From: JeanB7@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 01:07:44 -0400 (EDT)
To: choff@socrates.berkeley.edu
Subject: Other Stories (2 of 2)

Content-ID: <0_9477_862895263@emout06.mail.aol.com.521>
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Here's the sequel to "Judgment Night."

Thanks!
  --Jean
Content-ID: <0_9477_862895263@emout06.mail.aol.com.522>
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	name="GOODBYE.TXT"

No Good-Byes  (1 of 1)

   [A brief sequel to "Judgment Night," posted previously.
          by Jean Graham

[c] 1997 by Jean Graham.  Copyright applies to original material
only and is not intended to infringe on previously held copyrights. 
Characters here-in are the acknowledged property of
Sony/Columbia/Tri-Star Entertainment Inc. (and others): they are
used without permission for non-profit/entertainment purposes only.

Permission to archive this (and "Judgment Night") wherever you like
is granted...


     Toronto's night wind whipped at his hair and coat, a
persistent tugging that anticipated flight.  The bond tugged at him
as well, but Nicholas ignored it for the moment.  At the roof's
edge, he stood apart from Janette and Lacroix, staring silently
down at the last ember of his failed quest for humanity.
     On the ground below, Natalie lingered near her car, which was
still parked in the alley behind his warehouse.  He indulged a
bitter smile at the possessive thought: his warehouse.  His loft. 
Home for two short years, about to be home no longer.  Perhaps in
time, when they had settled in whatever corner of the world Lacroix
had chosen, he would be permitted to send for his possessions. 
Perhaps...
     Mentally, he pushed away memories of what had occurred in the
loft these two nights past, of the Enforcers and the vow Lacroix
had forced from him.  He would not dwell on that, he told himself. 
But somehow, he *would* have to live with it.
     Why hadn't Natalie gone?  She simply stood there, staring back
at him with tears glinting in her eyes, and that puzzled him still
more.  Their parting, moments ago, had been less than amicable. 
She should have been angry; should have driven away in a fury by
now.  Should have...
     *Forgive me, Nat.  But it had to be this way.*
     *It had to.*
     *It isn't what we'd planned, you and I.  Not what we'd dreamed
and hoped for.  But that's all it was -- a pleasant, impossible
dream.  And a dangerous one.  If I'd stayed, I would have ruined
your life.  Worse, I would eventually have taken it from you
altogether.*
     If he had learned nothing else in eight hundred years of
existence, he knew it to be true that no mortal woman could love
him, nor could he permit himself to love her.  He'd known it since
Alyssa: he'd simply never accepted the truth of it, until now.
     He wondered, were he to return to this place in two score
years, what course he would find Natalie's mortal life to have
taken.  He tried to picture her, older by forty years, surrounded
by a fine house, a loving husband, children and grandchildren: the
mortal world's own brand of immortality.
     *May you find those dreams,* he thought.  *I give you back
your life, Natalie Lambert.  No regrets.  No good-byes.  Please
live it the way God intended, and forget that a creature once
called Nicholas de Brabant ever darkened its path.*
     As though hearing his reverie, Nat finally looked away,
turning to open the car door and climb inside.  He still stood,
watching until the twin red pinpoints of light marking her car had
blended into Bay Street's traffic stream and disappeared amid
Toronto's teeming mortal life.
     "Well now," Lacroix's soft voice purred from behind him.  "If
we are quite finished casting our final lovelorn glances..."
     The master paused, waited.  Nick felt Janette's approach as
she moved to Lacroix's side.  Her mental link gently reminded him
that it was time for them to go.  But it was to Lacroix that Nick
turned, locking gazes with his maker and breathing two urgent
syllables into the wind.
     "Your word," he said.
     The ancient vampire's eyebrows rose in silent query.
     "I have given you my oath," Nicholas continued.  "Now I would
have yours.  Promise me you'll do nothing that brings her harm."
     There.  Impudent or not, the words were spoken: he could not
take them back.
     Lacroix's pale eyes reflected moonlight and a too-familiar
hint of cruel amusement.  "Is that _all_?"  His deep-throated
chuckle took obvious glee in Nicholas' anguish.
     But son merely met father's glare, and without flinching,
plunged on.  "No," he admitted, and fought to keep his voice level,
to stop his emotion from choking the words.  "I'll do as you've
asked.  I'll stop looking for a cure.  I'll accept what I am, and
I'll go with you."  That had poured out easily enough.  That much
was, after all, already a _fait accompli._  What came next was far
more difficult to voice.  But he had taken another vow, to himself
and to humanity, a century ago, and he would not break it now. 
"I'll go with you," he repeated.  "But the one thing I will not...
cannot do... is kill for you.  Please..."  He wanted to look away,
but didn't.  "Please don't ask that of me.  I can't..."
     He fully expected to see anger flare in the ice-blue eyes. 
Instead, Lacroix drew in an infinitely patient breath and said,
"Very well, Nicholas.  You have my word, on both accounts."
     In the lengthy silence that ensued, Nicholas closed his eyes
and thanked a distant God for entreaties answered, however unworthy
the petitioner.
     "I think," Lacroix's near-whisper said into the cold breeze,
"that we have dawdled in this place quite long enough.  Now. 
Come."
     In a blur of wind and motion, the master took wing, vanishing
into a star-scattered night.  Nicholas stood a moment longer, and
Janette pressed close against him, caressing him with a kiss.
     "Be what you are, _mon ami_," she said.  "That is _our_ lot. 
_Our_ immortality."
     Yes.  Just as Natalie's life would be hers.
     Ardently, Nicholas returned his lover's kiss, then followed
her into the sky.