He sensed _another_.

Lacroix stood on the rooftop, savoring the wind, the cold, the
night itself, and listened. The signature was faint and somehow,
in some way, a part of his own. Neither Nicholas' nor Janette's.
Older. Stronger. And near.

He should have been able to discern it more clearly. But his
recovery -- his literal return from the gates of Death -- over the
past year-and-a-half, had been long and arduous, taking much from
him. His powers were not what they had once been, though that
would come, with time. And Lacroix had all the time he would ever
need.

Only last night he had at last revealed himself to Nicholas.
Nicholas, his son and his slayer. Nicholas, who still clung so
stubbornly to his sham of a mortal life and to his inchoate quest
to obtain genuine mortality. (Well, they would shortly put paid to
that.) Lacroix would forever cherish the dismay, the disbelief,
the utter terror he had seen last night in Nicholas' eyes. Had his
son wondered, perchance, why his master had given up on their
battle so easily?

No matter.

Let him wonder.

Lacroix's powers -- all of them -- would very soon be his again,
and then he would exact precisely what his treacherous offspring
must now be dreading most.

He would have his revenge.

The vibration of the Other assaulted him anew, and he lifted his
face to the wind. He sensed tremendous age, perhaps as great as
his own, and strength -- an ancient, confident vitality.

But what Ancient would come here to call out to him thus, and why?

He concentrated, divining a direction from the strength of the
bond. Then, with a triumphant smile, he took to the air.

It seemed an odd place for an Ancient to dwell. Outside the city,
along an overgrown and long-forgotten road, lay the crumbling
remains of a mine from which mortals had once scratched and gouged
all traces of a vein of copper. More than a century had passed
since any mortal had toiled in its chiseled passageways of earth
and stone. But in the here and now, an immortal waited there. For
him.

Lacroix landed outside the mine's entry shaft, strode past a
weathered NO TRESPASSING sign, and made his way through the ruined
entryway. Someone had already pried away boards that had been
nailed there to keep away human adventure-seekers. His quarry,
perhaps?

He walked into the tunnel, immediately aware of dank, moldy odors
emanating from the walls and from rotted timbers stretching both
overhead and between the metal rails beneath his feet. Lantern
light glowed dully from farther down the passage, and from
somewhere came the incessant drip-drip-drip of seeping water. It
was the only sound. Yet, the vibrations told him, the Other was
here. Somewhere.

"Oh, come now," he said to the seemingly empty tunnel. "Have we
not had enough with games? Show yourself."

A woman's voice answered him in ancient Latin. "You are weak,
Lucius."

He wheeled, still seeing no one. But he _knew_ that voice. It
couldn't be, of course -- she had died a mortal death nineteen
centuries ago, and she had never been--

"You really didn't know?" the disembodied voice taunted. "Well, I
suppose, then, I shall have to forgive you for never saying hello."

"You cannot be Seline," he insisted. "It isn't possible."

"No? You were never so naive when I knew you, General. Our
daughter and our Master granted me eternity scant hours before she
gave the same gift to you. And you repaid her for that honor by
removing her head!"

"I had no choice," he growled. Futilely, he turned another
complete circle, angry that he could not locate her. "Why do you
hide? Show yourself!"

"Oh, I shall, Lucius. I shall."

The sound of vampiric flight whispered from above. Lacroix looked
up in time to see her fly at him from the narrow confines of a
ventilation shaft.

He barely had time to register the sharpened length of wood she
bore until she struck him with enough force to drive it deep into
his heart.

"Damn you, Lucius," she swore from somewhere in the haze of blood
red mist that suddenly floated above him. "Damn you..."
* * *
"I'm tellin' ya, this is one big dead end. D-e-a-d, dead," Schanke
opined as they left the shift's third potential-witness interview.
He proceeded to outline all the reasons _why_ this investigation
was going nowhere, beginning with the fact that all the previous
witnesses to this particular suspect's crimes had ended up floating
face down in Lake Ontario.

Having no inclination to disagree with his partner's assessment,
Nick simply let him ramble as they walked toward the parked Caddy.
He'd had little enthusiasm for the job tonight anyway: he'd
literally been jumping at shadows all evening, expecting any one of
them at any moment to materialize into Lacroix. That his newly-
resurrected tormentor would seek revenge went without saying. When
and where...

Nick shivered, and despite his immunity to the cold, drew his coat
lapels closer together. At least he had warned Natalie to be on
her guard, to carry garlic and wear a cross, though even that might
not be enough to deter Lacroix. He wished he could stay with her,
protect her from any threat Lacroix might pose. He wished--

"Hello! Nick?" Schanke was waving five fingers in his face.
"Have you heard a single thing I've been saying here? Hello?"

"What?" Nick started at the sudden intrusion. "Uh, sorry Schanke,
I was just--"

The pain struck without warning, slamming into his chest with all
the force of a battering ram. It drove him, gasping, to his knees,
and instantly Schanke was beside him, grasping his shoulders and
shouting.

"Nick! What is it, what's wrong? Nick?"

The vibration of vampiric linkage between sire and son reached
outward, clutched and tore at him with the agonized desperation of
a death scream. _"Lacroix!"_

"What? Who? C'mon Nick, you're scaring the hell outa me. I
swear, if this is that screwball diet of yours again..."

Nick grabbed hold of the hand Schanke had placed on his arm and
squeezed, concentrating on its warmth, its mortality, its
_humanity_ until the pain dulled enough to let him speak.

"It's all right. I'm all right."

"Like hell you are." Schanke pulled him back to his feet, grunting
at the effort. "Listen, pard, if you're having a heart attack or
something, lemme call an ambulance so they can--"

"It's okay." Still fighting to close off the connection, Nick had
to whisper the words. "It's okay. It's just..." What to say?
This wasn't going to sound at all convincing. "...fatigue. I
guess I was a lot more tired than I thought after... after last
night."

Schanke would assume he simply meant the ordeal of his arrest,
escape and final exoneration. The fact that he'd come face to face
with a far more malevolent terror was something the mortal world
could never know.

Nick dug the car keys from his pocket and pressed them into his
partner's hand. "Schank, do me a favor? Take the Caddy back to
the station and book off for me?"

"What? But how're you gonna get--? Nick!!" The final plaintive
syllable accompanied his hasty departure, delaying vampire speed
until he'd rounded a corner and could safely take flight.

The pain, controlled but omnipresent, plagued him all the way to
the loft.
* * *
Lacroix opened his eyes.

She remained near. He could still discern that much, though his
senses -- even the pain -- were beginning to diminish. He lay
awkwardly across the metal rails and splintered planks of the ore
track. The stake through his chest pinned him quite neatly, in
fact, to one of the wooden cross ties.

He smiled grimly. Always the fastidiously tidy one, Seline.

She approached him from the left. Though he could not turn his head
to see her, her soft tread and her scent were as unmistakable now
as they had been all those centuries ago.

"Are you _comfortable_, General?" the familiar voice taunted, and
the gold-edged hem of her white gown, very like one she had worn in
Pompeii, floated into his limited line of sight. The rest of her
followed as she knelt beside him, a cloth-wrapped bundle cradled in
her arms like a newborn child. "I have brought you a gift," she
said, her voice a soft, caressing purr. "One of your successors in
the art of war -- another general, in fact -- looted it from an
English castle during yet another of those tedious little religious
squabbles. You were always so _generous_ with gifts. Do you
remember? How can I do less than to return the favor?"

She lay the bundle on the ground, unfolded the cloth, and with her
bare hands, lifted out an ornate silver crucifix. No trace of
smoke rose from her fingers as she held the accursed thing, and
Lacroix, wincing at the mere sight of it, loathed her for that. No
matter how often he had sworn, to himself, to Nicholas, to the
world, that he held no belief in this slain Nazarene carpenter...

"Lovely, is it not?" Seline queried sweetly. Her free hand stroked
his cheek with the seductive sensuality she had once lavished on
the wealthy patrons of her brothel -- of whom General Lucius had
indeed been the most generous. In one rapid, vengeful movement,
she pressed the cold silver to his forehead, smiling at the
instantaneous result. Lacroix clamped his teeth against the
searing pain: he would not give her the pleasure of hearing him cry
out. He directed the agony away instead, toward those who would
feel but not be harmed by it. To Janette. To Nicholas.

"Tsk, tsk, General!" Seline withdrew the crucifix, reveling in the
acrid odor of singed flesh it left behind. "Whenever did you come
to espouse a belief in this upstart Christian god?"

Having no desire to address that subject, he broached another.
"Why have you come here?" he whispered. "Divia has been dead for
centuries. Why now?"

"Oh, for so many reasons, my dear, _sweet_ Lucius. I have, unlike
you, nearly infinite patience. And I am no fool. Did you yourself
not once tell me that the time to strike is when your enemy is at
his weakest? Or perhaps, when he is just _recovering_ from his
weakness and is so very, arrogantly sure of himself. Better still,
wait until he is on the brink of his own coup, his own revenge, and
then..." With overt, sensuous obscenity, she ran her fingers down
the side of his face and across his chest to caress the protruding
shaft of the stake that impaled him. "It is deliciously ironic,
isn't it? You murder your maker only to have your own whelp
perpetuate the infamy by trying to murder you. Such _inspiring_
family loyalty. And such a pity that your progeny was too inept to
properly finish the job."

"A mistake," he murmured, "which you do not intend to repeat."

"No." Her brittle laughter accompanied her hand's climb to the top
of the stake, which she grasped and shifted just enough to make him
grimace. "When _this_ has done its work, I will quite happily
separate you from your head and then burn what is left of you to
ashes -- which I shall scatter to Aeolus from the four corners of
the world. All the gods of Olympus could not regenerate you then."

"So very thorough." He tried to smile.

"I'm certain our daughter and Master would agree." Abruptly, she
leaned forward and kissed him, brutally, before returning to her
feet. "Good-bye, Lucius."

The gold braid of her hem rasped against his cheek as she turned
and walked away.
* * *
Janette's long-familiar signature assailed Nick as he landed on the
loft's broad expanse of roof. He went in through the skylight, as
he sensed that she had done, alighting in time to meet her outraged
gaze when she spun from the fireplace.

"What have you done?!"

Taken aback, he caught her by both hands when she flew at him and
held her fast. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, Nicola, don't do this. Not again. Not after all he
has gone through to return to us!"
 

Nick released her hands and grabbed her, almost savagely, by the
shoulders instead. "You knew," he accused.

She stared at him, confused. "What? That he had come back? Of
course I knew. I felt him, as you did."

"More than that. You knew he wasn't dead. All along, all this
time, you've known."

She didn't deny it. "Please, tell me where he is," she begged,
"before it is too late!"

"How did he come back?" he demanded. "Tell me how."

"Nicola, please--"

He shook her. "Tell me! I saw him burn, Janette..." He glanced
to the blistered paint on the elevator door. "...pinned to that
door by a flaming stake. I scattered the ashes. He was dead!"

_"Non!_ You saw only the coat he wore flutter to the ground in
flames after he himself had flown. But you hurt him, Nicola. More
than anyone has ever done. And now if you have again--"

_"Rien."_ He shoved her angrily away, stalking to the table.
"I've done _nothing_ to him."

"Then... who...?"

"How should I know?" Still fighting the link's inexorable pain, he
stormed to the refrigerator, snatching a green glass bottle from
inside and ripping out the cork to take a long draught.

It didn't help.

"We must find him. Help him."

"No!" He shoved the bottle back into the refrigerator and slammed
the door. "Whoever it is has done _me_ an enormous favor. He's
saved me the trouble of killing him again."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I?" He turned on her, barely containing the yellow glow
that anger threatened to bring out in his eyes.

Janette's eyes were filling with crimson-tinted tears. "Do you
really hate him so much?"

He glared at her, _through_ her, and said nothing.

She nodded, two of the tears escaping to run down her cheeks.
"Lacroix told me once that in your hatred, you had cast him as the
Devil. And so, he said, the Devil he would be." She started for
the door. "I will find him myself."

In a blur of motion, he moved to block her path. "Don't do that."
His enmity for Lacroix was tempered now by another emotion: a
concern for her that, try as he might, he could not suppress. "If
this is a Hunter, you know full well this may be exactly what he
expects of you. Of _us._ You'd be walking into a trap."

"How can I simply _stand_ here? He is _dying!"_

"Then let him--"

The new onslaught of pain struck them both, redoubled through their
own link to each other. Nick wheeled away from her, clutching at
the grand piano for support until the fire in his chest had
lessened -- somewhat. She was beside him in another moment,
touching, entreating.

"Please, Nicola. Go to him. Help him!"

Again, he grasped her hands and forced them firmly away, returning
his own to the piano lest he fall. "I don't understand." His
words came out in breathless gasps. "Why? Why do we feel his pain
_now?_ Before... when he 'died,' we felt nothing."

"Perhaps _you_ felt nothing." The loathing in her voice gave the
phantom stake in his heart a wrenching twist. "He would hardly cry
out for help to his murderer!" She paced away, back to the center
of the loft's wide floor, then turned, her blue eyes pleading.
"Come with me. _Please."_

Come with her? Save the life of the monster who had made his own
existence a living hell for over seven hundred years? How could
she ask this of him, when she knew, had often witnessed, the
cruelties he'd endured? He forced himself upright, deliberately
turned his back on her and staggered toward the elevator, colliding
with the burned door and placing a hand to its blackened scar.
"No," he said. And there was an end to it. He would not go.

The sound of her flight left air stirring in the loft, and took
with it a half-portion of Lacroix's pain. Nick flew to the
skylight, emerged onto the loft's graveled roof, and turned to
search the night sky.

"Janette!!"

Nothing but his own voice echoed back to him.
* * *
Janette followed her instincts, as Lacroix himself had long ago
taught her to do. Her anger became rage as she felt her sire's
pain draw nearer. By the time she landed at the mine's entrance,
her eyes glowed a deep, burning red. Whoever had dared to harm
Lacroix would now die for that offense. She would take great
pleasure in personally tearing the Hunter to pieces.

Soundless, she crept into the tunnel, started down the passageway -
- and barely stifled a scream when she came upon the grisly sight
of her Master staked to the railroad ties at her feet.

_"Lacroix!"_

She started to reach for the hideous length of wood, to clutch it
with both hands and wrench it free. But before she could grasp it,
something _flew_ at her from above, struck her and bore her to the
rough-hewn wall.

Janette cursed herself for a fool: she had expected a _mortal_
adversary, not one of their own. And this one was strong -- so
incredibly strong. She fought with all the power she possessed,
but the Other overcame her with ease, forcing her to the ground.
She saw a flash of silver and cried out when a heavy crucifix was
pressed to her throat. The creature wielding it, she realized for
the first time, was a woman. A beautiful woman, but no one she had
ever seen before.

Eyes still crimson, Janette struggled to shove the crucifix away --
how was it this vampire could touch such a thing? -- but succeeded
only in pushing it from the exposed flesh at her neck to a point on
her chest where the top of her black satin evening gown protected
at least part of her from its fire.

_"Chienne!"_ She added a more descriptive string of French
adjectives and spat at her attacker. "Let me go!"

As if obeying the demand, the woman released her hold on the cross
and rose. But Janette, lying half-propped against the earthen
wall, found that she could not move, not even enough to strike this
horrible silver thing from her breast. Enraged, she released a
roar of vampiric frustration and swore again in still more vehement
French.

The Other had drifted to stand beside Lacroix. His eyes, Janette
could see, were open, but he had neither moved nor spoken.

"Really, Lucius. Is _this_ the little French tart you rescued from
the Parisian sewers?" The woman clucked her tongue like a scolding
shrew-wife. "My, but the quality of whores has certainly
diminished over the last few millennia. In my brothel, so scrawny
a creature would not have been deemed fit to scrub the bath-house
floor."

Janette snarled at her again, but the ineffectual protest was
ignored.

"And now..." From somewhere in the shadows, Lacroix's tormentor
had drawn a double-bladed miner's axe. "I think perhaps we should
finish this tedious business, before any more of your fledglings
come to roost."

"Too late."

The woman wheeled -- and Janette's heart leaped -- at the intrusion
of a new voice. Nicola stood farther down the narrow tunnel (how
had he come in that way?), holding a rusted and guttering lamp in
one hand and his police revolver in the other. The fool. Did he
think to stop her with bullets?

"Put the axe down and move away from him," he ordered. It was
every inch the 'cop' speaking and not the vampire. Janette wanted
to scream at him, but held her tongue.

The Other had complied with neither of his requests. "Ah, the
rebellious Nicholas, is it not? Such fickle offspring you have
sired, Lucius. On one night, he impales you with a flaming stake
and now, on another, he seeks to _save_ your miserable life
instead. What manner of son is this?"

"I will not justify myself to you," Nicola said, and Janette smiled
at his deep, threatening tone. _This_ was the Nicola she had known
over the centuries: the one who could be so very charming in one
moment -- and so very deadly in the next. "Do as I say."

"Or what?" the woman mocked him. "You will shoot me?"

"Yes. However long you've been among us, you should know by now
that things are not always so innocent as they appear. Put it
down. Now."

She began to laugh at him, and in contempt of his demand, raised
the axe above her head, prepared to bring it down across Lacroix's
exposed throat.

Nicola pulled the trigger.

His gun made an odd, hollow sound that echoed in the tunnel.
Lacroix's would-be executioner froze in place to glare at Nicola
with yellow eyes.

"The bullets are wood-tipped," he said coldly. "And the next one
will go straight into your heart."

For a fleeting moment, Janette thought the woman might concede
defeat. But with a shriek of unbridled fury, she held the axe
aloft and launched herself at Nicola instead. He fired twice more,
and at the same time, hurled the lantern to collide with her in the
air.

The blood-curdling scream that followed made Janette fear that the
tunnel walls might collapse around them. The axe clattered to the
ground as a ball of flame erupted in mid-air above Nicola: he
barely had time to drop and roll away before it landed, flailing
madly, on the spot where he had stood.
 

The screaming went on for several horrible, unbearable seconds,
until at last the noise and feeble struggling ceased, and the last
blackened remnants of a once-white gown folded in upon themselves
and collapsed with a soft _whoosh_ into a heap of smoldering ashes.

Nicola came to stand, for a moment, over the remains. Then,
stooping to retrieve the fallen axe, he moved to Lacroix's side and
knelt there. Janette was surprised to hear a weak but familiar
voice whisper, "My thanks, Nicholas. It appears I shall again be
in your debt."

It would be over now. Nicola would remove the stake and it would
all be over. Why did he hesitate? Surely he would not... She
screamed when the axe flashed upward in Nicola's hand, descended --
and stopped with its rusted blade resting against Lacroix's throat.

"Make no mistake," Nicola breathed. "I didn't do this for you.
Nor will I remove this little 'hindrance' for you -- unless my
price is met." The blade pressed harder until it began to draw
blood. "Refuse, or go back on your word later, and I swear to you,
I'll finish what she started here."

Janette could hear the cold smile creeping into Lacroix's voice.
"You do appear to have me at a distinct disadvantage. What would
you ask of me, then?"

"Your word. Your _oath,_ Lacroix, that you will not interfere in
my life here again. Not with your intrigues, your petty revenge or
your mindless killing. Give me your word."

"You know I could never deny you anything, Nicholas."

Cruelly, the axe blade bit deeper. "Swear it!" Nicola hissed.

Lacroix was forced, now, to choke the words out. "Very well...
You have my word. Now... if you please..."

For several, terrible seconds, it seemed that Nicola would not
believe him. But then he flung the blood-stained axe away, grasped
the shaft of the wooden stake with both hands and began to pull.

Janette could not bear to watch. But though she closed her eyes
and turned her head away, the hideous sucking sound of the stake
pulling free and Lacroix's strangled cry as it did so were enough
to twist her stomach into a small, sickened knot. She heard the
hollow _thunk_ of the stake landing somewhere in the tunnel beyond.
Then someone was beside her, putting a soft, caring hand to the
side of her face and murmuring her name. She opened her eyes.

"Nicola..."

"Shh. _Un moment..."_

He glanced down at her and was at once forced to look away again.
But his strong hands went under her, lifted and turned her until
the hated symbol of the Light fell away. Then he gathered her into
his arms and held her, as he had done so often, so long ago. For
a prolonged moment, she clung to him, drawing strength from those
memories. Then, remembering Lacroix, she broke free and started
toward him. "He will need blood. We must--"

"No." Nicola stopped her with a firm grip on both her hands.
"I've done with him, and with all that he is. If you wish to
coddle him, then by all means, go on playing the part of the
dutiful, loving daughter." His grasp on her hands tightened
meaningfully. "But remind him, now and then, that if he fails to
keep his promise, I will _not_ fail to keep mine!"

She met his eyes with both hurt and anger reflected in her own.
"You are wrong to hate him so," she started to say, but before the
words were formed, he had released her, and in a brief rush of
wind, had vanished from the tunnel.

"Always so very angry, our Nicholas." Lacroix was attempting, with
little success, to sit up on the gore-soaked railway ties. Janette
hurried to his side, gently pushing him back again.

_"Non._ You must not try to rise yet. First you must drink..."
She offered him her wrist, a gift he readily accepted. When he had
taken all that she could give, he did sit up, and at once turned
his gaze to the ashen remains of his torturer on the floor before
them.

"Who was she, Lacroix? Why did she wish to destroy you?"

He regained his feet with a grace that belied his recent brush with
True Death, and strode to where the ashes lay. "Perhaps," he said,
"I will tell you. One day." Then he knelt, and bizarrely, began
to gather the powdery remains into his hands, filling first one
pocket of his long, black coat and then the other.

"What are you _doing?"_ Janette was convinced that he had gone
quite mad.

Lacroix tidily dusted his hands, and with seemingly idle disdain,
spread the rest of the ashes about the earthen floor with his foot.

She followed him out into the night, where he circled to carefully
survey the cloud-shrouded sky. He favored her, then, with a
parting smile. "I have an appointment," he said, "with Aeolus."

Then he was gone.

- End -

JeanB7@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/JeanB7