Subject: Eternal Rest (1/12) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 06:07:11 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Eternal Rest--a Forever Knight story By April French Author's Note: Written for the 2003 Crusader Newsletter Halloween Fiction Contest, but since I didn't win, I figured I'd post it. This is a first season story and takes place between the episodes "Spin Doctor" and "Dying for Fame." As far as I know, the only person who belongs to me in this story is Joseph, and possibly the medium. Everyone else belongs to Columbia Tri-Star and all their subsidiaries. If you like the story, lemme know; if you don't, eh, that's your business. Thanks galore go out to Stacy in the Beta Shoppe. This story will be archived at my site http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html with all the others. Permission to archive is given to the Crusader Newsletter--of course--and to the FTP site. Anyone else wishing to archive, hey, a couple bags of Tootsie Rolls and it's yours! ~~~ Eternal Rest (1/4) Toronto: October 24th, 1992 Brushing his long forelock out of his eyes, he checked the arrangement one more time. He spent several precious minutes making tiny adjustments to every miniscule detail, but finally he was satisfied. Scrambling over a pile of clothes, he scanned the dresser, grabbed the canister of salt from the candy corn and devil horns-cluttered table and carefully sprinkled a wide circle of white grains on the floor. They sparkled like so many tiny diamonds in the dim light that trickled through the window from the street lamp. He stood back and admired his handiwork. She was beautiful, lying so still and peaceful inside the circle of salt. And thanks to him she would live forever. Supremely content, he locked the apartment door securely behind him. *** The dying sun beat weakly on Nick's back as he dug, frantic with terror, faster and faster, flinging shovelsful of dirt this way and that. He had to get to the bottom before night fell... There! His body jarred as his shovel struck the lid of the coffin. Throwing it aside, Nick climbed quickly down into the grave. The sun was slipping lower and lower beneath the horizon. He was running out of time! Taking a stake from inside his coat, Nick braced himself, and ripped open the coffin. The vampire lay there in his box, impeccably dressed in evening clothes and a red satin-lined opera cloak. His skin was the same shade as his short white hair, bloodlessly pale, and his eyes, unclosed even in his death-like sleep, were enormous and cold, and stared up at him from a silhouette of snow. They ripped at Nick's brain, almost made him doubt his actions. But he clutched his stake more tightly, and raised it above his head. Just as the sun disappeared. Unholy life flooded into the vampire's eyes, staining them red and hungry. With a snarl of raging joy, he sat up and in one smooth motion, disarmed Nick and trapped him in his arms. "Welcome home," LaCroix hissed. Then his brutal hand snapped Nick's head back, and the vampire sank his wolfish fangs into Nick's throat. Nick screamed... Nick's eyes shot open, salty blood sweat biting at them. A dream. Another dream. He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. "Is it the twentieth century already?" he groaned. He looked at the clock, decided there was little point in trying to go back to sleep, and stumbled into his bathroom. Running the cold water in the sink, Nick stuck his face under the tap. "LaCroix as Movie Vampire," he muttered as he struggled to wake up. "Now that's a scary thought." The time of year was playing tricks with his mind, he told himself. That was all. He stumped down the stairs in his disheveled black silk pajamas, one hand on the red railing to steady his descent while the other hand ran through his tousled blond hair, and yawning wide enough to dislocate his jaw. Rummaging through his refrigerator, Nick pointedly ignored the container of protein shake and grabbed instead a bottle of cow blood--cold, glassy and lifeless, perhaps, but blood nonetheless. And no taste had to be better than the foul taste of Natalie's protein concoctions. Biting out the cork, Nick spit it expertly into the trash. In honor of the season, Nick raised the blood in a toast to the dead. "Bon appetit," he murmured to the burn on his elevator door. He carried his breakfast into the living room, where he'd left the chessboard set up the night before. The black king was still in check. "'Still,'" Nick chastised himself scathingly as he seated himself on the floor with depressingly inhuman grace. "Did you expect someone to finish the game during the day?" Drinking from time to time, until he had to get ready for work, Nick slowly played the game to a stalemate. That was all he could manage; there was just no way to capture his invisible opponent's king. It was protected by a black knight. *** Captain Joseph Stonetree had a very large, very expansive presence; when he walked into the apartment, it was like a punch in the gut—you he was there. In sharp contrast, Detective Nick Knight had almost no presence. Not to say he wasn't noticeable; when Nick wanted you to notice him, by God you noticed or else. But when he didn't want you to see... "Hey, Nat." The kneeling coroner gave a little squeak of surprise, half-turned and hit Nick's shin with her clipboard. "Don't that to me!" Nick flashed her a playful grin but sobered as he took in the crime scene. This was the third time he had seen this setup: a dead young woman without a single visible mark of violence, a bag of candy next to her head and a box of pantyhose by her feet, all surrounded by a thick ring of carefully poured salt. He'd seen purposely arranged bodies before, but this one ranked as one of the weirdest. "Hey, Nick, what's happening?" "Hey, Dedrick," Nick greeted the uniform and took the purse from him. Pulling on a latex glove, Nick rummaged around and brought out a driver's license. "Jenna Graham." Schanke eyed the inhabitant of the terrarium in the corner. "She must'a been either an exotic animal handler or a stripper with a snake act," he muttered before leaving to question the landlady. Natalie looked up from her examination to the victim's bookshelf and shook her head. "She was in veterinary medicine." The captain hovered over them. "Cause of death?" "Unknown," replied Natalie, standing, "but I've got my suspicions. I'll know for certain once I get her back to the morgue." Stonetree nodded. "And what's your suspicion?" "Smothering, probably with a pillow or a folded blanket." "She was burked," Nick murmured, remembering an old Scottish nursery rhyme. "Same as the other two." Schanke rejoined them, waves of annoyance pouring off him. "Nobody saw a damn thing. Again," he added sourly. "No sign of forced entry, so she knew her killer, just like the other two. And--" he gestured to the macabre arrangement. "Third times the charm, guys and gals--we've got ourselves a serial." Nick had also found an invitation in Jenna Graham's purse, to a Halloween party the night before. "Maybe she brought her killer home," he suggested. "Well, that would explain the candy," said Schanke, munching. End Part One April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ Subject: Eternal Rest (2/12) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 06:09:20 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (2/12) Crunch crunch crunch. "Schanke." Crunch crunch crunch. "Schanke!" "What?!" "What've I told you about eating in my car?" "Aw, come on, Nick," his partner complained, popping another mini-Butterfinger into his mouth. "It's three days before Halloween, there's candy all over my house--only a health nut like you isn't eating every M&M in sight." "And are you eating the evidence?" "Naw, the landlady gave me a bagful." Nick Knight just rolled his eyes and tried to think about anything other than Halloween. But the best laid plans of mice and vampires often go awry, and that was looking to be the rule of the night: Schanke shut up. At least he wasn't eating souvlaki tonight. "Hey, Nick, listen. I need you to do me a favor." "Yeah?" Nick tried to work up a little interest. "What's that?" "I want you to help me play a prank on Natalie." "A prank?" He listened with mounting incredulity as Schanke outlined his plan. "Are you out of your mind?" "It's a good idea!" "Schanke, lemme tell you something that you may not have noticed: She works in a morgue!" "Exactly," said his partner excitedly. "That's why it's so brilliant!" "You don't think any of her interns have pulled a stunt like this before? She'll be expecting something this close to Halloween—and whoever's responsible is probably gonna get their head ripped off!" Nick's fingers drummed on his thigh. "On the other hand," he admitted. "Could be fun." Grinning in triumph, Schanke offered Nick a Butterfinger. Nick shied away. "No, thanks." "Aw, come on. Just one." "No means no, mister!" Nick growled, pushing the candy away. Schanke shrugged and ate the chocolate himself. *** An organized nineties woman was supposed to multitask, and that's what Natalie Lambert was trying to do. But carrying on three conversations while holding a thick folder, dinner, and pushing a gurney might have been straining it just a little. Add to that budget cuts and the non-stop Halloween gags from the medical students... Natalie had already thrown her kung pao chicken at one of them. She maneuvered the gurney beside one of the refrigerated drawers where bodies were kept before being examined, shifted her burden to one arm, and pulled open the drawer. "Boo!" Natalie shrieked and the papers and Chinese food went flying. "Schanke!" "Trick or treat!" "Schanke, get out of there! That's for dead people, not living idiots." He snickered, climbing out of the drawer. "Sorry, Natalie, couldn't resist." He tried to help her collect her scattered papers but, irritated, she batted his hand away. There was no use even trying to save the food, so she just left that for the janitors. "So where the hell is my body?" "Erm..." "The body that was supposed to be in the drawer?" Schanke's expression lightened. "Oh, that. Nick took care of that." "Oh, so Nick had a hand in this, too, eh?" Natalie shoved her papers back into their folder and planned sweet, sweet revenge. Maybe she'd give him an extra-nasty-tasting protein shake, or double his dosage of garlic pills--no, triple it! Or maybe... "So, where did he take it?" "I put it on your dissecting table when you weren't looking," came a deep, merry voice at her ear. "God--!" She whirled around and gave Nick a sound thwacking on the shoulder and head with the manila folder. "That's the second time tonight you've beaten me up," he said petulantly. "Oh, you deserve it!" So the eight-hundred-year-old vampire stood and docilely took his punishment. "I must be working off bad karma from a past existence to have deserved you in my life!" Schanke snickered. Nick just put on his best 'innocent little boy' look. Natalie growled in frustration and rubbed her temples. "Stop that," she scolded. Schanke threw his arm around Nick's shoulders. "Ain't he adorable?" "It's like trying to stay mad at a naughty puppy," Natalie agreed, allowing herself a tiny grin. She brushed a strand of chestnut hair behind one ear. "So. Did you two come here just to annoy the hell out of me, or is there business involved?" Nick arched an eyebrow at his partner. "Yeah, Schank, come to think of it, there a case involved?" "Um, no, not really." Schanke nonchalantly shrugged his round shoulders. "But if you've got anything on the Graham murder--" "I might have had, if you two juveniles hadn't monkied with the corpse." She rolled her eyes in chagrin. "Sorry. It's been a long shift, and the Halloween jokers haven't taken a break all night." The three of them walked back to Natalie's morgue. There was the corpse, lying on the dissecting table with a sheet thrown neatly over all, just as Nick had said. "Stand over there," Natalie ordered with an imperious wave of her hand. Meekly, the two men complied, not wanting to incur the wrath of a scalpel-wielding woman. "You guys can just wait while I probe." So they waited. And continued to wait. The silence began grate on Schanke's nerves, and he found himself wishing for the interruption of a squawking pager, but that annoying device was uncharacteristically silent. Nick didn't mind waiting; provided there wasn't an excess of blood, he actually enjoyed watching Natalie work. At last, she finished the autopsy and began sewing up the body cavity. "Like I thought. Suffocation." Schanke threw up his hands. "Finally!" "Was there any indication of sexual assault?" Natalie shook her head. "Nope. Again, just like the others. She was killed and made pretty, nothing else. D'you want the report now?" "No, no need." Nick seated himself on the edge of an empty slab. "Our shift's almost over. Take your time." Natalie tied off a thread and began a new one. "So, Schanke, what're you doing for Halloween?" "I'm booking off. Gotta take Jenny trick or treating. And get this: she's going as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, right? So what is Myra trying to talk me into? Wearing a lion suit." "A lion suit?" Natalie laughed. "A lion suit," he huffed. "I ask you, do I look like Cowardly Lion material?" Nick looked him up and down, taking in his partner's slightly bulging stomach and decidedly balding head. "More like Wizard material to me." "That's what I told her! But does she listen?" He sighed. "What about you, Nick?" His partner shrugged. "I'm thinking about staying home, but I'll probably end up working. I usually do. Weird stuff happens on Halloween, and they generally happen on my patrol." Schanke gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "Well, hey, pardner," he joked on his way out the door, "y'know what they say: no rest for the wicked." End Part Two April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ Subject: Eternal Rest (3/12) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 06:11:24 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (3/12) @}----- There was a moon, three-quarters full, but the cloud cover was thick that night, leaving little light to brighten the resting place of the dead. At such an hour, there should have been nothing to disturb the residents, but the silence of the graveyard was broken by a most ominous sound--that of a metal shovel striking the wooden lid of a coffin. Planting his spade firmly in the earth, Nicholas jumped the five or six feet down into the hole he had dug just above the head of the new coffin. Eager to be done and away, his youngish assistant held the lantern higher. "Put it out, Harper!" Nicholas hissed. "Are ye daft?! D'ye want t' be here all night?" "Put it out, I say!" And he flung a handful of dirt in Harper's stubbly face. Sputtering but obliging, Harper closed the lantern. "Ye must have th' eyes o' a cat, Nick Pirie," he said grudgingly, as Nicholas groped around in the narrow hole. It was barely wide enough for a man with his breadth of shoulder to stand upright, let alone hunched down head to knees. "D'ye wish for th' hatchet?" "No." Finding the edge of the lid, Nicholas grasped it tightly in fingers like iron. He flexed them to gain maximum purchase, and with a sharp crack that was barely muffled by the several feet of dirt around it, broke off the head and shoulder portion of the lid. The features of a young man, red-haired and slack with death, appeared in the gloom. "Give me the rope." "Eyes o' a cat," muttered Harper, flinging down one end of a long coil, "an' the strength o' an ox." Nicholas secured the rope around the corpse's shoulders. Then, grabbing the taut line, he climbed out of the grave with a neat hand-over-hand movement. He and Harper swiftly hauled the body up, stripped it, and stuffed it into a long sack. Nicholas dropped the man's suit of clothes back into the coffin, and then he and Harper shoveled the soil back into the violated grave. "Come," said Nicholas, hefting the corpse. "Let's be off." They left without looking back at the empty resting place. @}----- "No rest, indeed," muttered Nick, his eyes dark and far away. He took a deep breath to dispel the image of the cemetery from his mind. Natalie poked his shoulder. "You okay?" "Yeah," Nick assured her, smiling. "Where were you? 'Another time, another place?'" Nick decided to take pity on her curiosity. "Scotland, 1830s. Edinburgh. The surrounding towns." He let out a short, dark bark of a laugh. "'Up the close and down the stair, but and ben wi' Burke and Hare...'" "Wait, wait, wait," Natalie stopped him. "Burke and Hare. The bodysnatchers? You knew them?" "Not personally. And they weren't bodysnatchers proper. But I know a thing or two about the profession." He winked. "I've done a little amateur grave robbing in my time." "You were a bodysnatcher?" Nick nodded. "Get outta town!" "Hey, don't knock it, Nat. Think about if you were a teacher—better yet, a researcher--and you were limited by law to only the bodies of executed criminals--and having to share those with every other doctor in the city! It'd really put a crimp in your work. Without the bodysnatchers, the science of forensics would never have been possible." "Nick, I'm a coroner. I learned all about the bodysnatchers when I was still in med school. I know their historical importance, but--you are the person I'd think of, to be doing something like that." "Well, I didn't exactly do it for kicks. Or for the money, although it could pay well." "For digging up dead bodies? I would hope it paid very well." Natalie toyed with her pencil. "So, was that little job somehow meant as an act of atonement?" "Well, in a roundabout way it was. Those bodies were in payment for something." @}----- A silver-haired man was writing by the flickering light of a few candles. He had a high forehead and a thin nose and lips, and wore a large grey apron over his white shirt, whose sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. He was engrossed in his work, oblivious to the night sounds common to the facilities and grounds of Edinburgh University, but when a sharp tap sounded from outside the door, he looked up. Setting aside his pen, he rose to admit the late-night visitor. "Bring it in, quickly!" The doctor swiftly shut and locked the door. Nicholas laid the package on the dissecting table. "Is it fresh?" "As fresh as I could manage. Oh, don't give me that look, Joseph, he was dead before I found him." Nicholas smiled innocently. "I promise." The humor was lost on the doctor. "Good," Joseph said brusquely, working to unwrap the body. "The last thing I want it to end up like Knox, hounded and humiliated from one end of the city to another." "I'd never do that to you. Think of what I'd be doing to myself." Nicholas wandered over to the desk where Joseph had been writing and examined the papers. "Did you pay Harper?" "I did." The vampire skimmed the freshly-written pages with a fast but careful eye. "We're going to have to find someone else. He's getting suspicious." Joseph let out a sharp bark of annoyance. "That's the fourth one! Mr. Pirie, the whole point of giving you an assistant was so that no one's suspicions would be raised in the first place." He gave his hands a quick sluicing in a white cast-iron basin to wash off the ink and dried them on his apron. "I thought a portion of this experiment was to wean you off your vampiric abilities." As usual, any mention of the 'experiment' caused Nicholas to all but bounce on his heels with anticipation. "Have you found anything yet?" "Mr. Pirie--" "Nicholas. I've told you, Joseph. Call me 'Nicholas.'" "Nicholas, then. I am a doctor and a surgeon, not an experimental chemist. I told you that when you came to me in the first place." He stripped away the sack automatically and turned the corpse's head with professional fingers, but Nicholas saw that some of the doctor's old luster had gone out of his actions. "I must confess, I have lost a good deal of enthusiasm for this project in the past few months. The idea of giving up such a gift as an unending life... of helping someone on the road to death..." He shook his silver head. "It violates all my fundamental principles, as a doctor and as a man." The blond vampire sighed impatiently. "I feel for you, Joseph," he said, not without compassion, "but I am running out of time. My master is coming for me, and I assure you, he would be more than willing to send you to meet your wife!" Tight-lipped and silent, the anatomist angrily sliced open the cadaver. @}----- "Joseph was well-known in Edinburgh at that time, and I'd gone to him for help in trying to find a cure." Nick smiled at his current physician. "He was fascinated by me." "Well, who could blame him?" "Please, Nat, don't flatter me." "Oh, perish the thought," Natalie kidded him. "He wasn't afraid?" "No more than you were. Then again, I didn't wake up on dissecting table. But he agreed to try and help me." Nick closed his eyes. Putting his memories into words was difficult for him; he had never been nearly as eloquent as his late master. "My friendship with Joseph was never as... as warm as my friendship with you. It was more professional, more clinical. I was his patient. But he was always civil to me. Even invited me to his home one or twice, so I had met his wife, and I knew he felt lost when she died." "What of?" "Appendicitis." Nick stared at the blue-tiled wall, focusing on the grout at the juncture of four tiles. "He thought he could have saved her if only he'd tried a bit harder. After that, he just lost interest in me." He blinked slowly, but his gaze was still blank. Natalie knew that look; she needed to get him to snap out of it. So she did, literally. She snapped off her latex gloves, and Nick flinched. "So," Natalie said, changing the subject, "are we still on for a movie tonight? And your place or mine?" Allowing his memories to slide away, Nick rotated his head slowly to look at her. "Mine. As for the movie... I've got a better idea." End Part Three April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ Subject: Eternal Rest (4/12) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:08:21 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (4/12) That night, instead of a movie, Nick sat Natalie down and treated her to a rare spectacle: he read to her. Natalie loved when Nick read aloud; he had a wonderful voice, husky-soft and deep, and his powers of mimicry were incredible--thanks to his centuries of travel, he had an ear for accents and could imitate almost anyone. In honor of the evening's reminiscence, he had chosen the short story "The Bodysnatchers," by Robert Louis Stevenson. "Yeesh," Natalie shivered when he was through, drawing the afghan more tightly around her shoulders. "I'll never look at an autopsy the same way again. Then again, I've never looked at a dead body the same way since one of them woke up on my table." "But I'm such a likable dead body," Nick smiling, closing the book. "You are dead," Natalie scolded him for the umpteenth time. "I'm sorry I brought it up. Although," she conceded, tipping her curly head to one side, "if you'd been the one in the drawer instead of Schanke, I might not have reacted so badly." She sipped her hot chocolate. "Nothing like that ever happened when you were grave robbing, did it?" Nick frowned. "I don't like being called a grave robber." "Oh, come on; you said it yourself! Besides, it's not exactly the kind of profession you can sugarcoat. Fine. What would you 'prefer' to be called?" "A resurrection man." Natalie nodded, supremely understanding. "Ah, I see. Nice and Biblical." The vampire opened his mouth to protest, checked himself, and then looked at the book in his hands. "I guess it is kind of a moot point." He smiled lopsidedly. "No, I never had any bodies come back to haunt me..." Nick trailed off. "Nick? What is it?" "Nothing." "Something, I bet." "No, no, nothing. Just thinking..." With slow fingers and distant eyes, Nick absently stroked the cover of the old book. @}----- Nicholas had the door open even before Joseph had fished out his key. The younger man's face was flushed. "What are you doing in my house?" he demanded, brushing past the unexpected vampire with guilty haste. "You were not at the University at your usual hour," replied Nicholas slowly, reluctant to disturb the strange currents he sensed swimming around his friend. "Ah," Joseph said shakily, hanging up his hat and scarf--the hour was late and the maid had long since gone to bed--and smoothing back his short silver hair. "And you were concerned for the safety of the experiment?" "I was concerned for the safety of my friend." The unnaturally pale face of the vampire wore an air of disappointment. "Your lack of faith most offends me. I value your life for more than just the sake of the experiment." Joseph snorted. "Where were you?" "Perhaps I was visiting my wife's grave. Or perhaps I was at church." Nicholas's answering smile was friendly but disbelieving. "For an open-minded, pragmatic scientist, you are a very devout man. But even a devout and grieving man does not spend the wee hours of the morning praying in church." "What do you know about it?" Joseph snapped. "Where I was is none of your concern!" "Your children were worried about you." Deflated, Joseph turned and went into the library. "You have worked so hard to moderate the suffering of their mother's passing," Nicholas continued, following him. "Do not be the cause of any more of their pain." Joseph leaned a hand on one corner of the fireplace. "It is a strange thing, is it not?" he mused hoarsely. "That such a being as you should be the one to call my responsibilities into question. Sometimes your compassion shames me." He took a deep breath. "I went to a séance." The vampire blinked. "Did you say... a séance?" Joseph nodded. "My friend," said Nicholas gently, "Edith was a wonderful woman, and I mourn with you for her loss. But you are a scientist. You do not believe in ghosts." "A year ago, I did not believe in vampires, either. And Ms. Beecher--" "Beecher. Ms. Hannah Beecher?" Nicholas coughed in disgust. "Joseph, I have seen these mediums at work--charlatans and spirit talkers down through the centuries. They will take your grief and twist it and tell you they have spoken with your wife, and you'll believe it for so long that when you finally discover the truth, you will be destroyed from the inside out. You're setting yourself up for a grave disappointment. Don't do this to yourself!" "It is my decision!" Joseph's long nostrils flared in anger. "Good night, Mr. Pirie." Nicholas left without another murmur, but slammed the front door behind him. @}----- The Stevenson book fell heavily to the floor, and Nick woke with a jerk, badly startled. *** October 25th, 2003 There were three folded pieces of paper sitting before Nick on his desk, and he examined them intently. They were invitations to Halloween parties, and each one had been found somewhere in the possessions of the three victims of the latest serial killer to cross Nick's path. Two of the invitations, gaudy pieces of card with garish patterns of orange and yellow on a black background, had been sent by the same person. Nick picked up his pen and wrote down the name 'Simon Aleg,' and next to it, put down the dates of the parties, October tenth and October seventeenth. The third invitation, which Nick had found in the most recent victim's purse, was also black, but far more elegant, with loopy silver writing. He wrote down the name of the party's host--Robin Bradley--and the date, October twenty-fourth. He rubbed his lips with fretful considering fingers. "They all died after a Halloween party," he mused. Tired after his day-long shift, Schanke loosened his tie and tilted back in his office chair, folding his arms across his chest. "And the chances of three wackos arranging three bodies in the exact same way--" He watched, perplexed, as Nick took a small object out of his pocket and rolled it between his long fingers. "What's that?" "Hmm? Just a chess piece." He pushed the paper with the names and dates across the desk to his partner and leaned far back in his chair, still toying with the little ebony horse. The forensics reports of the crime scene had come back; latent shoe impressions taken from the hard wood floor in the living room indicated that their perp was indeed a male, and they had found several foreign hairs in the bedroom... but something about the careful positioning and arranging of the bodies was troubling Nick. He felt as though he should why this killer was acting in this particular way. But it would not come to him. "Well, clearly our boy is one party-hearty fella." Schanke hauled himself up with a yawn and stretched. "I'll have a check run on the names of the hosts and then I am outta here--my shift's almost over." "Right. Night, Schank." Nick trapped the chess piece in his fists and leaned his chin on them, brain fermenting with random thoughts. All in an instant, the air in the office--with its incessant low chatter and the offensive smells of unwashed bodies and oily coffee—became overpowering to the vampire's delicate senses. He shoved the black knight into his pocket and flung his coat about his shoulders, seeking escape. End Part Four April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (5/12) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:10:02 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (5/12) The familiar atmosphere of bump and grind and bite inside the Raven was less intense than usual. He saw Janette leaning bonelessly against the bar, as was her custom. "It seems a little subdued tonight," he commented, taking off his sunglasses. "It's 'that time of year' again," she reminded him with an annoyed sigh. "For a few weeks at least, the fun isn't in here--it's out there." The circle of her arms encompassed the city and beyond. "Halloween is very bad for my business. The mortals come here in their stupid costumes, and the vampires--" "Are out being vampires," Nick finished grimly. "Killing." The perfect arch of Janette's eyebrow cut sharply across her flawlessly pale forehead, a dark and fathomless scar. "Hmm, we are in a mood tonight, aren't we?" Her black lace-gloved hands slid tantalizingly up his arms, coming to rest on his shoulders. "Maybe I can think of something to... relax you?" The need in Nick to accept, to acquiesce, was strong. He could smell her... he remembered her taste... Nick licked his dry lips and smiled, and declined her generous offer. "I'm here about a case." Janette released him, straightening her dress. "If I have to hear those words one more time..." she warned him. "So. What is it tonight, hmm?" "Simon Aleg, Robin Bradley. Do you know them?" She considered. "The second name is not familiar. But Simon, yes, he comes in here sometimes." She chuckled huskily. "He's... quite the character." "A dangerous character?" Nick pressed. "No, just weird. weird. Why, has he done something?" Janette's tone of voice was only mildly curious. "I don't know. Two guests of two of his recent parties have been found dead--smothered--their bodies purposely arranged." "And you think Simon was involved? Oh, cherie, you've obviously never met him." "The other girl went to a different party, thrown by a different host. But she ended up the same way. There is a common thread in this case that I know I'm missing." Janette went behind the counter. "You're thinking too hard," she told him soothingly. "You take this career of yours far too seriously, Nicolas." She brought up an unlabeled green bottle from behind the counter. "There are six billion people in this world. What do a few more dead mortals matter to us?" @}----- Joseph had disappeared again, to attend another séance, no doubt, leaving behind a full night's work. Nicholas had been a medical doctor at various times during his long and convoluted life, and he had performed dissections before, when his physician was called away on business, so he was not unfamiliar with the procedure. However, this was the first time Joseph had ever purposely abandoned his work and his patient to go off in pursuit of other interests. Nicholas stared grimly at the waiting cadaver. "Oh, Nicholas, don't look so depressed." Tensing, Nicholas turned, and beheld his master. "Just because there's a dead body, you assume it's a tragedy." Nicholas jerked his head tightly to one side. "I think in this case, it's rather more a comedy of errors, since I provided the body." "Yes," LaCroix drawled. "I suppose there is something morbidly funny about the inconvenience of dealing with a dead body. Gallows humor." "Your favorite kind." LaCroix circled the dissecting table, catlike in gait and in the economy of his movements. "The girl is unmarked," he commented, letting his fingers trail form navel to neck and then examining the skin of her throat with impersonal skill. "Whatever did you kill her for, if not to take her?" "I did not kill her." "Then how--?" LaCroix's eyes widened in understanding. "Bodysnatching? Oh, my dear boy, have you fallen so low that you cannot earn your 'honest living' doing something a little more dignified?" He grabbed Nicholas's wrist and examined his fingernails. "And a little less dirty?" Nicholas freed his hand and resisted an impulse to strike his master. Such altercations inevitably turned out badly for him. "I do not do this for profit." LaCroix raised an eyebrow. "Nor for enjoyment. I'm not so depraved as that." "Then why?" Nicholas didn't answer. "I see. I had hoped that were the resident scientist in this laboratory, and that your excursions into the world of anatomy were driven by the simple lust for knowledge. Imagine my dismay when I inquired into the proprietorship of this particular University office." LaCroix's tone was disappointed and annoyed. "Why do you waste your talents on this foolhardy search? Why do you put these mortals--whom you claim to value so highly--into such danger? You how this will end--as it always does. Your pet physician will fail, and either I will kill him before that happens, or you will kill him afterwards." LaCroix looked around the laboratory. "So? Where is he?" "He is not here." "You are a master of observation, Nicholas," said LaCroix dryly. "And he won't be back, not tonight." "A pity." The ancient Roman took a seat at the writing desk. "His is a very well-known name; I would have enjoyed speaking with him." "Before you killed him." LaCroix's head dipped in acknowledgment. Nicholas picked up his knife to begin the dissection. "Well, you needn't waste your time," he muttered dejectedly, slicing away. "He's quite lost all interest in me." The elder vampire made a sound very much like smothered laughter. "Oh, you poor lad." In truth, Nicholas's vanity had been pricked by Joseph's recent neglect, and he felt terribly petty because of it. Not that he would ever admit such a thing to LaCroix. "What could possibly be more interesting than ?" Nicholas chose to ignore the comment's snide tone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so. "His wife died recently," he explained, his hand making jerky and ever sloppier cuts into the flesh of the corpse. "His mourning has taken him into the parlors of the spirit mediums." "Ha!" LaCroix clapped his hands once in loud delight. "Hail the skepticism of modern medicine." "He is in pain," Nicholas snapped. "He'll turn to anything for comfort." "Well, he is only human," conceded LaCroix, still chuckling. "I'm worried about him." "Don't be. Do not waste your time." The agile old vampire leapt up swiftly from his seat across the room and was beside Nicholas in a heartbeat. "So your friend's wife is dead. What does it matter?" LaCroix thumped the corpse. "This could just as easily be her. And what difference does it make to you if he's casting tea leaves to find her? You know he won't." "That isn't the point, LaCroix," Nicholas ground out. "That is precisely the point! This is none of your concern, Nicholas," said his master deliberately. "Let the dead attend to themselves." @}----- Tearing his eyes away from the tempting green bottle--and the equally tempting woman holding it--Nick sighed. "I need to go." "Nicolas." He half-turned. "Don't forget your Halloween duty." Inwardly, Nick groaned. He almost had forgotten. *** Nick stuck his head into Natalie's morgue. "Natalie, I need a need a favor. I need you to give me any and all reports of vampire-related homicides that you may have--" "How in hell did you know about those?" she interrupted. "I had two come in just this morning." He sighed, inching in to the office. "The Halloween season tends to bring out the careless side in vampires. When everyone expects the unexpected and the out-of-this-world." Nick's smile seemed a little on the plastic side. "Much as I've tried to distance myself from the Community, you and I seem to have become Toronto's official 'Cover-Uppers.'" >From experience, Natalie already knew the proper procedures for covering up a vampire killing--she'd fudged so many reports since she had met Nick, she was considering a second career as a fiction writer--but tonight, Nick stuck around to make absolutely certain there would be no suspicions over the causes of death. End Part Five April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (6/12) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:11:39 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (6/12) October 28th, 2003 Nick dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He and Schanke had been pouring over crime scene photographs and forensic reports for days, and they still had nothing. "Hey, Nick, take a break, man, before your eyeballs explode." Blearily, his partner looked up. "Have Aleg or Bradley come in yet?" "They're both on their way, finally. Listen, you want something?" Schanke offered, a little concerned. Nick was taking this one way too hard. "Coffee, donuts... apple cider?" Nick smiled briefly but shook his head. "Thanks, Schanke, but no. Don't wanna go off my diet." "Aw, that's right. Is it one of those low-carb things?" "Low carb, low salt, low sugar, low flavor..." "Yeah, yeah, all right," Schanke cringed, "I get the point." For what had to be the twentieth time, Nick searched slowly through the stack of photographs. "If we could figure out why he positions the victims the way he does, we might get a break in this." Schanke chewed thoughtfully on something gooey. "Y'know what that whole deal with the candy and the pantyhose reminds me of?" "Eh, what's that?" "Those things that Neanderthals used to put in the grave with the dead body... God, what do those history shows call them? It's a religious thing, I know it is..." @}----- Glad to be alone, Nicholas worked steadily and silently at digging up another corpse. He heard the wind, felt the rush of air and the sudden presence of another. "Hard at work, my boy?" Nicholas's shovel bit deeply into the soft soil. "Nothing to say?" Jumping down into the hole, Nicholas ripped off the coffin lid with a somewhat excess amount of force. "Hand me that rope." LaCroix raised an eyebrow but complied. "This is an unusual choice of occupation for you," he commented. "I should think you would approve," Nicholas grunted shortly, securing the corpse. If Joseph did not want it, it would be easy enough to dispose of. There was no lack of demand for fresh cadavers. "I'm desecrating the bodies of the dead, committing blasphemy--You should be proud." "You're exploiting a resource for your own gain." LaCroix took a seat on the headstone and leaned over the grave like a gargoyle. "Marvelously pragmatic of you." He watched his son lift the body out of the grave with ease and begin to strip it. "Why do you do that?" "It's a greater crime to steal a corpse's shroud than it is to steal the corpse." "You're not serious!" LaCroix let out a high, rolling laugh, the kind that always made Nicholas uncomfortable. "It's a religious taboo," he snapped, putting the nude body aside and dropping the grave clothes and several pieces of women's jewelry back into the ground. "Rubbish," LaCroix snorted. "If religious taboos held so much merit, we would not be walking on 'consecrated' ground." He leapt down from his perch and to prove his point, strolled casually about the cemetery, reading the stones while Nicholas shoveled more dirt. "A cross is a vulnerability; dirt is a superstition." He stopped at one particular marker. "I'm finished," Nicholas called, coming up behind him. "It's not good to linger too long, we should..." He caught sight of the name on the headstone. "Edith." "Your friend's wife?" Nicholas nodded once. "It is... never easy, losing a lover. We are the fortunate ones; we have the time to grieve and then to find another. They are not so lucky. Religion is created out of a mortal fear of death. Who are you to tell this man not to grieve and worship as he wishes?" "This is not religion. This is a sham!" "There's a difference?" LaCroix's ice-white fingers gripped his son's sleeve. "It's not your affair. It's not affair. Wash your hands of it." "I cannot." "If you're really so desperate for this man's 'help,' then why are you pushing yourself into his business? Doesn't that strike you as... counterproductive?" LaCroix's eyes narrowed. "Surely you don't blame yourself for this mortal's delusions." "Delusions. LaCroix, have you never believed in something so strongly?" His master's ice-blue eyes were bland, almost kind. "I believe in the power of the mind, Nicholas. I believe that mortals' minds are weak, and easily bent. I believe that they will believe in anything, and anyone." LaCroix's voice, as always, said so much more than his actual words. "They waste clothes, jewelry--their life savings--on the bones of their dead, believing that this will give them eternal life in the beyond. What are they, but delusions?" @}----- "Grave goods," breathed Nick, slapping the desk. And he called himself an archeologist... "They're grave goods. He positions the victims, surrounds them with small items, as a form of symbolic burial! Schanke, I could kiss you!" Schanke balked. "No thanks. I don't believe in that much comic relief." "You're a genius!" "That's what I've been tryin' to tell you!" Their momentary elation faded. "This doesn't tell us who he is, though." "No, but it is a bit of insight." Schanke picked up his insistently ringing phone, listened, said "Thanks," and hung up. "All right, Nicky boy, our party people just showed up. Time to get down, get down, get down!" *** Simon Aleg was indeed quite the character, with half his head shaved and the other half long to his elbows and bright blue, several bits of metal stuck into various parts of his face, and as Nick and Schanke discovered, a fairly colorful rap sheet of misdemeanors from his high school days; however, he'd been clean since his marriage. The other party host, Robin Bradley, had never had so much as a parking violation, and privately, Nick was convinced that neither of them had anything to do with any of the three murders. "Did you bring your guest lists?" he asked. They had; Bradley had brought not only the list of people she had invited, but also a list of the invitees who had actually showed up, and as many names of party crashers as she could find. "If only all our witnesses were this thorough," Schanke remarked. Nick's practiced eye quickly picked out the names of the three victims, as well as several duplicate names from both hosts' lists: Edwin Furlong, Carly Ernest, Jason Cataldo and Pete Turner. "How well do you know these people?" he asked. "Well," said Aleg, a bit chattily, "Carly and Jason are part of the local club scene--I met them at the Raven about a year and a half ago--Edwin is an older gentleman, loves costume parties, but I don't know all that much about Pete. He's friend of Jason's, a newbie in town." "Would it be possible for us to interview them?" Aleg and Bradley exchanged significant glances. "Detective Knight," said Robin Bradley apologetically, "very few of our acquaintances are ever at their home addresses. The written invitations are courtesies; most of our guests find out about the party through word of mouth." "If that's true, Mr. Aleg," Schanke began, "then why are some names on your lists repeated two and three times?" "I throw a lot of Halloween parties, Detective," replied Aleg, sounding offended, though for the life of him, Nick had no idea why, "and the themes are always different. I invite everyone two and three times, and my guests never go home disappointed." @}----- Tired from his long night, Nicholas climbed the stairs to his rooms and unlocked the door, pushed it open--and stopped short. There was a body on the floor, just beyond the threshold. And he knew he hadn't left one there. Shutting the door with unseemly haste, Nicholas knelt down beside the body and gingerly rolled it over. It was a man, youngish, brown-haired and stubble-chinned, with two neat little holes in his throat. "Harper," he breathed, shocked. Feeling a tingle on the back of his neck, Nicholas turned. LaCroix cocked his head at his fledgling, and tossed a sharp piece of wood onto the floor beside the body. "He came looking for me," Nicholas cursed. "He came looking for a vampire." LaCroix smiled sharply. "He wasn't disappointed." @}----- Nick tossed the lists down on the table. "But they sometimes go home dead." End Part Six April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (7/13) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:07:10 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (7/13) They held the two witnesses for a while longer, trying to decide what to do. Aleg and Bradley had offered a few photographs of their duplicate guests, especially when they realized that only one of the woman in said list was still alive, but there was precious little else either host could do to help the police, one of the major downsides to the anonymous party scene. For his part, Nick did whatever he did when he was especially befuddled: he called Natalie. "So you've found something?" she prodded after a long stretch of dead air. "Three possibly suspects. And the next probably victim. Listen, Nat, is there something wrong with me?" he asked impatiently. "Or do I just not get it? All these costume parties..." Helpless, he sighed into the receiver. "I mean, I can see the appeal, but to become that obsessed with it--Aleg looked like he was already in costume!" He heard Natalie switch the phone from one ear to the other and push a stray curl behind one ear. "Well, there is a great deal of freedom to be found in wearing costumes and masks. You get to discard all your self-consciousness, do things you normally wouldn't do, otherwise." "I wear a mask every day," returned Nick quietly. "How free does it make me? They do grant a certain license; I've seen them all--Masquerade, Carnival, Mardi Gras--the desire to just let your inhibitions go, to run wild! But I can't let myself do that, Nat. I can't expose myself to that kind of temptation." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Listen, I've gotta go. I'll stop by later, okay?" Hanging up the phone, Nick looked up at his partner, who clearly had something to say. *** Schanke tailed Simon Aleg home, while Nick kept tabs on the more low-key witness, Robin Bradley. They had agreed that the two party hosts were probably not mixed up in the strange series of murders, but they also knew that it didn't hurt to be careful. Nick admitted to himself, letting the Caddy idle at a stop light, Slowly, he followed Bradley's motorcycle. It was a little hard to be inconspicuous in his big green boat of a car, but he managed. Her house was a large one, perfect for throwing extravagant theme bashes. Nick parked the Cadillac and got out. Something was... not... right. Bradley put her motorcycle into the garage, walked back out as the automatic door was closing and went up the wooden steps to her front door. As she was digging for her house keys, she abruptly stopped, turned slightly, and caught sight of Nick. He tensed, but she only smiled and gave him a bit of a wave before going inside. Despite this, Nick did not relax. He waited. A muffled scream came from inside the house, sending Nick's hunting instincts into overdrive. He flew inside, seeing red through his night vision, stretching out his senses. There were two heartbeats upstairs. One was Robin Bradley's. The other... There was a sound of shattering glass, and the other beat abruptly disappeared. Nick flew up the stairs, and found Robin Bradley lying coughing on the floor of her bedroom with a pillow over her face. "You're all right," he said, throwing the pillow to one side. "You're all right now." She clutched at his jacket, too stunned to speak. *** She refused to go to a hospital, so Nick brought Robin Bradley immediately to the best doctor he knew, and hovered anxiously over his witness while Natalie examined her. "She's fine," said the medical examiner, standing. "A little bruised and a lot frightened, but otherwise..." She shrugged. "It's a good thing you were there." "A very good thing," Bradley spoke up, gingerly fingering her tender throat. "Detective, thank you." Nick smiled. "Don't mention it," he said, slightly embarrassed. "Please." "But you should have brought her to a hospital, not to the morgue!" "I wouldn't have gone," Bradley maintained stubbornly. "Ms. Bradley," Nick turned his attention back to his witness, "did any of your guests know that you were coming to talk to the police tonight?" "I don't see how they could have. I haven't spoken to any of them in several days, except on party business." "Did you see your attacker's face at all?" She closed her eyes, thinking, but then she shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. Just a black shape, with a white blur for a face." The detective nodded. He briefly considered hypnotizing her, but discarded the notion; the bedroom had been dark. Unless totally acclimated to the darkness, a mortal would have been able to see very little. "Robin," he said suddenly. "Who do you think it was?" She started, surprised. "Off the record, out of the three men, who do you think is most likely to do something like this?" "I... I can't honestly say, Detective. As I said, Pete Turner is new in our circle, so I've no idea about him. I know Edwin and Jason very well--that is, as well as you can know a person." She smiled lopsidedly. "Most of my acquaintances don't let you in too deeply, you know?" "I know. Yes." Nick ran his fingers through his hair. "All right. I need to go back to the precinct. Come with me, we'll see if we can't set you up in a hotel for the night." End Part Seven April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (8/13) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:08:09 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (8/13) He caught sight of his partner. "What're you still doing here, Schanke? You're supposed to be following Aleg." "I am. He's still here." Sucking on a red hot and fanning himself, Schanke jerked his head to a corner. "Found somebody he knew from his high school days; hasn't stopped talking for the past hour and a half." He spit out his candy and whistled. "I'll call you," Aleg promised his friend before joining the detectives. "I'm not canceling the party," Bradley was saying vehemently. "Not just because of this." "Ms. Bradley," said the captain blandly from his seat on the desk, "you were almost killed. If the party goes on, Carly Ernest could end up as dead as Jenna Graham or your other two friends." "Really, Robin," Aleg pointed out, "it's just a party." She gave him a glare. "This coming from Toronto's Number One Club Kid?" She let out a furious huff. "Look, if I cancel this party, not only will I spend Halloween getting ten thousand pissed phone calls, but you'll lose your chance to catch this guy!" "How d'you figure?" Schanke interrupted. "If there's only one party, then everyone'll be at Aleg's place--including this maniac, whoever he is." But Aleg was squirming, and Bradley was shaking her head. "Simon and I have been throwing parties since college, Detective Schanke, and we have a standing rule that all our frequent guests know: if one party's canceled, they are canceled. It keep us from being inundated with more guests than we can handle." Schanke swore. "Isn't there some way to get around that?" Nick insisted, making tight, agitated gestures with one hand while the other stayed fastened to his hip. "Can't you... I mean, couldn't you--?" "Nope," said Aleg simply, shrugging. "Well, I guess there's just one thing left for you two to do," the captain declared, getting up. "Oh, no, Captain, not--not undercover!" Schanke moaned. "You can't do this to me--think of what Myra'll do to me," he realized, eyes going wide with horror, "if I don't take Jenny trick-or-treating..." Stonetree rolled his eyes. "What time do your parties usually start?" "Oh, about 9 pm or so," Aleg estimated. "If you and Jenny are still out by then, you're right, I don't wanna know what Myra will do to you." Nick leaned on the back of his chair. He didn't like the idea of going undercover at a Halloween party , because he knew what it would entail. But if he had to suffer... "Come on, Schanke, it could be fun. You go over to Mr. Aleg's house and I'll go to Ms. Bradley's--" "Hang on, hang on, why do I have to go to party?" "Well," said Aleg, incensed. He crossed his knees and tossed his half-head of blue hair in the perfect imitation of a diva. "Fine," Nick exclaimed peevishly, digging into his pocket. "We'll flip for it. Heads, I go to Aleg's, tails, you're going." He balanced the quarter carefully on his finger and thumb, praying that the bitch goddess of Fate would look kindly on him, and popped the coin into the air. It rotated a few times and fell into his outstretched palm. Schanke groaned. "Great..." He turned to Aleg. "So, what's the theme? Goth? Movies? Sci-fi? Please don't tell me it's anything S&M, okay?" "Oh, God, nothing like that," Aleg said, waving his hands. "Not for such a public party anyway. No, for Halloween, we're going retro. Like Saturday Night Fever?" Schanke's gloomy countenance brightened considerably. "How about your party?" Nick asked Bradley. "You do themes, too?" "Oh, yes..." She looked him up and down consideringly and smiled. "And I think you'll be able to pull it off very nicely." "Oh?" inquired Nick, slightly apprehensive. "My party is a Victorian theme." Relieved, he returned her smile. "I think that should suit me just fine." In fact, he suddenly had a remarkably crazy and wonderful idea for a costume. "Good." Bradley stood, gathering up her coat. "Detective, if you really want to fit in, you should bring a lady friend with you, if that's your thing." Nick ignored Schanke's stifled snort. "And if you don't think it's too dangerous." Schanke nudged him in the ribs. "D'you even know any ladies?" he bantered, winking. Nick raised an eyebrow. Oh, he knew some ladies... *** "You're going undercover at a Halloween party?" Natalie repeated, mouth a little agape. "As a vampire?!" Nick shrugged. "Why not?" "You're supposed to be hidden!" Natalie protested. "Sometimes, the best place to hide is in plain sight." "Yes, but--" "And Halloween is the one night I can actually get away with it!" "Didn't you tell me not five hours ago how dangerous it is for you to let your mask fall away? And what about all these bodies that have been coming in?" "I've handled the past week rather nicely," said Nick, a tad stiffly. "I don't think one night of partying will kill me. Besides, I'll be working." She sighed resignedly. "Well, you could always go as Dracula." Nick shuddered. "No, thanks. Did I ever tell you I once met Dracula--Prince Vlad Drakulya?" "All right, now you're just pulling my leg." "No, I'm serious," Nick grinned. "He was a maniac." "LaCroix must've loved him." "Actually, he had no use for Drakulya. No use whatsoever. The man just had issues. Listen, Nat, the host suggested that I bring a date to the party." He waited expectantly. "Y'mean... You're asking me?" "Yeah, I mean, if you're not doing anything else that night." "Uh, no," said Nat with a lopsided grin. "I'm not." "And if you don't want to go that's fine." He shrugged. "I can just go alone. Or I could ask Janette." "Nick, I'd love to go with you--I've got Halloween off for once--but I don't think I have any clothing that qualifies as Victorian." "Buy something. Or rent something." She eyed him balefully. "It's three days before Halloween. Do you know how big the lack of selection is going to be?" "I could probably find something that would fit you," Nick said, eager to help. "Oh no, Nick, you don't have to--" "D'you really want to go?" "Yes, but--" "Great!" He gave her a swift and brotherly peck on the cheek. "I'll see what I can find and then swing by your place on the 30th. 'Night, Nat!" End Part Eight April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (9/13) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:10:01 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (9/13) The exclusive tailor, known simply as Oscar, looked up from his mending to see one of his favorite customers. "Nicholas!" he welcomed, happily surprised by the arrival. He stood and smoothed back his long brown hair where it had escaped from its ponytail. "This is unexpected." "You're telling me," replied Nick dryly. He turned and greeted Oscar's partner Alice--although whether she was also his lover or simply his business partner, Nick had no idea--and then confronted his tailor with his best look of amused desperation. "I know that look." Oscar hid a smile. "What is it you need, my friend?" "A Halloween costume." The tailor's voice went up an octave. "I... beg your pardon?" "Not for me," Nick hastily assured him, adding silently, "I need a neo-Victorian gown for a no-frills, no-fuss mortal woman just under thirty years of age." Unbrokenly composed, Alice nudged her partner aside. "Measurements?" she asked without batting an eyelash. As near as he could approximate, Nick gave them to her. She began drawing dramatic sketches on a pad of paper. "Eye and hair color?" "Medium blue, and chestnut." Oscar began pulling out bolts of fabric. Nick argued with them both for what seemed like days--after all, he'd actually seen this woman!--but at last he and the two tailors came up with a design and fabrics that suited Nick's taste and the tone of the party and that he hoped would please his 'lady friend' as Oscar insisted on calling her. "In the four hundred years we've been dressing you, Nicholas, this is the first time you've ordered something for a woman." "Well, I guess there's a first time for everything, eh? Besides, Janette would never let me pick out her clothes." Alice chuckled. "I've seen some of the horrendous things you've worn over the years, Friend Fashion Plate." Nick grinned sheepishly. "She knew better!" "But it looks like Janette's good taste has finally rubbed off on you." "This from a man who dresses like the Scarlet Pimpernel?" Nick quipped, grinning. Oscar folded his arms over his chest and refused to be put off. "This must be quite a woman you're dressing." "She is." "A keeper?" Nick glared at him. "She's just a friend, Oscar." He handed the tailor a check. "This should cover what I owe you." He lifted Alice's nimble fingers to his lips and kissed them, and left the shop in a bit of a hurry. Oscar watched him go. Then he snorted. "Some friend," he declared, showing the check to his partner. Alice's eyes widened. "Oh my," she said weakly, taking it. "Some friend indeed!" *** October 30th, 1992 Two nights later, Nick stood nervously to one side as Natalie opened the box and peeled back the tissue paper. "I hope you like it," he said, a little doubtful. When the dress was finally laid bare, Natalie was delighted. "Nick, this is absolutely stunning!" She took the dress into her bedroom and stood in front of the full length mirror. "Where did you find this?" "Um, I... didn't." Natalie turned to find Nick wearing his 'I-would-blush-if-I-could' look. "I kinda had it made." "You--You had it made." Nick nodded, and Natalie forced herself not to dwell on the possible implications of such an intimate gift. "In two days?" Another nod, this one of pride, as if he himself had been responsible for the design and construction of the garment. "That's impossible! I mean, this dress--this isn't a dress, it is a work of art!" "Oscar did say my tastes had improved." "Oscar?" "My tailor. Well, one of them. He makes most of my clothes; his partner Alice did most of the work on this. Well, go on!" he urged, catching hold of the door knob. "Try it on!" Nick shut her bedroom door and bounced on the balls of his feet for five minutes before she came out. Nick's mouth opened but to his surprise, he could not make a single sound. The design had been described to him as 'very elegant Gothic,' something one might find in a trendy but underground shop. The dress itself was of heavy burgundy silk, with a fitted bodice and flowing floor-length skirt. The sleeves were fitted to the elbow and then widened, ending in long points below the wrists. There were little touches of cream here and there that caught the eye, and coordinated nicely with the pearl and cream burn-out silk wrap around Natalie's shoulders. Nick blinked in utter astonishment. "I guess my taste really has improved," he finally said, wishing for wine to moisten his inexplicably dry mouth. "Natalie, you look..." He cursed his tied tongue and added eloquence to his wish for wine. She smoothed out a few wrinkles. "So, when do I get to see your costume?" Shaking off his awkwardness, Nick laughed. "On Halloween." End Part Nine April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (10/13) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 07:39:56 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (10/13) October 31st, 1992 Touching up her makeup, Natalie waited nervously for her 'date' to pick her up. Regardless of the fact that tonight's outing was nothing less than an undercover sting, she was looking forward to spending time with the gorgeous and distant blond vampire. Time in public, no less; such functions were usually anathema to Nick, who shunned large gatherings as unholy invitations to his hunger. This was a huge step forward in their attempt to bring him back over. But she still would have been happier if he'd chosen a different costume. "So what if it's a Victorian theme," she argued to her mirror, as she played with the arrangement of her hair. "Sherlock Holmes would have been just as appropriate..." A soft rap at her front door announced the arrival of her escort. Natalie tossed her white velvet wrap about her shoulders, picked up her purse, mentally recited an Irish prayer for luck, and opened the door. The vampire's broad shoulders were grandly set off by the glossy broadcloth of the tuxedo, a red silk-lined opera cape with a high neck framed his regal head, and his curly blond hair was tamed and slicked back, giving him a powerful and slightly sinister appearance. In honor of the tongue-in-cheek joke Nick was wearing, he had even found a medallion similar to the one Lugosi had worn in his most famous film appearance, and it hung against the snowy white of Nick's shirtfront. Natalie found her voice. "Count Dracula, I presume?" Nick scowled. "Oh, shut up," he retorted, with a good-natured wink, and offered Natalie his impeccably clad arm. "Schanke's waiting for us." They drove to the precinct, where Don Schanke was waiting in the parking lot, leaning on the front bumper of his car and smoking a cigarette. His eyes widened at the sight of Nick unfolding from the Cadillac, and almost fell out of their sockets when Natalie emerged from the passenger's side. Natalie, for her part, shook her head in dismay. "Powder blue, Schanke?" she asked. "Why?" "'Cause that's what was in the closet." He straightened the wide collar of his leisure suit with a confident snap and whistled. "Natalie, you look... wow." "I keep getting that reaction," said Natalie wryly. Then she lowered her eyes demurely and added, "I have idea why..." Nick snorted. "Nice outfit, partner. Matches your complexion." Schanke snapped his fingers. "Oh, I get it: look dead, dress dead." Nick did something then that he'd wanted to do for a long time: he bared his fangs at the annoying mortal. "Nice leisure suit," he jeered back, allowing his voice to deepen just enough to be menacing. Schanke gulped. Natalie slapped her date's shoulder. "Hey, it's better than the lion suit." He squinted at his partner. "Wow, way to go authentic," Schanke marveled, getting just a bit too close to Nick's canines. "Those look almost real; where'd you find those?" "Custom-fitted," fibbed Nick, pulling his head away from the curious hand. "Your dentist must have been thrilled," Schanke sniggered. Nick had had enough. "Do we have a killer to catch or not?" "Right!" With a flourish, Schanke bounded into his car. "Listen, you remember to call me when you get to Bradley's, got me? We've only got one possible victim and three possible suspects, so we wanna stay synchronized on this. Anything funny happens, And if you lose sight of Carly Ernest, call for backup and they'll go straight to her apartment." "Yes, 'Cap'n,'" Nick grinned, showing a bit more fang. "Nick, you have to behave tonight," Natalie scolded as Schanke drove off. She allowed Nick to hand her into the Cadillac and close the passenger side door. When he had slid into the driver's seat, she continued. "You need to be on your guard, you said it yourself--" "Y'know, you'd better be nice to me," Nick warned, flashing a sharp grin at her, "or I swear, I'll spend the entire evening speaking in a very thick, very bad Romanian accent." Natalie gaped at him, and then laughed. "Damn you, you'd do it, too." She fastened her seatbelt securely. "This must be quite a first for you," the finely dressed coroner teased, giving Nick a friendly nudge. "Impersonating one of the 'undead.'" Nick turned on the car's ignition. "No, not exactly." @}----- Nervously, Joseph handed his hat, coat and stick to the page. Nervous, he was always nervous whenever he entered the home of Ms. Hannah Beecher, spirit medium. But tonight, he was even more so; at their last meeting, Ms. Beecher had said that tonight, she believed it would be possible not only to channel Edith's voice, but her form as well, to actually make her spirit appear in the room with them! The surgeon could barely contain his excitement. "Good evening, Ms. Beecher," he greeted, clasping the medium's hand effusively. "Thank you for coming, Doctor," she replied, equally as warm. Joseph made perfunctory courtesies to the other members of the medium's regular circle, but his nerves were too tense for such common everyday drudgeries as politeness. He was constantly fiddling with his cufflinks, the set of his tie, his watch chain, even the buttons on his waistcoat were not immune to his jittery fingers. He sat down, jumped up again, paced up and down the length of the sitting room with irritated strides of his long legs. At last--! Ms. Beecher was finally prepared to begin the séance. The participants took their places around the circular table. Ms. Beecher dimmed the lights, leaving the chamber in a thick gloom that was only feebly dispelled by a small yellow circle cast on the table by the oil lamp in its center. Ms. Beecher sat down in the empty chair between Joseph and another guest. At a wordless nod from the medium, all joined hands. "We must be silent, and still," she instructed, in a low murmur. "Do not break the circle of hands until I tell you to do so. The vibrations must not be disturbed." Entranced as they were by her words and the unspoken promise in them, not one of the participants--certainly not Joseph--noticed the figure hidden in the shadows, peering discreetly out from the draperies that shrouded him. @}----- Nick shook off his memories; the high collar of the opera cape was chafing annoyingly at his ears. "Well, at least I've got one up on Lugosi," he told Natalie cheerfully, trying to lighten his sinking mood. Nick nodded at the Caddy's rear view mirror. "I've got a reflection." End Part Ten April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (11/13) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 07:40:43 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (11/13) Robin Bradley greeted them warmly at the door. "Dr. Lambert, you look wonderful," she complimented, taking Natalie's wrap and Nick's cape and secreting them away in a coat closet. Natalie smiled, feeling herself blush a little at their hostess's effusiveness. "Thank you. No, I'll keep my purse, thanks. And your costume is very nice, too." Bradley was decked out in an appropriately dark but un-Victorian-ly clingy low-necked gown that fit her like a glove and, combined with her upswept hair and dangling earrings, made her look quite the Gothic queen. "And you, Detective..." Bradley's eyes roamed appreciatively over Nick's elegantly-clad form. "I didn't know you had it in you." When he smiled in return, she added, "nice fangs, Count." Nick cringed, but as she had turned to indicate the small crowd of guests, only Natalie noticed. "You're fairly early," Bradley said. "Jason and Carly aren't here yet." "They'll come together?" "Oh, they're inseparable. Pete'll probably come with them." "And Edwin Furlong?" Bradley gave him a sympathetic glance. "With Edwin, who knows?" Her languid hand waved them in the direction of a large, open room, evidently meant to serve as ballroom. "Please, try to enjoy yourselves. I'll let you know when the... the 'interesting' guests start to arrive." She melted away into the house, moving effortlessly among the false spider webbing draping the hallways and banisters. "I swear, I've heard this music in a Disney movie," Natalie murmured, as they moved through the crowd of well-costumed-and-coiffed guests to the far side of the room. "'Night on Bare Mountain,'" Nick whispered back. He maneuvered himself into a corner. "You go and mingle, while I call Schanke." *** "Now don't you worry, Detective Schanke," Aleg assured him as he escorted Schanke into the crush of his party. "As soon as I see of our 'special' guests, I'll be sure to let you know." "Yeah, you do that." A very pretty woman in gaucho pants walked past, and Schanke whistled in admiration. He jumped when his cell phone rang, and fumbled for the box. "Yeah?" "Schanke, it's me." "Gotcha. Seen anyone interesting?" "No, nothing yet." "Hey, you don't think your little Superman stunt the other night scared him off, do you?" "No, I don't think so." Nick's voice suggested a shrug. "But there's no way to tell." "Yeah, tell me about it." There went that girl in gauchos again. "But hey, if our guy doesn't show, the night might not be a total loss. I might just scare up a piece of tail." *** Nick grinned a purely masculine grin, and was very glad Natalie could not hear Schanke's comment. "Scare up or scare off? Listen, just keep your head on your shoulders, okay? We're on duty. Oh, and Schanke?" "Yeah?" "Two words: My-ra." "You really know how to spoil a guy's night, y'know that?" The vampire smirked into the receiver. "Trick or treat, Schank." He clicked the phone shut and tucked it away. A low, haunting waltz came over the speakers. Nick stowed the phone away inside his tuxedo jacket and stole quietly behind Natalie, and laid his hands on her shoulders. "May I have this dance, m'lady?" he purred, playing the role of roguish vampire to the hilt. She flinched only slightly. "You may, sir," Natalie returned, an almost seductive smile on her lips; she was having fun, too. she scolded, tamping down the distraction that was being caused by Nick's hand at her waist. She concentrated on following his lead. For such a large man, he was possessed of a surprising grace and lightness of foot, and he guided her around the dance floor with a confidence born of nearly eight centuries of high society. "You dance divinely, Count," she teased. "Stop calling me that!" Natalie gave him her mulish look. "What? Does just calling me 'Nick' disturb the ambience?" He leaned in and brushed his lips over the shell of her ear. "In that case," he whispered delicately around his fangs, "you may address me as Nicolas, Duc de Brabant." "Is that your legitimate title?" "Such as it is." "All right... Duke." "Mind if I cut in?" Obligingly, Natalie stepped aside, and Nick waltzed his hostess once around the room. "What was that about?" asked Natalie, settling back into the circle of the vampire's arms. "Two of our suspects and our perspective victim just showed up." Nick nodded to two guests, a man and a woman hovering over the refreshment table and giggling. "Cataldo and Ernest. And Furlong is over there." Natalie followed the line of his gaze to a well-dressed older man. Furlong had obviously taken some pains with his costume--to her eye, it looked utterly authentic--but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the long, gelled black forelock that dripped down from his otherwise bald head. "Nice hair," she grimaced. "We need to keep an eye on all three of them. I'll take Furlong; you take the lovebirds." "Right. In that case, dance me over to the drinks table, will you, Duke? Since that seems to be where they're spending all their time." *** To his great pleasure, the girl in gauchos had accepted Schanke's invitation to dance, and they were happily doing the Hustle when someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Whaddaya want, Simon, I'm busy." Aleg rolled his eyes. If there had to be a cop at his party, why couldn't it have been the handsome one? "Pete Turner's here, but he's the only one." "You sure?" "Positive. He seems a little jumpy, but that could be because he's here by himself." Aleg pointed him out to Schanke, a strawberry blond kid who looked way too normal for this crowd. Regardless, Schanke still kept an eye on him. *** "Cataldo just left," Natalie reported in a whisper. "But the girl's still here; he must've gone to the bathroom." Nick barely heard her words; the sound of her heartbeat, of all the heartbeats, was drowning out everything else. His gaze swam in yellow... "There's Furlong... he's talking to her... damn!" A swell of dancers cut off her view of their suspect and his next victim. Swallowing hard, Nick strove to beat his hunger back behind the walls of its carefully constructed prison. But Natalie's body beneath his hands as they danced, the nearness of her heat and her scent, the surrounding bodies, the eerie, seductive music, all combined to make denying himself a form of pure torture. He could feel his body trembling under the strain... His eyes burned... his fang beds ached for release... "Nick!" Natalie whispered frantically. "Furlong's gone, and so's the girl!" And release there would be. "Stay here," he rumbled, gliding away from Natalie like a panther, and disappearing. Natalie dug into her purse for her cell phone. *** Oh, but it was good to hunt. Nick could almost hear his master's voice urging him on as he flew, high above mortal sight, to the address of the killer's next victim. He loped easily from roof to roof in the residential neighborhood, reveling in the brutal freedom of it. He balanced on the apex of one roof, feeling the grit of the slate beneath his grasping fingers, listening. He could just make out the sounds of two beating hearts that seemed slightly out of sync with the rest of the pumps around him, different than the partiers and the peacefully sleeping humans. One was nervous. The other, anticipatory. A feeling Nick knew well. The color of his eyes shifted from yellow to red as the night-vision took over his senses. An unusually strong scent reached his flaring nostrils. Salt. His killer was nearby. End Part Eleven April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (12/13) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 07:41:36 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Eternal Rest (12/13) "Hey, listen, thanks for driving me home," said Carly said from behind the changing screen. "I didn't want to bug Jason, but I had no idea that champagne could stain velvet so badly." Sitting on her bed, her escort shrugged. "Not a problem," Edwin Furlong said amiably, fingers stroking the contents of the bag at his side. Candy, pantyhose, salt... "You know I'm always glad to lend a hand." Carly emerged from the screen, smoothing down a fresh outfit. "Still, thanks. We really should get back to the party, though," she said apologetically, starting to walk to the door. "Jason'll be wondering where I am." Furlong caught her arm as she passed. "Hey, what's your hurry?" he asked, his fingers tight. "It's a nice night." He held her in an uncomfortably close embrace. "Eddie... Eddie, let go," she told him, quite firmly. "I'm with Jason, you know that." "Oh, I know. I know. Don't worry, Carly, I don't want you like that." He pushed her down on the bed, holding her wrists with one hand. "Don't worry," he purred, his free hand snaking out to grab her pillow. "I'm going to give you the greatest gift of all." "No!" she screamed, thrashing madly. A dramatic crash of glass in the living room made Furlong break off. He whirled around. Standing in the doorway of the bedroom was an ominous, growling black figure, shards of glass embedded in his shoulders. Shocked into movement by a rush of adrenaline, Furlong ducked into the long bathroom, out the other side, through the kitchen and out the apartment's front door almost before Nick could react. The vampire snarled in frustration. Carly caught sight of Nick's blazing red eyes, and screamed. @}----- "Edith. Edith. Joseph is here, Edith," the medium chanted. "He wants to see you. He misses you, Edith. Edith. Edith..." Slowly, to Joseph's astonished eyes, a shimmering figure began to coalesce out of the darkness, beyond the table. One hand was outstretched. "Edith..." "Joseph," Ms. Beecher said softly. "Break the circle. Go to your wife and take her hand." Obediently, Joseph rose. He walked slowly to where the figure stood, almost floating off the floor. It lifted a languid, luminous hand and Joseph took it, eagerly-- The hand was ice-cold. And to an accomplished anatomist like Joseph, unmistakably masculine. For a brief moment, a pair of sulfurous eyes blazed among the black, and Joseph's heart dropped to his shoes. "Damn you, Nicholas," he whispered hoarsely, and rushed from the room. @}----- His disgust momentarily overrode his hunger and, brushing the glass from his shoulders, Nick dropped to his knees in front of the girl's bed and took her face in his hands, focusing his mind on her heartbeat. "You will forget you saw me like this," he instructed, his voice echoing in his ears. Her eyes glassed over. "Forget..." "You fainted from fright." "Fright..." "You will go to sleep now." "Sleep..." Her body seemed to lose all its bones, and she fell back, unconscious. Nick turned his attention back to catching his killer. *** Furlong fumbled with his keys, his brain struggling to process the thing he had just seen. Hadn't he seen that guy at Robin's party? And... and God! That was the same guy he'd seen outside Robin's house that night! Jesus tap-dancing Christ--! A hand straight from Hell slammed through his side door window and fastened around his throat. Furlong felt himself yanked through the window and thrown onto the pavement. "What the--?" He scrambled up from the street, only to have a pair of steel bands grab him from behind. "What are you?" he whimpered, barely able to speak. Nick bared his fangs in a rictus-like smile. "A spirit from the beyond," he rumbled harshly, before pulling Furlong's head to one side and-- The familiar shout of "Freeze, police!" was accompanied by squealing wheels and wailing sirens, sounds that Nick in his drive for blood had neglected to hear, and he had no choice but to swallow the Beast one more time. Keeping one arm tightly around his prisoner, Nick raised the other, and turned slowly. "Nice job, Nick!" Schanke shouted, grinning. Nick smiled weakly. End Part Twelve April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Subject: Eternal Rest (13/13) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:19:14 -0800 From: April French To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Disclaimers in first post. Happy belated Halloween! Didja like?!?! Eternal Rest (13/13) November 1st, 1992 Furlong waived his rights and confessed as soon as he was in the squad car--helped along, no doubt, by a gentle nudge from Nick. The next night found the detective sitting alone at his desk, chin on his hands, staring at a chess piece placed in front of him. Natalie had to call his name three times before he looked up. "A little preoccupied?" He blinked, badly disoriented. "Sorry, what?" Nick passed a hand over his face. "You were spacing." "Was not. Drifting, maybe." Natalie caught sight of the trinket. "A chess piece?" Nick nodded, but offered no further explain. "Are you okay?" "Sure. I was just thinking about Joseph. About Furlong." "Ah." Natalie perched on the corner of the desk. "I wanted to kill him, Nat. I wanted so badly to feed... I almost did." "But you didn't." She laid a hand on his shoulder, but the tension in his muscles remained. "Did he ever give you or Schanke any explanation of why he arranged the bodies the way he did? With the salt and the candy?" A strange cast came over Nick's face. "Schanke was right. The candy and the pantyhose were meant to be grave goods. The circle of salt was to act as a protection for the victim. As for why... He said he wanted to make sure that they would live forever." @}----- A sharp rush of air behind him stopped Joseph dead in his tracks. Gripping his walking stick tightly, he turned, and beheld through the fog the all-too solid silhouette of the vampire. "I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Pirie." "Joseph..." Nicholas trailed off, feeling queerly helpless. "You must know that I intended only to help you--" "By impersonating my wife's ghost? By destroying my last hope of seeing her again?" "She is dead! If there is a God, then her soul is with Him in Heaven and you will not see her again until you are there yourself! I wanted you to realize that." The surgeon's strangled voice rang out in the cobblestoned street. "You had to--!" The nostrils of his thin nose were white and flared in rage, as he took of his top hat and ran a gloved hand through his neat silver hair. "My heart despises you for this. But my brain is saying that... you have been correct in your assessment of mediums. Ms. Beecher would not have agreed to your deception if she had been truly gifted." Nicholas allowed himself a small smile. "I'm gratified that you..." "That does not mean I agree with your methods. I'll probably thank you for this one day, . But not tonight." Joseph brushed some nonexistent dust from his top hat. "I shall retain my confidences with you, sir, but I think it would be best if you looked for someone else to accommodate you." He set his hat back on his head, cocked it smartly, and with squared shoulders, walked resolutely away. The vampire's mouth parted, and his hands shook slightly in sheer disbelief. "No... No! Joseph!" But the surgeon would not hear him, and pride would not allow Nicholas to follow. A hard kiss of air against his cheek told him he was not alone. "For once, Nicholas," said LaCroix with quiet triumph, "you were right. I needn't have wasted my time depriving you of this mortal. You did it for me." Nicholas bowed his head, defeated. "You do seem to have a knack for getting in the way of your own goals." Overcome, Nicholas took to the air. Through the fog, LaCroix followed his son with his eyes until he was long out of sight of mortal vision. When he could see Nicholas no more, he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat in mock salute. "Requiescat in pace," he murmured, smiling slightly. @}----- "He truly believed that he could save them from death. Keep them with him. Give them..." Nick trailed off, then emitted a tiny, humorless chuckle. "Give them eternal life." "A human's ability to believe is a powerful thing," Natalie agreed, as her friend picked up the black knight. Nick's eyes locked on a corner of the nearest filing cabinet and went out of focus. "They say 'seeing is believing.' But just believing in something doesn't necessarily make it true." Natalie rubbed his shoulder consolingly with the backs of her knuckles. "Happy Halloween, Nick," she whispered. He didn't answer; his hands were too busy fingering the chess piece in his hand. Suddenly aghast at his own stupidity, he rushed out of the precinct, and flew back to his loft. Flinging himself on the floor in front of the fireplace, Nick carefully placed the black knight in its correct spot on the chess board, exactly where it had been the week before when he had played himself into a stalemate. He put his eyes level with the floor and examined the board carefully; despite Nick's best efforts and most complex stratagems, the white king was still effectively blocked. But when he stopped thinking so intently about battle tactics and just considered the lay of the pieces... He took the ivory king between his long fingers, toppled the black knight, and checkmated his opponent. The hollow completion that filling him was fleeting. Nick touched the prone ebony horse lightly with his fingertips. "Requiescat in pace," he murmured, his mind elsewhere. ~Finis--October 21st, 2003~ April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Knightwalker: Forever Knight Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina: Original Fiction, Poetry and Fan Fiction -- http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "The Devil and I had a chat this morning..." -- Charles Baudelaire __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree