hunger with equal power.

It was Natalie.

Their father chuckled. "Ma fille," said LaCroix, with the same affection that he had often sent in Nick’s direction. "Join us. Would you enjoy a niece added to our little family?"

 

 

Natalie took in the disarray that was Nick’s living room, so different from her sunrise visit a few nights earlier. Fire, things thrown about, a dead body – likely the suspect that Schanke had told her in his call – in front of Lucien, and Nick and a mortal woman – she realized after a moment that this was probably the woman from the museum, Alyce something – hiding behind the large table in the corner. Time almost seemed to be standing still.

She had enjoyed the family reunion with Janette so much more. At least no one had died.

Nervously, she ran a hand over her head, knowing that flying was not the best thing for her already difficult curly hair. "Lucien," she said by way of greeting. "Nicholas. This a bad time?" She tried to inject a little humor into it, but was largely unsuccessful.

"Is this what I should always expect from the two of you?" she asked hesitantly. "’Cause this was not in the brochure."

Nicholas finally reacted, pushing Alyce as far away from him as possible. "No!" Had he really been considering turning the woman? Natalie didn’t think that made sense; Nicholas didn’t seem to be the type to turn someone on a whim or out of desperation. Something was quite right here, and she guessed it had something to with Lucien LaCroix’s return to Toronto. She watched as Nicholas struggled to stand and then grabbed a flaming spike of wood before climbing over the table. For a moment she could imagine him in his armor and livery, preparing himself for battle like the medieval knight that she knew he had once been.

Lucien only smirked; clearly, she had walked right into whatever it was between the two of them that Lucien and Janette had always refused to talk about.

"Nicholas, what are you doing?" She stepped forward, wanting to stop him and seeing the rage in his eyes.

"Step aside, Natalie."

"Nicholas –"

He looked at her and for a moment she saw an entirely different man. A man capable of killing, rather than saving. He held the splintered piece of wood tightly in his hand; she could smell his blood seeping through the abrasions that were forming on his palm and fingers. "I swear to God, Natalie, you will step aside."

"You really think you can beat me as a mortal?" asked Lucien, sounding amused. Natalie shot a look back at him. Couldn’t he tell that Nicholas was out for blood – and not in any kind of good way?

"Go to Hell," Nicholas replied.

Lucien chuckled. "Not before you do."

Natalie stepped between them. "God damn it, what the hell is wrong with you two?" she demanded of them. "Why are you so eager to kill each other?"

"Ma fille, I do recommend you listen to Nicholas. This is not your fight," Lucien told her, never shifting his gaze away from Nicholas.

"Dammit, Nick!" Natalie cried, not realizing that she had shortened his name. "Just stop it! I thought you were a reasonable man. I thought both of you were reasonable." She turned to Lucien. "I thought you were a father, Lucien. I thought you held yourself to higher standards than this. And you," she turned to Nicholas. "I thought you were a protector. I don’t want to know why you almost drank that Alyce woman dry, but that’s not you. Not anymore. You want to be a man, Nicholas? Then be one." She stepped away from them. "But I guess neither one of you is who I thought you were, wanting to kill each other so easily. You’re so selfish, the two of you. Janette and I should just leave town and never speak to you again. I hear eternity’s lonely without family."

Lucien was too old and too well trained to let the effect that her words had on him actually show, but she thought she saw something change in Nicholas’s eyes.

"Now, Alyce needs to see a doctor; luckily, I happen to have some training in that area, so I’m going to see what I can do for her before the police and the ambulance arrive. So just go ahead – kill each other, fight it out, whatever it is that you’re going to do, but get it over and done with before the authorities arrive, ‘cause I’m not exactly prepared to whammy half the force into forgetting seeing two vampires fight it out."

She turned her back on them and sought out Alyce’s heartbeat. It was there, and strong enough that the woman was probably going to make it, and the police sirens were very, very close now. A little whammying would fix things, and that much she could manage. And Alyce was still just barely conscious enough for it to work.

She refused to look back at Lucien and Nicholas, but she could practically feel Lucien’s smirk. "I chose well in this one," he said softly.

After a heartbeat, Nicholas gave his reply. "Burn in hell, LaCroix. Va au diable."

"Indeed, mon fils, perhaps another time." And then the sort of ‘whoosh’ sound of a vampire taking flight followed his words.

A moment later, she heard the piece of wood clatter to the floor, followed by Nicholas himself falling. Serves him right, she thought and then turned back to Alyce.

 

 

 

 

"Natalie."

"Nicholas."

Pause.

"Schanke."

The two vampires turned to look at their mortal companion, who raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, just trying to follow whatever it is that’s going on, you know." Schanke squinted at them. "What is going on? Both of you have been like bears with sore paws for the last week."

Neither one gave him an answer.

"Okay, okay, I know when I’m not wanted. Sheesh. If things are always going to be this bad, I should just transfer to Vancouver or something. ‘Cause between the two of you, someone’s gonna try to bite off my head sooner or later, and it ain’t gonna be my fault. I should just give up now..." He walked off to another part of the exhibit, joining the rest of the police officers who had come to look at the restored exhibit on Altun Kanal.

There was an awkward moment, and then Nick decided to try to make the next move. "Natalie, I’m sorry."

She looked at him, drawing her attention away from the jade cup in the display case. It was his own cup, the one he had found a hundred years earlier on the dig at Altun Kanal, and practically identical to the one that LaCroix had stolen; Nick had had it delivered, secretly, to the museum the day after the fire in his loft. Alyce Hunter still didn’t know that the missing cup had been "found". She lay in a coma two kilometers away and still showed no signs of waking up.

"Tell me, Detective Knight," said Natalie coolly. "What is it exactly that you are apologizing for?"

Detective Knight. Was this a step backwards? She usually called him that in public, but recently she had used his first name among their friends and colleagues on the police force. "For scaring you," he began. "For letting the beast in me take over. For letting my anger at LaCroix guide me. For almost taking him away from you."

She turned back to the jade cup, and for a moment he thought that she wasn’t going to reply. "I don’t know what this – this thing between you and Lucien is, why you’re so angry at him. I know part of it is about you wanting to become human again, but I’m sure that’s not all of it. Someday one of you will tell me and then maybe I’ll understand, but I have to be honest when I say that I think that day’s still a long time coming, Nicholas."

At least she was using his first name again.

She wasn’t finished, and suddenly he realized that the volume in the room had dropped considerably. Somehow, they’d drawn attention to themselves, and he really didn’t want to know what the rumor mill was going to say about them this time.

"Do you realize, Nicholas, what it was exactly you almost did?" she asked softly. "Lucien is the closest thing to a father that I have, that you have, that Janette has. Remove him from this world, and you’re not only freeing yourself or whatever from your issues with him, but you’re destroying a family."

"Natalie –"

"No," she said, looking at him again. "You’re right about him; he’s not like you and I, or even like Janette. He’s a very dangerous man. He’s not exactly the most moral person on the planet, either. I agree with you. I don’t condone his killing, and I certainly don’t agree with his taunting you or whatever it is he does to get under your skin. But you don’t have the right to take him away from me before I’ve figured him out. Before I’ve figured out my place in this messed up family." She reached for his hand and took it in his, squeezing it once, a look that might have been forgiveness on her face, and then let go and walked away.

 

 

 

He could see his children and their mortal colleagues quite easily through the skylight. Nicholas seemed to have recovered from his injuries, but things were not quite right between him and Natalie.

He mused on this for a moment before deciding to leave it be for the moment. There was something between Nicholas and Natalie, of that he was certain – something beyond the fact that they worked together and that she was trying to aid him in his mortal transformation. That, too, he would leave alone for now; she would continue as she wished. Perhaps she would ultimately prove to be the key to bringing Nicholas back to his own kind that he had been looking for all this time. Perhaps, if what he saw in the two of them developed...

Besides, was it not every father’s wish that his children be happy and find love with the proper mates?

Lucien LaCroix smiled. He would leave things be for the moment. Now it was time to visit his eldest daughter and gage the Toronto community. He needed to get a feeling for what his people were like in this city if he was going to be their Elder.

 

 

 

"So, gonna tell me why you’re in the doghouse with our lovely – and might I add, single? – coroner?" asked Schanke, surprising Nick with his return.

"I don’t suppose ‘no’ is a strong enough answer," Nick replied, beginning to walk away from the display case.

"Come on, Nick, I saved your life! That’s gotta count for something, partner."

Nick stopped and turned back at Schanke. "Saved my life? What do you mean?"

"You and me are the same blood type. Don’t you remember the transfusion? Natalie stuck a pint of grade-A Schanke in you that night at your place."

Nick looked at him with horror. "She didn’t."

"Said I was the only available donor – oh, and something about it serving you right," Schanke added. "I guess from now on you won't be able to walk past a souvlaki stand without feeling the urge." He smiled before continuing. "So you’re not going to tell me why she’s so pissed at you?"

Nick sighed. "Again, ‘no’ is not even approaching strong enough."

"Damn. You know, I could get some real mileage out of this: there’s going to be some sweet pools on you and Natalie, you realize." Schanke smiled and began to walk away. "Something’s up with the two of you, and I," he said, "aim to figure it out."

 

 

[The End]

[To be continued – eventually...]