Forever Knight: The Sons of Lilith

Episode 101: A Shroud of Crimson

By April French

 

Author's Note:

 

This story was originally posted in November of 2002 and is the first episode in my enormous five-season series, "The Sons of Lilith." As I was writing the first season of SoL, the mythos of the series was still developing and changing. In the interests of keeping continuity as tight as possible, I decided to go back and rewrite the episodes, as well as insert some new ones. This is the first rewrite. Originally, this piece took place following the third season episode "Ashes to Ashes," and ignored the events of "Last Knight." In rewriting, I was able to incorporate my own interpretation (originally posted as the short story 'Last Knightmare') into this episode, in such a fashion that I and my fellow NNers would be able to stomach it. However, to reassure my readers: Tracy's alive, the Raven's not closed, Nick didn't kill Nat, LaCroix didn't kill Nick... nothing happened, I promise. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

Kai Thorn and Julian are still mine. Sperling belongs to history, although not by that name. The town of Black Falls is based on a real town in upstate New York, but otherwise exists only in my diseased brain. Everyone else I'm just borrowing from the TV people. I'm still not making any money, although I am thinking of binding this episode and selling it for the cost of the printing. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll try to get a price for you. Any other comments, criticisms, praise or kudos will be gratefully devoured. All flames will be put into Sidney's litter box. A thousand humble thanks to KC Smith and Stacy Atchison for their invaluable help and support. Anyone wishing to archive must first bribe me with peppermint, pine and vanilla.

 

~~~

 

A Shroud of Crimson (0/9)

 

Prologue

 

Toronto, 1996

 

Nick could feel the tears running down his face. "You are my closest friend." He handed the stake to his master, who took it mechanically. Nick knelt down beside Natalie, and took her hand in his.

 

Face twisted in anguish, LaCroix raised the stake. "Damn you, Nicholas!"

 

Nick bolted upright in bed, gasping. "Oh my God," he muttered, wiping the icy red sweat from his forehead. "God god god god..." Blood was pounding in his brain. Violently tearing the blankets from his legs, Nick stumbled downstairs. He hit the floor running, bracing himself for the carnage--

 

But there was nothing there. No one. His heart was racing; Nick felt the organ beat five times in ten minutes, and his stomach lurched. His head was near to exploding, there was a rancid taste in his mouth, and he was afraid he might vomit. His hands were shaking as he picked up the phone and dialed a number. It rang, and rang, and rang, and Nick's confidence began to waver, when a groggy voice finally said, "Hello?"

 

"Nat," Nick breathed, relieved.

 

"Nick! Do you know what time it is? I work the night shift too, you know."

 

"I know, I know, I just... I wanted to check in. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

 

"Is there some reason I shouldn't be?" Natalie asked, voice annoyed and thick with sleep.

 

"No, no. Of course not. Sleep well, Nat. I'll see you tonight."

 

Nick punched the OFF button and stood there holding the phone, chewing on his lip. "It was just a dream," he told himself firmly. But the throbbing in his brain was saying otherwise.

 

Just a dream of death? Or a premonition of it? It wouldn't be the first time. You've had them before...

 

He tasted blood. One of his fangs had pierced his lip. All chances of sleep gone, Nick went to take a shower, and drown the vestiges of nightmare-haze in scalding hot water.

 

***

 

Massaging the bridge of his nose, Father Pierre Rochefort stared blankly at the newspaper in his hand. He could not focus on the print. His mind was so far away...

 

He heard the sound of a parishioner entering the opposite side of the confessional. "God be in your heart and on your lips so that you may freely and sincerely confess your sins," he began, setting aside his paper and crossing himself. The individual said nothing at first, and Rochefort heard some small pulling sounds, like someone taking off a pair of gloves, one finger at a time.

 

"I'm not sure why I came," admitted a light, somewhat sheepish baritone.

 

"God is always ready to forgive our sins," Rochefort urged. He was sure he didn't recognize the voice, and yet it stirred something in him. He wanted the man to speak again.

 

"Oh, I know. But I'm not really here to confess. I just... I needed someone to talk to. I do hope I'm not inconveniencing you."

 

"Of course not." It was the slow time of day, in any case. "Would you prefer to speak face to face?"

 

The voice seemed to smile gratefully, if such a thing was possible. "Yes, thank you, Father."

 

The man Rochefort found himself confronted with was short, no more than five-foot-three, with long, very light blond hair and a sickly greyish complexion. The hand he held out to the priest was dry, with a texture almost like sandpaper. The stranger's pale grey eyes studied Rochefort with intense interest. "Forgive my curiosity, but are you Irish?"

 

Rochefort blinked. "I'm... Father Pierre Rochefort."

 

"French, then? French-Canadian?" The man smiled. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't pry."

 

"No, no, it's all right. You caught me off-guard, that's all." Rochefort forced a smile. "I'm adopted."

 

"Ah," the stranger nodded knowingly. "I know what that's like."

 

"Were you adopted?"

 

"After a fashion, yes." He trailed off. As interested as Rochefort was, he did have his duty.

 

"You came to talk?" prodded the priest.

 

"I came to have someone to listen to me talk," the man smiled, "but I can wait. Do you need someone to listen to you, Father?"

 

Startled, Rochefort sought out a pew. His knees suddenly felt very watery. The pale stranger came and quietly sat beside him, and for no apparent reason, Rochefort found himself talking. "My father died a few weeks ago." He paused, but the man only waited. "He told me... My parents waited until I was thirty-five years old to tell me that I was adopted." He raised his hands and then let them fall helplessly into his lap. "Everything I thought I was, is gone." He glanced at the man, who was looking at the priest as though... no, Rochefort could not identify the expression in the man's pale grey eyes. Sadness, pain, longing... sorrow, regret, pity... "I'm sorry, but... do I know you, sir?"

 

The man blinked, and seemed somehow deflated. "No, Father Rochefort. You don't." He smiled slightly. "But you do know yourself. Who your parents are or where you came from is only part of what you are inside. And isn't that the most important thing?"

 

Against his will, Rochefort squirmed. "You came to talk?" he repeated, eager to shift the conversation away from himself.

 

"I came because I needed some... reassurance." The man met Rochefort's eyes squarely; the priest shivered. "But you've given me all that I need."

 

"By going on about my own identity crisis?"

 

"By reminding me of something that I'd forgotten," the stranger murmured. "I came to Toronto with a purpose, Father, and I mean to accomplish all of that purpose." His stern face broke into an astonishingly gentle smile. "And thanks to you, I've achieved at least a part of it." He stood, and though it was only May, methodically tugged on his gloves. "Thank you," he said sincerely, and turned to leave.

 

Rochefort sat, stunned. He sprang to his feet. "Sir!" he called, running after the man.

 

The stranger stopped, and turned slightly. "Kai," he corrected, before slipping out the front door of St. John's.

 

By the time the priest reached the street, his mysterious parishioner had disappeared into the midday crowds.

 

***

 

Nick leaned his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes. "Hey, Nick. You okay?"

 

"Yeah, Trace." Nick took a deep breath and began to go through his reports. "I didn't get much sleep today."

 

Tracy nodded understandingly. "Nightmares?"

 

"'Visions of hell,' might be more descriptive." Nick immediately felt remorse. Tracy had just lost her best friend, someone she cared about; possibly even loved. He had no right to be complaining to her. Best friend... that was how the dream had started. With Natalie losing a friend to suicide. And then LaCroix had wanted to move on... and wanted Nick to go with him. Maybe I should talk to LaCroix... After I see Natalie.

 

Nick was just getting up and he had turned around--and nearly smacked into the medical examiner. "Whoa, easy! Hi, Nick. Sleep well?"

 

"Yeah, um, sorry about that, Nat."

 

"Eleven o'clock this morning, he calls me," Natalie complained to Tracy. "Says he just wants to check on me."

 

"Aw, go easy on him, Nat," she grinned. "Poor little Nicky had a bad dream."

 

"Well, I was having a very good dream, which somebody interrupted."

 

"I feel no remorse," Nick replied, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "I just wanted to check on you," he repeated softly. Tracy looked down at her shoes, fighting back a grin and some tears. They were so cute together, even if they weren't actually together. "I needed to."

 

His brilliant cobalt eyes pleaded with her, puppy-like, to accept his explanation. "Okay," Natalie said finally. "Next time you need to check on me, though, just remember that we do keep similar hours?"

 

Nick smiled. "Sure thing." He grabbed up his duster. "Listen, Trace, I've got to go see someone about... something." Before she could protest, Nick was out the precinct door, leaving Tracy with a mountain of paperwork and Natalie with a tingling patch of skin on her cheekbone where Nick had kissed her.

 

***

 

"Nicholas," greeted LaCroix with some mild surprise. Nick slid into a seat at the bar and allowed Miklos to pour him a drink. "Come to help me think of a topic for tonight's broadcast?"

 

Nick hunched over his glass and didn't look at his master. "Have you thought recently of, well, of moving on?"

 

"I beg your pardon?"

 

"How are you coping?" Nick asked bluntly, clenching and unclenching his fingers around the stem of the goblet. "I had the most horrible dream today and I don't want it to come true." He said nothing about the déjà vu of the persistent throbbing, like the beating of an unseen heart. "How are you?"

 

LaCroix drew his dark eyebrows together in a thoughtful frown. He, too, had been having some horrible dreams, dreams of his master and her second demise, dreams of his life in Rome, something he had not dreamed of since the First World War. Nicholas had suffered, certainly, during Divia's brief return, but hardly to the point where he would be losing sleep over it. "Well enough." Perhaps his own slight traumas were spilling over to Nicholas. It had happened before... "What about you? What have you dreamed?"

 

"That I fed from Natalie. That I took too much. That she was dying." Nick scrubbed a savage hand through his blond curls. "That I asked you to stake me, so I could join her in death.

 

"And that you did it."

 

LaCroix twisted a glass between his fingers. "That is quite the admission, Nicholas." His expression hardened. "Considering that for a year and a half now, I have been led to believe that you had no such deep feelings for the good doctor."

 

"Oh, don't patronize me, LaCroix!" the younger man snarled. "I'm not a provincial idiot!"

 

"But you do such a good job at times."

 

"Then why let her live?" Nick shot back.

 

"Don't change the subject, Nicholas, it's tiresome."

 

"I didn't--!"

 

"Shall we look at this nightmare of yours systematically? Point number one: you fed from the doctor."

 

"She asked me to," Nick whispered. LaCroix looked up, interest peaking even higher.

 

"Indeed? What exactly did she ask?"

 

"She..." Nick sighed raggedly. "She asked me to make love to her. She said if I took too much, I should bring her across."

 

"And you agreed." Nick nodded. "Have you ever sensed such desires from her for you, in actuality? Ah. Well, ask a silly question, et cetera, et cetera. Of course you have. I have. Point number two: that you agreed in your dream is clear evidence to me that you would be more than willing to capitulate in 'real life.' Point number three: that you could not stop--an obvious sign of your severe lack of practice, I might add--and that you caused her death, that, Nicholas, is your greatest fear, is it not?"

 

Hands shaking, Nick couldn't even hold his glass of bloodwine stable.

 

"What puzzles me most, mon Nicolas, is the fact that you asked me to put you out of your self-induced misery. And that I obliged you. That is a fragment Freud himself could not deduce. So I shall ask you: Why did I agree, Nicholas?"

 

"Because I asked you to. Because I told you that... you were my closest friend."

 

Reaching out, LaCroix wrapped one hand around Nick's wrist, steadying the goblet. His ice-blue eyes bore into Nick's cobalt ones. "Why did you say that, Nicholas?"

 

Nick stared down at the pale hand on his arm. A hand that had shaped spines and souls, touched history and defamed heaven, strong and deadly and radiant. He raised his face to his master once more, eyes again pleading, this time internally, pleading with himself not to reveal anything more to the devious Roman who was his master. LaCroix searched his face... and released Nick's wrist.

 

"You're afraid, Nicholas," he said at last, turning around to face the crush of people held within the walls of the Raven. "My advice to you is to stop thinking so much. Follow your instincts. You still have instincts, I hope.

 

"To soothe your fears, I will say this: friend or father or slave, I would not have done as you asked." His son stared at him accusingly. "Suicide by default is still suicide. If that is the choice you make, then it stands as its own decision regardless of whom or what actually ends your life." LaCroix pursed his pale lips. "You committed suicide--fine, assisted suicide!--because Dr. Lambert was dying and you refused to bring her across?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Blessed Cato," the ancient Roman murmured into his wine glass. "That's why not. There is such a thing as an honorable suicide, and that would not be it." He shook his close-cropped head. "I'll have no part in such an action.

 

"And no. I am not moving on. I have thought of it. With all that has happened recently..."

 

"I have awakened the vampire's taste for blood, taste for blood..." "My children and my people who should have lived forever..." "I appear to have lost a daughter, and regained a son..." "I will stay with Divia until her body has turned to ashes and then commit them to the wind. I may even say a prayer..."

 

"I have seriously thought of it."

 

"What stopped you?"

 

"The realization that while memories cannot hurt us, they can haunt us, and that if I ran from every memory that haunted me, I would become you. And frankly, that thought causes my blood to congeal."

 

Nick glared at LaCroix, and opened his mouth to say something snide--just as the implications of LaCroix's words hit him like a ten-ton truck. "Congeal," he muttered. At the sound, LaCroix turned, but Nick had left the club.

 

***

 

He raced over to his loft and all but ripped open his refrigerator. He pulled out the bottle he had drunk from last night, stared at the label, and groaned, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity.

 

The expiration date had passed.

 

Nick sank down on his sofa, relief washing over him like a warm rain. He eyed the bottle with a little chagrin. "So that's it," he told himself firmly, and allowed himself a slight grin. "Just a bit of food poisoning. That's all."

 

Then why is my hand shaking?

 

***

 

Alone in his apartment, the man called Kai sat in shadows. His thin, wasted body was lost in the deep armchair; his wrists hung loose-jointed over the ends of the chair's wide arms. But his grey eyes glowed with eerie life, first silver and then gold in the inky darkness.

 

~~~

 

A Shroud of Crimson (1/9)

 

Nick hated suicide cases, particularly when the victim was a young person. Granted, she was only truly young in Nick's mind, but they still gnawed at him. Life lost, talent wasted.

 

The woman had died in her bathtub. Slack and aged in death, her face gazed up at Nick from under the murky red water. He closed his eyes abruptly, the sharp throbbing like a vice in his mind. His muscles were peculiarly tense. The victim's wrists were obviously slit, and there was a scalpel in the bottom of the tub, but for some reason, Nick felt on edge. There was an odd smell in this room, beneath the scent of the blood...

 

"The deceased is Dr. Lora Hines. Time of death was about one-thirty this morning," said a thin-faced, square-jawed forensics technician Nick didn't recognize, making a note on his clipboard. "Barely three hours ago." He saw the way Nick was staring at him and quickly stood up.

 

"Nick," Tracy interjected quietly, "this is Dr. Julian Gorey. He's new with the coroner's office; just come up from New York State." Nick shook hands with the auburn-headed young man.

 

"Nice to meet you," said Nick automatically, trying to be sociable. Something about the newbie was rubbing him the wrong way... but at least he could be certain Julian was not the source of the scent.

 

The technician turned back to the body; Nick and Tracy went into the living room. "Psychiatrist," Tracy said. "I'm guessing nobody saw this coming."

 

Nick nodded. "Not even one of her closest friends. I'm guessing you never really know your friends. Do you?"

 

Tracy considered that. "No, I guess not."

 

Natalie Lambert was seated in a corner of the living room, silent and haunted, not at all aware of her surroundings.

 

"Tracy," Nick murmured, touching his partner's sleeve, "would you do me a favor? Finish up here. I want to get Nat out of here."

 

Seeing the condition the coroner was in, Tracy nodded. "Okay."

 

Nick leaned over his friend. "Nat?" She roused enough to look at him. "Come on." There was a horribly blank look on her face. Taking her by the arm, he led her from the apartment and her dead friend and the lingering odor.


Tracy watched them go, then went back into the bathroom. Julian was kneeling by the body again, his fingers carefully probing the dead woman's neck. When he realized that Tracy was peering over his shoulder, he zipped the body bag shut with a jerk. She smirked at the back of his head knowingly, then wrinkled her nose. "Do you smell that?"

 

Julian sat back on his heels. "Smell what?"

 

"I don't know... kind of a cross between a dirty cat box and a backed-up sewer?"

 

He shook his head. "The only thing I can smell anymore is antiseptic. I'm all finished here." He nodded for the other techs to take the body away. His eyes met Tracy's briefly.

 

As Tracy moved to question the neighbor who had called in the death, she was almost certain Julian had blushed.

 

"I didn't hear anything strange when I came upstairs," the middle-aged mother was saying. "But my apartment is directly below Lora's, and when I went into my bathroom, I saw that the roof was leaking, so I came up here to make sure she was all right..." She stopped in mid-sentence. "The tub was overflowing."

 

"Mrs. Moore," Tracy interrupted, "could you tell me if Dr. Hines seemed down or depressed to you?"

 

Mrs. Moore shrugged helplessly. "I don't really know, Detective. I suppose so. She was always such a private person, but very friendly. But she was very quiet tonight when I met her in the lobby of the building; normally we'd stand around and chat. She liked to talk about her boyfriend."

 

Working to contain her eagerness, Tracy leaned forward. "She has a boyfriend?"

 

"Yes. And do you know, I think she and her boyfriend had a fight. She came home around eleven tonight, from a date with him. Normally, she wouldn't be home before two in the morning."

 

"Did she seem different to you?"

 

"Quiet, untalkative. She wasn't smiling. She was always smiling when she got home from a date with Nick."

 

Out of respect for the dead, Tracy didn't grin.

 

***

 

Natalie stood silently beside her table, upon which rested the body of Dr. Lora Hines. "Tell me there's something that Tracy missed," she said dully. "Tell me someone else killed her."

 

If only to humor her in her grief, Nick bent over to examine the body. Save for the two deep, clean cuts on her wrists, Lora Hines was completely unmarked, he noted, gently turning her head from side to side to examine her throat. Natalie leaned over next to him. "Anything exciting?" she said, trying to sound interested.

 

Nick held his breath and counted to five before he responded. Strands of Natalie's hair were brushing the back of his neck, sending fiery slivers up and down his spine. When is she going to notice? This can't possibly be one-sided. Against his will, memories rose up in his mind. They always did now, when Natalie was near. Memories of Divia's attack...

 

"Divia."

 

"He told you about me. You know why I'm here."

 

"You've come to kill me."

 

"Don't take it personally. But you are LaCroix's son. Your death will be the finally blow. It'll be worse for you if you try to fight me, but that's up to you. Ready?"

 

Nick shook his head. "She wasn't bitten," he answered quietly, his fingers absently stroking the unblemished skin of Lora Hines's throat, "but I'm certain that someone was in that room with her when she died." His emphasis on the 'someone' left no doubt in Natalie's mind as to what kind of 'someone' Nick was referring.

 

"How can you tell?"

 

"The odor was unmistakable. A vampire--maybe even more than one--had been in that apartment and in that bathroom. Recently."

 

"Within the last three hours?"

 

"Scents decay after an hour or so; if it'd been longer, I wouldn't have picked it up. There would only have been residual traces of his presence, his psychic presence--and there was a mountain of that--but this scent was so strong, I'd almost think he was still there--"

 

This was all news to Natalie, and at any other time, she would have been thoroughly fascinated. Now, though, she felt only a reflexive curiosity. "He? Is there scent on her body? Can you tell who it was, if it's anyone you know?"

 

Nick inhaled through his nose a few times, allowing his nostrils to flare. "No," he gasped, shaking his head. "Individual scent markers disappear after a few minutes." Psychic markers, on the other hand... Where have I felt those traces before? "All I can tell is that it was a vampire. Relatively young, a hundred and fifty, maybe? And male."

 

Natalie gave him a queer look.

 

"What?"

 

"You've never mentioned this particular trick before."

 

"It's not something I use very often. I'm actually not all that good at scent tracking, unless there's a fresh blood trail. But this guy's got a real... unique... odor."

 

"Smells like...?"

 

"Insanity."

 

"Well, this is a new one for the files," she said with forced joviality. "Anything else you'd like to divulge? Have any scent glands that I don't know about?"

 

Nat, if you could smell the scents I give off when you're around... Nick straightened. "Nat, I'm sorry. I know she was your friend, but this is how she died, with two clean cuts and a few minutes of waiting."

 

Her shoulders slumped. "If only I'd gotten there sooner..."

 

"Nat, there was nothing you could have done," Nick pointed out gently. "You heard Dr. Gorey--she'd been gone for three hours at least."

 

Natalie held up her friend's suicide note. "If I hadn't ignored this for four or more hours, Nick--she'd still be alive." She drew the paper from the envelope. "'Do as I've asked, not as I've done. Don't let yourself become empty.' The first time I've lost someone to suicide. The first time I've had a suicide note addressed to me. A night of firsts. You know, I think Dr. Lora Hines in there was right on the money when she pegged me as a kindred spirit."

 

"Nat." Nick wanted to take her into his arms, but he didn't dare. "She took her own life. She must have had some pretty big problems."

 

"You think so?" she retorted softly. "You know, Nick, I used to think suicide was a pretty big sacrilege. But I'm not so sure anymore."

 

"Nat. Don't talk like that."

 

"Why not? You've considered it yourself."

 

How he hated it when Natalie turned one of his own arguments against him... "Nat, maybe you shouldn't do the workup on this case." He was feeling extremely uneasy about it, all things considered, particularly after smelling what he had smelled in that woman's bathroom.

 

But she shook her head. "You know, Lora never reached out in life to me for help. I owe her this much. To see that everything is properly done, now that she's gone. But you know what I can't handle? I think I know why she's done it and that scares me to death."

 

Nick's beeper started going off. "It's Tracy. Can I--?" Natalie waved at her phone. Dialing the precinct, Nick listened to what his partner had to say. "I'll be right--no, Trace, I'm coming with you. Yes, I am. Right. Bye. Nat, I'm sorry to leave you--"

 

"No, it's okay. I could use some alone time right now."

 

Nick highly doubted that, but he knew from experience that if he pressed the issue, it would turn out badly all round. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and make all the pain go away... but the door to the morgue opened, admitting Dr. Gorey, and Nick had no choice but to absent himself.

 

***

 

While Tracy was waiting at the precinct for her partner, Captain Reese was keeping her company. Neither of them seemed to have much interest in the work both had to do. "How's Nat holding up?"

 

"Not well. I think a suicide note addressed to her was a pretty mean thing to do. Nick was staying with her, but he insisted on coming with me to question the boyfriend. I don't think it's quite sunk in for her yet."

 

Nick appeared in the office doorway. Tracy said goodbye to her captain and followed Nick out of the building.

 

"So there's a boyfriend?" Nick said, walking a bit slower than was his wont. "What's his name?"

 

"Nick."

 

Tracy grinned at her partner; Nick Knight had suddenly become very interested in his own shoes. "So, do you know Nick's last name?"

 

"Thorn."

 

Nick kept looking at his shoes, hiding a silly grin. 'Nicholas Thorn,' now that brought back memories...

 

"But his name's not Nick," Tracy continued, "not really. I mean, his name's Nicholas, obviously, but he apparently hates it when people call him that. According to the neighbor, only Dr. Hines got away with it."

 

"What name does he normally go by?"

 

"Kai. Kai Thorn."

 

Nick's cold heart abruptly contracted, like a snowball being packed by ruthless hands.

 

Kai.

 

@}-----

 

Baltimore: 1842

 

It was very late at night. Or very early in the morning, depending on how one chose to reckon time. Either way it was dark, too dark for the sturdy carriage driver to keep going, no matter how much cash Nicholas plied him with.

 

The city streets were swollen with rain, mud and animal refuse, and Nicholas was more than happy to take his luggage and duck into the first open tavern the coachman spotted. It was a dive, to be sure, but at least it was dry. He would have to wait out the storm before continuing on to the hotel and his master. LaCroix was not going to be happy with the delay, but even LaCroix could not bend the very elements to his will.

 

The coachman banged Nicholas's trunks onto the first empty table he spotted, took the money his rich passenger handed him and made a beeline for the bar. Nicholas stripped off his gloves, pinched the bridge of his nose to forestall a headache that was not actually forming, and shed his waterlogged cloak in a single fluid motion. It hit the floor with a resounding splat! Nicholas glared at the offending garment, and left it. He slid into a chair with a grateful sigh.

 

One of the barmaids approached him, swaying her ample hips suggestively, no doubt attracted by his well-to-do appearance and the amount of beer his tip was allowing the coachman to guzzle. "What's your pleasure, sir?"

 

Nicholas smiled, but his mind was half on rest and half on speed, with no room left for hunger of any kind. "My pleasure, my girl, is for it to stop raining so I can get on my way." His arms snaked around her waist and Nicholas pulled the girl into his lap. If there was one thing that did not change much in six hundred years, it was tavern wenches. "But if I change my mind, you shall be the first to know." He planted a kiss on her cheek and sent the laughing girl on her way.

 

Someone chuckled. "Praise be for warm bodies, eh, friend?"

 

Nicholas looked across the room. In a dark corner beside the door sat a lone man, of perhaps middle years, pale blond hair framing a grey, gaunt face. His heartbeat was erratic, his breathing labored.

 

He was sick unto death.

 

"Indeed," agreed Nicholas. "For I am certainly not one myself at present."

 

"While I am decidedly too warm for my own liking." The sick man beckoned to him. "Join me." Nicholas crossed the tavern and sat across from his new friend, smelling as he did so the blood on the man's breath.

 

"Will you drink with me?"

 

"No, thank you. I fear the journey has unsettled my stomach too much for even alcohol to cure."

 

"As you like." The man leaned forward conspiratorially. "Do you know, friend, you are very brave to avail yourself of my company."

 

"And why is that?"

 

The sick man nodded to the staff, who were glaring fearfully in their direction. "It is feared that I may be contagious. The owner was a great crony of mine in better days and cannot now find the heart to ban me from his establishment, but your pretty lass may not be wanting your attentions now that you have breathed the same air as I."

 

Nicholas nodded. That explained the pervasive scent of blood. And yet there was a quietness of strength about the man. A radiance, almost.

 

"You seem in high spirits for a man dying of consumption."

 

The man shrugged. "I may be dying, friend, but I am not dead yet. I enjoyed life while it was sweet and I've no intention to stop now that the days are sour." His voice was weak but light, and his grey eyes sparkled with humor rather than fever. Nicholas was forced to reconsider his estimate of the man's age; consumption had an unpleasant way of aging the afflicted.

 

"I am five-and-twenty."

 

Nicholas blinked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare."

 

"Do not apologize. I fear I look older than I truly am." And I am older than I truly look, Nicholas thought automatically. "But I am being most impolite." He held out a thin, brittle hand. "Nicholas Quartermayne, at your service, sir."

 

Nicholas grinned. "Nicholas Thorn. A great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Quartermayne."

 

The sick man snorted. "Please do not call me that. Only my creditors address me as 'Mr. Quartermayne.'"

 

"Well, we can't both of us be Nicholas. That would just be too cumbersome."

 

"You may call me Kai. Everyone else does."

 

"Kai? Curious appellation."

 

"It is short for 'Nikaila,' which was my own fashion of saying 'Nicholas' when I was a small child--" His explanation was cut short by an explosive fit of coughing. The smell of blood grew much stronger.

 

@}-----

 

"Nick? Nick, you in there?" Nick blinked and looked up from his shows to find Tracy watching him intently with a concerned expression. Nick smiled weakly.

 

"Sorry, Trace. Um, you were saying?"

 

"Mrs. Moore gave me a description of him, from what Dr. Hines had told her. Medium height, thin build, long white-blond hair and light grey eyes." That was as close to Kai as a thumbnail sketch could get, Nick admitted reluctantly, although simply calling his eyes 'light grey' didn't begin to describe their depth or their eloquence. "Dr. Hines also mentioned a tattoo on his throat or chest, but she didn't say what of and the witness has never seen him."

 

Nick closed his eyes and quietly cursed himself for seven different kinds of fool. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the painful throbbing between his temples and mentally reached out to the long-dormant link. It hummed to life against his touch with the radiant, quiet strength that was so familiar to him. Even if he had not heard Tracy's third-hand description, that was proof enough for Nick.

 

"Do you know where we can find Kai Thorn?" he asked, trying to keep the hope from his voice.

 

"A store downtown, kind of a book store-coffee shop combo." They climbed into the Caddy and Tracy gave Nick the address. "She always met him there, always called him there. Mrs. Moore thinks she mentioned him having an apartment above the shop, but she's not quite sure."

 

"And the name of the bookstore?"

 

"The Corvina." Tracy settled back; the Caddy's ragtop was down and she liked the way the wind flowed over her face as Nick drove. "Anyway, there's no suggestion of foul play and everyone seems satisfied that Lora Hines is a suicide, so..."

 

"So?"

 

"So, I was thinking that after we question the boyfriend, I'll write it up as such and knock off early for the night." She really did not feel one hundred percent, not since smelling the vague stink in Dr. Hines's apartment. "Nick, I feel something coming on."

 

"Must be that flu that's going around," said Nick absently. "You want me to handle this? I can drop you off at your apartment."

 

Tracy looked at him oddly. "No way. I should be doing this by myself; you should be with Natalie."

 

"She wanted to be alone."

 

"And you let her? Nick, that's--"

 

"Drop it, Tracy," Nick ground out.

 

Tracy dropped it.

 

***

 

Natalie gave a deep sigh of relief once Nick had left the room. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her temples. "Well, that was weird," she muttered. "At least now I know for sure."

 

She considered the problem as she prepared for the autopsy of her old friend. Mildly put, her relationship with Nick of late had been a curious animal. To say nothing of the demon and the exorcism, the Fever, the virtual reality game--major setbacks in their attempts to bring Nick back into the sunlight. And then Divia...

 

LaCroix believed that it was Nick's 'resurgent goodness' that had allowed him to survive Divia's attack. But Natalie knew better. She wondered why LaCroix hadn't figured it out for himself. Maybe he had, and was just biding his time until he could put the knowledge to good use.

 

The knowledge that Nick had drunk of her blood.

 

@}-----

 

Nick had promised that he would watch his back, but something in his voice had made Natalie quite certain that no matter how hard he watched, the 2000-year-old little girl would still manage to stab him. Or rather, to stake him. So Natalie did the only thing she could think of doing. She drove hurriedly to Nick's loft, with a pint-bag of blood from the morgue on the car seat next to her.

 

She found him lying on the floor, half on top of one of his paintings, his head resting in the center of the brightly colored sun. "Oh God," she said, more than half in prayer. He sported a grand burn on one arm and was bleeding from cuts on his temple and a bite on his throat. "Come on, Nick," Natalie coaxed, ripping open the bag. She cradled his head in her lap and held the blood under his nose. "Drink, dammit! Nick! Oh God... Nick, I swear I'll kill you if you die on me..."

 

His body stiffened. Nick's hands flew up and grabbed the plastic bag, sucking from it like a newborn infant at its mother's breast. "Good boy," she murmured. His injuries were already starting to heal.

 

"LaCroix..." He tossed the bag away and tried to stand up.

 

"Easy, Nick," Natalie scolded when he stumbled. He was taking very deep breaths, and when he met her eyes, his own were still saffron. Natalie swallowed determinedly. "Do you need more blood?" she asked, offering him her wrist.

 

"Natalie... I..."

 

"Nick."

 

Too weak to argue, Nick sank his fangs into her willing flesh. He drank as though starving, too overwhelmed by grief and worry and pain to enjoy the sensations that poured into him from her sweet lifeblood. After only a few swallows, Nick pulled away, shaking his head furiously. "No! No more!"

 

"Nick!"

 

Nick's eyes widened. "LaCroix... Nat, she's gone to the Raven, she's going to kill LaCroix. I have to go!" Nick flew out of his loft, leaving Natalie in the midst of the silent bedlam.

 

@}-----

 

Nick was almost always on her mind now, in her thoughts, and not for the usual reasons of friendship, more-than-friendship, scientific curiosity and annoyance. When he was not around, she thought he was. In the past week, the number of times Natalie had looked over her shoulder, expecting to see Nick there, were beyond her ability to count. He was never there, but the hairs on the back of her neck kept trying to tell her otherwise.

 

And when he was present... If she was in the same room with Nick, she would feel the queerest pulses in her wrists and behind her eyes, and get rushes of sensation and emotion that were not her own. If Nick touched something, she would feel the object. If Nick touched her, if he brushed her hand or kissed her cheek in a brotherly manner, she would not only feel his lips on her flesh, but also her flesh against his lips. And when he touched her, she could... sense, she could feel what he was thinking. What she didn't know was if Nick felt it, as well.

 

Natalie thought back to the night at the Azure. She had remembered bits and pieces of it on her own... until Nick fed from her. Now, she remembered... she remembered almost everything. Every moment, every sensation... every emotion. The fear. The shame. The joy and relief. And the blankness. Nick had tried to take her memories of that night. A violation of her trust and her privacy that it had taken Natalie a long time to forgive, and even longer to understand.

 

Julian looked over at his colleague. "Penny for your thoughts?"

 

"Penny's not going to pay for them."

 

He shrugged and went back to labeling vials. "Detective Knight seems like a neat guy. Thorough, eager, very dedicated. And stubborn."

 

"You were in his company for barely seven minutes and you've uncovered almost everything about him?" Natalie shook her head. "You're good."

 

Julian shrugged again. "Not such a talent. I'm an experienced researcher. But I expected nothing less from Sir Nicolas de Brabant."

 

The latex glove snapped loudly. Her mouth was so dry from nervous shock, Natalie could not speak. Julian raised an eyebrow. "Your heart is going like a terrified rabbit," he pointed out. "You really should drink less coffee. Bad for the blood."

 

"Can you blame me?" Natalie managed to get out. "Not only did you just blow the lid off Nick's cover, I am standing next to a vampire who also happens to work in my morgue!" She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. "Who are you, really? And what do you want with Nick?"

 

"Who I am, really, is Dr. Julian Gorey, late of Black Falls, New York State, USA. I'm not much older than I look, Natalie, I promise. As for Detective Knight, I have no particular interest in him. He doesn't know me. I happen to know an old acquaintance of his. I recognized him from his friend's description. That's all."

 

"Why don't I believe you?"

 

Julian looked honestly surprised. "That's your business."

 

"Nick said he smelled a strange vampire in Lora Hines's room," Natalie began.

 

"Nick also shook hands with me. Natalie, I was here when she died. With you. Not that I needed one to begin with, but you're my alibi."

 

Dammit... "I've never heard mention of a vampire physician before."

 

"First time for everything. My mother was a doctor. Her lover was a vampire."

 

"And he brought you across."

 

"Something like that," Julian admitted reluctantly. "Yes." He hesitated. "You know, you and my late mother have something in common. I understand that you are assisting Detective Knight with his... condition."

 

Natalie turned away, pulling the offending glove more firmly into place. "Yeah. That's the idea, at least... Your mother was working on a cure?"

 

"For many years. I've tried to carry on her work. Have you had... any luck?"

 

"Nothing substantial." She got out her scalpel. "You?"

 

"No," he said shortly. "No luck at all."

 

The two doctors turned back to their respective tasks.

 

***

 

Tracy hated it when Nick zoned out. True, she heard from everybody at the precinct, from Captain Reese downward, that it was just one of Nicholas B. Knight's trademarks, that it was perfectly normal, part of Nick's 'charm.'

 

Personally, Tracy didn't find it very charming. Especially when Nick was driving.

 

Grumbling, she slouched in her seat and turned on the radio.

 

"Greetings, gentle listeners. The Nightcrawler bids you good evening, and hopes that you are all behaving yourselves. At least for the time being. Tonight's topic: Friendship. One that we have discussed many times before, and something that has been much on my mind, of late. A timeless ideal, to be discussed around medieval campfires or over coffee and doughnuts. The nature of friendship is a slippery thing, my children. Throughout history, singers have praised it, artists have tried to give it form, writers have done their utmost to capture the clearest interpretation of 'best friends.' Damon and Pythas, Roland and Oliver...

 

"But what is the nature of a true friend? Is a friend someone who will do whatever is necessary to ensure your happiness? Someone who will commit your crime for you when you cannot? Is it someone to pull the trigger of the gun pointed at your temple because you have not the courage to pull it yourself?

 

"Or is a true friend the person who will not do as you ask? No matter how much you rant, or plead, or beg, a true friend is perhaps the person who puts the bullet through your shoulder rather than through your brain, just as a way of saying 'You are my closest friend, and I will have no part in your death.'"

 

@}-----

 

"Just a little further, Kai," Nicholas coaxed, ignoring the rain which only an hour before had been such a deterrent. The thin shoulders of his companion shook with bone-racking coughs.

 

"Go on," the younger man choked out. "I'll be fine."

 

"Absolutely not."

 

"You'll catch your death in this weather."

 

"And you will not?" They stopped in front of a building that leaned very obviously to one side and reeked of poverty. Nicholas gaped in disbelief. "You live here?"

 

"Third floor," Kai gasped, rain streaming down his wasted face. "Last room on the left. That one," he clarified, pointing to a filthy window. They had not taken more than two steps towards the front door before Kai collapsed. Nicholas hoisted the young man over his shoulder, looked around for witnesses, and flew up to the third floor window. The wood and glass frame opened on hinges rather than on a sash, and the catch was broken, so Nicholas was able to push the window open and fly into the room.

 

Swiftly, he stripped Kai of his wet clothing and put him into his bed, which was riddled with fleas and devoid of covering, but it would have to do for tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps, he could find something more suitable--Nicholas growled to himself, searching for candles and matches. He needed to be with LaCroix tomorrow. But this man, this boy, really, who shared his name... Nicholas felt himself being drawn to Kai.

 

As he lit Kai's few meager candles, the situation struck Nicholas as quite inexplicable.

 

The tearing, choking sounds coming from the bed alerted Nicholas to Kai's conscious state. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it below Kai's mouth to catch the blood spewing up from his lungs. The young man was doubled over in pain from the spasms taking place inside his chest. Nicholas slid sideways behind Kai's back and wrapped his free arm about the young man's shoulders to support him.

 

It seemed an eternity before the coughing and retching subsided, leaving Kai gasping for air and Nicholas drenched in red sweat. Kai slumped down on his feeble pillow, looking up at Nicholas blearily. "I fear I've soiled your dandified clothes. You look like you've been wrapped in a shroud of crimson."

 

Nicholas shrugged. "I've no quarrels with a bit of blood." And truthfully, the great amount of blood Kai had evacuated appetized him not at all. A consumptive's blood had a disgusting sour tang that appealed to very few vampires. Still, so much blood, edible or not, would put a golden gleam in Nicholas's eyes, and he did not want Kai to see that, so he moved to the window corner to rinse out his shirt and coat with the abundant rainwater.

 

He felt the unmistakable feeling of eyes on his bare skin, and he turned quickly to find Kai sitting up in his bed, watching him. Once again, the pale grey eyes were sparkling, not with fever, but with something inherent, internal, and they were fixed on Nicholas with a stare that he could only describe as... knowing.

 

Nicholas wrung out his shirt nervously. "I have to go." He could feel the sun on the horizon and needed to get back to his closed carriage and his sober, if hung-over, coachman. LaCroix is going to be furious with me...

 

"Will you come back tomorrow night?"

 

The quiet entreaty stopped Nicholas in his tracks. "I--I do not know if I shall be able."

 

"Please try, Nicholas. I do not wish to die alone."

 

The simple dignity of the request unnerved Nicholas, and to forestall answering he guiltily slithered into his damp but clean clothes. LaCroix had no plans to stay long in Baltimore, and he doubtless wanted Nicholas with him the entire time. Much as he wanted to visit Kai in his last days, Nicholas knew he'd have the devil's own time getting away from LaCroix once he left.

 

If he left.

 

He can't have much time left, Nicholas thought, looking over at Kai Quartermayne. The young man was patiently waiting for his new friend's answer. "Why me?" he asked finally.

 

"I have been sick with this vile disease for two years. In all that time, you are the only person who has ever extended any kindness to me."

 

The devil take LaCroix, thought Nicholas fiercely, if he hasn't already. No one should die alone.

 

"Yes, my friend. I will come back."

 

~~~

 

A Shroud of Crimson (2/9)

 

The Corvina was not only a bookstore-coffee house; it was a Gothic bookstore-coffee house. Tracy got out of the Caddy and sniggered. "Man, every scrawny pale guy in the city with vampire fantasies must hang out here," she snorted. Nick didn't say anything; the consequences of asking LaCroix to tamper with her memory were still hanging between his eyeballs like an impending gunshot, and there was always the remote chance that any mention of vampires coming out of his mouth might give Tracy ideas. Still, he decided to make a little test.

 

"The Corvina was the library of Matthias Corvinus, a fifteenth century Hungarian ruler. Historically, a female relative of his was supposed to have married Vlad Dracula." Tracy turned to stare at her partner. "You know, the vampire?"

 

Inside, the store was a pleasant mixture of smells, gourmet coffee and pastries, old books and new. Ink, paste, paper. Nick loved a bookstore... although the gigantic cardboard cutout of the blond girl with the stake that someone had propped in the corner gave Nick reason to pause.

 

They asked the girl behind the coffee counter if they could speak with Mr. Thorn.

 

"Nicholas?" she asked.

 

"Yes, can we speak with him? We're with the Metro Police."

 

"Is your name Nicholas?"

 

Nick blinked. "Yes..."

 

She smiled. "Kai told us to expect you. Take a seat, Detectives, he'll be out in a minute."

 

Tracy slid into an empty table. "How'd he know we were coming?"

 

"Kai's funny like that."

 

"You know him?"

 

"We go back." Discreetly, the girl placed a mug in front of each of them and disappeared. Tracy sipped her coffee and did her best to ignore the tingling sensation on the back of her neck. She had the weirdest feeling that the other customers were looking over their coffee and books and from behind the stacks, and watching them. Appropriately, the silken-steel tones of the Nightcrawler were insinuating themselves into the atmosphere, from the discreetly hidden speakers, into the unwary listener's minds.

 

"Maybe a friend is not the person being asked, but the person asking the favor. A favor so important, so dire, that the only living being that you can trust with this favor is that one friend, the person so close to you that death itself could not separate you.

 

"What say you, gentle listeners? Tell the Nightcrawler your woes, your haves and have nots. Because, after all, the Nightcrawler is your closest friend..."

 

@}-----

 

Nicholas held the towel under Kai's mouth, trying futilely to catch all of the blood that the young man was vomiting. He'd gone through more towels than he could count in the past week. Nicholas had simply burned them all and bought more. It was the least he could do for the poor boy he had promised not to leave.

 

Kai gagged and gasped for air. "Nicholas--"

 

"No. Don't speak. Rest, Kai." It was pointless to try and calm him; they both knew that this was the last hemorrhage.

 

He shook his pale head. "No. Nicholas--" Kai choked on his own blood. His body heaved and his mouth worked silently like a fish strangling on a hook. With his thin, shaking hand, Kai reached up and touched Nicholas's lips, then brought his hand to his own throat.

 

Nicholas was astonished. "How did--? No. No, Kai, I cannot. I cannot!"

 

The lively, radiant spark that had been missing from Kai's grey eyes in the past week came flooding back with a vengeance. There was no fear, only determination. The message was clear as the moon at midnight: You can. And by God, you will.

 

Beaten, Nicholas nodded. "As you wish." He bowed his head. "Forgive me." Nicholas felt his fangs descend, and all the world receded as his ears were filled the struggling beat of Kai's heart and the weak, diseased blood in his veins. Nicholas pulled back the blond head to expose the thin, shriveled neck, and buried his fangs in the flesh of the throat.

 

@}-----

 

Nick felt Kai's approach thrumming through their reemerging link, piling anticipation onto his already considerable headache, and out of sheer desperation he took a gulp of his drink without considering what was in it--and was surprised to find that it wasn't coffee.

 

It was cow blood.

 

"I trust you find my stock satisfactory, Nicholas?" Nick looked up. Kai was dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and a black blazer, which made him look vaguely like a Catholic priest. His pale blond hair was longer now, combed smoothly back and held in a ponytail. His face was still gaunt. His grey eyes were still quiet, his demeanor calm. "If not, perhaps you'd care for something a bit stronger. I've got a fine private bar." He was not smiling.

 

At least, that was what Tracy thought. Nick knew better. His link with Kai was humming vibrantly, warm and bright. Warmer and brighter, in fact, than the last time Nick had seen him, in Paris in the early 1880s. Pleasing, considering that they had not parted on good terms. Not at all on good terms... "What's the matter, Nicholas? Don't you know me?"

 

Nick inhaled and let the air out slowly. "Oh, mon ami. Mon coeur, c'est sûr, il est de fils."[1] He stood and pulled his fledgling into a bear hug. "It's been a long time."

 

Kai held him tightly, his pale head fitting snugly beneath Nick's chin. "Oui. Ce n'est rien. J'y suis."[2]

 

Carefully, Nick nudged at their link. Pain and roaring grief flooded in for a split second, before Kai slammed down on his end of the link, causing Nick to clamp his eyes shut against the backlash. {Kai, I'm so sorry...}

 

"Um... hey, Nick? Gonna introduce me?"

 

"Sorry." Reluctantly, the two men stepped apart. "Tracy, Nicholas Thorn, better known as Kai. Kai, Detective Tracy Vetter, my partner. Trace, Kai is..." How to describe his relationship to Kai? Fledgling? Son? Unholy creation? Kai gave him a mental kick. "... my godson."

 

Kai sighed. {Close enough.} "A pleasure, Detective Vetter."

 

"Were you named for Nick?"

 

Kai smiled. "He'd like to think so."

 

"Kai, we are here on official business, I'm afraid. Could we go someplace a little more private?"

 

"Of course." Kai took the detectives to the back of the store, and pulled back a hinged bookcase to reveal a door.

 

"Catchy," said Tracy approvingly.

 

"Kitchy," said Nick chidingly.

 

Kai shrugged. "The architect's idea, not mine. The few people who know about it think it's fantastic. They're just disappointed that there's no secret password or hidden button under some candle." He pulled a key from his pocket.

 

Kai's inner office was more like a Victorian gentleman's study, all wood paneling and dark carpets, but instead of having a sinister atmosphere, the room projected calm strength and quiet confidence. Like Kai, Nick thought. Blue eyes met grey and Kai smiled serenely. Damn, I forgot. He can hear anything. Then he deliberately broadcast, {You are the most placid vampire I have ever met!}

 

Kai laughed aloud.

 

"Hey, what's so funny? Did I miss something?"

 

"Old joke," Nick said, sitting down in one of the deep leather chairs opposite Kai's big polished wooden desk. "Nothing to concern yourself with."

 

"Now then, Detectives. How can I help you?"

 

Tracy glanced at her partner, and decided to cut right to the chase. "Mr. Thorn, Dr. Lora Hines is dead."

 

Kai's eyes went totally blank. Nick didn't need the link to feel his son's struggle; he could see it. "How did she die?" he asked finally.

 

"She appears to have committed suicide."

 

Kai frowned. "What?" He blinked rapidly, rubbing his long fingers against one temple. "How did she..." He searched for a word, then gave up. "...do it?"

 

"She slit her wrists," Nick informed him quietly. "In her bathtub." His fledgling emitted a low, soundless moan; Nick's sharp eyes caught the beginnings of tears.

 

"You and Lora Hines were seeing each other?" Tracy began.

 

"We were attached romantically," confirmed Kai, his voice metallic.

 

"She was your girlfriend," Tracy translated.

 

"Yes."

 

"And you dated regularly?"

 

"After a fashion."

 

"A fashion?"

 

"I don't leave the store much, so she comes... used to come here, once or twice a week. Why? What does that have to do with anything? Nicholas?"

 

"Kai, Lora's neighbor claims that she came home early tonight, and that she was unusually quiet. Six hours later, she was dead. Did you and she... have some sort of fight?"

 

Kai's head jerked up, his jaw clenched tightly. "No."

 

"Mr. Thorn--"

 

"No, I did not fight with Lora tonight. We did have a slight disagreement. I asked her if she wouldn't mind leaving early because I had a lot of bookkeeping to do and I wanted to finish it before morning. She became a bit... testy with me, and left. That was it. I didn't see her after."

 

"When did she leave?"

 

"About ten-thirty. My assistant manager out front will confirm the time, and she will also confirm that I have not left the store all night. And I'll repeat everything I've said before a judge, if you like."

 

Tracy shut her notebook. "That won't be necessary, Mr. Thorn. Thank you for your cooperation." She stood. "Nick?" Nick looked back at his 'godson,' who was slumped down in his chair, deflated and confused.

 

"Give me a couple minutes, will you, Tracy?"

 

"Right. I'll go get another cup of coffee."

 

"Shut the bookcase behind you," said Kai absently. Nick hitched his chair closer to the desk.

 

"You stole my name," he quipped, smiling hopefully. Kai didn't respond. "Kai?"

 

"This is all wrong," Kai muttered.

 

"Your psychic traces were all over her apartment," Nick revealed quietly. "And I felt your pain, out in the shop. You knew she was dead before we got here--"

 

"Of course I knew!" hissed his fledgling, shooting Nick an icy glare which quickly softened. "Have to put on a good show, though..."

 

Nick acknowledged the sad necessity with a brief nod. "I'm sorry for your loss, Kai."

 

"Thank you. But this is just... not right."

 

Nick pursed his lips. Reaching out, he took Kai's hand and rubbed the slender knuckles reassuringly with the ball of his thumb. Nick frowned. "When was the last time you fed?"

 

Kai shook his head. "I don't know. Three days, four?"

 

"You're as bad as ever. What have you been doing with yourself since 1882?"

 

"Nothing of import," Kai shrugged weakly. "Pursuing the same dangerous and masochistic course of study that caused us to part company, but I have to say, it's paid off in its own way." His twisted grin gave Nick a sudden cold chill. "Join me for midnight mass sometime, it's a wonderful thing."

 

"You're not thinking clearly."

 

"When do I ever?"

 

Nick admitted Kai's point. "How long have you been in Toronto?"

 

"Oh, a few months. Since just after the Fever."

 

"A few months," Nick repeated with slow disbelief. "And you didn't contact me?"

 

"Nicholas, I know just how much you relish the companionship of your own kind," Kai drawled, in a fairly good imitation of his grandsire. "And I was busy settling into my new affairs. I must admit, now that I'm here--and, apparently now companionless--I'm rather looking forward to getting back into the ebb and flow of the invisible city..."

 

"I would have welcomed you, of all people. But you're in no condition to socialize," scolded Nick. "You need to feed."

 

"Blood on the tongue clouds my mind, you know that." He dropped his chin onto his chest. "And I've been seeing so much lately... golden coins on a river of blood... I don't know what to make of them... Nicholas, I don't feel like eating."

 

"I don't care what you feel like," said Nick gently, going round the desk and offering Kai his hand. Kai's eyelids flickered in a brief gesture of thanks and sank his teeth into his father's palm.

 

@}-----

 

Nicholas was beginning to panic. It had been over an hour since he had drunk Kai's blood and exchanged it for his own, and still the man showed no signs of stirring. Please, Nicholas begged silently of whatever deity was pleased to listen, stroking Kai's broad forehead, brushing the limp strands of silver-gilt hair with his fingers. Please don't let him be like Alyssa...

 

As if on cue, Kai's chest rose and fell once. Nicholas breathed a sign of great relief. "Thank you," he whispered to no one in particular. "Kai... It is time to awaken, my friend." The endearments of his own master flitted through his mind. "My brother, my child. It is time to rise."

 

Slowly, Kai's eyelids opened. Nicholas was dumbfounded; by all rights, his new fledgling's eyes should be blood-red and wild with the first hunger. But they were still the same calm, quiet grey, sparkling now with health and life as well as humor.

 

"Nicholas. Father."

 

"Nicholas will do for now. How do you feel?"

 

"Better. Well."

 

"Hungry?"

 

"No."

 

Nicholas frowned. "You should feed, regardless. You are weak."

 

Kai sat up slowly. "As you say." He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Ah..."

 

"Kai..." Nicholas hesitated, not sure of what he was going to say. "When I tasted your blood, I saw... things. Flashes, bright lights, images that I could not understand. But nothing tangible, nothing of yourself."

 

"They are myself, Nicholas." Kai took a deep breath, and rose to his feet. Nicholas was beside him, steadying him. "They are all that I am."

 

"What are they?"

 

"Things that may be. Things that will be."

 

Nicholas felt his jaw drop. "You can see the future? You are a prophet?"

 

Kai chuckled softly. "Nothing so presumptuous. I don't believe in prophecy. Prophecies are too open to interpretation, to exploitation. What I see either happens, or does not happen. There is no variation."

 

The newborn link between Nicholas and Kai pulsed with a curious energy, and when Nicholas gently nudged the new bond, Kai opened his end of the link willingly, and then Nicholas understood. "You saw me in a vision," he realized. "That is how you knew what I was, and why you were not afraid of me."

 

Kai nodded. "You are my savior, Nicholas, my father. I saw you in my mind, through a shroud of crimson, and I thought you were an archangel."

 

"Instead, I turn out to be an arch-devil."

 

"Even a savior may travel in the guise of the damned."

 

"Enough of theology, you need to feed."

 

@}-----

 

Nick put a hand on Kai's forehead. "That's enough, Kai," he murmured. Obediently, Kai pulled back, licking the wounds closed. He sat back heavily in his chair.

 

"Thank you, Father."

 

The title warmed Nick. "You wouldn't need it if you would eat properly."

 

"This from a man who's lived on cow blood for a hundred years?"

 

Nick punched Kai fondly on the shoulder. "It's still feeding, even if it's not pleasant. Visions or not, I've told you before, there's no point in starving yourself over things that may not even come to pass."

 

"They will..."

 

"Then you have no control over it. You're wasting away."

 

"And you sound like a Jewish mother. Or LaCroix."

 

Much as he would have loved to continue the affectionate banter, Nick did have an investigation to complete. "Kai, I need to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Dr. Hines."

 

"Oh... Do you really need to do this tonight?"

 

"Yes." When Kai said nothing else, Nick pressed on. "Did Dr. Hines strike you as being depressed recently?"

 

"Not in the slightest. In her profession, it was sometimes very difficult for her to stay upbeat, but she managed."

 

"How long had you known her?"

 

"I met her a few days after I moved here."

 

"And how long had you been involved?"

 

Kai gave his master a baleful look. "You know my methods, Nicholas."

 

Nick didn't write that down. "Still on the make twenty-four-seven? I guess some things don't change." He paused. "Did she know?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Were you going to bring her across?"

 

"I was thinking about it," Kai admitted. "But I hadn't broached the idea to her." He studied Nick intently. "This is important to you, I think."

 

"Dr. Hines was the friend of a friend." Nick took a deep breath. "Kai, when I was at her apartment earlier tonight, I smelled vampire scent." If possible, Kai's expression became even graver. "Not yours. I know your scent, Kai, and this was not you."

 

"I... I'm afraid I can't explain that, Nicholas," said Kai, shaking his head. He then lifted an eyebrow. "Is there something... else... on your mind?"

 

"There's no keeping anything from you, is there?" Nick got up from his chair, took a few steps toward the crackling fireplace. "I had a dream, Kai."

 

"I know. I saw it in your blood." Kai rubbed at his forehead pensively. "And elsewhere." He gave his master a wan smile. "I forget how closely connected we are, no matter how hard I try to deny it. I forget that when we're near one another, my visions... my dreams... can spill over to you."

 

"So you did foresee it."

 

"I did."

 

"And it will happen."

 

"It might."

 

"That's not an answer!"

 

"It's the only one I can give, Nicholas, you know that."

 

"My God... And there's nothing I can do... I'm going to kill..."

 

"I don't know that, either," said Kai quietly. "You can certainly try to change that future. Part of the vision has already been avoided, just by virtue of your coming to see me, so it's certainly possible. Change the path you're walking and you change your destination."

 

Nick frowned. "Are you telling me I have to leave the city?"

 

"I--oh, Christ, I don't know. Right now, I don't even remember what my mother looked like. I'm not certain of anything anymore," he whispered, looking eminently tired. "But I've told you everything I know, mon pere. I think you should go now."

 

Not for the first time, Nick felt helpless in his son's presence. "Please, Kai--"

 

"Just go. I'm in no shape to get reacquainted."

 

***

 

"Hey, it's a good thing we weren't closer to the precinct a couple minutes ago," Tracy greeted Nick when he returned to the car.

 

"Oh? Why's that?"

 

"Came over the radio. A prisoner transfer got violent. Dilbert Dawkins."

 

Nick froze. "I know him," he said carefully, turning the key in the ignition. "I arrested him. What happened?"

 

"Grabbed a gun and a hostage. A rookie--a kid named Taylor--got a bullet in his leg trying to take the guy down, but he managed. He'll probably get a promotion out of it."

 

"Part of the vision has already been avoided, just by your coming to see me..." "Good for him," Nick replied, pulling out into traffic. "Turn on the radio, will you, Trace?"

 

***

 

"A friend," caressed the Nightcrawler, "is the greatest of all treasures, a commodity not to be taken lightly or to be bartered for. It is a far more loyal emotion than passionate love or divine ardor or even filial piety. For any love affair to be successful, there must be friendship as well as passion. One must have respect for one's god before one can proclaim to love him. And to love a father, or a son, one must first trust that father or that son. How long is the longest friendship? A true friend is the greatest form of eternal love."

 

***

 

Nick returned to the morgue to find Natalie sitting at her desk, alone. Dr. Hines's body had been removed, and she was staring at small journal lying flat on top of her paperwork. "Nat?"

 

She didn't look up. "Did you find out anything from the boyfriend?"

 

"Only that he's in shock." Nick moved to stand beside her. "And that he was grateful to see me again, but didn't want to talk much."

 

"You know him?"

 

"I made him."

 

Natalie lifted her head from her examination of the journal. "He's a vampire." Nick nodded. "Could he have been the one you smelled?"

 

Nick hesitated. "I... it's possible. I don't think so. I know Kai's scent as well as I know y--my own, and that wasn't the scent in the apartment. He was blocking his bond with me, though..." He took a deep breath. "I told Tracy he was my godson."

 

"I guess that's about as close to the truth as she's gonna come." Natalie didn't seem to be able to maintain eye contact with him, and looked away again. "One of the boys down in evidence brought me this. Since her note said she wanted me to have it, Reese insisted that I have it. Not that I've been able to open it yet."

 

Nick looked down at the book, seeing a hundred other small morsels of history in its place. "Strange, isn't it? How something so personal becomes just another piece of evidence?"

 

"Not for me." Natalie took a deep breath. "When she and I would get together some years ago, we'd talk for hours. About our careers, professional gossip. We slowly came to realize that we never really talked about ourselves. And you know why? There was nothing to tell. Our personal lives were non-existent. That was a bit of a depressing discovery. And we sort of lost touch after that. Her leaving me the note and her journal... she meant me to learn from her mistakes." She looked up, and met Nick's eyes. "It's my wake-up call, Nick. Time to get a life."

 

"You've got me," said Nick, softly pleading. "It's not empty."

 

"Not now. Six years ago. April fourteenth."

 

"What's that?"

 

Even in her grief, for a moment Natalie almost felt like laughing. Once again, he'd forgotten her birthday. He was consistent, she'd give him that. "The day they brought you in. My life changed that day." A sudden lump in her throat required swallowing. "I don't want to end up like Lora. You're telling me that she and I had more in common than I thought, that she had a vampire who cared about her, too. But it wasn't enough. She's still dead. I don't want to end up like Lora, Nick."

 

"I won't let you."

 

"Well, then it's simple. You just have to love me as much as I love you."

 

Nick stared at her in anguish, speechless.

 

How can I tell her? What can I say to make her understand? I can't bring you across, Nat... I can't! I would kill you. I know that now, with more certainty that ever. I love you more than life... than my own life...

 

Something in his expression, or something deeper, made Natalie ask softly, "What's bothering you, Nick?"

 

"Being around Kai bothers me," Nick said, more shortly than he'd intended. Then he huffed and ruffled his hair. "I'm sorry I snapped, Nat. But Kai... he's... well, it's dangerous for me to be around him."

 

"How so?"

 

"When I'm in his company, I remember what it was like to be a vampire--to really be a vampire, not just a make-believe human being. I was... contented. No worries, no care... no limitations. You have to understand, Nat, that what I feel for Kai makes me almost understand what LaCroix feels for me. Somehow... being near him... in his presence..." Nick stared at her, willing the words onto his tongue. He should not be telling her this, not after what she had just told him... "He cuts through the complexities of a vampire's emotions and lays them out, so simple and elegant, especially when compared to the clumsier feelings of mortals. He makes me doubt myself, Natalie, in ways that LaCroix never could. That's why he's dangerous. He's counterproductive."

 

Natalie was silent. She wasn't entirely sure how she should respond; it had been a long time since Nick was that open with her. Then, "Something else is bothering you, Nick. I know it is, I can--" She stopped, not sure she should say what was on the tip of her tongue. "I can sense you, Nick."

 

Nick started. His jaw worked for a moment, before he relaxed slightly. "I was wondering when you were going to notice it."

 

"Notice it? I've had Nick-on-the-brain for a week now. You've felt it, too, then?"

 

"It's not the kind of thing I can easily ignore. Nat, I... I'm sorry."

 

"For what? I was the one who thrust my wrist into your face. And you needed it. Nick," she pointed out softly, "I'm still here. And I'm fine, now that I know I'm not going crazy. No adverse effects."

 

"Except a blood-bond."

 

"Is that a problem?"

 

Nick allowed his fingers to trace the line of her hair. "Yes... and no. This is a big step, Nat, and so sudden. I don't know if either of us is really ready for it..."

 

"Yes, well, from what you've told me, there's not much we can do about it. I can feel you, Nick. When you're close... I feel what you're feeling." At those words, the first thing that came to Nick's mind was the feeling of Natalie's hair brushing the nape of his neck. "Once or twice, I've even caught coherent thoughts."

 

Suddenly, Nick wished he could sink into the floor. "Oh no... You heard that crack about the scent thing, didn't you?"

 

Before Natalie could answer, Nick's pager went off.

 

***

 

About a week later, Nick, Natalie and Tracy found themselves at the scene of their fourth apparent suicide in less than nine days. "Is there just something in the air this month?" Tracy wondered aloud. No one answered.

 

Reese met them at the victim's cheap hotel. "We found a New York State learner's permit in his wallet. His name was Robert Spenser. He was sixteen." Nick bent down to pull back the sheet covering the corpse. He brushed the soft brown hair off the boy's forehead, noting the furrows. A young man who had had much on his mind, Nick decided.

 

"Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse." Tracy looked around. "Hey, Nat, where's Julian?"

 

"Sent him back to the car. He knew this kid."

 

"They're from the same town. Trace, why don't you go talk to him?" Reese suggested gruffly. "See if he's up to giving us the phone number of the next of kin."

 

Natalie waited until Reese left to talk to one of the uniforms. "I know how he feels," she said, referring to Julian. "It's a little too soon to tell, but it looks like he overdosed on something. And there's something else, Nick, take a look at this," she beckoned, pulling the boy's right arm out for him to see. There were a number of needle marks, but there was something else as well. On the inner arm, near the elbow joint, were a series of puncture marks, made up of several sets of neat little holes. "It's the same on the other arm. Any ideas?"

 

"He could have been feeding someone. Someone with a lot of restraint whom he trusted a great deal. It is less obvious than the neck," he pointed out. "I heard of it being done but I've never seen it." He paused. "These are pretty recent." Nick put his nose to the wounds, trying to find a trace of the feeder's scent. "Nothing."

 

"Not all that recent, then."

 

Nick rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, thinking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Natalie lift something from around Robert Spenser's neck.

 

***

 

LaCroix leaned on his bar, gazing out over the dark fantasy world of the Raven like a foreboding god. Foreboding, that was the very word for the cloud that was gathering in his mind. Something was bothering Nicholas, something beyond his usual self-inflicted troubles. Something that LaCroix could not put his finger on.

 

And that bothered LaCroix.

 

"It's a great little place," he overheard one of the patrons saying to another, "you know, just to go and have a quiet drink. A lot of the books are that funny fake crap that the mortals buy, Emily Weiss and such, but if you ask right, you can get some real good books. And the stock's pretty good, too. The owner's a little on the funny side, though. Spacey, you know?"

 

Spacey. A knife slashed through the clouds, allowing LaCroix a flash of insight before the darkness merged together again.

 

Oh, no, LaCroix thought in profound annoyance. Anyone but him...

 

@}-----

 

LaCroix looked up from his book. "You're late, Nicholas," he said, as his fledgling entered the hotel suite, his voice threateningly bland.

 

"I was kept back a while," replied the younger man.

 

"Oh?" asked a raised eyebrow.

 

"Yes," said Nicholas, with a defiant tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of a companion. A short, blond figure had inched into the room, so slender and pale, LaCroix thought at first it was a very young woman in male clothing. But no, it was indeed a man, with remarkable clear grey eyes. LaCroix could not stop staring. "This is the reason for your delay?"

 

Nicholas nodded. "This is Kai."

 

The newcomer dipped his head. "Sir," he said quietly.

 

Normally, LaCroix would have been delighted. His son, showing enough initiative and responsibility to take on a fledgling!

 

Instead, he had to fight a desire to turn and run.

 

@}-----

 

The General sipped thoughtfully from the crystal goblet in his hand. Like a fly buzzing in his ear, there was a subtle tremoring of the bond he shared with Nicholas as something slipped across it, very slight, nearly imperceptible, but it whispered to LaCroix, softly, tauntingly...

 

{'From thy own loins in payment, dead for dead, for that thou hast made Life join hands with Death...'}

 

He recognized the quote, from a play by Sophocles. A trifle confounded, LaCroix sipped at his wine, the thick nectar aroma of the blood sighing of sweet idiots with unexpected songs. Then he gasped softly in understanding. "Tiresias," he realized. "The old blind prophet."

 

The blood turned to chalk on his lips.

 

***

 

"Anything interesting?" Tracy asked, following Nick into the morgue. Natalie looked up.

 

"Aside from the fact that he's got the weirdest eyes I've ever seen?"

 

Nick tipped his head to one side. "Eyes?"

 

Natalie pulled back one of the eyelids. The iris was yellow-brown. Striking in death, they could only imagine what they had looked like when Spenser was alive.

 

"Well, that explains the nickname," Tracy said, shrugging. "Julian said that Spenser was known in Black Falls as 'The Cat.' He was a musician. A piano player."

 

"How is Julian?"

 

Tracy bit the inside of her lip thoughtfully. "He's... coping, I guess. I wanted to drive him home, but he wouldn't let me. Said something about going for a walk to clear his head."

 

More like a spin above the city, Nick thought. Natalie caught herself before she agreed with a comment that hadn't actually been voiced.

 

"Well, there's not much question about the cause of death," she said, going into clinical-mode. "He died from a massive overdose of heroin."

 

"Probably brought on by musical angst," Nick mused. "That all?"

 

"Yep." Natalie tossed Tracy a file. "Another case in the 'Tragically Simple' category. It's getting fatter and fatter all the time."

 

Tracy gave her friend a sympathetic rub on the shoulder. "Coming, Nick?"

 

Nick felt a twinge at the nape of his neck, a feeling that was becoming pleasantly familiar now that it was mutual. "No, I'm gonna... stick around."

 

Tracy smothered a smirk as well as a prick of jealousy. "Right," she said, trying not to think of Vachon. Time to move on, my ass, she thought angrily, fighting back sudden hot tears. "Have fun, kids."

 

As soon as the door closed--

 

"You found something else?"

 

"I goofed," Natalie admitted, going to her desk. "I kept the first one because I thought it was odd and I wanted to show it to you. Julian found it on a chain around Lora's neck." She held up the piece of jewelry. It was not a cross, Nick saw, but a coin. "I found ones just like it on those other three so-called suicides. Spenser wore his around his wrist. They're all the same coin, they've all got the same date on them, 1842, and they look like they're in mint condition. I don't get it, why coins?"

 

"1842? You're certain of the date?"

 

"Look for yourself." Nick examined the pieces of old money very closely.

 

"Nick? You see something?"

 

"They're each a fourth of a dollar. Quarters."

 

"Is that significant?"

 

"Kai's real name is Nicholas Quartermayne. He's an avid coin collector, always has been. And 1842 was the year I brought him across."

 

***

 

"Nicholas! I didn't expect to see you back so soon," Kai greeted when the assistant manager let Nick into the office. Kai was seated at his big desk, pouring over an old-fashioned ledger. He didn't look up. "Cops and robbers business slowing down?"

 

Nick tossed the coins onto the desk. He watched carefully as Kai's skin blanched whiter. "Where... where did you get--"

 

"Lora Hines," Nick replied, biting each word off short. "Also Eddie Toussaint, Robert Spenser, and Madison Chambers." Nick walked around the desk. "Friends of yours?"

 

Kai didn't seem to hear him. "Spenser? Cat Spenser? Oh, God..." Nick raised an eyebrow. Blood tears were streaming down Kai's cheeks but his link to Nick was still shut. "What was he doing here? He was barely sixteen... How?"

 

"Heroin. And Toussaint and Chambers, strychnine. Coroner's making them look like suicides." Nick stepped closer to his fledgling. "But we know they weren't." Kai looked up sharply. Nick's expression was professional and cold. "Numismatics was always one of your hobbies, and I remember you had a particular fondness for coins from your conversion year. You knew all four victims, including the American, who had numerous bites on his inner elbows. There was vampire scent in Lora Hines's apartment. And 'coins on a river of blood?'"

 

"You're accusing me of murder?" Kai spat. "Me? Nicholas, surely you know me better than that!"

 

"Do I? Then why have you been shielding yourself from me?" Kai refused to meet his master's eyes. Snarling, Nick grabbed Kai's chin and forced him to gaze up. "Killing's never bothered you," he growled around his fangs. "Even LaCroix thought you one of the best hunters he'd ever met, and he begrudges you the ground you walk on. What aren't you telling me?"

 

"I've told you everything you need to know," Kai said stonily, eyes still grey but cold as a Viking hell. "Those people were my friends. I loved Lora. And Cat was a child! I didn't even know he was in Toronto. I did not kill them!"

 

"The marks on Spenser."

 

"I'm far from being the only vampire he knew."

 

"The vampire scent in Lora Hines's apartment."

 

"You said yourself it wasn't me!"

 

"If you're so innocent, boy, why are you hiding your blood from me?"

 

"Because I am in fear for my life!" Kai pushed his father aside and lurched to the fireplace, gripping the mantle piece for support. "Because I'm dying."

 

Nick couldn't help it. To his horror, he laughed.

 

"I don't need your mockery," yelled Kai harshly, face wet with fresh tears. "My lover is dead--my friends are dead, Nicholas! All of them taken from me. I am in danger. I'm alone and I need your help, Nicholas, not your scorn."

 

"You've done well enough on your own. That's what you said you'd do, after all. 'I need my privacy, Nicholas.' 'I need to be alone, Nicholas.' 'You're stifling me, Nicholas!' Sound familiar?"

 

Kai's chest heaved as though he were silently gasping for air. "Get out." Nick sneered and turned to go. "Nicholas."

 

Nick halted, seething.

 

"'Ame curieuse qui souffres et vas cherchant ton paradis, plains-moi... Sinon, jet e maudis!'"[3]

 

Some of Nick's anger drained away, leaving him with a sick, clammy feeling. Slowly, he walked from the office and up to the front of the store, where Natalie was in raptures over a large mug of gourmet hot chocolate. "I'll be in the car," he muttered as he passed, and went to sit in the familiar confines of the Caddy. Plains-moi...

 

"Nick?" Natalie slid into the passenger's side. She put her hand on his knee. "Did he tell you anything?"

 

Nick took a deep breath. "'O questing soul who suffers and keeps searching for your Paradise, have pity on me... or be damned.'" They drove to Natalie's apartment in silence. He parked the car and waited, but Natalie didn't seem in a hurry to get out. Nick sat back in his seat, sighing, and looked up at the ragtop as though it held the answers he was searching for. "I don't know what to think, Nat. If these people had been killed outright, I wouldn't doubt that it was Kai. He's a scholar, but subtlety in hunting is not his specialty. It doesn't bother him the way it does me," he added sadly.

 

"Would he have bothered with chemicals?"

 

"I don't know. Maybe; he studied medicine once. I know he's more than capable of killing, but murder... he doesn't like waste. But he's... off."

 

"Off... how?"

 

"More than usual. Kai's a psychic. A precognate, I think the term is."

 

Natalie was incredulous. "Precognate. You mean, he can see the future? And you believe that?"

 

"I've seen the proof of it. When he was mortal and dying of consumption, he knew I would come to him." Nick laughed humorlessly. "His archangel in a crimson shroud. He knew what I was. He asked me to bring him across. He's seen... a lot of things that have come to pass. And from the little he told me, I think he saw these deaths and knows for certain that they weren't suicides." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm worried about him, Nat. We never spent much time together, our personalities are too different, but we've always been... close." Natalie gripped his arm, hearing the roughness in Nick's voice. He looked down at her hand and briefly covered it with his own.

 

"Is that why he came here?" she asked. "To see you again?"

 

Nick shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of supreme helplessness. "No." He laughed slightly but could not disguise his hurt. "He spoke of looking forward to getting back into the invisible city."

 

"The what?"

 

"An archaic name for a vampire Community. What else do you call a settlement of people that no mortal sees? We move among them freely, picking them off one by one, and yet they see nothing. Most vampires have a driving need for contact with their own kind, and in that respect at least, Kai's no different from any of us." There was a forlorn note to Nick's deep voice that Natalie had heard time and again from him, but had never been able to put a name to before. Now, she knew what it was.

 

It was loneliness.

 

Nick remained lost in his own thoughts for a long time, prompting Natalie to unbuckle her seat belt and pillow her head on his leather-clad shoulder. He put his arm around her without realizing what he was doing. Eventually, he began to speak again.

 

"Kai is... one of the strongest spirits that I have ever known. He's always been a little out there, but Kai has always had... so much faith. In what, I don't know--he's even more of a lapsed Catholic than I am, and that's hard to top--but he has a greatness of spirit that is unusual in mortals, let alone in vampires. Just being near him gives a person strength, as if his excess radiance spills over and creeps into you. He is... a warmth... and a brightness... that were missing in my life before I met him, and after we went our separate ways... What Kai has... is something that it's taken me a long time to find again... in someone else."

 

Natalie was silent. Both she and Nick had to brush away unshed tears. "But there was something wrong with him tonight, Nat. I got the weirdest impression that he's scared of something. He even told me that he's in fear for his life. He knew Lora was dead before we got there, and I've never seen him look like that. As if he'd been deflated... Of course, he also claims to be dying and to have attended church recently.

 

"And he's not feeding. Although that's not odd, in itself, he's always been a light eater, sometimes to the point of literally fasting. But I let him feed off me... and he seemed so grateful. That's never happened before." Unconsciously, Nick sought out Natalie's hand again, rubbing her knuckles with the ball of his thumb, desperate for tactile contact. She put her other hand on his shoulder, and Nick laid his cheek on it.

 

~~~

 

A Shroud of Crimson (3/9)

 

Nick walked Natalie up to her apartment, and without waiting to be invited, followed her inside. Natalie was glad, because there were things she wanted to discuss with him. But he cut her off before she could begin. "I'm not ready yet, Nat."

 

"Think of all the problems it would solve, Nick. You wouldn't have to be alone anymore."

 

He shook his head. "I can't. You know I can't."

 

"I've been wrong about a lot of things in my life. But I'm not wrong about this. But what I feel for you... I'm asking for an end. For a resolution. I'm not willing to go on like this. We can be together."

 

Nick's gorgeous blue eyes pleaded with her. "I can't damn you into becoming what I am."

 

Coming up to him, Natalie placed a hand on his chest. "There is a way. I have faith in you, and whatever follows." She laid her head over his heart. Trapped, Nick had no choice but to put his arms around her.

 

Natalie sighed. Nick kissed her hair. "I'll think about it," he promised, defeated, knowing there was nothing else he could say. "Really think about it this time. But I can't make you any other promises."

 

"I have faith, Nick."

 

Nick smiled gently. "You have always had faith in me. Whatever happens, I'll never forget that."

 

***

 

Once home, Nick couldn't settle down. He sat down at his piano, but he couldn't play a coherent note. He couldn't watch TV, couldn't sleep... Finally, Nick just put his jacket back on. "Oh, this is maddening," he growled to himself. The sun was threatening to come up soon, so Nick skipped taking the Caddy and flew to the Corvina. He got there just as the staff was closing up.

 

"I'm here to see Kai," he said to Carol, the assistant manager.

 

She looked at him suspiciously. "Again, Detective Knight?"

 

"Nicholas. I'm Family."

 

The girl's expression lightened. "Back behind the counter, down the hallway and up the stairs. Kai's apartment is the door on the right."

 

"Thanks."

 

The stairwell was dark, but that didn't bother Nick in the least. He knocked on the door to the right of the landing. "Kai?"

 

It was not Kai who opened the door. It was a tall, lean young man with bone-straight auburn hair and a haggard expression. "Nick!"

 

"Julian?!"

 

"Oh, thank God, I was hoping you'd stop by before sunrise," said the younger man, pulling Nick inside. "He's been asking for you almost since you left."

 

"All right, but... What the hell are you doing here?"

 

"I'm Kai's doctor." He scrubbed his fingers across his scalp and gestured to a heavy oaken door. "In here."

 

In Kai's bedroom, Nick found a horror scene from a bygone era, something he'd never thought to see again. The room was different, bigger, better furnished, more comfortable--

 

But Kai was coughing up blood.

 

"What happened to him?" Nick whispered.

 

Julian had taken his place beside Kai, holding the cloth to catch the blood. "As near as I've been able to discover, the powers in his mind, the visions and such, are growing at such an alarming rate that his body is beginning to shut down. His powers are killing him." Nick had to sit down; his spine had suddenly become water. "For the last fifteen years, he's been like this." The coughs subsided, leaving Kai struggling for air. "I've done my best to help him, but I consistently seem to do more harm than good." Julian's voice was bitter. "He has his good nights and bad nights. Tonight happens to be a bit of both..." He gave Nick a hard glare, then pulled his patient into a sitting position and propped him up with pillows. "Are you sure about this?" he asked Kai quietly.

 

"Quite sure. Thank you, Julian."

 

"Okay." He paused on his way out the door. "I think I can trust you, Detective, not to wear him out."

 

Nick sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. "This looks ominously familiar," he said wryly, thinking of Kai's last mortal days, and of the Community's recent Fever epidemic.

 

"Do tell. I didn't get here until after the Fever, as I think I told you, but I have heard the stories."

 

Nick's gaze strayed briefly to the portrait of the Holy Virgin Mary hanging over the head of Kai's bed, and lingered uncertainly on the old leather book on the nightstand. "Kai... I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I did this to you. If I'd never brought you across, your powers would never have grown so much." Licking his lips with difficulty, Kai coughed once, and said nothing. Nick sensed that the apology was unwelcome, bordering on the intrusive. He tried again. "Julian... he takes very good care of you." Kai nodded. "He even seems fond of you."

 

At that, Kai smiled. "I know. He is. And that's what occasionally worries me. We're only as sick as our secrets, Nicholas, and a man burdened with secrets should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician."

 

"Secrets?"

 

"It's not important. Nicholas, listen to me. I am dying, but I'm not dead yet."

 

"That sounds familiar, too."

 

"Listen to me!" Kai's voice rose in pitch, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. "He's coming, Nicholas. Coming for me. He's found me again and this time, he's not going to let me live."

 

"All right, all right," Nick soothed. He laid his hand against Kai's cheek, wiping the blood away with his thumb. His child's grey eyes were wide and frightened, all serenity gone, blank as the dead. Nick had never seen Kai like this. "Who has found you, Kai?"

 

"An old enemy. Someone who would gladly see me live out my nights in solitude. I have no one, Nicholas, no fledglings, no Family but you. He's taken them all from me before I got the chance."

 

"The suicides," Nick realized.

 

"And Lora. She was murdered, Nicholas. She may have slit her own wrists, but I swear she was persuaded, coerced into it. But the others weren't not suicides, they've never been suicides--"

 

"This has happened before?"

 

"Four cities. Each time, five people dead. This is the fifth city. But only four people are dead. He's not done yet."

 

"Do you think she'll come after you?"

 

"Not quite yet. There's more killing to be done, after all."[4]

 

"Who is he?"

 

"His name is Nielsen Sperling. I swear, Nicholas, he is a demon." A muscle in Nick's cheek twitched. "I have awakened the vampire's taste for blood, the vampire's taste for blood..."[5] "I first came across him in London in the nineteen twenties, but we had an... explosive crossing of paths about fifty years ago." Kai sighed.

 

"He was a soldier in Germany. I came upon him and five of his brown-shirted cohorts tormenting two little girls. I knew the girls. Their father was a rabbi who had given me shelter when I was in need of it. Sperling was the only vampire in the company--there for the fun, no doubt, I detected English and Canadian hints under his German. I killed the five Nazis. Quick and clean, far more than they deserved, the roaches. Sperling, I only wounded before he fled. I don't... remember what I did with the bodies... frankly, I don't want to remember. I hypnotized the girls and returned them to their home and let the incident pass from my mind. Then about a week later, I went to visit the rabbi's house... and found him dead. Him, his wife, their teenage son, and the two girls. The baby boy, I found alive. Smeared with his father's blood, but alive."

 

"Five lives for five lives."

 

"So it would seem."

 

"But why has he pursued you? He took his revenge." Kai compressed his lips into a thin line. With an effort, he hauled himself out of his bed. "Hey, now--"

 

"I'm a grown man, thank you, sir," Kai grunted. Nick started to complain, thought better of it, and kept his hands to himself. Kai crossed his bedroom to the mini-fridge he kept there and with his back to Nick, picked out two green bottles with silver labels that Nick had never seen before. Slowly, so as not to exhaust himself overly, Kai poured the blood into two goblets. "Do you trust me, Nicholas?" he asked.

 

"Of course," said Nick sincerely. He smiled. "I've often thought that you were the only one of my fledglings I could trust."

 

"I am pleased with the distinction... I think. Considering that there are only two of us left. Here," he said, turning and slowly recrossing the room, and handing a glass to Nicholas. "I think we could both do with a drink, and you're not on duty now. It's human, I'm afraid. Not helpful to your search, perhaps, but your Natalie shouldn't mind too much. Julian insists that I need it to keep up my strength."

 

"My--did he tell you about her?"

 

With a small smile, Kai toasted his father.

 

At the first sip, Nick felt a burning sensation in the back of his throat. The burn quickly spread to his stomach and limbs and then retracted, leaving only a dull warmth and minor light-headedness, a wonderful sensation he could not put a name to but wanted more of. "What is in this?"

 

"Remarkable, isn't it? I find it gives me focus." Nick took another gulp. "Easy. It does take a while to get used to. Too much at once can have... unpleasant side effects."

 

Nick nodded, taking another small sip. "Get back into bed. Now."

 

"You sound like LaCroix."

 

"Stop insulting me. Now tell me more about Sperling. What does he want from you?"

 

Kai sighed. "He wants to stop me. To destroy everything I've worked for." The nails on one long hand picked idly at the weave of the blanket. "For himself and his Family..." A strange, haunted look passed over Kai's face. "His Family against ours. Sons against sons," he muttered, and again Nick witnessed his fledgling collapse in on himself.

 

This time, the spell was brief, and Kai rallied quickly. "I'm not the only vampire on the planet who can do... this." He gestured to the painting above his head, reached out a hand and stroked the old Bible lovingly. Nick frowned. Even Natalie's treatments had never allowed him to touch the Holy Writ so fearlessly. "But because of what I am, where I come from... I am a threat to them. They are dangerous, Nicholas, to both mortals and immortals. They must be stopped, all of them. Sperling wants me to die without passing on what I can do, because if I had my health, I would kill him."

 

Nick nodded. "And so those you would bring across--and teach--he kills." That was not precisely what Kai meant, but he let it pass. "Why drugs?"

 

"No point in changing a good thing, I suppose. I found out... a long time after Germany... what his real name is." Nick waited. "It's Cream. Dr. Thomas Neill Cream."

 

"That name is vaguely familiar."

 

Kai nodded. "He was actually hanged in 1882 or so--you were still in Paris, but I was in London by that time, and I remember reading about it in the newspapers. He was a serial killer. A serial poisoner. Even then, he favored strychnine. He uses it against me because he refuses to sully his teeth with my ilk... it is nothing less than an insult. It's just like the rabbi's family. He didn't feed from them, either. Every time he tracks me down, he finds the five mortals closest to me and disposes of them. It's wholesale butchery, Nicholas. A waste of materials. Every mortal I become close to..." He turned his head. "I'm sure you know something of how that feels."

 

Nick didn't answer. To cover his discomfort--and for a little Dutch courage--he drained his glass, letting the strangely flavored blood dance over his tongue. It was making him feel decidedly unusual, a hot, flowering sensation that he had never encountered before. For a moment, Nick saw red, a soft, inviting red.

 

"There's nothing I can do," Kai was saying. "I'm too weak now to go on, and I've exhausted all my other options." He paused. "That's why I came to Toronto." Nick raised an eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of his master. "I have only two things left in this world," Kai continued, with quiet determination. "A mortal child left on my hands some years ago, of whom I have become unaccountably fond, and you. Since she cannot be my heir, the sharing of my secrets must fall to you."

 

Nick hesitated. "Maybe I should get Julian--"

 

"No! No, don't. Nicholas, I am not delirious. And I know your curiosity won't let you rest now."

 

"You--" Nick trailed off in frustration. He had forgotten how little room Kai's incredibly sensitive perception left for privacy. He toyed with his empty glass. He didn't like the look of his fledgling; his gaunt face was shiny with blood-sweat, and his sunken eyes were locked on Nick in hopeful desperation. Nick's gaze fell once more to the old Bible.

 

"Nicholas. Mon pere." Kai held out his slender hand. "You shall see. Boire, mon pere." With some trepidation--feeding from Kai was usually a brain-numbing experience--Nick gently sliced open his son's wrist.

 

It was not what Nick saw that was important. He didn't see much; he could taste the fact that Kai was holding back as many images as he could. But the things that Nick felt... with the first sip, he took his son within himself: the fear, the desperation, the shame and racking drain of the disease his mind was wreaking on his body, and then the love, Kai's deep love for the daughter he had been saddled with. Nick could not make out her face, but the memory of her voice was one of Kai's most treasured possessions. He felt Kai's love for him, clutched tightly in the younger man's heart for the century and more that he had been estranged from his father. And Nick felt Kai's devotion to... what? A god? A broken image, of a tall and powerful man with dark skin and eyes that radiated age. Not mortal age, the kind of aging that caused infirmity and feeble-minds, but the age of years, of knowledge. An Ancient...

 

Nick pulled back when Kai began coughing.

 

***

 

"They have struck at us with fire and with lies and we are still here. *I* am still here..."

 

"My people... my children..."

 

"One of the damned. One of your damned! [6]

 

***

 

LaCroix's ice-blue eyes flew open. An unfamiliar feeling washed over him and for a moment, he could not place his surroundings. He had been in a forest, watching black water cascade from a cliff into a sea of blood. But he was home now... in his bedroom, in his apartment above the Raven. It had been a simple dream, nothing more.

 

So what was the matter with him? It took LaCroix several minutes to determine what was wrong.

 

He was shivering.

 

***

 

Natalie bolted awake in a cold sweat, tearing away her suddenly confining blankets and violently dislodging Sidney from his place at her feet. She took slow, deep breaths, wrapping her arms around her pillow and desperately wishing that the pillow was Nick.

 

That was Nick, wasn't it? Was that what I felt? "Get a grip, Lambert," she told herself sternly, rocking slightly. Concerned, Sidney licked her foot.

 

"Mreow?"

 

Natalie picked up her cat and cuddled him against her cheek. "You said it, Sid," she whispered, wondering why she was crying.

 

***

 

Kai fell back against his pillows, exhausted. His breathing was too quick and shallow. "I really ought to ask you to leave," Julian muttered, taking note of his patient's heart rate through sense of hearing. "But he'll try and take my head off." He dug a jar of ointment out of his doctor's bag. "Here."

 

"What is it?"

 

"Camphor, menthol, eucalyptus oil..."

 

Nick blinked. "Vapo-Rub?"

 

"And a few other things. It works wonders on his chest pains." Julian began to undo the buttons on Kai's shirt. "He needs to change into something looser."

 

Nick stopped his hand. "I'll do it," he whispered, staring at the blue cross tattooed over Kai's breastbone. Julian nodded and stood away, his expression unreadable. "Is there anything else I can do to help him?"

 

"You can let him get some sleep, but since he won't... Try and get him to drink some of that." Julian gestured to a series of bottles with the same unfamiliar silver labels that Kai had given Nick before, ones that were kept well apart from the other 'brand names' in his private refrigerator. "You know his eating habits."

 

"You mean his non-eating habits." Nick glanced at the jar. "What do I do with this?"

 

"Rub his chest with it." Nick thought he heard Julian mutter something as he left. It sounded like 'lucky bastard,' but Nick wasn't actually certain.

 

"Come on, let's get you out of these." Kai's clothing was soaked with blood, both from hemorrhaging and from sweating, and it peeled off with great difficulty. "You need to bathe." With his eyes, Kai pointed the way to the bathroom.

 

@}-----

 

Nicholas opened his eyes; he had fallen asleep watching over his new fledgling, but now it seemed Kai was watching over him, silently, his quiet grey eyes subdued. Nicholas's lips quirked in an involuntary smile; he didn't know why. Slowly, Kai pushed himself into a sitting position in the bed. "Nicholas," he began quietly, "would you come closer?"

 

Curious but obliging, Nicholas hitched his chair forward and leaned closer to his new son.

 

Unthreateningly, Kai raised his hands to Nicholas's face. Nicholas tensed abruptly, his muscles screaming to flee; it was as though he was being approached by something holy and dangerous. The thin, dry skin of Kai's fingers made contact with his face, pressing against his cheekbones for a moment before beginning to trace with slow care over the flesh of his cheeks, the solid bridge of his nose. They felt the tender lips, the line of his jawbone with its rough patches of stubble to scrape against Kai's palm. His thumbs caressed the arch of Nicholas's eyebrows and the shell of his ears. He laid his fingertips on the lids of Nicholas's eyes, feeling their powdery softness.

 

There was nothing sexual about the fledgling's touch, but at the same time it was nearly the most erotic experience of Nicholas's life, surpassed only by the raging, painful joy of his conversion. He was having trouble breathing...

 

"Nicholas," came Kai's voice from very far away. "Open your eyes and look at me."

 

Reluctantly, Nicholas did so. Kai placed both his palms firmly against Nicholas's temples, the long fingers threading through his soft blond curls and gripping his skull. For the first time, Nicholas took a good long look at his new friend's eyes. There was a frightening lack of expression in the snow-grey orbs, not cold or unfeeling but simply blank. But at the same time, impossible as it seemed, they were filled with every emotion, every sensation. Staring into his pupils, Nicholas saw two endless, inky tunnels, merging into one and plunging down, down... Suddenly terrified--of what he might see?--Nicholas struggled not to fall.

 

"Wha-what are you doing?" he stammered.

 

"Do you see the tunnels, Nicholas?"

 

"Yes... Don't let me fall."

 

"I won't."

 

"What are you looking for? What do you see?"

 

He heard a small sound, like a chuckle. "Your soul."

 

"And you are not afraid?"

 

The hands detached from his head, and Kai laid back tiredly against his pillow. "You have a beautiful soul," he said with plaintive, certain force.

 

Nicholas turned away, ashamed.

 

@}-----

 

Nick helped Kai into a pair of pajamas and lifted him back into bed. "Do you want the ointment?" he asked, half covering the wasted body with blankets. Kai closed his eyes in assent. He did not have energy for speech. The warm water had helped the bone-deep aching somewhat, but it was still there... as always.

 

Nick dug his fingers into the ointment, which felt like half-melted candle wax and assaulted his nose, and reached out tentatively to his son's chest--and the cross. It's just paint, Nick told himself firmly. At the first touch, Kai exhaled in relief, letting his father's gentle fingertips soothe away the hurting in his lungs.

 

"How did you do this?" asked Nick, touching the cross lightly.

 

"Ink and a sharp needle," Kai whispered, his voice hoarse.

 

"No, I mean, how did you get it to stay? Janette sometimes gets a tattoo just for the fun of it, but the design's always gone by the next night. How long have you had this?"

 

"Turn of the century or so. A little while after I left you the last time. I did it as part of my... training, I suppose you'd call it..." Kai trailed off. "Thirsty," he said after several minutes. Nick poured blood from one of the bottles Julian had indicated--the silver label bore the fanciful logo "Rivendell"--and held it to Kai's lips.

 

"You should sleep."

 

"I'll sleep soon enough," Kai said, and Nick knew he wasn't talking about a good long nap. "Don't turn your back on me, Nicholas."

 

Nick's eyes glowed amber for a moment, then faded to a sad blue. "How can I do what you've done? The most I could hope to do it hold a cross without my hand bursting into flames, and I'm not sure if I can do even that anymore. I don't have your strength. I could never hope to."

 

"Isn't it possible," Kai sighed, "that you have stumbled off your true path? Any strength I have left, Nicholas, I got from you." He gripped Nick's arms weakly. "You want to know what was in that blood you drank?" Nick waited. "Holy water."

 

A roaring filled Nick's ears--just the idea made him want to wretch out of sheer fear, but he swallowed his nausea.

 

"Granted, it was only a tiny amount in the entire bottle, but it's not something any vampire can learn. One must have... a special strength, one that I know you possess."

 

Nick was still slightly floored from the revelation that he had drunk holy water-infused blood and not died. "Special. In what way?"

 

"Time for that later." Kai turned to look his master squarely in the eye. "I'm dying, Nicholas. And I'm not crazy. I need your help."

 

***

 

LaCroix stared at the book in his hands, not truly seeing the words. He had been having the strangest inklings over the past two or three months, like a persistent itch in the back of his brain. Since before the Fever, he had had his suspicions. Recently, he had been hearing whispers from the patrons of the Raven. And now that Nicholas had been seen visiting that bookstore, the Corvina--in a police matter, of course--LaCroix's suppositions were confirmed.

 

Kai, Nicholas's airy little creation, was in Toronto.

 

@}----

 

"I don't want you to keep him!" LaCroix exploded as soon as his son came out from the new fledgling's room.

 

Nicholas was stunned. "But... why? What have I done wrong this time?"

 

"You've chosen wrong."

 

"Oh, because you don't like him, I've chosen wrong--"

 

"He's dangerous, Nicholas. He's a danger to the Family, to the entire Community--"

 

"Why?"

 

LaCroix broke off sullenly.

 

"What happened, LaCroix? When he looked at you, did you see the tunnels of his eyes? Did they show you his soul? Or did they show you your own... or your lack of one?" His master said nothing. "I am not going to abandon him. I know I can do right by this one."

 

"You mean you won't destroy him as soon as he displeases you." LaCroix dug the ball of one thumb into his palm. "Could it be that mon petit garçon is growing up at last?" Wisely, Nicholas kept his mouth shut. "Perhaps we should keep him around simply for that."

 

Nicholas bowed his head. "Thank you," he said, not without a trace of sarcasm.

 

Not looking at his son, LaCroix asked, "Nicholas? Does he frighten you?"

 

Nicholas hesitated. "Yes," he said finally.

 

LaCroix nodded curtly. "He should."

 

@}----


It was enough to put LaCroix off his supper.

 

***

 

"You can do this. I can sense it. The light in you. The... power, the potential. It's all there." Kai laid his hand on his father's heart. "All of it. But you don't know how to get to it. I can help you unlock this power."

 

Nick closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were saffron. "I can barely handle the power I have," he rumbled. "Teach me control, teach me... how to keep a rein on this beast... but don't make me stronger."

 

"Try to tether a wolf and it will eventually turn on you." Kai patted Nick's hand reassuringly, feeling the last of his energy reserves slip away. "But with a strong and compassionate hand... With strength comes control..." He locked eyes with his master. "This story can only end one of two ways, Nicholas, and neither of those endings is a fairy tale. But it could end well."

 

"It could also end as you foresaw."

 

Kai was resolute. "It's out of my hands. My archangel of the crimson shroud, it is your choice. Just... take a bottle home with you tomorrow. Just try."

 

***

 

That night, Nick hid the bottle of holy water-laced blood in the very back of his refrigerator. He was tempted to drink some of the concoction now. Never mind developing Kai's 'abilities;' the memory of the flowering burn as it slid down his throat was highly tantalizing... tempting... "Nat's gonna kill me," he sighed as picked up his phone. "Nick Knight. Yeah, I need a case. No, no, not the usual. Human. Tonight, and as soon as possible. Okay." Granted, it was not the best of ideas, but even the tiny amount of blood he had taken from Kai had kindled a fierce desire for hemoglobin of the non-bovine variety. Nick wasn't even sure if the Raven's bloodwine would suffice--

 

"Off your diet, Nicholas?"

 

Nick shut the fridge and leaned his forehead against the cool metal. I might have known... "I've been visiting with Kai."

 

"Yes, I'd heard he'd been in town for some months." LaCroix set the case of the Raven's finest human vintage on Nick's seldom-used kitchen table. "He is one of the odder fellows you've acquired over the years. What on earth is he doing here? I thought he'd lost his taste for metropolitan areas decades ago."

 

"He came looking for me," replied Nick, pulling a bottle out of the case. He had not slept well that day--his brain had been too active--and he was too tired right now to object to his master's presence. "Breakfast?"

 

"Ah, the prodigal comes back to his father's hearth," LaCroix sermonized, accepting the glass. "How touching."

 

"Kai's no prodigal." Nick swirled his drink, ignoring the jab. "He's terminal." LaCroix looked up. "He's dying."

 

"Nonsense. Kai has finally lost his mind."

 

"That's what I thought, but I saw it for myself. He's wasting away, LaCroix. It's not the Fever. It's something different. It's almost like the consumption that nearly ended his mortal life has somehow come back."

 

"Vampire consumption? Now that is an irony. Is he contagious?"

 

"LaCroix!"

 

"It's a valid question. Particularly after losing half our population just a spare few months ago, or had you forgotten that already?" He fixed Nicholas with a stare and repeated softly, "Is his condition a danger to the rest of the Community?"

 

Nick jammed the cork back into the bottle with more force than was really necessary. "No, I don't think so. I was with him all day, and he's got a live-in physician. If he was contagious, Julian would have warned me."

 

"And... he is the cause of your sudden if rewarding change in edibles? Bright boy. Perhaps he's not as 'spacey' as I thought. But what will the good doctor think?" Nick shot him a look that could have frozen beer. LaCroix swallowed luxuriously. "You're worried about him."

 

"Naturally."

 

"Far more so than I would be about you if you were in his position."

 

"I was not made in your image!" Nick closed his eyes and tried to control himself. "He's not just sick, LaCroix. I think Kai might be in some other danger. There are a number of suicides that I'm investigating. Only they weren't suicides. All of the victims were friends of Kai. Someone named Sperling is killing the people Kai cares about before he can bring them across."

 

LaCroix arched one of his dark eyebrows, that contrasted so sharply with his short white hair. "Nielsen Sperling? Also known as Thomas Cream?"

 

"You know him?"

 

"I have heard of him. Nothing of merit, certainly nothing flattering. He is known as a connoisseur of fine vintages, but his methods of acquisition leave much to be desired. He also enjoys killing for the sheer thrill of it, leaving his prey to become useless carrion. He's quite mad," LaCroix continued. "He is thoroughly convinced that the paraphernalia of the Church have no effect on him." He gave Nicholas a patronizing smile. "A trifle eccentric even for my company. What does he want with Kai?"

 

"He thinks Kai is a threat to him."

 

"Kai?" LaCroix almost choked on his blood, laughing. Nick glared at him. "Nicholas, your son is one of the better hunters I've come across over the centuries. When he is on the trail of prey, there is no stopping him. But the thought of 'St. Kai' being a true threat to anyone is--why, it's simply ludicrous."

 

"Saints usually have more enemies than you or I. And usually more skeletons in their closets."

 

The General snorted disdainfully into his meal.

 

"Kai can do what Sperling claims to be able to do. I've seen him. He drinks holy water in his blood. He has a cross tattooed on his throat, LaCroix! A painting of the Holy Virgin above his bed. When I woke up this evening, I found him reading from a Bible! He can do these things. Sperling thinks he's competition."

 

"Ah, well, one man's lunatic is another man's saint." LaCroix rolled his broad shoulders in a graceful shrug. "Kai is a resourceful youth, if nothing else. Let him deal with his own problems."

 

"He can't; he's too weak. He's not the same reckless fledgling who once somehow managed to knock you into unconsciousness..." Nick enjoyed his master's momentary discomfort, which he tried to hide by busily pouring himself more bloodwine. But Nick sobered quickly. "He wants to pass on his abilities to me."

 

The glass stopped halfway to LaCroix's lips. "He wants to teach you. Teach you what, to be pious? And to what end?"

 

"To destroy Sperling. Save Kai's life... so he can die anyway."

 

"Well, I won't say you won't be doing the world a favor--"

 

"Dammit, LaCroix--!"

 

"I was referring to Sperling..."

 

Nick passed a tired hand through his hair. "I can't do it."

 

"I beg your pardon?"

 

"I can't do it. I don't have the kind of strength that those kind of abilities need. I don't care what Kai thinks, I don't have that kind of light, that kind of power..."

 

"Nicholas! For the love of sanity, stop rambling." Concerned by LaCroix's tone, Nick looked up. LaCroix seemed to be wrestling with some internal decision. "I will no doubt regret this one day, but... You must do as Kai asks."

 

Nick almost keeled over from a shock-induced heart attack. "What?"

 

"You are Nikaila's father, and he is asking a boon of you. Much as I dislike his company, nevertheless, he is Family. If you do not take on this task, Kai will be killed, and your son's death will be on your conscience."

 

"And if I do agree, Kai will die anyway. I can't believe what I'm hearing. Or who I'm hearing it from. You, encouraging me to embrace something of the mortal world. Not to mention talking of sons, death and conscience--"

 

"Don't presume to tell me what I can and cannot speak of!" LaCroix snarled furiously, saffron eyes impaling Nick with rage. "You are an ignorant little boy with no idea of his own responsibilities. Undoubtedly, Kai was right to take off on his own. It amazes me that he's done so well for himself; he certainly doesn't take after you." LaCroix stalked away, trying to regain some semblance of calm. His back, which faced Nick, straightened resolutely. "Listen to me, Nicholas, and listen well, because I shall never repeat this to another person on this earth.

 

"When you first began your quest for mortality in earnest, the Enforcers took notice."

 

"I know that--"

 

"They were going to kill you, Nicholas. Just put you neatly out of the way and let the rest of the world get on with its business. But I would not let them kill you. And so, I had to fight. I had to fight for you, Nicholas, do you understand that?" He turned and slowly advanced on his son. "I fought fang and claw for you because if I lost, then the task of killing you would have fallen to me, and much as I have considered the idea, it is not something I yet want to carry out. I fought Enforcers for you. You can certainly fight some pathetic little zealot for Kai."

 

Slightly ashamed, Nick stared down into the ruby depths of his drink. He thought of all the times LaCroix had tracked him down over the centuries... the endless years of running... the innumerable methods physical and psychological control that could be described as nothing other than torture... the memory of LaCroix's hand, silk-wrapped marble, on his arm...

 

"LaCroix... why me?" His father frowned. "Why have you... What keeps you so tied to me?" Kai had said that he had a buried power, that he could sense this in Nick. Could LaCroix sense this power as well? Was that why he could not let Nick go? "What is it about me that causes you such frustration over the thought of my becoming mortal? You could have a thousand sons more loyal to you than I could ever be. Why me?"

 

He felt rather than saw LaCroix's ice-blue eyes narrow. "You are an ignorant little boy," he repeated distinctly, his voice grating harshly through Nick's nerves. And then he was gone, with all the abruptness and lack of ceremony that characterized LaCroix's comings and goings.

 

Nick sighed. "Well, thank you kindly for that forced morality lesson. And I didn't even have to turn on CERK to hear it!" He poured the rest of his drink back into its bottle. Putting it back in the fridge, he hesitated. "Just try."

 

With some trepidation, he took the 'special' bottle from the back and poured one glass. Just one. The amount of holy water in this blood was considerably more than the one drop he had swallowed this morning. Kai had warned him to take the procedure slowly, to increase the dosage only when he could no longer feel the burn as the holy water reacted with his somewhat less-than-holy flesh.

 

He held the glass up to the light. 'Remember,' Kai had said this evening, 'it can hurt you. If you let it. You have strength and light, Nicholas. Use it.'

 

"Remember that the faith you've lost is always there to regain..."[7]

 

He raised the glass higher, as if in offering or silent toast. Nick tipped his head back, and drank.

 

The goblet fell to the floor. The sound of its shattering was wondrous in Nick's ears. He could feel the layers of his flesh simultaneously melting away and healing as the tainted blood flowed down his throat. His tongue was silken and raw and rainbow-colored flames licked at the periphery of his vision, finally wrapping him in a soft red blanket. "The shroud of crimson..." Nick grasped the edge of the counter with a groping hand, and gulped down mouthfuls of the sweetest air he had ever tasted. It was like nothing he had experienced before in his eight hundred years, and the most delicious sensation that had deigned to cross his lips.

 

The only thing that could surpass this delight was the taste of Natalie's blood... and the feel of her flesh.

 

Nick growled deep in his throat at the emerging memory of her lifeblood, that he had forgotten in the stress of the fight at the Raven. The warm essence that tasted so tantalizingly of rich, smooth wine, spiced with all the mysteries of the world, and laced throughout with something dark and sweet... the chocolate she was so fond of... the feeling of her body pressed against his, warm and soft and vibrant with life...

 

The fire behind Nick's eyes slowly died away, leaving him shaking and staring at the glass fragments on his kitchen floor. Nick licked his lips and cast about for something else to look at. His eyes fell on the clock.

 

Crap. He was going to be late for work if he didn't get moving. And Nick's head was beginning to hurt. And then there was the business of the not-suicides and their connections to Kai and trying to figure out how to keep his terminally ill fledgling from being dragged in for hard questioning...

 

Nick almost called in sick.

 

Instead he splashed some water on his face, grabbed his coat and slammed the door behind him, leaving the few drops of holy blood, resting among the fragments of the broken glass goblet, on the floor, in the dark.

 

~~~

 

A Shroud of Crimson (4/9)

 

"Nick?" He didn't look up. "Nick?" Tracy poked him. "Hey, Nick. You okay?"

 

"Yeah," Nick grunted, not lifting his head. "Just a bit of a headache, that's all."

 

"You want some aspirin? I've got plenty."

 

"No thanks." The holy-water laced blood had given Nick an incredible rush of energy, of confidence. He was so full of vigor, and his muscles felt so tense, he was afraid they would snap. Nick wanted to do something, run somewhere, break something, just to prove that he could. 'Give me a place to put the lever,' he thought wryly, 'and I will lift the world'.[8]

 

A file plopped down two inches from his eyes. "The Chambers file," said Julian without ceremony. "Definitely strychnine. Orally ingested, most likely in pill form. Death was painful but quick."

 

"Anything to suggest that it wasn't self-administered?" Tracy asked, her nose buried in the file.

 

Julian was very careful not to look in Nick's direction. "Nothing out of the ordinary. No fingerprints, no foreign hair or skin cells. Nothing."

 

"How about the other suicides?"

 

"Same thing, except for the drug in question being heroin. Natalie's not done with him, but Cat's death still looks like it was accidental." Julian suddenly found a lump in his throat and struggled to swallow it. "I... spoke with Will Spenser last night. He's on his way up now to identify the... body... claim the personal effects. According to him, Cat had been experimenting with opium derivatives. Trying to enhance his creative powers, I guess..."

 

"Where's Nat?" said Tracy quickly, wanting to give Julian something else to think about. Poor guy. This has been a real shocker. "I thought she was going to bring this in."

 

"She begged off. Said something about a headache and a sore throat." Julian very deliberately squeezed Nick's shoulder. "A visit from her favorite homicide detective might do her good."

 

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, I think so. Trace, you mind?"

 

"Go on, Nick. It's not like I'm used to having you here to help with the paperwork anyway."

 

***

 

"What else've you got?" asked Nick, pulling the Caddy out of the parking lot.

 

"It was a vampire," Julian replied decisively. "Judging from the trace elements I found on the throats and mouths, I'd say whoever it was forced Toussaint and Chambers to swallow the strychnine."

 

"Trace elements?"

 

"Natalie gave me permission to do a couple of special tests on the bodies. We have extremely unique body fluids. Blood, saliva, skin oils, semen, vaginal secretions, all very different from human fluids if you know what you're looking for. Certain lights, certain dyes can reveal a 'vampire fingerprint,' almost. Patches of oil where the vampire touches the victim's skin. Drops of saliva where the victim was bitten--the anti-coagulating agent in vampire spit is pretty hard to miss. Once you've got a sample, it can be identified, provided you've got something to compare it to. Just like DNA matching."

 

That made no sense to Nick. "But vampire DNA breaks down before it can be analyzed. Vampires don't even have blood of our own, unless we've just fed."

 

"Actually," Julian corrected him, a little testily, "we do have blood, and provided a blood sample is less than a day old, I can usually get a match on it. Nick, I know what I'm talking about. I was trained to do this. Unfortunately, I don't have any reference samples from Sperling. The last time Kai ran into him, this technology was barely a gleam in my mother's eye. So while we can't be officially certain that it was him, unofficially, we all know damn well he did it."

 

"And you've used this technique before?"

 

"Sadly, yes. Lots of variations of it. Back in Black Falls, there's a pretty big vampire population. And it keeps getting bigger. It's getting so bad, my father--he's the oldest vampire there--ruled that everyone has to take care of their own fledglings or they'll get kicked out. Trouble was, nobody was willing to 'fess up." Julian grimaced. "Before I left, I spent most of my time conducting the vampire equivalent of paternity tests."

 

"You said Spenser was fooling around with opium?"

 

Julian swallowed. This was obviously very difficult for him." The only evidence Nat found in his system of drug use prior to his death was morphine, not heroin. And Cat was a methodical kid. He loved music for its mathematical properties before its creative ones. There's no way he would've allowed himself the luxury of an overdose."

 

"You knew him well, then?" Nick asked.

 

"Yeah. So did Kai. Everyone did. It's a small town. Honestly, I don't think he could've gotten heroin at home, he must have just started it here..." Julian paused to compose himself. "And speaking of drugging oneself..." He shot Nick a glance. "Judging from Natalie's reactions, I take it you've decided to... take Kai up on his offer?"

 

"I didn't have much of a choice," Nick retorted gruffly, quashing his own guilt. "Kai is my fledgling, my son. I'll do whatever I have to, to keep him safe."

 

Julian squelched a grin. Aww, sounds like someone's given The Gallant a talking-to. "You want me to give him the good news?"

 

"No, no, I'll tell him."

 

The doctor shrugged. "Suit yourself. He wants me to examine you thoroughly, though, before you proceed. You know, make sure you're physically sound."

 

"I'm a vampire," said Nick bitterly. "How could I be anything but?"

 

"You'd be surprised," was all Julian said in reply.

 

Nick chewed on that for a bit. "Julian... Did I really make Nat sick?"

 

"She's a bit under the weather, and yes, you are to blame." The look of remorse on Nick's face was physically painful.

 

"Then why didn't I feel her pain?"

 

Julian shrugged. "Did you taste her under traumatic circumstances?"

 

"Yes..."

 

"That's probably got something to do with it; your end of the link is dampened while hers is wide open. Another feeding should clear it up."

 

"There won't be another feeding--"

 

"And I didn't know Einstein. You think 'soul mates' is just a term of endearment? It doesn't take a blood-bond or Kai Thorn the All-Knowing to see that you two have something special."

 

"You knew Einstein?"

 

"Yes. No," amended Julian quickly. He closed his eyes and touched his temple. "No, I didn't. I didn't." He saw Nick looking at him oddly. "Sorry. File processing error." Julian laughed weakly. "I'm starting to sound like Kai."

 

"I appreciate your taking care of him. If there's anything I can do to reimburse you--"

 

"Don't even think of it. He's well thought-of back home, and I am... fond of him. He was like a father to me, when I really needed one. I owe him my life, and I'd do anything for him," Julian finished, his voice laden with emotion.

 

"Your biological father is dead then? And your master as well?"

 

The question made Julian stiffen abruptly. "Sort of." The auburn-haired doctor took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Can we talk about something else, please?"

 

***

 

Softly, Nick crept up behind Natalie, who was bent over a cadaver. He leaned over and was about to whisper a hello when--

 

"Hey, Nick."

 

Disappointed, he backed off. "I'm going to have to find a different way to scare you."

 

"This time, it wasn't the bond. The hairs on the back of my neck told me you were here. They've become very sensitive lately." She poked his chest with her pen. "Besides, your scarf tickles." She rubbed her temple.

 

"You feeling okay? Julian all but dragged me out of the precinct and threw me into the car to come and see you."

 

She laughed. "I think he might have overreacted just a tad. I've got a headache and a sore throat. I probably just caught the flu; it's been going around the office."

 

"Right." Nick purposely moved away from Natalie so she wouldn't pick up on the wave of shame that suddenly pounded on him. He was the cause of her pain. Their bond, born of love and blood, would betray him, and he had a tendency to broadcast very loudly. "You sure you'll be okay?"

 

"Yes." She felt oddly touched by his concern. It wasn't unusual for Nick to be so caring, but there was something different in his tone, something... guilty? That was it, she decided. Nick had done something to himself and it was spilling over to her. Ni