Subject:      DTD: The Price of Friendship: $5.95, Plus Delivery

DTD: The Price of Friendship: $5.95, Plus Delivery

"Mr K-Knight?" The delivery boy poked his head through the doorway, and
his voice, already shredded by the onset  of adulthood, quavered an
uncertain notch upwards. "The - the door was unlocked." Taking a hesitant
step into the room, he stood staring at the evidence of Nick's wrath
sprayed across the wall. "I brought your order," he added unnecessarily,
holding a forth a mute brown parcel.

"Matt!  Oh. I'm sorry," Nick waved an indeterminate hand. "Bad day at the
office." He stepped across the remains of a magazine stand and its spilled
burden of goldfish journals that had somehow missed the cleanup and reached
across the back of the sofa to take the package; then froze, more sober
than he had ever been.

"Oh, and I let your dog in." There was a pause, during which a shadow
materialised into the biggest, meanest brown hound either one of them would
see this century. Matt's brow creased with worry. "I think something's
bothering him."

A growl, long, low and menacing, reverberated through the heavy stillness.
Nick realised that he had made a fatal mistake. He and all those who had
gone before him in boredom into the light proclaiming that life held no
surprises for them anymore. He had assumed that his life would hold the
same challenges, the same terrors in roughly the same degree, that it had
held in the past.

Searchlight golden eyes met his, hunger and the need to kill glowing eerily
from their sallow depths. Blood, there was human blood spilled in the room.
The air must be thick with the smell of it. He took in the effect of long
paralell sctratches across a blunt brown nose, and a sliver of drool
descending gracefully from an uplifted lip; and felt the hair standing to
attack on the back of his neck. Perhaps they had all overestimated the
appeal of the Vampire. Perhaps <this> was what his victims knew.  Fear
without seduction. The cold burst of sweat. The flash of a fang in the
chilly moonlight.

In the glare of those headlight eyes, his life flashed before him. Which,
even on Fast Forward, took a while.

He gulped for an unnecessary breath, for equanimity. "Just leave it in
front of the door." The dog, horse, whatever it was, was actually
slavering. He fought off a flashback, circa 1868, a hunting pack, Virginia.
No, no time for that, Matt was terrified, and he was responsible.  "And
Matt - back off, slowly."

Matt nodded, backed away, dropped the delivery, and bolted.

The door slamming left a hollow empty feeling in the memory of what must
once have been his stomach.

Momentarily distracted, the monster bent its head to snuffle the package,
then rend it with tooth and claw. From between the sodden shreds of paper
two cans spllied innocently into the light. Mr Tabby's Tuna Treats. Wild
hopes of bribery chased each other like minnows across the liquified
surface of Nick's thought processes. No, he decided despairingly. I'll just
bet it doesn't like tuna.

The Hell-hound's efforts to rend fish from can having reached an impasse, a
dribbled-on sample of Mr Tabby's finest was permitted to roll across the
floor coming to rest at Nick's feet. He stood rooted to the spot as he was
fixed once more in that saturnine yellow gaze; as, claws scrabbling for
purchase, two hundred pounds of dog flesh skidded across the floor in his
direction, coming to rest with a undignified "Ooof" against his legs.

He staggered slightly, looked down at that appalling face, those luminous
eyes, took in those accusing scratches, and the realisation dawned, slowly,
horribly, that perhaps Hooch ate, had already eaten, that very night, more
than just dog food.

Then it was too late, for the flashback had him firmly in its grip.

**************
He was hunting purposefully for catfood, Sydney perched on the counter
glaring at him.

"I'm sorry, but it's not my fault. She was in a hurry for the plane," he
was saying, wondering absently why an eight-hundred year old immortal was
apologising to an unfriendly grey cat of no particular pedigree. "I know
there was some left over from last time." Sydney was unimpressed. This was
ridiculous. "Okay, okay, I'll get them to deliver."

He had just put down the phone when the door slid open and Schanke and
someone else were towed into the loft by the largest, meanest dog Nick had
seen since an Irish wolfhound accosted him in a corridor on the Orient
Express. 1908. Prague. He was obliged  to fight off the remembered miasma
of attacking canine halitosis, and mostly missed the burbled introduction.
Scott someone, another of the endless parade of Schanke's old friends and
colleagues. Just in town for the weekend from the West Coast and they had
tickets for something and would Nick mind looking after Hooch for a coupla
hours, because Myra had to go to her aunt's and -

Sydney attacked.

Fur flew, papers flew. Priceless artifacts scattered. Tins of paint, racks
of CD's, a new glass coffee table, canvassess, shredded and broken. Flesh
hit glass in a cacophany of shreiks. The aquarium burst open, cascading its
most recent denizens to a lingering death on the rug. Oh No -  Even in
flashback, Nick shuddered helplessly. Another generation gone. Gone. Too
late.

The howls and shrieks of the dammned deafened him. A whirlwind swept in
ever contracting cirles through the loft, gathering speed. Sckanke yelled
and waved his arms. Whoever was with him bellowed "Hoo-ooch" and gave
chase, tripping over shards of wet glass and flapping bodies, missing
whichever animal threw Nick to the floor, crashing against the coffee
table, and falling, arms out, catching the edges, hot blood spurting across
Nick's face.

In an instant the change was upon him. Vision gold and red. Fangs out to
defend himself. He snarled, once, and Sckanke saw him.

Two beats of a mortal heart, a flick of his head, a swallow, and he had the
beast back in its cage. But the damage was done. Shock, disbelief, belief,
understanding, horror. A hundred emotions shattered like buck shot across
the fragile walls of Schanke's world. There was a tense, expectant silence.
The animals had vanished. Schanke was waiting.

Nick swallowed again, fighting it. There was blood on his face, his hands,
the  smell was indescribable; fresh human blood - a heavy sonorous call -
singing to him, tugging at his all his leashes. Do something. Anything. He
looked down and away. Schanke's friend, Scott someone, had divided an
artery in his forearm, and they had to stop the bleeding, before it was too
late.

Too late. Too late. Too late. He acted on reflex, reaching for pressure
points at the elbow, "Get a cloth Schancke," Oh No, not the sink. "From the
bathroom - make it a towell. Now!" He couldn't believe his ability to sound
as if - or Schanke's ability to follow instructions, as if everything were
as normal. Beneath his hands Schanke's friend, was pale and sweating,
muttering practised and various curses, some of which even Nick hadn't
heard in a while.  Slight, dark-haired, ordinary. Far too normal for this
nightmare.

"Here," a white towell appeared in his peripheral vision, as Schanke knelt
beside them. Just as if he were still Nick's partner. As if they were stil
a team. White turned to scarlet.

"We can't wait for the paramedics," Nick said, just as if he still made
decisions for both of them. "We'll take the Caddy. You drive."  The man at
his feet, who was still Schanke's friend, groaned quietly and turned his
head away.

A cold wet nose, striped with red scratches, appeared out of nowhere. An
enourmous wet tongue slobbered across Nick's face, once. Then Hooch bent
over his fallen master, sniffing blood, and from somewhere deep inside that
barrell chest, whined in distress.

Then Hooch turned, and searchlight yellow eyes accused Nick of unspeakable
crimes. Judge, jury, and executioner. Hooch was ready.

*******************
The sound of his phone ruptured the flashback.

"Nick, is that you?" He could barely hear her voice over airport noises.
"Listen, I almost forgot. Sydney's due for his shots tomorrow. Can you take
care of it? He's got an appointment -"

"Natalie. We have to -"

"Oops. That's my flight. Gotta go. Thanks Nick, Give him a big kiss and
cuddle for me and tell him Mommy's proud."

The line went dead.

It was too much. Nick looked back at those huge accusing eyes and lost it.
His whole life was a shambles, because of five minutes with this mutt.
"You!" he snarled viciously, letting Hooch have the full benefit of the
Vampire. "Out! Now!"

Hooch stared at him in disbelief for one whole second, then bolted,
whimpering, for the second floor and sanctuary under Nick's bed. Not a
whisper. Not a sound. Silence, blessed silence. His fangs retreated,  his
vision cleared till he could see the wreck of this life all too clearly.
What could he tell Natalie. What could he tell <Schanke>.

It was over. Always too late.

He crossed to the baby grand, sat heavily and thought of Rachmaninov, or
maybe Tchiakowsky. No, only Beethoven would do for despair. His hands chose
the keys without his volition, chose something basso profundo and let fly.

From somewhere deep inside the bowels of the piano, Sydney shrieked his
preference for jazz.

Nick sat back and laughed and laughed, until, incorrigible, a flicker of
his human hope returned to him.

Which seemed like the note on which to end this.

MaryGT