FATHER, SON AND UNHOLY SPIRITS (Forever Knight) By Nancy Warlocke e-mail: tannervin@aol.com Rating: PG-13 Main Characters: ALL File Size: 62K This fic takes place in the moments after the events of Last Knight. ----------------------------------------------------------- --- CHAPTER ONE: Tracy --- Was this a dream? Tracy thought it had to be. But, she seemed fully awake, fully alert, and, there weren't those disjointed, abstract thought processes that occurred in the dream state. She was one of those people who usually knew when she was dreaming, and she knew then that she wasn't. What was this? She looked around her, aware of her surroundings, yet, somehow, also aware she wasn't actually *seeing* them with her eyes. And besides, they weren't really "surroundings"--just a lot of... grey. Well, really more silver than grey... She seemed to be moving, although she knew she was not actually walking. She looked down and didn't see her body, just more of that same silveriness. Same when she tried to hold her hand in front of her face and look at it with these non-eyes she now had. She didn't seem to actually *be* there. Hell, *there* didn't actually seem to be there. "Hi Tracy." The voice startled her for a number of reasons. First of all, it wasn't actually a *voice*, but at the same time, she recognized it. It belonged to Javier Vachon. A vampire who'd been a friend and had moved.... No, wait a darn minute!!! That was a lie. Vachon was dead. It was that big guy with the white hair who had told her he had only left Toronto, and he had made her believe it! How dare he? How had he done that? And why? She whirled around to face Vachon, but found a) she couldn't "whirl," and b) everything looked the same no matter which direction she turned. Now, that should have panicked her. She was a sensible, rational person, and she had no idea what was going on here. But for some reason, she stayed calm. "Vachon?" "Here, Trace." And suddenly, he was. Leaning casually (on what she couldn't tell) with that funny little smirk on his face and that charming twinkle in those big, dark eyes of his. He reached his hand out to her, and she was about to point out with annoyance that she had no hands, when she looked down and saw that now, she did. She could see herself again. That should have been a tremendous relief, but since it hadn't bothered her in the first place that she didn't have a body, it was merely a welcome familiarity. "Vachon, where the hell is this place?" Vachon grinned. "Bad choice of words, Tracy." He had fangs. She knew he had fangs, but she had never seen him *smile* with them. It was incredibly cute, but also spooky. "What?" "Come with me." He took her hand. Surprisingly he felt warm... no *glowing* was a better term, even though that didn't make a bit of sense. Other times when she had touched him, he'd been as cold as a corpse. He didn't actually take her anywhere, but when her hand touched his, the silveriness went away and they were actually someplace. A hospital room, where bunch of medical people were standing around a patient... "Her EEG has flat-lined," one of them were saying. "Is she an organ donor?" "Yes, but I don't know what there is left to salvage," one of the others said. The first guy looked into the patient's eyes. " I suppose it doesn't matter. No one is here to sign the consent forms. They haven't been able to locate her family." Someone else shook her head. "She's a cop. There are a lot of her friends in the waiting room. They'll need to be told." A cop? Wait a minute.... Tracy wasn't standing on the floor now. She was up in the air, above the bed, looking down. The dead cop was *her*. Now, she did panic. "Vachon..." she half-sobbed.. He put his arms around her. "It's okay, Trace. It's not bad, really, this dead thing." Her heart should have been pounding in her chest, but she couldn't even feel her chest. "I wanna go back!" she said frantically. Vachon maintained that calm, easy way he had. "You probably can't." "But, I've seen this on TV.... You get a choice, right?" Vachon shrugged. "I guess so, sometimes. But some of us who do decide to stay, anyway." "Some of us?" she looked at him indignantly. "You mean you got a choice and you didn't come back?" He shrugged. "All my friends were already here. And they told me you might be coming, too. There was no reason to go back." "Vachon, I don't want to be dead!" "It's not like it would be forever. You can go back as someone besides Tracy Vetter. I think that life is over." "Yeah, an' yer no' in bloody Kansas anymore," another familiar voice came out of the silveriness, which had returned when she wasn't looking. It was Vachon's friend, Screed. "Celestial greets and welcome to our paradisiacal habitations." Like Vachon, he, too, had fangs. And like the other time she'd met him, she still didn't understand a word he said. There were three others with him. One was Vachon's friend, Urs. The other was that Inka guy who'd blown himself up, except he wasn't blown up, he looked perfectly fine. The third was someone she didn't recognize, but he had long, dark hair and dangerous eyes and he wasn't at all bad-looking. He introduced himself as "Spark." He had fangs, too. They all did. "I don't get it," Tracy shook her sort-of head. "Is this heaven?" The five of them exchanged looks, and didn't answer. "It's not hell, is it?" she asked timidly. "No," Vachon answered, softly. "We aren't really sure what it is, but it's not hell.... As far as we can tell, it's sort of an... orphanage." Tracy frowned. "An orphanage?" "Yes," Urs said softly. "For souls that don't really belong any other place." Tracy looked at the five of them. She didn't know all of them that well, but she knew they had one thing in common. "The souls of vampires?" "Vampires, werewolves, denizens of the nocturnal persuasions both li'eral and not-so," Screed expounded. "But.... what am *I* doing here?" Vachon shrugged. "Passing through, I suppose. You don't have to stay, but we thought maybe you'd like to hang out with us. You know, sort of like 'Friends', only dead," he grinned again. "This isn't funny, Vachon, I *don't want to be here*." Vachon looked hurt. "Okay, Trace. You can go. They'll come for you...." "Come for me? They? Who is 'They'?" The five vampires-ghosts-whatevers exchanged looks again. "We do not really know," the Inka spoke up. "I suppose they are angels." "Angels?" Tracy said, realizing for the first time that she had never really believed in angels. "They never come for us," the Inka shrugged. "We do not know what they are." "You can stay here, or you can go on to... that other place, where they are." Urs explained. Tracy looked at Vachon, who seemed disappointed. "You won't be going there?" Vachon shook his head. "Ever?" He shrugged. "I don't know, Trace. I don't think so. It's like we aren't *allowed*, unless we want to do it all over again. But, it's not bad here. Not at all..." "Do what over?" she interrupted him. "Be reborn again, as a mortal. Live as a mortal, and die a mortal death." "You can just decide to do that?" "No. Not really. We're sort of at the bottom of the waiting list, and that's where we stay unless someone actually wants to nurture our souls through another lifetime. We're damaged goods, so that doesn't happen very often. Like practically never." Vachon seemed almost okay with that, but it made Tracy want to cry. "So even if you wanted to do it all again, you couldn't?" Vachon shook his head. "That's the catch. We can't leave *here* and go *there*," he pointed upward, even though this place didn't really seem to have an 'up' or 'down' to it, "unless we live again. And we can't live again unless we are invited." "Invited?" He smiled with his lips together and his voice softened as he explained, "When we are reborn, we become a mortal child with the soul of a vampire. It is not enough that whoever gets us be willing to accept us in that form--they have to *want* us." He shrugged. "Talk about being hard-to-place." Tracy wondered if Vachon wanted another chance. With him, there was no way to tell what he was thinking.. "But I can stay or go?" "Anytime," Vachon assured her. "At least, you can once the link has dissolved completely." "What link?" "To your mortal body. It takes much longer than mortal medicine thinks it does. Besides, there is something we have to do... back there. We thought maybe you'd want to help, since you still kind of belong there, for now." Tracy was still not resolved to the fact that she was... well, she couldn't even *think* it. She was only 26 years old. She had her whole life ahead of her... A disembodied voice spoke, like a voice on an intercom. "Who said that?" she demanded. "One of 'Them'," Vachon said casually. "They'll take you now, if you want to go." This was infuriating. She was dead. She was in some not-heaven, not- hell place with a bunch of dead vampires. What kind of a way was this to run an Afterlife? "So my choice is stay here with you, or go... wherever." Funny, how quickly she was resigning herself to the idea that Tracy Vetter soon would be no more. Was the fact that it was so easy to say good-bye from this end part of the deal? Vachon nodded. "We want you to stay... We think you can help..." There was something this bunch wasn't telling her. "Help with what?" Again, the silveriness lifted, only now instead of the hospital room, they were in Nick's loft. Natalie Lambert was there with Nick. So was the guy with the white hair, the one who had told her Vachon was gone, when he was really dead. Lucien LaCroix was his name. She'd asked Vachon once if he was a vampire. Vachon had told her no, but now, she knew he'd been lying. She could sense LaCroix's essence... his non-corporeal being... and some kind of cosmic radar was telling her he was a vampire. She was about to protest Vachon's blatant falsehood when she realized with shock (or a feeling close to it - not having physiological feedback was going to take some getting used to) that the *very same* aura surrounded Nick Knight!!! The memory came flooding back to her. The last ones she had of that life she had just left. Nick... with fangs. "That son of a bitch is a *vampire*!" she said indignantly. But the others were too mesmerized by the scene before them to give her their full attention. It was like watching a really bad soap opera, although Tracy was a bit ashamed to have had that thought when she realized that part of the emotion attached to that moment between Nick and Natalie was grief. Grief for *her*. She wanted to yell at them, to let them know it was okay. She was already accepting it. She was fine with it. It wouldn't be that bad being dead, if she had to be.... But Natalie was crying. So was Nick. This was just too sad. "Vachon, what's happening?" she said, now afraid in that out-of-body way she was still getting used to. The image before her froze, like someone had pushed the 'pause' button on a VCR. "Nick is about to make a very bad mistake." "Duh! I can see that..." And she could, but how, she didn't know. "OhmyGod! He's going to kill her!" Urs nodded sadly. "And then, he will die, at LaCroix's hands..." "But..." Tracy knew Urs was telling the truth, but she also knew through a sense that she didn't have before that LaCroix didn't want to do this. He *knew* Nick, somehow.... He *loved* Nick--in some totally unique and dysfunctional way, but he did. , the Intercom Angel told Tracy. . "Who are you?" Tracy looked around, and didn't see anything but Nick's loft. "Don't mind 'em," Screed brushed it off. "Ye get used to 'em an' their disembodied discourserations..." The scene before Tracy was unfolding again. Nick was *biting* Natalie! "I say 'tis time we in'ercede in this calamatous turn of events," Screed said. "I think you're right," Vachon nodded. "What are you talking about?" Tracy asked. She'd just gotten here. She wasn't sure what Screed meant by intercede--if that had in fact been what he'd said. "We're going to stop this," Urs said softly. "Or try to. Natalie isn't supposed to die. And they think they will be together, here, but it doesn't work that way." "Why not?" Tracy said. "I'm here...." Vachon put his hand on her shoulder. There was no substance to it, but she felt it, nonetheless. "Nick's not the same kind of vampire we are, Tracy. Each of us," he indicated the others "was brought across without any previous knowledge of what we were to become. We're predators, not murderers. But Nick chose this for himself, knowing what it would take in order for him to survive. He has even less chance of going to that other place than we do." "You mean he's... damned?" That thought scared Tracy. Like angels, she had never really believed in eternal damnation, either. But then, she never would have thought there was such a place as vampire- heaven, and here she was. "No," Vachon said, in that funny way he had of saying the word without actually making any sound, when he'd been alive and made sounds. "You have to be unredeemably evil for that. But, he won't be with Natalie. He'll be here, with us. And she won't want to stay." "Why?" Vachon shrugged. "Because she doesn't belong with us." "And I do?" Tracy snorted, although not really, since she didn't have lungs or a nose anymore. The five of them looked at her. "What?" she said finally. It was Spark who spoke. "Twenty-six years was all you had as a mortal, Tracy. But all of us have more than one path we can take. One of yours would have been for Nick to have brought you across..." "What?? According to *who's* plan?" "THE Plan," Screed offered. "The bea'ified blueprint, the divine destiny, the 'eavenly 'omepage, as i' were." "You mean 'fate'?" she said, not believing that she was actually beginning to comprehend the little bald vampire. "Exactamentado," Screed replied as suddenly, the scene around her changed. They were back in the hospital room, only she was still alive, alone in the room except for Nick. As the scene unfolded and she saw what had almost happened, her would-be hand went up to her would-be neck. "A vampire?" she whispered. "It was among your destinies to be one of us," the Inka said. "But Natalie kept it from becoming a reality." She'd ponder the implications of *that* later. She sensed that time was running short. "So, Nick and Nat.... that can be prevented, too?" Vachon nodded. "What is about to happen doesn't have to happen. We aren't going to *let* it happen. We've decided to stop it." Tracy was sure that was the right thing to do, but she had to ask, "Why?" Again, Vachon shrugged and smiled that quirky little smile of his. "Because we can." --- CHAPTER TWO: Natalie --- "But what do you want *me* to do?" Tracy asked. She was new to this, after all. "We need to talk to Natalie," Urs said. "She doesn't realize what she will be throwing away if she leaves that existence so soon." She knew Urs meant something more than just that there would be no more Natalie Lambert, so she asked, "In what way?" "Natalie thinks her life will be forever empty without Nick. That isn't true. If she lives, she will come to understand our kind and accept us. What she doesn't know is that her unconditional love is the key to Nick's mortality." "Unconditional?" Urs nodded. "She cannot change the vampire in Nick, because she has not yet accepted it. She only thinks she has." Urs wasn't telling her something. "What else?" she prodded. Urs looked at her with sad eyes. "Remember what we told you, that before we can leave here, we have to be wanted? By someone who is willing to nurture a flawed soul?" "I remember, but I don't understand it," Tracy said. "Why are you 'flawed' if you didn't choose to be what you are?" Urs looked uncomfortable. "It's true we didn't choose, but once the choice was made for us, we accepted it. We didn't have to. Fledgling vampires walk into the sun all the time. We either feared death more than we hated what we were..." she said sadly. Then she looked directly at Vachon and said in a flat voice "...or we liked what we had become." "Oh," Tracy said, and it seemed like an understatement. "So are you saying that before you can be re-born, your would-be parents would have to know what you are?" Tracy was incredulous. The entire concept sounded ridiculous. Urs nodded. "They wouldn't *know* that they know, but... Do you understand, Tracy? If Nick and Nat... Well, it probably won't happen, but it *could*, don't you see? If they were to ever get together, they'd be the ones who would..." Her voice trailed off, as if she were thinking that if she said aloud what she hoped for, it might not happen. Could what Urs was saying be possible? Tracy had a fleeting vision of Nick and Natalie sitting around a dinner table with five kids, one of them with no hair and a Cockney accent. She felt like she had walked into "It's a Wonderful Life" and she was Clarence. "But, what do I say to her? I never really got to know her very well." Urs shook her head. "I don't know. But we can't let her do this. No matter what happens with us, it would be a tragedy for her and for Nick. And for LaCroix, too. Will you come with me?" An odd request, since they were already there, if only in the metaphysical sense. Tracy considered her options. She was a nice person, she thought. She'd always done what was expected of her, and had done most of it well. But, she didn't want to be an Angel. Well, not an angel-angel, anyway, not in that Other Place that she could go to whenever she wanted but that Vachon--and these others--could not. Would the Big Whoever understand if she wanted to stay with these vampires? Here, she sensed, was where she really belonged, and she supposed that made her one of them. But beyond that, she sensed it wasn't quite time for the Other Place. Even though she had no real form, she felt as though something unseen was tugging at her, and without being told, she knew it was her mortal body. It seemed to possess a mindless energy of its own that drew her true being to it like the force between opposite magnetic poles. Its attraction had not yet completely dissipated. "Let's do it," she said to Urs, but then turned back to the others. "What about the guys?" "We have our own business to take care of," Vachon said. Spark was cracking his knuckles--sort of, anyway, she supposed he didn't actually *have* knuckles--like he was going to hit someone. Tracy wasn't sure about him, but she trusted Vachon not to get into too much trouble. Well, actually, no, she didn't, but hey, they were dead. How much more trouble could they possibly get into? "I think it's almost time," Urs said... "Look..." What Tracy was seeing before her should have horrified her, but she seemed to be oddly detached from it, somehow. Perhaps it was because now that she understood death - sort of, anyway - she wasn't as appalled by it. Natalie was dying. Her heart had already stopped, although the part of her which contained her essence was still functioning. That chance combination of molecules that people knew as Natalie Lambert, but which was really only the shell she lived in, still clung to her in its last desperate attempt to continue its fleeting existence, just as Tracy's own body even then continued to draw her back to it. Nick, however, thought Natalie was gone. He was still crying. Tracy could hardly bear to see that. She liked Nick, although she had never gotten really close to him. She had always wondered why a good-looking, intelligent, *nice* guy like him had never found anyone, but then she realized that she hadn't been attracted to him herself. There was something dark about him. It wasn't the vampire, either. Vachon was a vampire, but she had called him her friend and had felt that he *was* her friend. Maybe it was that, unlike Vachon, Nick so hated what he was that now he was willing to end both his existence and Natalie's so he wouldn't have to be it anymore. He was asking LaCroix to kill him! He was handing LaCroix a carved stick, pointed at one end. She didn't know what its real purpose was, but she knew all too well what happened when you drove a piece of wood through a vampire's chest. Vachon had shown her that. She shouted "NO!" as LaCroix spat the words 'Damn you, Nicholas!' and brought the make-shift stake downward, impaling the younger vampire. But, of course, she didn't really have a voice, so neither Nick nor LaCroix heard her cry out. Vachon winced as the piece of wood penetrated Nick's chest. So did Spark, although not as noticeably. "You know that's gotta hurt," Vachon mumbled. The others nodded. Tracy was less calm. "Do something!!!" she shouted. Suddenly, the silveriness returned, and the male vampires seemed to vanish into it. It was just her and Urs, at first, but then, as if she were stepping out of a fog, Natalie Lambert was there. She looked just like herself, but she seemed to be glowing. Vachon had *felt* like Natalie had *looked* when she'd touched him, but he looked just like he always had. None of the others looked like Natalie did. Was it because they were vampires? Were there souls somehow different from those of mortals? Well, hell-o! She thought. Of course their souls were different. They wouldn't be here in this limbo if they weren't, would they? Tracy still found that kind of sad, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. Natalie was looking around, confused, stunned. Tracy imagined that was exactly the look that had been on her spirit-face just minutes (or whatever time was measured in here) before. Tracy went to her, and took her hand. Again, like Vachon, there was no actual matter there, but there was a vibrant energy in the touch, even more so than there had been with Vachon. "Hi Natalie." Natalie looked at her, not quite shocked, but almost. "Tracy Vetter?" "Well, I used to be," Tracy shrugged. "But... you died...." "Yeah. I didn't want to, but, I did." Oh hell, did she have to sound so cheerful about it? Natalie stared at her uncertainly. "I don't understand..." she said softly. "You said you had Faith that there was something beyond that life," Urs said, and the silveriness lifted as Urs indicated the scene in the loft. Before them, Nick's body lay sprawled atop Natalie's. LaCroix was kneeling over them both, his face contorted only slightly, but his grief unconcealed. "This is it," Tracy added. Natalie put a hand to her mouth, as if to stifle a scream. She didn't know you couldn't actually scream here. "Nick..." "He couldn't bear to lose you, and it has destroyed you both," Urs explained. Why Tracy said what she said next, she didn't know. She seemed to be quickly developing a peculiar sense of what *was* as opposed to what seemed to be. "This isn't what you wanted, is it?" she asked. Natalie looked dumbstruck. "You thought he'd either stop in time, or he'd bring you across," Urs pointed out. "He didn't do either, and now, your paths have separated." Natalie looked stricken. "What do you mean?" she asked, but Tracy could tell she already knew. "You won't be together, Nat. You'll go... where mortals go." "And Nick?" Urs shrugged. "He'll be here, with us, we think.." Natalie looked around, but now there was nothing but the silveriness. She was still getting her bearings, but, she looked at Tracy and asked, "Where is this place?" "I'm not really sure," Tracy told her. "But, Natalie, we're both dead." Natalie shook her head slightly. "No! I...." The scene in the loft re-appeared when Tracy willed it to, which surprised her. She didn't know she could do that. Natalie was forced to look at herself, pinned lifeless to the floor by Nick's impaled body. She was horrified. "LaCroix!" she gasped. Tracy touched her shoulders. "Nick asked him to, Natalie." "I... don't understand...." she turned to Tracy. "What do I do now? What am I supposed to do?" she pleaded. And suddenly, Tracy knew. "Go back, Natalie. It's not your time." "But Nick..." "If you live, Nick will live." "But he's..." Natalie couldn't look at the stake protruding from Nick's back. "There's still time, but you have to go back, *now*." And then the reason why she was so adamant that Natalie do this came to Tracy all of a sudden. "You *owe* me this, Natalie." Natalie was confused. "Owe you?" "Natalie, you told Nick you could accept him bringing you across, but when he drank your blood, he knew that wasn't true. He knew that would destroy completely any love you have for him. That is why he has chosen this for you both. But you stopped him from bringing *me* across, too, and that wasn't fair." Natalie seemed embarrassed that Tracy knew this. "You denied me that," Tracy continued. "And now your death will deny Nick the chance to die a mortal." "But... but he won't be mortal, will he?" "Not now, but some day, who knows? You have a long time left, Nat. Your life is not yet half complete. That is what They said." "That is what who said?" Natalie frowned. Tracy looked at Urs, who only shrugged. "They, with a capital T. Angels, or something." "But what if I do go back? What will happen?" Now *that* was a good question. Tracy tried to know the answer, because now she knew a lot of things just by wanting to know them, and slowly, it came to her. She was still linked to her body. It was shutting down, and she was pulling slowly away from it, but the thread was like a piece of gum on the bottom of shoe. It was stretching thinner and thinner and eventually it would disappear, but for the moment, it was still there. "Natalie, if you go back, I can go back. But Nick has to be alive to know that I can be saved. I don't know how that is true, but it is." Natalie had already gained some of the Knowing that came with this place. She looked at Tracy and she knew it too. But she asked, "Why do you want to go back? Why do this all over again some day?" Tracy wasn't sure. "I don't know. Maybe Vachon and I...." But she *did* know. She looked at Urs, and wondered if she'd see those same sad blue eyes some day in a child not yet born. *Her* child. Yes, she could accept them. She would be the one if Natalie Lambert wasn't. But, she had to *live* first. "Tracy, Vachon is dead," Natalie was explaining gently. Somehow, Tracy knew that wasn't important. "I want to go back, Natalie. I want more. But I can't do it if you don't save Nick." "Go back, Natalie," Urs said. "And try to love him." "I do love him," Natalie said, and she thought she meant it. But when Urs said, "No, you love what you want him to be. Love what he *is*, Natalie." "But he wants to be cured..." Natalie said, although of late she wondered if that were true. "But even if he's not, he still needs to know you accept him," Urs said."Love him, unconditionally." , Natalie was thinking. Was that what Urs was trying to tell her? Of course, it *sounded* so easy. "I don't know if I can," she said sadly. Tracy touched her, but didn't actually feel her. It was more a co- mingling of their life forces. "You can, Natalie. I know you can." --- CHAPTER THREE: Nicholas --- Nick Knight's 800-year-old essence floated in a void. He saw his body below him and he recognized the sensation, because he had experienced it twice before. This was Near Death. He'd left his corporal form behind, there, on a cold hard floor with his beloved Natalie lying still beneath him. He wanted to cry out in his agony, but he had no voice to do it with now. Natalie was dead. He was dead. They weren't together. They'd had faith.... but they'd been wrong. Cold panic flowed through him as if he still had a body and it had been immersed in icy water. He looked around. There was nothing. Just grey nothingness and the desolate scene below him. LaCroix was weeping. In 800 years, he had never once seen LaCroix cry. He wouldn't have even thought it was possible. He would have thought it even less likely that those ancient blood tears would be shed for him. He tried to tell himself that they were tears of anger, that LaCroix had been unable to contain his rage at the fact that he had finally lost the battle to keep Nick close to him But Nick knew that wasn't true. LaCroix was crying for *him*. LaCroix, he now knew with that understanding that came with this plane of existence, truly loved him. Why he had not seen that before was obvious. LaCroix hadn't even known it himself until that final moment when the tortured the soul of Nicola deBrabant had finally broken through the barrier, when he finally knew in his cold, Roman general's heart that Nick's desire to be rid of the gift he had bestowed upon him eight centuries past was never going to wane. He could not bear the thought that Nick would spend eternity hating him. Anyone else, yes, but not Nick. Not this child he prized above all others for his passion, his tenderness, and yes, he realized, for his *goodness*. Nick knew all of these things about his master, now. Just as he knew that LaCroix could not bear that he was gone. The old vampire's grief and despair encased him like a shroud. After two thousand years of cherished immortality, LaCroix wanted to die. Nick would have screamed, if he'd had a voice. He would have run, but there was nowhere to go. Nothingness surrounded him. Emptiness. An Eternal Void... He was to spend Eternity--*true* Eternity--adrift in this endless sea of pain and desola... "It's not that bad, you know," an unseen, but familiar voice said. Then, he was there: The long, scraggly hair, the dark eyes, the leather jacket. How could that be? This was the True Death, and yet Vachon looked exactly as he remembered him. Vachon knew his thoughts. "C'mon Nick, you really weren't expecting the halo and harps thing, were you?" He flashed that casual grin of his, except there were fangs in his mouth, which caused Nick to back away. Vachon seemed to know why, and said "There's no need to hide what we are here." Nick was mortified. "It can't be.... we're not..." "Still vampires. Yeah, 'fraid so. Or vampire spirits I guess would be more accurate. They weren't kidding when they said this thing was forever." "NO!" Nick wailed. "It can't be.... It can't.... There must be *some* way out.... There has to be..." Vachon shrugged. "If you're lucky, maybe you can go back and start over. But, Natalie won't be part of the deal. You won't even remember her." "But, I'll be with her one day, right?" Nick said. Vachon shook his head. "Reincarnation doesn't work for us like it does for them .... the mortals. It's a chance to start over--a redemption, if you want to call it that--but for us, it's not like adding a page to a book. It's more like recording over a videotape. Once you hit 'Record,' you erase what was there before. This unnatural existence isn't what was intended for us. It's a mistake, and once it's undone, it must be undone completely. You won't remember Natalie, and she will be allowed to forget you." "That's not fair," Nick wailed. "Why not?" Vachon asked. "It beats the hell out of being damned... pardon the pun. If this vampire thing is something you really don't want, you will be happy to do anything to get rid of it, and that includes forgetting everything that was a part of it. If you choose not to take that final step, well, your vampire and its memories are yours to keep. But, you can't have it both ways, Nick. That's just how it is." "But Natalie...." He grabbed Vachon by the shoulders, and was amazed that he could feel him even though he didn't seem to actually *be* there. "Vachon, how can I fix this. Is there a way? Do you know?" "You can return to what you were, if you do it quickly," a second voice spoke, and another figure with long, dark hair stepped out of the grey. Nick stared, and as he did, the second spirit-creature grew increasingly annoyed. "You don't even remember me, do you?" he said finally. That was true, Nick didn't. He looked vaguely familiar, but Nick just couldn't place him. "You don't remember me, and yet you think you deserve happily ever after." Nick shook his head slightly. "No. No I don't know you. I'm sorry." "The comet, remember? Natalie asked you to bring her across? You said no to her then, so she asked me. She *asked* me. But you stopped it. You killed me. Remember now?" It came back to Nick instantly. He'd staked this vampire with the wooden rod from Natalie's closet. Then, he'd dumped his body at the city landfill just before sunrise. He wasn't sorry he'd done it, though. "She changed her mind. You were trying to *force* her!" "That isn't the point," Spark said. "The point is that you didn't care. You didn't care enough to even remember my face. You are *still* a killer, Nick. Your modus operandi has changed, but what you *are* has not." "That isn't true!" "I'm still dead," Spark said. "You took more than my life from me, you took *forever*." "What do you mean?" "I didn't ask to be what I am, but I *wanted* to keep my immortality once I had it. Unlike you, I saw it as a *gift*, not a curse. You had no right to take it away from me." "You were going to *kill* Natalie!" "I was going to bring her across *like she asked me to*"! I wasn't even 50 years old, Nick... and you... you're 800!! You could have stopped me *without killing me*! But my life meant *nothing* to you, same as the lives of all those countless others. How many have there been, Nick? Huh? Vampires, mortals.... How many? Do you even know? You *kill*. That's what you do. That is what you have always done." Nick felt as if he'd shrunk to a very small pinpoint. "And now I've killed Natalie..." "And you let Tracy die," Vachon had to rub salt in the wounds. "The only way to fix both things is to go back, Nick. Go back, and keep trying to become what you want to be. What you *can* be. You can do it. Even he knows that..." Vachon indicated LaCroix as the scene around them once again became the loft. Nick shook his head. I'll go back for Nat, but not Tracy. I won't do that to her. I despise it too much," his voice--or what passed for it- -broke. "Don't ask that of me. Anything else, but not that." Vachon stood so he was directly in front of him, his warm, dark eyes so ironically alive. "Then will you do it for me, Nick?" "For you?" Nick frowned. Vachon nodded. "Tracy buried my body, out of the sun...." Nick knew immediately what Vachon was talking about. If it wasn't exposed to sunlight, a vampire's body decomposed so slowly that Vachon's was probably still completely intact, except for the stake wound. Divia was dead, so whatever power she'd had over him might no longer have any control. Before, he would have been sure that it was too late to bring Tracy across, but now, in this place where mysteries revealed themselves, he knew that there was still hope she could be saved. It was just a tiny thread of hope, but it was there. Still, the timing had to be right. Vachon knew Nick was thinking that. "I'll take care of Tracy. Just help me out when the time comes. Will you?" "How will I know?" Vachon shook his head. "You won't, not consciously, but if you promise me here, now, that you will help me, a part of you will know what you have to do." Nick was torn. There were so many choices. But what finally made the decision for him was the newly-gained knowledge that going back was the only chance he had to be with Natalie. The only chance he had of becoming mortal again. The only chance he had at redemption. He took Vachon's hand in both of his own. "I promise," he said. Then he looked at Spark. "I know there isn't any way to undo what I did to you." "No, there isn't," Spark said, now oddly devoid of hostility. "But who knows, maybe one day, you can make it right somehow." A strange image flashed through Nick's mind--a child with this vampire's eyes--but it was quickly gone. Nick nodded. He knew now that his destiny was not for him to decide. It never had been. --- CHAPTER FOUR: LaCroix --- Two millennia he had lived, and the old vampire had never known such pain. Even the death of his mortal daughter had not twisted his cold heart like the deed whose fruits were now before him. Divia had been Evil. Not the evil which men impose upon themselves with their self- conscious morality, but true Evil, that which drew its power not from the rivers of feral blood which flowed through all living things, bearing witness to itself it the sting of the wasp, the prick of the thorny rose, or the cold, soulless eyes of the shark, but from that abominable wellspring of all that was foul and despised. Such was the fluid character of natural evil that even the truly good were capable of it, and, in even the truly evil, there was room for good. LaCroix was evil. He knew that. He'd known it before he'd adopted the Night and paid the price for his immortality with an endless string of nameless murdered souls, most of whom he had never thought of again. He had known it as a Roman general, reveling in not only the conquest but in the humiliation and dehumanization of his enemies. He'd known even before that, as a child who savored like ripened fruit the sights and sounds of the arena that had visited nightmares upon his peers, but had only instilled a thirst for more bloodshed in him. And yet, he'd known the love of a woman--however briefly lived it had been--and he'd known what it was to love a child, until he had realized that she was even more evil than he. Had he been seeking out that love again when he had found Nicholas? His Crusader knight, wounded and disillusioned, yet ready to embrace the Night for the noblest of reasons: his love of *life*? He didn't know. All he knew was that Nicholas, of all his children, was the one who made him whole. The one who allowed him the thought that maybe, hidden somewhere in his ancient and evil vampire being, there was something Good. And now, his Nicholas lay at his feet, the last dregs of his existence in this reality draining from the stake wound in his chest. Beneath him, the mortal child, Natalie Lambert, who like him had seen the good in Nicholas. Who, like him, had wanted to keep Nicholas close. But who, unlike him, had hated what Nicholas was. It had meant the end for them both. He'd killed Nicholas, and now he felt very, very old and so very, very tired. He let his eyes close, as much from a weariness of soul as of body, and even further, to hide from himself the sight of his treasure's passing. "You migh' wan' ta remove tha' toothpick," a voice said. LaCroix turned colder than he normally was and a completely unfamiliar sensation gripped him. It was, if he remembered correctly, fear. Where had that voice come from? He knew he'd heard it. Had someone witnessed the loathsome act he had just committed? But if LaCroix thought that was fear, it was nothing compared to what he experienced when he opened his eyes and the carouche--the *dead* carouche--Screed, materialized before him. That was bad enough, but there was another... apparition... with him. LaCroix didn't believe in ghosts. Not *real* ghosts. In his two thousand years of existence, he had never seen anyone or anything come back from the dead, except for Divia. But she wasn't a ghost. She had simply never been truly dead. These things standing before him were dead. He was as sure of that as he was of the bloodied piece of wood, driven there by his own hand, that at that very moment was putting an end to Nicholas' torment. "You must remove the stake," the other vampire (and they *were* vampires--the fangs were in plain view) told him. "You must undo this thing you have done." "Who... what... are you?" LaCroix stammered, something he did very, very rarely. "We're the Spirits o' Chris'mas past, present, future, and o'erwise in'er-die-mensional," Screed said. "Come we are to show you the error o' yer ways, as i' were...." "Remove the stake," the other vampire repeated, more firmly. LaCroix did not like being told what to do, even by ghosts, even under these circumstances. "And why, pray tell me, should I do that?" "Because you do not want to lose him. Because he does not want to die." "He *asked* me to do this." "Well, 'e's changed 'is bloo'y mind, an' if you know wha' is goo' for you in the cosmic sense, you'll do wha' my Inka-type frien' 'ere says." "The Inka?" LaCroix raised an eyebrow. "Javier Vachon's Inka?" "I am *no one's* 'Inka'," the dark-haired vampire said. "But..." he hesitated. "I wasted 500 years trying to make Vachon belong to *me*. He was part of me, whether we wanted it or not, only I wanted to control all that our....bloodlink... implied." "And why does that concern me?" LaCroix asked. "Because you know about control, LaCroix." "Indeed?" "You would rather see Nicholas dead than see him with Natalie. If you cannot dictate his life, you would rather he not have one." "That..." LaCroix leveled his eyes at the apparition, "is my concern." The ghost of the Inka mimicked his expression and tone of voice, "Not... any more." LaCroix was not exactly afraid of the ghosts, but he didn't like not knowing what they were or where they had come from or what they were doing there, so he was, in fact, somewhat intimidated by them. He refused to behave that way, however. "Enough! I don't know who or what you are, nor do I care. Leave me!" "No." LaCroix was taken aback by that. He had never, as a vampire or a mortal, had cause to become accustomed to open defiance. "You must remove the stake now, before it is too late. You do not want this." "And how do you know what I want?" "Because I thought I wanted the same thing. I wanted Vachon to do as our master commanded us, and I wanted it on *my* terms. When he would not do as I wished, I refused to let him go, even though I could never have hoped to hold him to my concept of his destiny." LaCroix understood clearly the implications of what the Inka was telling him, but he refused to accept it. "Your point being?" he said coldly. "Vachon and I were bound like no other vampires could be. We shared the same blood. We were two halves of a whole. If I had given him his freedom, I could have called him friend. But I was so determined to make Vachon what I thought he should be, that I did not notice that he was that all along. I did not understand that until it was too late. It cost me my life, and because I was not there when he most desperately needed me, it cost him his as well." "You are saying I cannot live without Nicholas?" LaCroix scoffed. "I am saying that you do not *want* to live without him." That remark hit LaCroix like a hammer. He knew it was the truth. If he had a heart or a soul, Nicholas was the guardian of it. How cold his life would be without Nicholas' warmth, how dark without Nicholas' light. How empty... How simply not worth living.... "He despises me," LaCroix said softly. "No," the Inka put a hand on his shoulder, although LaCroix felt nothing. "He does not. Let him live, then let him go, and you will know this." "Bu' ye better act quick or this par'y is over, finito, terminado..." Screed interjected. LaCroix frowned at the carouche. "Why are *you* here?" he asked. "'Cause if Vachonetti can go back, yours truly can go back." "What has Vachon got to do with this?" "If I were to tell you, you would not remember," the Inka said. "Just know that for Vachon to live, Nick must not die." With a tone of urgency, he added, "There is no more time. Save him, LaCroix. Save that which is a part of you." LaCroix knew what he was going to do. There wasn't even a choice involved. He wanted Nicholas back. He wanted Nicholas to be his again, but that wasn't going to happen if Nicholas wasn't there. He lifted the pale, blond vampire from the floor, and pulled the stake from his chest. He ripped open a vein in his wrist and held it to the lips of his unconscious offspring. "What about Natalie?" he asked. "Get her to a hospital," the Inka replied. "As quickly as you can. She will do the rest." --- CHAPTER FIVE: Twice in a Lifetime --- As soon as Nick began to show signs of regaining consciousness, LaCroix set him gently on the couch and returned to Natalie. The opening in his wrist had almost sealed itself, but the few droplets that trickled out would be enough. She had lost too much blood for what LaCroix gave her to bring her across. Her life force was beyond an ember, barely more than a warm ash, but, she would draw from his ancient vampire blood the strength that she needed to stay alive for just a few minutes more, and for her body to reverse the final sleep that had come upon it. Her heart fluttered, and then begin to beat again. Weak and thready, but it would do until she could be infused with the human blood she so desperately needed. + + + + + Nick awoke to find LaCroix and Natalie both gone, but he couldn't force his will to deal with that. He couldn't understand why, but he had a overpowering urge to find the Spaniard, Vachon. He was concerned for Natalie, but somehow, he knew that it was not her, but Vachon who needed him. Natalie was safe. Somehow, he knew that. He also knew that there was literally only minutes left until sunrise. He'd have to move at vampire speed if he was to reach Vachon in time.... The young vampire was dead, staked through the heart to end the agony inflicted on him by LaCroix's malignantly cruel master. Why would it matter if the sun rose over his grave? But Nick had an overwhelming sense that this particular sunrise *did* matter. He was so sure of it that he bolted up the stairs to the bedroom and grabbed the comforter off the bed, because he knew he would need it. In doing so, he discovered with alarm how weak he was. He'd never reach Vachon in time unless he fed. He grabbed two green bottles from the very back of the refrigerator, hidden where Natalie would not easily spot them. It was human blood, but there was no time for guilt. He downed them rapidly and headed for the lakeside grave where two vampire friends lay buried side-by- side, their resting place unmarked but known to all of their kind. There were many such graves in the city since the Fever. LaCroix had ordered that the victims of the plague that had ravaged their community be buried rather than burned. Nick suspected it was because the old vampire could not accept that an unseen enemy had visited the True Death upon his minions, and that in his own way, LaCroix took comfort from the fact that the bodies, at least, still remained. And Vachon, of course, had been buried by Tracy Vetter, who either didn't know that simply letting the sun fall upon him would adequately dispose of his remains, or who did know and didn't want that to happen. However, the way in which Vachon had died was not why his grave was different from the others. Nick didn't *know* what that difference was, but with the first rays of dawn at his back, he began to claw frantically at the dirt. He only had to dig a few inches before a frail, muddy hand reached up to him. Flinging the dirt aside with vampire speed, he had Vachon uncovered in seconds. The younger vampire was too weak to stand, or walk, and he could barely speak, but he did manage to say the name, "Tracy." Nick's heart sank. "She's gone, Vachon. She died." "No!" Vachon whispered. And it was an argument, not a lamentation. "Take...me... please..." Nick eyed the horizon, which was transforming rapidly from black to purple. He wrapped the helpless vampire in the comforter to keep the light off of him, and then offered Vachon his wrist. Vachon pushed it away. "Not yet... Tracy... take me to her, Nick." Suddenly, Nick knew what Vachon had planned. Later, he would question how Vachon had known Tracy needed him, and Vachon would not be able to answer him. But right then, the urgency in Vachon's plea moved him to action. If there was any chance at all for Tracy, this was not the time to question whether saving her life by supernatural means was the right or wrong thing to do. That could be addressed later. Nick knew that Vachon could possibly revive her with his vampire blood, if there was enough life left in her, but as weak as he was, he could not bring her across. Vachon knew that, too. That was why he had refused Nick's wrist, and the strength that Nick's blood would give him. For whatever reason, Vachon did not want to bring Tracy across, not right then, even though at that point, Nick could have accepted that possibility. He scooped the weak, dirty vampire up in his arms and took to the sky. + + + + + Tracy's body was still at the hospital morgue. Less than 45 minutes had passed since the time of death, but it may as well have been a lifetime, had these been ordinary circumstances. There was information with the body indicating the cause of death. Nick scanned it quickly. Cardiac and respiratory failure. She'd coded, and they hadn't been able to bring her back. That was both good and bad. Bad because it meant that her vital signs had probably failed 20-30 minutes before she was pronounced dead. Good because it was possible that she still had brain activity at the time, that her true essence had still been in this body. Maybe it was still there, or close enough to it that it could be coaxed back. + + + + + Vachon managed to stay on his feet by sheer determination. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd fed, and once Tracy had removed the stake from his chest, he had almost bled out. Divia's poison had left him along with the blood, but so had most of his strength. He knew he didn't have enough blood left to bring Tracy across, and it was only a dim hope that he had enough to heal her. If he didn't, it would be up to Nick to save her, and he didn't know if the older vampire would do it. He tried to drive from his head the puzzling question of why he was here--or how he knew to even *be* here--with a singular purpose in his mind: Tracy had to live, and if it was at all possible, she had to remain mortal, at least for a time. He did not consciously know the reason for that, but it was important, not only to him, but to... These thoughts troubled him, but he couldn't deal with them then. There wasn't time. "Help me, Nick," he whispered hoarsely. He felt like he was suffocating, and there was a dull, heavy pain in his chest. He wasn't sure what he wanted Nick to do, but Nick seemed to know. Vachon was gripping the sides of Tracy's gurney so he could stand. If he let go, he was going to fall. He didn't need to explain that to Nick. He felt the older vampire's arms encircling him in a stabilizing embrace, then Nick gently took Vachon's wrist and held it to his own mouth, biting a small but deep hole. Vachon gasped with pain, surprised that Nick's fangs hurt more than his own would have. Nick continued to hold him steady with one arm, and positioned his wrist over Tracy's mouth for him with the other. Vachon was hardly bleeding from the deep puncture wound. He appealed to Whoever it was who heard a vampire's prayers that it would be enough. He literally willed the last few drops from his veins, and when he was done, an eerie sense of calm overcame him. He had done what was needed for... the others. Suddenly, he didn't know where he was, or how he had gotten there. He collapsed completely, but Nick caught him. He looked at the vampire cop and frowned. "Nick? What... where...?" It was no use trying to talk. He didn't have the strength even for that. He felt awful, but at the same time, elated. He had done what was needed.... + + + + + Nick set Vachon gently onto the floor. There was no place else to put him. Tracy's body temperature began to rise rapidly, and then there was the first tiny flutter of her heart valves as Vachon's healing blood triggered the necessary electrical impulses to get it beating again. Sluggish at first, life began to flow through her veins, carrying with it those few precious drops of Vachon's blood, stimulating the reflexes that caused her to breathe and opening up the network of tiny vessels that supplied blood to her vital organs. She would not make a miraculous recovery right there in the morgue-- Vachon had not had enough blood to give her for that--but Nick hoped the fact that she had been taken to the morgue while apparently still alive would be enough of an embarrassment that not too many questions about how she had recovered at all would be asked. Nick's vampire senses detected the return of Tracy's life force, but she was having difficulty breathing, and her pulse was erratic. He knelt beside Vachon, "We need to get help." Vachon agreed, but he could do no more than that. The telephone codes for the different departments of the hospital were printed on a plastic card next to the phone. Nick punched the one for the E/R and made an anonymous call demanding that they come for Tracy immediately. He took Vachon to the nearest empty room that looked unused enough that no one would find him for awhile. It was a store room of some kind, and there was enough room on the floor for Nick to spread the comforter over the bare tiles so that Vachon would have a place to lie down. The room was well lit, and Nick noticed for the first time that the young vampire looked terrible. It wasn't just the dirt. He was in the extreme stages of cyanosis, his eye sockets, lips and fingernails dark from lack of oxygen. Nick's knowledge of anatomy and the location of the stake wound told him that Vachon's major pulmonary blood vessels been compromised. His heart was beating at a near- mortal speed to compensate for the fact that his blood wasn't passing through his lungs like it should have. He needed to feed to heal, and Nick knew that he was too weak to do it on his own. He wanted to help him, but he had to make sure Tracy was cared for, and he had to find Natalie. If he let Vachon feed so soon after his own ordeal, he could end up flat on his face and useless to anyone. Vachon understood this without being told. "I'll be okay," he said, his voice barely audible. "Go." Nick didn't hesitate. Lack of oxygen was extremely unpleasant for a conscious vampire, but like almost every thing else that could happen to them, it wasn't fatal. Vachon would just have to be patient and bear the discomfort awhile longer. + + + + + LaCroix personally saw to it that the E/R staff did not remember Natalie, and that the staff of the ICU to which she was transferred were lead to believe that the young woman's malady had nothing to do with what had really happened. By the time he'd given her his blood, her vital organs had already begun to shut down in the cascade effect produced by hypovolemic shock, a complication that was almost invariably fatal. And, the length of time she had been without oxygen was at the extreme end of the scale for her to possibly survive without brain damage. She would hover for days near death with only the regenerative power in those few drops of LaCroix's blood keeping her alive while her body reconciled itself to the fact that it was no longer dying. She would live. She would be whole again. She would owe him... LaCroix carefully studied the mortal woman's face. Even this near to death, she was beautiful. There was a radiance about her that had not been extinguished by what Nicholas had done to her. Would she forgive his son for his folly? He suspected she would. "Foolish child," he stroked her cheek affectionately with a cold finger. "Look what your love for him has wrought... How ironic that we should be so different, you and I, and yet share this one fine and delicate common thread that holds our Nicholas close to us.... + + + + + Nick knew that Natalie would recover. He could *feel* the life in her. He held her hand and spoke her name, hoping she'd hear him. He didn't say he was sorry for what he had done to her. There would be time for that later. He only prayed that she wouldn't hate him. He had found LaCroix at her side after he'd left Vachon, but the senior vampire had left immediately to see to it that Tracy was attended to in a manner which met with his approval. Nick knew his master was the one who had saved Natalie. He knew, too, that LaCroix had saved him, and it surprised him that he felt no bitterness towards the old vampire. When his master returned, having satisfied himself that Tracy was receiving adequate care, Nick did not experience the usual desire to distance himself from the old Roman. "Thank you, LaCroix," he said, his eyes still fixed on Natalie. He felt the familiar cold hand on his shoulder. How often had LaCroix performed this same gesture, only dropped his hand a bit too heavily, or squeezed a bit too hard? How often had the act conveyed the unspoken words, "You are mine, and I will never let you go."? Nick didn't feel that, now. LaCroix's touch was gentle, and somehow reassuring. The senior vampire was still wearing the hospital scrubs he'd stolen. He had no doubt enjoyed the authority that came with everyone thinking he was a doctor. Nick looked the outfit over and said, "It suits you, LaCroix. Now that the Nightcrawler has moved on, maybe you have a new future in medicine." LaCroix scoffed. "I hardly think so Nicholas..." but then he added softly. "Although recent events have inspired new... insights, on my part, with regard to the matter of life and death." Nick wondered what he meant, but he knew from the way LaCroix said it that he wouldn't be forthcoming with details, should he ask him. Still, something had changed about the other vampire. Was it almost having lost him? Was he really that important to LaCroix? He supposed he'd never know. LaCroix would never come out and say it, that was a certainty. "Miss Vetter has been stabilized," LaCroix changed the subject. "A truly remarkable case..." He smiled that tight-lipped smile of his, as if this were a private joke. "If she lives, Vachon will bring her across one day. I know he will," Nick said. "And that bothers you?" Strangely, it didn't. "She'll have a choice this way. If I had done it, there would have been no way to know if she would have wanted it or not. But, no, I don't have a problem with it. Not anymore.... Speaking of Vachon, he's in pretty bad shape." He told LaCroix where to find him. "Will you take care of him? I'd like to stay with Natalie." LaCroix nodded curtly and turned to leave, but Nick put a hand on his arm. "LaCroix, when I said you were my oldest and dearest friend..." "I know, Nicholas," LaCroix said softly. "I know." + + + + + When LaCroix saw Vachon, he was reminded of the ghosts he had seen in that odd dream he'd had--and he was sure it *had* been a dream, although how he had managed to succumb to the spell of Narcissus under such emotionally charged circumstances was a puzzle he had yet to contemplate. Vachon looked more like a ghost than the ghosts had. There was an odd, bluish cast to his skin and his facial features were almost skeletal. As bad as Vachon looked, he managed a casual smile when he saw LaCroix.. "About... damn... time..." he said, needing to take a separate breath for each word. "I do fear you were last on our list of priorities," LaCroix said, without a trace of his usual sarcasm. "For that, I apologize. It could not be helped." "Just... get me... outta... here..." Despite being conscious, Vachon was as lifeless as a rag doll, and LaCroix found it necessary to place a hand on the back of his head to support it as he lifted him so he could feed. It took every ounce of Vachon's remaining strength to pierce the vein on LaCroix's neck and swallow the first few mouthfuls, but once he had succeeded, he sighed deeply as the healing liquid flowed into him. The transformation was almost instantaneous. LaCroix could hear his heart beat become stronger and slower, and when the young vampire was able to, he instinctively clung to the nourishing font by wrapping his arms around LaCroix. LaCroix would have liked to have let him drink his fill, but he knew Vachon wanted--and needed--more than he could part with. He had already given a substantial portion of his blood to Nicholas, and his own body was in need of replenishment. After a short time, he gently pushed Vachon away. The Spaniard was still terribly weak, but the sickly-blue color had faded to the strikingly pale translucence that was normal for their kind. "Feeling better?" LaCroix asked, surprising himself that he actually cared. "Yeah, thanks.... Tracy?" "She's alive." "She'll be okay?" LaCroix shook his head. "Only time will tell. But where there is life there is hope." "Even where there is no life, sometimes there's hope." LaCroix looked at him oddly. "Why do you say that?" Vachon frowned thoughtfully. He really didn't know why he'd said it. "Faith, perhaps?" LaCroix said Vachon shrugged. "Maybe." LaCroix turned to leave, his job done. "I never figured you for the type to believe in stuff like that," Vachon called after him. LaCroix turned to face him, and looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before a wry smile appeared on his thin pale lips. "Nor did I, my young friend," he shook his head.. "Nor did I." THE END