In Desert Waste or Crowded Street
By April French
CERK Radio Station, Toronto: 1995
The man's throat had been slit, and very professionally. But Nick could see, as Schanke could not, the two tiny marks that the deep incision was meant to conceal. He stood, and sensed more than saw LaCroix at his back. "You should know better," he chastised. "Couldn't you at least have gone outside?"
"I stayed my hunger as long as I could. But he practically had 'Eat Me' emblazoned across his forehead, and stress does give one a powerful need to hunt. I must say, I worked up quite an appetite frolicking around inside your head." What little color there had been in Nick's face drained away. "Did you think I was just a figment of your imagination? A phantom in your guilty brain?"
"You saw..."
"I am your master; I saw everything. And felt everything," he added. "But you never seem to learn--you can't kill a vampire with metal."
"What's happening to me, LaCroix?" Nick begged. "Am I going mad?"
"Yes. You have been going slowly mad for the better part of the last eight centuries. I warned you, Nicholas. It's the guilt." He sighed heavily. "You know that because of what we are, we must internalize what we feel, or risk becoming the very prey we seek. It builds up, it needs release, and if it doesn't get that release..." He spread his expressively pale hands in an eloquent gesture. "Well, now you know what happens."
"Is that it, then? It's over?"
"For now, perhaps. But not forever." LaCroix took a step forward, raising his hand to Nick's cheek but stopping a hairsbreadth before actually touching the skin. "Don't let your guilt consume you, because if you're not careful, it will consume you."
Nick shied away from the hand. "No. No, I can't let it go. I can't let all my crimes go unacknowledged."
"I'm not talking about those crimes," scoffed LaCroix impatiently. "In some part of your deluded subconscious, you know that those mortals were food, and nothing more. No, I mean your more recent guilty indiscretions. You're blaming yourself for overshadowing your partner, for not being as trusting of your captain as you apparently think you should be."
"And Janette and Natalie?"
LaCroix arched a dark eyebrow in disbelief. "Well, if you're asking me," he drawled, "then you're in more of a hole than I thought you were." But Nick was frightened and teetering on the brink of a nervous collapse, so LaCroix toned down his sarcasm. "You can't give either of them what they want until you admit to yourself what you want," he said softly. "And until you release this infantile guilt, it will be impossible."
"I know what I want."
"Your mortality, yes. And you're trying so hard to be mortal. I'm sure that girl at the Raven last night was very thankful."
"But why do I feel like I'm betraying Janette?" Nick persisted, not meeting his master's eye.
"Because you are. You're betraying her, you're betraying me, you're betraying yourself--you are betraying all of us."
"What I do with my life is my own business."
"Can't you stop thinking about yourself for even one minute? Everything you do affects us, Nicholas. You have a duty to us, one that will never die, even if you someday find a way to."
"You mean a duty to you."
"If you like, yes."
"And I will find a way."
"And you're even willing to kill for it," LaCroix finished. "And to kill me, of all people, although we both know just how successful that course of action is. But patricide seems to be much on your mind of late. Have you considered psychotherapy?"
Nick growled at the flippant comment. "You're not my father."
"I'm the only father you have, you poor, selfish, lonely boy," retorted LaCroix, dwelling on the alliteration. "And maybe that's part of what's bothering you, hmm?"
The insinuation hung as heavy on Nick's shoulders as a humid night. Of all the guilts he had confronted and scrutinized, there was still that one crime that he shied away from. 'Honor thy father...' He bowed his head, refusing to examine or even acknowledge it. Out of the periphery of his vision, he could see the forensics team bagging up the body, taking it out, and Schanke speaking with the CERK manager--and not very successfully, no doubt thanks to the Nightcrawler's 'generosity.'
LaCroix's eyes felt like icicles on Nick's scalp, finally forcing him to look up. "I could leave this city tonight," said the ancient with quiet certainty, "and meet up with you again in a century, and nothing will have changed. You will still be morose, pathetically hoping, and still a killer. Fifty years or five hundred, you will always be a vampire. And unless you give up this search, mon fils, you will always be alone." He turned and went into his broadcast booth, and shut the door.
Someone clapped a hand on Nick shoulder. "Come on, Nicky boy, let's split. I think you've had enough excitement for one night." Grateful, Nick followed his partner out of the building.
Once outside, Nick breathed the crisp night air into his lungs and held it there, savoring its flavor and coolness, letting it calm him. He was trying not to dwell on what LaCroix had told him.
On the drive back to the precinct, Nick jumped when the Nightcrawler's voice came creeping out of the Caddy's speakers. "My apologies, gentle listeners," he purred, "for that minor interruption."
"Sick man," said Schanke, shaking his head. "A guy was murdered in his building--just down the hall from his booth--and he keeps on broadcasting. 'Minor interruption.' What a character."
"He's certainly one of a kind," agreed Nick darkly, but did not shut the radio off.
"Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Guilt. A rope, to which we give all the length needed to strangle ourselves." The very sound waves seemed to carry a leering, knowing smile. "How much longer will you let your rope get before you come to your senses? How much longer does it need to be? This next goes out to all the guilty consciences, that poor, selfish, lonely boy in all of you.
"'Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet, in desert waste or crowded street, perhaps before this week shall fleet, perhaps to-morrow. I trust to find
This time, Nick did shut it off, so forcefully that the dial almost came off in his hand.
~Finis--October 28th, 2003~