14
BY SUNRISE, WHICH WOULD ARRIVE A FEW MINUTES from now, Henri LeFebre would be on his way to Martinique with a new identity, and a new life.

Nick hoped it would be a long one.

With any luck, the faith healer would be safe, for the time being, from any of Janette’s minions who might choose to seek revenge against him for the deaths of their brethren. And though the de Brabant Foundation’s resources for creating new personae were nowhere near as extensive as those of the vampire community, its CEO did have eight centuries of experience at moving on to draw upon.

“He’ll be fine,” he reassured Natalie as they exited the elevator into his loft. To Nick, it seemed like centuries since they had last been here.

Nat didn’t reply until they’d both collapsed, with twin sighs of exhaustion, onto the leather couch.

“At least he didn’t have to leave any family behind,” she said. “It must be hard enough just to leave your friends.”
“Yeah.” Nick didn’t elaborate. Enough of his pain at centuries of past separations was evident in just that single word.

Nat cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “that takes care of Henri LeFebre. Now what about Nick Knight?”

“He’ll be fine, too. It’s just that...” Uncertain how to broach the subject he must now address, Nick left the sentence unfinished. He’d been haunted by it, wishing with all his might for another solution, ever since they’d left the Raven. But once LeFebre’s safety had been seen to, he must now, most importantly of all, deal with Natalie’s.

“It’s just that what?” she queried softly.

More than anything he’d ever had to do in his very long life, Nick hated having to say this. But he had run out of choices. "We’re going to have to dissolve our marriage, Nat,” he said.

Her long silence and the hurt in her eyes cut through him like a blade. “Why?” she finally asked, her voice timid. “One day as husband and wife, and you’re sick of me already?”

“No.” He took her hand, wanting almost more than he could bear to draw her into his arms. But he needed to look at her, to see her eyes as he explained this. She had to understand. “No, it isn’t that,” he said. “I love you. I’ll always love you, no matter what. You can believe that.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a good-bye.”

Nick shook his head. “It’s not that either. But if we both stay here, if we carry on with our lives in Toronto the same as before, then we... well, we can’t be married.”

“And why not?” There were tears in her eyes now.
 
“Because of the Enforcers.  Because of those laws Janette spoke of. They prohibit marriage to a mortal, unless I should agree to bring you across, to condemn you to the darkness, too.” He stroked her hair with one hand, then brushed away a tear that had fallen to her cheek. “That’s one thing I’ll never do, Nat. Not for anything.”

After a lengthy silence, she took hold of his hand and lovingly kissed his fingers. “And if we refuse to obey their laws?” she asked. “What would happen then?”

He had to give her the bluntly honest answer to that. “They would kill you. Maybe both of us. The Enforcers have never dealt lightly with violations of the Code. Truth to tell, it’s been dangerous enough for you to know about us at all. If they found out about the marriage...”

Nat squeezed his hand, her voice taking on a note of hope in her desperate search for a way out of this. “Who says they have to know? Why would anyone have to know? You and I already know we can each keep a secret. So what’s one more?”

“Nat...” He tightened his hold on her hand in turn. “They have ways of learning our secrets. In fact, it’s entirely possible that Janette already knows.”

Natalie’s face fell, realization dawning in her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “You mean the link.”

“Yes. And this isn’t the sort of ammunition I’m willing to leave open for her. I won’t endanger your life, Nat, not more than I already have. I’m sorry. I wish it could be different. I’d give anything if it could be.”

“Yeah. Me too.”
 
He did take her into his arms then. In tearful silence, they sat and held one another until pale beams of sunlight began streaming through the loft’s unshuttered windows. The light soon formed twin walls on either side of their little sanctuary on the sofa, but Nick made no move as yet to retrieve the remote and shut it out. He wanted to look at Natalie illuminated by daylight one more time.

Natalie the way he’d seen her yesterday.

Yesterday, when he’d been able to stand in that same light as easily as she.

“Hey.” Nat had picked up the remote from the table behind them. “Don’t you think we should dim the lights in here just a bit?”

With a grim smile, Nick accepted the device from her. “I guess we should,” he said, and pressed the control. With the humming descent of the shutters, sunlight surrendered to darkness. By the time the electronic shades had finished closing, the loft’s many lamps had flickered to dim, artificial life all around them.

“Nick?”

“Hm?”

Natalie snuggled close and whispered in his ear. “Do you suppose maybe we could risk extending the option on that marriage contract, for just a week or two?”

He pulled back to look at her, his eyes questioning. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” she said, “I seem to recall some overdue vacation time we both have coming, not to mention a travel voucher for the honeymoon of any girl’s dreams, and oh yes – a certain rather charming vampire who promised to behave himself, if only I’d take him along.”

Nick laughed. “Did I say that?”

“M-hm. Among other things.”

He grew serious then.

“You wouldn’t be afraid?” he asked. “Knowing what the Enforcers could do, and after what nearly happened in that storage room tonight... Knowing all of that, you’d still take that risk?”

“I trust you,” she said. “And as long as I’m with you, Nick, I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Mm. Well, what would you say to leaving tomorrow, then? Gives both our employers a one day notice, anyhow.”

“Done. Assuming that was a yes.”

“It was.”

“Great.”

Nat stood to gather up her purse and coat. “Now I’ve got less than a day to pack, kennel Sydney, get that passport up to date – and try to work in some long overdue sleep somewhere along the way.”

Nick walked with her back to the lift and pulled open the sliding door, kissing her quickly before she stepped inside.

She returned the kiss with enthusiasm. “Good night, Nick. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Nat,” he said. “For everything.”

The door closed on her smile then, and the wheezing old elevator swept her away. It would take her back to the light, back into her own mortal world – a world that was now once again as different from Nick’s as the day was from the night.

It was as though the past day had been little more than one of the pleasantly erotic visions of Natalie that had so often haunted his dreams. And just as though that dream-like, euphoric day had never been, he was back where he’d begun.

He loved her.

And he could never have her.

Nick strode back across the cavernous, suddenly too-quiet loft to his refrigerator. Opening the door, he pulled out a plain green bottle and popped out the cork, letting that tumble to the floor and roll away. He carried the bottle back to the fireplace. There, he stood and drank while silently communing with the mantel’s resident dragon rampant.

“And so it goes,” LaCroix’s voice announced from the landing above him. “One battle lost, it would seem, is much like another.”

Nick turned to glare up at the phantom, but made no reply.

Leaving the empty wine bottle on the mantel, he slowly and deliberately climbed the stairs, pausing on the landing to look his ethereal maker in the eyes. For several lengthy moments, neither of them spoke.

“‘The moving finger writes,’” the phantom quoted at length, “‘and having writ, moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.’ ⁵ Thus, Nicholas, does even the mightiest of empires fall, or the highest of mortal aspirations fail.”

Nick met his master’s gleaming gaze without any hint of fear. “Go back to hell, LaCroix,” he said.

And with that, he turned away to head for the loft’s bedroom.

His sire’s derisive laughter seemed to follow him into the room.

“You are my creature, Nicholas,” the spectral voice intoned, and even after Nick had shut the door, the final word continued to echo around him.
 
“Always!”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sources Quoted:

1 Proverbs 22:6.

2 Matthew 16:26.

3 On Holy Ground, by Geron Davis, © EMI Christian Music Publishing.

4 Touch the Night, by Fred Mollin, © Tristar Television.

5 From The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, verse 26.
 
 
 
 

Suggestions for Further Reading

An annotated bibliography compiled by Chuck Graham

Some of the books listed below are still in print; others, published long ago, may be a bit more difficult to find. A good web site to visit for used books is www.bookfinder.com – just enter the author and title and you’ll get an entire list of bookstores offering that particular book for sale, in a variety of editions and prices. Other sites are, of course, amazon.com, bibliofind.com, barnes&noble.com, borders.com, and for books about the Pentecostal movement, see christianbook.com.

The Pentecostal Movement:

Anderson, R.M., Vision of the Disinherited.  Hendrickson, 1992. Correlates the rise of Pentecostalism with various social factions extant in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Dunn, James D.G., Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Westminster, 1970. Treats “spirit-baptism” as the central element in Christian conversion and deals with the “speaking in tongues” phenomenon from a charitable but rather skeptical “high church” background.

Hollenweger, Walter, The Pentecostals. Translated from the German. Hendrickson, 1988. A thorough historical treatment of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement all over the world. Perhaps the most comprehensive study ever done.

Miles, Watson, Understanding Speaking in Tongues. Eerdmans, 1972. A short, non-technical treatment of tongues-speaking during the Old and New Testament periods and their relation to Greek and Roman mysticism. Eminently readable.
 
 

The Byzantine Empire:

Anna Comnena, The Alexiad. A biography of the emperor Alexius I Comnenus by his daughter, showing how one of the empire’s most capable rulers restored its fortunes to a great degree after the calamitous battle of Manzikert in 1071 and prepared it to deal with the armies of the First Crusade from 1096 on.

Gordon, C.D., The Age of Attila. Ann Arbor, 1966. How the Empire in the east managed to survive the disastrous Fifth Century, which saw the end of the western Empire and various barbarian invasions.

Jenkins, Romilly, Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, 610-1071. Vantage, 1969. An able narrative of the middle period of Byzantine history.

Norwich, John Julius: 1) Byzantium: The Early Centuries, Penguin, 1988. 2) Byzantium: The Apogee. Penguin, 1991. 3) Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. Penguin, 1995. These three volumes tell, in a highly engaging and readable form, the entire history of Byzantium from 330 to 1453. Constantine the Great, Theodosius and the building of the walls, Justinian, the rise of Islam, Iconoclasm, the empire’s high point in the 9th and 10th Centuries, Manzikert, the Crusades, the disaster of 1204, and the final two-century struggle of the Greek Empire against the rising power of the Ottoman Turks – it’s all here. A compelling story from start to finish.

Ostrogorsky, George, History of the Byzantine State.  Rutgers University Press, 1969. One-volume textbook treatment, rather dry but thorough.

Precopius, Secret History. Ann Arbor, 1963. Sixth-century account of the intrigues and scandals of Justinian’s court. Though much is of dubious historical value, makes for very entertaining reading.

Runciman, Steven, Byzantine Civilization. Meridian, 1956. A topical book covering administration, law, religion and church, diplomacy, commerce, education, art literature, etc.

Runciman, Steven, The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge University Press, 1965. A very moving account of the Empire’s last days and our main source of information for the historical sections of this novel. Difficult (at least for us) to read without shedding a tear or two.
 

The Ottoman Empire:

Kinross, Lord, The Ottoman Centuries: the Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire. Morrow Quill, 1979. Comprehensive one-volume treatment covering the rise under the legendary Osman about 1300 through the conquest of Byzantium, the zenith under Suleiman the Magnificent, the decline into the “Sick Man of Europe” and the founding of modern Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after World
War I.
 
 

Fiction:

Wallace, Lew, The Prince of India. Harper & Brothers, 1893. By the author of Ben Hur; incorporates the story of the Wandering Jew into an account of the city’s decline and fall beginning in 1395.

Waltari, Mika, The Dark Angel. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1953. A sweeping, colorful narrative by the author of The Egyptian that tells the story of the city’s fall through the eyes of John Angelus, courtier of Constantine XI – and possibly spy for Mehmet II.

For pure fun, we also recommend the Videssos Cycle novels by Harry Turtledove.
 

National Geographic Magazine Articles:

Dwight, H.G., Life in Constantinople. December 1914.
Grosvenor, Edwin, Constantinople and Sancta Sophia. May 1915.
Solano, S., Constantinople Today. June 1922.
Chandler, Douglas, The Transformation of Turkey. January 1939.
Williams, Maynard Owen, The Turkish Republic Comes of Age. May 1945.
Williams, Maynard Owen, Turkey Paves the Path of Progress. August 1951.
Shor, Jean and Franc, Athens to Istanbul. January 1956.
Setton, Kenneth M., A New Look at Medieval Europe. December 1962.
Johnson, Irving and Electa, Yankee Cruises Turkey’s History-haunted Coast. December 1969.
Ellis, William S., Istanbul, the City that Links Europe and Asia. October 1973.
Severy, Merle, The Byzantine Empire: Rome of the East.  December 1983.

The entire National Geographic Magazine from 1888 to the present is available on CD-ROM from Amazon or www.nationalgeographic.com.