The blood was everywhere.

It covered the alley's walls, the asphalt surface, and the bodies
of the three young men who lay sprawled there. A collective look
of horrified disbelief had frozen on their faces, a look that said
they had not expected this attack, this premature death.

It was a look Nick Knight had seen too many times before.

"Man, oh man..." Don Schanke surveyed the carnage now garishly
illuminated in the squad cars' headlights and flashing blue
strobes. "I do _not_ believe this. B-Dogs, all three of 'em."

"You know them?" Nick stood an apparently-squeamish safe distance
from the corpses, silently struggling to keep the thick blood scent
from turning his eyes gold. He wished fervently that he had taken
time to feed before coming in tonight.

"Uh-huh." Schanke frowned, watching Natalie Lambert begin her
prelim on the first of the bodies. "Well enough to tell you not
one of 'em is over fifteen. Looks like at least thirty rounds from
a couple of semi-automatics. Man, this is _not_ good."

"Any witnesses?"

Schanke snorted. "Are you kidding? These dirtbags may not be old
enough to shave, but they're real good at offing the rival homeboys
-- without an audience. Is Cohen gonna love this or what? Like
she really needed a gangbanger war in her precinct."

A gust of chill wind washed over them, carrying the wet, iron odor
of the blood with it. Nick closed his eyes.

Schanke was still talking, but he could no longer distinguish the
words. Something else had begun to tease at his heightened,
vampire senses. A presence -- ancient, powerful, familiar.

Lacroix.

He turned away from Schanke to survey the dark end of the alley and
then the rooftops high above. Up there... to the left...

"Nick?" His partner's gloved hand was suddenly gripping his coat
sleeve. "You okay? Geez, Nick, what _is_ it with you, anyway?"

"Nothing, Schank." Gently but firmly, Nick freed his sleeve and
started down the alley. "I'll be back in a minute."

"What?" Schanke sputtered. "Well, where're you going? Nick?!"

But he'd already left the other detective behind and hurried down
the alley as fast as mortal speed allowed. He rounded a brick
corner, glanced quickly to either side, then took flight to the
rooftop.

Arms folded, Lacroix waited near the wire-mesh housing of a heating
generator. Something about him was... different. The
characteristic malice was gone from his eyes, the usual smirking
demeanor replaced by... what? Tentatively, Nick tested their
mental link, then just as quickly withdrew, confused. Fear and
worry were emotions more inimical to Lacroix than sunlight, yet
Nick sensed both of these -- strongly -- in their bond.

"What is it?" Nick asked bluntly, and gestured toward the cluster
of police cars below them. "Do you know something about this?"

Mildly annoyed, Lacroix glanced in that direction and scowled. "I
do not concern myself with your petty mortal affairs. You know
that."

"Then why are you here?" Nick had no time for amenities. He'd
have to return to the crime scene soon, and come up with some sort
of explanation to satisfy Schanke. "Lacroix, what's wrong?"

A sudden sense of urgency emanated from Lacroix: he looked skyward
for a moment, then took a step toward Nick. "We have very little
time, Nicholas. You must come with me. At once."

Nick shook his head. "What are you talking about? I'm not going
anywhere!"

In a heartbeat, Lacroix was face to face with him, shaking him in
an iron grip. "Listen to me! You are in danger here. We must
leave this place, _now_!"

Angrily, Nick swept his master's hands away. "Not without an
explanation. I've told you, I'm done with you and your games!"

Lacroix closed his eyes, speaking with forced calm. "And I have
told you that defiance has consequences; that not even I would be
able to protect you forever. There are those who--"

He stopped, literally in mid-word, and in the same instant, Nick
felt the tingling vibration that heralded the presence of others of
their kind. In a moment, there were three new figures on the roof.

Two of them he recognized at once as Enforcers. The third...

The third was a tall, hawk-faced man with black hair and dark,
piercing eyes. He wore an ill-fitting black suit that hung loosely
on his gaunt frame, and no overcoat. The Enforcers flanked him,
their eyes glowing, and Nick noted that both were oddly armed with
silenced automatic .38s. Not the usual weapon of choice for those
who upheld the vampiric Code.

Lacroix had spun on the newcomers with a warning growl, thrusting
Nick deliberately behind him. "You will not take him, Valerian."

"Won't I?" The thin vampire had a laugh like bone-dry twigs
dropping into a bonfire. "I have held the office of Inquisitor
since the birth of your long-vanquished Empire. Who are you to
challenge me? Move aside, General. You've had your chance with
this disobedient whelp. Now he is mine."

Infuriated, Nick moved from Lacroix's shadow to confront the trio
himself. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What is this ab--"

Lacroix's hand had shot out to silence him, to push him back. In
the same instant, at a signal from Valerian's bony hand, both
Enforcers had fired their guns.

Nick felt two bullets strike him, and -- as bullets usually did --
pass through him without obvious effect. In another moment,
however, a wave of overwhelming dizziness had driven him to his
knees on the tar-shingled roof. Lacroix went down beside him,
strong hands grasping him by the shoulders.

From above them, a sepulchral voice said, "Curare and garlic.
Hardly fatal, but effective enough as an anaesthetic. Move away
from him, General. Now."

With blurring vision, Nick saw the .38s turn toward his master,
evoking yet another infuriated growl. "Damn you..." Lacroix
stood, and Nick, no longer supported, collapsed under an onslaught
of nausea and acute, stinging pain. "If you harm him..." he heard
Lacroix's voice rasp, but Valerian cut him off sharply.

"Don't threaten me, Lucius. I told you. Your time with him is
ended. Mine is begun. And trust me -- I _will_ finish what you,
after eight centuries, have failed to complete."

Through the haze that had begun to envelop him, Nick felt Lacroix's
fury at this defeat. To admit that was also unlike him, and Nick
wondered who this Valerian could possibly be, to command even
Lacroix...

Two pairs of vice-like hands grasped his arms then and began to
pull him upward. Nick tried to push them away, but could not even
lift his head to look up at them. He was dimly aware of being
lifted, taken aloft into the night sky and the brisk wind, then the
grayness converged on him, and he felt nothing more at all...
* * *
Natalie leaned against the hood of Schanke's car and watched her
attendants load the last of the three victims into the coroner's
wagon. Nick's partner finished scribbling a line in his notepad,
muttering, "That oughta do it," before tucking both pad and pen
into a pocket.

"OK," Nat said, noticing Schanke's anxious glance down the now-
abandoned alley. "So you want to tell me where your partner is?"
"I wish the hell I knew!" Schanke looked mildly embarrassed at his
own outburst when one of the attendants looked in their direction.
More subdued, he grumbled, "He took off -- on foot, over an hour
ago. Said he'd be right back. I hate it when he does this, I
_really_ hate it!"

Natalie frowned. What on Earth could have possessed Nick to
abandon a crime scene this time? No way there were any vampires
involved in this one. Gang shooting, plain and straightforward.
Ugly, brutal, a stupid waste of young lives, but no mystery. All
he and Schanke would have to do now was track down the mortal
gangmembers responsible.

So where was Nick?

The green Cadillac sat at the mouth of the alley, silently waiting
for its owner's return.

"Yeah," she said in agreement with Schanke's statement. "Well,
when you see him, tell him to drop by the lab later tonight? I've
got a protein shake he's been avoiding like the proverbial plague
for a week."

"Yeeuch." Schanke made a face that would have sent any five-year-
old into fits of giggles. It nearly had the same effect on
Natalie. "How does he _drink_ that stuff?"

_That's the trouble,_ she very nearly said aloud. _He doesn't._
She turned toward her own car, giving Nick's partner a smile and a
good-bye wave. "See ya, Schank."

"Yeah."

Before she pulled away, she saw Schanke heading off down the
deserted alley with a flashlight in his hand. She didn't have to
wonder who he was looking for. But then, neither did she doubt
that he wouldn't find any trace of Nick Knight in that alley.

Flipping on the headlights, Nat headed for the lab. She'd grill
Nick about where he'd gone later. Right now, it was time to go to
work.
* * *
The stale odors of mold, dust and ancient stone assailed his
nostrils. His vampire senses tingled again with the presence of
others -- many others, somewhere nearby. But when he opened his
eyes, it was to see only one vampire -- Valerian -- looking back at
him across a massive oak table. Nick tried to move, realizing
belatedly that he could not. He was bound hand and foot by iron
shackles to the heavy wooden chair in which he'd awakened. A
vampire's strength should have been sufficient to snap even iron
bonds -- but he could not break these.

"A temporary after-effect of the curare," Valerian said
accommodatingly. "Albeit, for our purposes, a rather useful one."
While the elder vampire studied his captive from the table's far
end, Nick tried to survey his surroundings, and wondered if he'd
somehow been whisked back in time five centuries. High stone walls
with no windows, a vaulted ceiling, torches in wrought-iron
sconces... Perhaps he'd stumbled onto the set of a bad horror
film.

"Where is this place?" he demanded. "What do you want with me?!"

The Ancient's dark eyes flashed with ominous amusement. "Oh, you
are Lucius' son indeed." Unfolding his too-thin frame from the
opposite chair, Valerian glided the length of the table to stand
beside his prisoner. "This place..." He gestured expansively at
the dungeon around them. "...is my Spanish castle. Decorative,
don't you agree? I've always held a particular fondness for Espana
and her people. They honed the fine art of inquisition with such
admirable enthusiasm!" One skeletal hand reached out and abruptly
gripped Nick by the chin. He tried in vain to twist away from it.
That touch, so much more than the vampire's cold flesh, purveyed
cruelty, malice, depravity -- an ancient and unrepentant evil. "As
to what I want with you..." His inquisitor's grasp tightened, and
then just as suddenly released him. "Not very much, really. The
answer to a simple question."

Nick stared up at him in silent query. Threatening to engulf him,
black eyes gazed malignantly back.

"Why?"

Nick blinked, uncomprehending.

"Why do you wish to be mortal, Nicholas? What madness compels you
to forsake immortality? I want to know. Tell me."

Angered at this deceptively mild coercion, Nick grated, "Why should
I? I owe you nothing."

"Arrogance." Valerian sneered the word. "In point of fact, my
young friend, you owe us everything." Without warning, he
wrenched the chair around and leaned down to hiss the next words
into his captive's face. "For eight hundred years, we have held
the mortgage on your miserable soul, Nicholas. And it is a debt
that _will_ be repaid."

Nick had absolutely no idea what this madman was ranting about, but
the anger, the _rage_ at his abduction and confinement continued to
grow in him -- along with the Hunger, gnawing and clamoring,
unsatisfied for too many days. He felt his eyes change, knew that
his fury had turned them gold by the time he lifted his head to
look at Valerian again.

The elder vampire smiled at this reaction, and his icy hand once
again took a patronizing hold on Nick's chin. "I see you haven't
entirely repressed your nature," he gloated. "We may yet get to
the bottom of this little aberration."

Nick glared at him. "Go to hell," he spat.

Valerian released him and straightened, looking momentarily
surprised. Then he threw his head back and laughed. What began as
a low, rumbling chuckle escalated rapidly into a full-blown,
maniacal cackle as he walked away, leaving his prisoner to ponder
the reasons for his sudden, unbridled mirth.
* * *
It had been three days.

Natalie hovered outside the Raven's front door, ignoring curious
looks from the bar's colorfully dressed patrons as they came and
went. She had already been to the loft just long enough to confirm
that nothing there had been taken, nothing disturbed. Seven
bottles of bovine blood sat in the refrigerator and all of Nick's
most prized possessions remained in place, untouched. It meant
that he had not 'moved on,' that he hadn't left this life -- or her
-- willingly behind. No, wherever Nick had gone, it had not been
to a place of his choosing. Of that much she was certain.

Not surprisingly, Cohen's APB and missing-persons filing had turned
up no clues. Nor would they. Because the only clues to Nick's
whereabouts would be behind the door she'd been avoiding for three
days.

Making a concerted effort not to look as desperate as she felt,
Natalie took a deep breath, and entered the lion's den.

After ten minutes spent shouting over the din to ask where she
might find her quarry, she finally found her way through the dim
back corridors to Janette's private office. Natalie knocked, then
went in without waiting for an invitation.

The room was close and dark, part storeroom and part business
office, divided by a thick red drapery drawn partway across the
storage area. The Raven's owner looked up from her inventory
sheets with mild annoyance. "Doctor Lambert," she said. "To what
do I owe the dubious pleasure, as if I didn't know."

"Where is he, Janette?"

Her abruptness and the obvious concern behind it seemed to melt
something in the beautiful vampire's cold blue eyes. "Doctor..."
she began, then, "Natalie, I know that you care for Nicola, but..."

She paused again, as though considering whether she ought to say
any more at all.

Nat moved to the desk and leaned on it with both hands. "Please,"
she said, not ashamed to plead if it could gain her any clue at
all. "If you can't tell me where, at least tell me _how_ he is,
whether he's all right. I know you can sense that much."

Suddenly unnerved, Janette looked away toward the storeroom, then
back at her. "I am sorry, Natalie. I..." Her voice broke, and in
the next moment she had risen to run from the room, a flash of
movement in a burgundy cocktail gown.
 

Puzzled, Nat started to go after her.
"Leaving so soon, Doctor?"

Nat spun back toward the velvet curtain and the tall figure that
had just emerged from behind it. Even if she had not known the
voice from those creepy radio broadcasts, she would have known him
from Nick's descriptions. Aside from that, she also had the oddest
feeling that they'd met somewhere before...

"You need not concern yourself unduly with Nicholas, my dear Doctor
Lambert."

Nat ignored the condescension. "Where is he?"

"In... safekeeping." He continued moving toward her, carrying so
much menace in that arrogant stride that she found herself
retreating toward the door, stopping only when the heel of her shoe
struck the doorframe.

She took a stand there by default, and summoning strength to her
voice, demanded, "Where?"

He halted his advance a few feet away from her, pale eyes boring
into hers. "Would you by any chance be... in _love_ with Nicholas,
Doctor?"

He had, Natalie noted, an infuriating way of evading a direct
question. So she evaded his as well. "I'm worried about him.
It's not like him to just disappear like this."

"_Isn't_ it?" Lacroix's tone mocked her.

Pressing herself to the doorframe, Nat drew another breath and bit
back an angry response. "Please," she begged. "Whatever you've
done with him, just tell me that he's all right."

For just a moment, gold flashed in his grey-blue eyes. "What _I_
have done?" he echoed.

Nat's heart sank. Lacroix hadn't taken Nick. Then who...? And
_why?_

"Go home, Doctor Lambert." That soft, seductive voice reverberated
in her ears and instantly demolished any semblance of resistance.
His eyes held her immobile.

"Home," she repeated.

"And rest assured, I will not permit any harm to come to Nicholas.
I never have."

"You..." She had wanted to challenge that statement, to call him
a liar, but a sudden stabbing headache made her lift a hand to rub
at her eyes. When she opened them again, the pain had vanished.

So had Lacroix.
* * *
The Hunger woke him.

Hunger, and the pain of cuts and bruises not healing as they would
have, had he fed recently. Breathing in the pungent odors of damp
stone and moldy straw, Nick groaned and rolled over, opening his
eyes to the shadowy confinement of a cell. Through the hatched
pattern of iron crosspieces forming the door, dim torchlight
flickered on rough-hewn walls. He could hear the distant, muffled
sputtering of the confined flames, the only sound other than his
own ragged breathing. He sat up against the cold juncture of stone
forming one corner of the cell, noting as he did that he no longer
wore the binding chains that had subdued him for the last... how
many?... of Valerian's visits. Repeated beatings at the hands
of his pet Enforcers -- more brutal than Lacroix's abuse had ever
been -- had merely served to strengthen Nick's adamant resolve to
defy them. Through it all, his cadaverous tormentor had stood by,
smugly confident, repeating again and again his single, unchanging
demand.

"Why do you wish to be mortal, Nicholas?"

Why, indeed? How many times, in all his battles with Lacroix, had
his master made that same query?

_"This foolishness will not be tolerated, Nicholas. I will not
have it. Our kind will not have it. Why do you persist? *Why* do
you desire mortality?!"_

_"Because I cannot *be* this anymore. Because I loathe what I am.
Because *I want to regain my soul!*"_

_"You cannot. You will not. But you *will* cease this childish
inanity, and you will cease it now!"_

A mistake. It had been a mistake ever to answer the question. All
Lacroix had done in return for his honesty was endeavor to crush
his dream with one cold cruelty after another, insisting, always,
that he abandon his "foolish" goal.

But he had refused. Just as he would refuse Valerian. His quest
to regain his mortal soul -- and the reasons for it -- were his
own. And no one -- not Janette, Lacroix, the Enforcers or Valerian
-- would ever take that from him.

He wouldn't let them.

The vibrating sense of _another_ reached him from the corridor.
Expecting the return of his captor and the omnipresent Enforcers,
Nick stiffened against the block wall and waited.

A shadow blocked the feeble light beyond the crossbars of his
prison. He heard a key turn. Then the huge door moved a mere
fraction, swinging shut again on squealing hinges after his visitor
had entered the cell.

Nick stared. Even against the faint light, she was a vampiric
vision in gossamer and lace, pale hair falling loose to her bare
shoulders as it had when he'd first seen her in the tavern, all
those centuries ago. Far more recently, her attempt to kill him
had culminated in a Toronto junk yard in the dead of night, where
her clumsy efforts with a sharpened scrap of wood had been no more
successful than his own.

"Hello, Nicholas."

Alexandra. Where had they found Alexandra? And why...?

She moved forward, and instantly, the scent of her drove his Hunger
to a frenzied peak. In that moment, he knew why she had come.
When she disrobed and knelt beside him on the straw, his eyes were
already burning gold with the desire, the _need_ for her. By the
time she had begun caressing, stroking, kissing him, he already
knew that he was lost. The rampaging Hunger refused to be denied
any longer.

Nicholas took her.
* * *
"I don't get it. I just don't get it!" Schanke's pacing was
beginning to wear a path in the lab's tile floor. "How can anyone
just _disappear_ like that? From the middle of a crime scene,
yet!"

"I wish I knew, Schank." Natalie watched him from behind her
paper-littered desk, having long since given up trying to fill in
the autopsy report form in front of her. The print on it kept
blurring together anyway.

"Missing Persons is completely up a creek on this." Schanke
stopped pacing and leaned on the desk. "I'm tellin' ya, Natalie,
there's something really _weird_ about this. It's been a week and
there is not a _trace_ of Nick _anywhere_ for us to go on. Zip,
nada, _nothing!_ It's as if he just vanished off the face of the
Earth. Cohen's fit to be tied. She opened a PH case on it this
morning; put Reeves and Kaminski on it."

It took Nat a moment to translate the shorthand. "PH? Possible
Homicide? But Schanke, he's not--"

She stopped herself too late to forestall Schanke's wide-eyed look.

"You know something we don't know?"

"No," she said, too quickly. "I'm just sure Nick isn't dead,
that's all. Call it some kind of intuition if you like. I can't
explain it. I just... know it."

Nick's partner gave her a grim little smile. "Yeah. Well, here's
praying your intuition is telling the truth. See if you can get it
to fork over _where_ he's still alive, could ya?" He sobered
abruptly, sinking onto a corner of the desk with a sigh. "God,
this thing is drivin' me nuts. I've lost partners before, but not
like this! Not with an unsolved Missing Person that's becoming a
Possible Homicide, and no answers."

The pain in his voice was not lost on Natalie. She reached out to
cover one of his hands with her own and said, "It's all right,
Schank. We'll find him." _Or he'll find us,_ she added silently.

He nodded, though he didn't look entirely convinced. "You sure
Janette and that Nightcrawler guy didn't know anything? I still
think maybe I should talk to 'em--"

"Schank..." She tightened her grip on his hand. "I don't think
that's a good idea. Besides, they're on the list of Nick's known
acquaintances; Missing Persons has probably already done that."

"Yeah, but..." Schanke sighed. "Yeah, I guess so." He pulled the
hand she held free to check his watch. "Oh, geez, I gotta go. We
got two witnesses in for a line-up on the Timbler arrest..."

She nodded. "No break on the gang homicide?"

"Couple of good leads," he answered, sliding off the desk and
heading for the door. "I'd be a little further along if I hadn't
wasted three days trying to tie that murder to the case of the
missing partner. Got zippety-doo-dah on _that_ one." He turned
back at the door. "See ya later, Natalie."

She smiled. "Yeah. And Schank? Thanks for keeping me informed."

He nodded, then disappeared through the swinging door. Natalie sat
staring at it until the last vestige of motion had died away. She
wished she'd been able to tell Schanke more of the truth, for what
little good it would do. She felt like a hypocrite lying to him.
She wished she knew where Nick had been taken, and more importantly
why. And above all, she wished she could be sure that Lacroix had
told her the truth...
* * *
No one had entered his cell in the two days and nights since
Alexandra's departure, leaving Nick alone with both the shame of
his weakness and a gradually strengthening resolve. He would not
give in to the bloodlust again. He wouldn't give Valerian the
satisfaction -- particularly since he had little doubt that his
tormentor's next little 'gift' would be human. It was what Lacroix
would have done -- _had_ done to him more than once in the past.
But no matter how many times he had failed that test (or passed it,
in the master vampire's eyes), his will to regain his mortality had
not been broken. Nor would it be now. He had endured imprisonment
in dungeons before, both before and after his fall into darkness.
And he had endured brutality before -- endured, and survived to
fight another day.

A faint sound alerted him in the same moment that his senses
hummed, heralding the approach of others. Shortly, the cell's
massive door had creaked open to admit Valerian, the ubiquitous
Enforcers lurking just behind.

"Well, now that you're 'refreshed,'" the thin vampire quipped
smugly, "I thought perhaps we might talk. Ready yet to tell me
why?"

Slowly, Nick raised his head to glare up at the Ancient. "Why do
you want to know?"

Again, Valerian laughed. "Wilful to the end," he said cryptically,
and at his brief gesture, the Enforcers were instantly at Nick's
side, their dark suits and automatic weapons a stark contrast to
their medieval surroundings. "We shall be taking a short walk,"
Valerian said as the Enforcers urged the prisoner to his feet. "It
should perhaps be cautioned that any attempt at flight -- and I do
mean that literally -- will be punished most severely. And trust
me -- there really is nowhere to go."

He turned and swept from the cell, though he paused just outside
it, waiting. The Enforcers' grip tightened on Nick's arms, and he
had no doubt that if he did not walk on his own, they would pick
him up and carry him. He walked.

They didn't take him far: down a close, dank-smelling corridor to
a heavy wooden door, where Valerian lifted the iron bolt with one
scrawny finger, shoved the door inward and disappeared inside.
Nick and his escorts followed.

Stale air and the dim sense of _others_ -- many others -- assaulted
Nick's senses just inside the door. Within minutes, the Enforcers
had set torches around the huge, vaulted room alight, illuminating
a crypt filled with coffins, ancient and modern, set into wall
niches or placed upon biers across the room's earthen floor. They
had entered onto a railed, stone gallery with steps leading down
into the vault.
Only one of Valerian's minions returned to his side; the other
remained below, waiting, beside the nearest of the caskets.

"Tell me, Nicholas..." The ancient vampire had placed both hands
on the metal railing, and directed his gaze to the floor below.
"Did you really think you were the only vampire ever to defy the
Community? To aspire to mortality? To go rogue, as it were?"

Nick's temper was short. "I owe you no explanations," he repeated.

"And this charade is pointless! Have done with it, Valerian.
Destroy me or release me -- either way, I will tell you nothing!"

"Destroy you?" Valerian smiled toward the array of coffins. "Oh,
nothing so simple as all that..."

Puzzled, Nick glanced from his captor to the odd tableau on the
crypt floor. At Valerian's nod, the waiting Enforcer lifted the
coffin's lid, revealing the grey and shriveled corpse that lay
within.

Except that it was not a corpse. Exactly.

With a sudden, horrible dread, Nick realized the source of all the
_others_ he had sensed here, had been sensing from the beginning.
Dozens of them locked away in these coffins, suffering the
conscious agonies of starvation; alive and aware, but immobilized
by deprivation. This was true undeath -- and the worst living
horror that any of their kind could imagine.

"They're vampires," Nick whispered. "All of them..."

"These have committed crimes against us." When Valerian turned his
head, his eyes shone a malevolent gold. "And this is their
punishment."

Nick stared down at the ashen, withered thing in the casket until,
sickened, he was forced to turn away. "And of what 'crime' am _I_
accused?" he cried, pressing himself to the wall. If this hideous
undeath was the fate to which Valerian had already condemned him...

"You may well ask," the reedy voice said from behind him. "Shall
we discuss the sins of disobedience? Hubris? Hypocrisy?
_Murder?_"

Nick turned on him, fighting back a rage that threatened to
transform his eyes as well. "I have murdered no one!" he said.

"Ah, yes. You took a vow a century or so ago. Some misguided
epiphany spawned after your last mortal kill, as I recall."
Valerian inspected his own, clawlike fingers. "Curious, is it not,
that this reverence for life never extended to your own kind?
Murdered no one? How many of us have you killed since taking that
vow? How many before it? You murdered two of your own making."
"They had to be destroyed!"

"And then there is the matter of murdering your own sire."

"My _sire_..." Nick hissed the word at him. "...is very much
alive. As you well know."

"So he is. No thanks to your efforts. Did you really think such
iniquities against your own would continue to go unnoticed?
Unpunished?"

Abruptly, the simmering rage overcame Nick. Eyes glowing, he
lunged at the Ancient with a feral snarl. But in the next moment,
he was grabbed from behind by powerful hands and thrown backward.
He struck the stone wall with enough force to shatter mortal bones,
but kept his feet. The Enforcer who had attacked him held him
pinned to the wall with a crushing grip on his throat. Nick
struggled in vain, but was released only when Valerian's trained
dog was called off with a short, calm command.

"Enough."

His anger unabated, Nick raised golden eyes to meet Valerian's and
demanded hoarsely, "What do you _want_ from me?!"

"I think I've made that clear enough. I want you to answer the
question. Tell me why you would seek to abrogate the gift of
eternal life."

"Why should I tell you?" Nick asked again, and because he hadn't
expected an answer, Valerian's tranquil reply surprised him.

"Because, Nicholas, I am your judge. And when I have broken your
wayward spirit..." He swept a hand toward the crypt below them.
"...I will spare you this rather unpleasant fate." In the next
instant, he stood mere inches from his prisoner, his clutching
fingers replacing those of the Enforcer at Nick's throat. "I am
your _savior,_ Nicholas. _I am going to redeem you._" The fingers
tightened until Nick thought his neck would break. "All I require
in order to begin this necessary reformation is _for you to answer
the question!_" He punctuated each of the last several words with
a shove against the grey block wall.

From somewhere, Nick summoned the strength to vanquish the surge of
hatred pressing his Beast to the fore. To release it now was to
lose his battle, because it was precisely what Valerian would want.
So he looked back at his inquisitor with pale blue eyes and
answered him with a single, obdurate syllable.

"No."

This clearly was not the response Valerian had anticipated. His
eyes burned crimson. Shaking with rage, the bony hand slammed
Nick's head against the wall hard enough to draw blood. They
remained frozen in that unyielding pose for several terrible
moments before the Ancient finally shoved him to the gallery's
flagstone pavement, uttering a barely-restrained command to his
waiting minions.

"Take him back to the cell!"
* * *
Not in ten long centuries had Janette seen her master in such a
state.

Unmoving for three nights, he remained behind the desk in her
office, sitting as though entranced with eyes closed, hands folded
in ersatz prayer before him. But Lacroix was not praying. Janette
peered in the door at him, sensing for the second time this night
that something had changed -- something that had everything to do
with Nicola. And _because_ it had to do with Nicola, she dared
incur their master's wrath by intruding ever-so-gently on his
reverie. Her own link to Nicola, weakened by distance and by
whatever had befallen him, was insufficient to answer her
questions. Lacroix's, however... She slipped quietly into the
room, came to stand close beside him, and reached out to touch his
cold hands. Eyes closed, she drew in a prolonged breath, allowing
the connection to affirm itself, and gratefully received Lacroix's
unspoken assent that his daughter share this bond. Janette entered
anxiously, eager to know how her Nicola was faring...

She gasped, and with a small cry, tried to pull away. One of
Lacroix's hands shot out to capture hers, held it, drew her back
into the link with a soft, caressing command. _Wait. Listen!_

She obeyed (one did not _disobey_ Lacroix without consequences),
and in a moment the ghost of a triumphant smile had begun to form
on her lips. Without seeing, she knew that it was matched by one
of Lacroix's.
* * *
Once, Nicholas would have slammed mental doors against the invasion
of Lacroix's thoughts into his own. Now, he not only permitted the
faint touch of two familiar minds, he welcomed it, clung to it like
a lifeline and began to draw strength from its diverse, ancient
power. He could do little more over the distance that separated
them. Nick curled into the cell's fetid corner and silently
cherished one more thing he would once have spurned. He had sensed
one rare and supportive emotion in the turmoil of thoughts that
touched him.

Lacroix was proud of him.

Although the threat of undeath terrified him even more than that of
true death, he had not given in to Valerian's demands. Instead,
he'd endured another week of inquisitions, beatings and
deprivations. And two nights ago, they had again sent Alexandra to
him. Nick had turned his back on her, and despite the Hunger's
desperate ravaging, had consigned her, without words, to the same
depths of damnation into which he had long ago willed Valerian.
No one had intruded on the solitude of his prison since.
The Hunger had consumed him far past the point where he would,
under any other circumstances, have lost control and given in to
it. But this contest of wills, for whatever reason, had been
different. This time, he had no intention of conceding -- not
even, though he had wrestled long and hard with his terror at the
thought, to escape the nightmare of confinement in Valerian's
crypt.

No sooner had he reassured himself of this determination than the
steady rhythm of a human heartbeat began throbbing from somewhere
nearby. In a moment, the iron-latticed door had swung open, and
the owner of the heart, eyes glazed and unseeing, walked into his
cell.

Even mesmerized, she was beautiful. Haunting green eyes, an oval
face framed by auburn hair. Nick shuddered and tried
unsuccessfully to press himself into the wall.

She looked like Natalie.

The Hunger tore at him with whetted claws, screaming its demand to
feed. With desperate craving, it locked onto her heartbeat, found
her eyes, held them, willed her closer to him...

_I can hear her heart._

He tried to think of Natalie. Natalie, who had helped him, guarded
his secrets, _believed_ in him.

_It beats for you._

She came within a few feet of him and stood, waiting. With the
wall at his back for support, Nick pushed himself weakly upright.

_I'm so thirsty..._

_Then *drink.*_

She was someone's wife, lover, daughter. A mortal with a life that
deserved to be treasured, lived.

_Take her!_

"No..."

His Beast raged at the denial, mocked him, reasoned with self-
righteous certainty that Valerian would kill this woman anyway.

_Mortals *die,* Nicholas. Does it really matter how or when?_

He reached out to touch her, stroking the smooth plane of her cheek
with the back of his hand. She responded by lifting her head, the
lush bounty of her throat inviting him. He felt his eyes change,
the fangs descend...
_Drink!_

He grasped her shoulders, drew her to him.

_Give in to what you *are!*_

She moaned with both pleasure and pain when his fangs pierced the
softness of her throat and the rich, tantalizing nectar of her
blood began to flow into him, to nourish and revive him. Life
blood.

_Her_ life.

He couldn't do this.

_It beats for you. *She* is for you._

He had taken a vow.

_...so thirsty..._

He wouldn't do this.

_Drink, mon amour. Her life is yours..._

No...

"NO!!!!!"

The Beast shrieked in agonized protest when he forced it to
withdraw, and with all his remaining strength, he thrust her away
from him. She fell into the straw near the door, and at once, an
Enforcer appeared there to retrieve her. Nick snarled at him, as
enraged as the Beast he sought to vanquish, but the brawny vampire
ignored him. He hefted his still-breathing human burden and bore
it silently from the cell.

The door locked shut after them, leaving Nicholas alone.

There was, ostensibly, no one to hear the scream of pain, denial
and abject misery that echoed in the next moment through Valerian's
dungeon.
* * *
With the sunset, Lacroix had vanished from her chambers. Janette
knew without question where he had gone; she only wished she could
be certain that the master would find his favorite son still living
when he arrived. For so _long_ Nicola had defied them. Now...

Now Nicola was dying. Worse than dying. He was slipping into
undeath.

Janette shivered and sat back in the booth while the Raven's noisy
festivities pulsed, unnoticed, around her. She sipped at her
bloodwine, closing her eyes against the threat of tears. She had
felt Nicola's pain: the agonies of starvation and cruelty, his
anguish at having broken, however briefly, his foolish vow not to
feed on human blood. And what now? What had his foolhardy
stubbornness gained him?

"Is he dead, Janette?"

She started, spilling the wine onto the bench beside her. Her
senses must be dull indeed, not to have heard this mortal approach.

"Natalie," she said in subdued greeting.

The coroner slipped uninvited into the booth opposite her. "I need
to know," she said, all business and firm control, though Janette
could see that far deeper emotions lurked behind the facade. "And
if he's alive, I need to know if he's coming back. Hard as it may
be for you to understand, we mere mortals require something called
closure."

Janette had to smile at the woman's tenacity. No other human
unfortunate enough to fall in love with Nicola had ever kept her
wits -- or her life, for that matter -- about her for so long. "He
is not dead," she answered, refraining from adding the word 'yet'
because she refused to face that possibility herself. "And I wish
to see him return, just as you do."

She saw relief in Natalie's eyes at the words. The doctor allowed
herself a measured smile. "There is a chance, then? That he'll
come back?"

Janette placed her empty glass on the table between them. "I
cannot know for certain. But yes, there is a chance."

Frustration edged Natalie's tone then. "Why can't you tell me
where he is? Why are you doing this to him?"

Janette barely restrained an angry retort. She knew that the 'you'
in that sentence had been collective, but it rankled just the same.

"_We_ have laws as well, Natalie," she replied with forced calm.
"Those who break those laws are punished, sometimes by means of an
ancient rite. An 'ordeal.'" The good doctor plainly did not like
the sound of that, and Janette didn't blame her. "It is a test of
wills," she explained. "The purpose of which is to show one who
has strayed the error of his ways. To bring him back into the
fold."

"To force him back, you mean," Natalie said indignantly. "How
could you let them do that to Nick? How could you allow--?" At
Janette's sharp look, the coroner bit back the accusation. "I'm
sorry," she whispered.

Janette nodded, forcing a smile and an optimism that she did not
feel. "We must prepare an explanation, you and I," she said.
"When Nicola returns, there must be some plausible tale given to
the mortal world to account for his absence."

Natalie blinked in confusion at the sudden change in her demeanor.
"But how...?"

"Find me a name, Natalie. Some petty offender or other with reason
to hate Nicola. There must be many such? Find one, and I shall
see to it he believes wholeheartedly that he has kidnapped and held
Nicola somewhere far from here for the past two weeks. He shall
confess, and will even produce evidence to prove that it is so.
His sentence will be light, because he admits to the crime, and
because Nicola shall be unharmed."

Oh, how she hoped it would be true.

But Natalie was shaking her head. "It's not quite that easy, I'm
afraid. Nick would never agree to framing someone for something
they hadn't done."

"Ah." Janette pursed her lips, thinking of Nicola and his tedious
morals. "I suppose we shall just have to see to it, then, that the
perpetrator... mysteriously escapes and disappears, mm?" At
Natalie's look, she added, "To another life, that is. Somewhere
far from here? Will that do?"

Natalie reached across the table to place a warm mortal hand atop
her cold one. "Thank you," she said.

Janette nodded, and bowed her head to hide her tears. When she
looked up again, the mortal had gone.
* * *
Not a stone of Valerian's Moorish monstrosity had changed since the
last Crusade. With a sneer, Lacroix stood beneath its parapets,
scenting the night wind for his quarry and finding it atop the east
wall's flanking tower. It waited for him.

His adversary bowed in mock greeting when he alighted. "Lucius.
I thought you'd never come."

"Unfortunately for you," Lacroix said coldly, "I have."
"Threats, General?" Two of Valerian's pet Enforcers materialized
from the railed stairwell and started toward them. Lacroix's glare
warned them back, and amazingly, they hesitated. Interesting.
Perhaps they would wait for the outcome of this little contest?

Lacroix met Valerian's gaze. "Promises," he said. "You have lost,
Inquisitor. Nicholas has beaten you. And now, I will reclaim what
is mine."

"_Will_ you?" Valerian's grasping fingers broke mortar from the
tower's creneling and allowed it to sift slowly to the rooftop at
his feet. "Your impudent whelp is not reclaimable, Lucius. In
fact, he deserves final death for such defiance."

Lacroix let his smile escape, aware that it was not a pleasant
sight. "I _did_ warn you about him," he gloated. The other's
wrath filled him with an unmitigated joy, and he fully intended to
savor the moment. "Nicholas can be so _terribly_ headstrong at
times."

Valerian seethed. "And you're proud of him for that!"

Appreciating the irony, Lacroix allowed the smile to reach his
eyes. "Oh, yes," he breathed. "Particularly now that he's
defeated you."

"He has _not_--"

"I'm afraid I really must beg to differ," Lacroix cut him off. "I
do have _some_ knowledge of your past accomplishments, after all.
So tell me, Inquisitor. Enlighten me. Has any other vampire ever
resisted your tender persuasions so thoroughly and for so long?"
Valerian's eyes flashed gold, spurring Lacroix's enthusiasm for the
baiting to come. "I thought not," he surmised. "He _has_ won.
Therefore, _I_ have won."

The Inquisitor bared yellowed fangs. "You've won _nothing!_" he
hissed.

"No? Did you get an answer to your question, then?" Lacroix
queried in mock innocence. "Did Nicholas ever once tell you _why_
he seeks mortality? No? How very uncooperative of him." He
exulted in the next taunt. "He has, of course, given _me_ that
answer many times. But he will not yield to you. _He has defeated
you!_"

"No." The other Ancient glowered at him. "Your insolent fledgling
has won nothing but permanent undeath. Or a stake through the
heart, if I am charitable."

Lacroix advanced a step, adopting his most threatening pose. "I
will allow neither," he said.

That had done it. The Inquisitor's pique turned to rage. "_You_
will allow? _You?!!_" Eyes flaming, Valerian flew at him.
Lacroix caught him by his scrawny neck with one hand and held him,
contemptuously, at arm's length. The Enforcers growled softly from
their place beside the stair, but made no move to intervene.

"Your lackeys appear rather disinclined to cosset you now," Lacroix
jeered. "Tsk. Such disloyalty. But by all means, allow me to
prove that I can be charitable as well. I will permit you to keep
your sham of a formidable reputation." He breathed the words into
Valerian's outraged face. "Give Nicholas to me, and I will tell no
one of your failure here. I shall develop a sudden and
_convenient_ lapse of memory."

Hissing an oath, the elder vampire twisted free, retreated and then
lunged at him anew. Again, Lacroix caught him, this time by both
arms, and this time flung him away. The Enforcers stepped smoothly
aside as their erstwhile master crashed through the wooden railing
and tumbled down the open stairwell.

Lacroix flew after him, caught him as he rolled to the base of the
rough-hewn steps, and pinned him there against the stones.
Valerian struggled for a few futile moments, then finally ceased
squirming to glare up at his attacker through crimson eyes. "I
could have you destroyed for this!"

His own eyes burning, Lacroix pulled the Ancient to his feet and
snarled a single, defiant challenge.

"_Try!!_"

Valerian broke free and began backing up the crumbling stairs.
Once out of his adversary's reach, he gathered the shreds of his
tattered dignity for one last threat. "This is not over, Lucius."

"Oh, but it is." Lacroix's voice had lowered to a soft, ominous
purr. "And you have lost. You will never touch Nicholas again,
Inquisitor. Anyone who does, shall answer to _me!_"

With a final infuriated growl, Valerian retreated up the stairs and
took flight, disappearing into the night sky. A brief cascade of
sandy debris trickled down the stairway in his wake.

Lacroix turned to find another Enforcer lurking in the open doorway
of the small tower room. The huge, mute vampire glanced once at
the open sky visible above the stairs. Then, with a deferential
nod to the ancient victor who remained, he turned and walked
silently away.

With a satisfied smile, Lacroix brushed the dust from his otherwise
meticulous clothes, and went to reclaim his son.

***
Bizarre images had begun to invade his Undeath. Nick struggled to
make sense of them with little success. First had come the echo of
his first feeding: Lacroix bending over him, offering a slashed
wrist to whet his first Hunger; then the incredible deluge of
_knowing_ that flowed into him along with the life-giving blood.
This time, however, the knowledge was that of a triumph over the
one called the Inquisitor, and the flashes intrinsic to it both
surprised and confused him. Lacroix, fighting for him? Lacroix,
_defending_ him?

Someone lifted his head; he felt the cold edge of a cup pressed to
his lips, smelled the piquant, iron aroma of blood.

Human blood.

Murmuring a feeble protest, he tried to push the offering away.
"No..."

"Nicholas, I swear to you," Lacroix's near-whisper said from above
him, "that none of your revered mortals died to provide this.
I have connections, even here. Now please, you _must_ drink."

Lacroix issuing not a command, but a plea. This was an odd
hallucination indeed. Well, Nick's subconscious argued reasonably,
if hallucination it was, then what harm in complying? He drank,
and when the reaffirming essence had filled him, replenished him,
he fell into a deep, healing sleep.

He became aware of his surroundings by degree. Candlelight.
Tapestries hanging against grey block walls. An upper chamber of
Valerian's castle? But he knew that Valerian was no longer here.
Lacroix's blood had told him...

A door had been thrown open to the night air. A balcony lay
beyond it, and a tall figure stood out there in the night. Rising,
he went to the doorway and paused there, waiting.

"Good evening, Nicholas." His master did not turn around.

"Lacroix..."

He couldn't find the necessary words, and so said nothing, but
in silence allowed their bond to speak for him. It spoke of eight
centuries of conflict through which he had never thought his sire
capable of kindness, of compassion. Centuries that had seen them
cruelly at odds; together but never united; bound by blood, yet
divided by blood. In all that time, he had not once suspected
that, somewhere beneath the enmity, there might lurk in Lacroix a
measure of pride in his rebellious creation.

For several moments, the elder vampire 'listened,' inclining
his head as though to look back over his shoulder. "So," he said
at length, "it would appear that I am not quite the monstrous
oppressor you had always imagined after all." He drew in a brief,
sharp breath, then added softly, "And you are most assuredly
welcome."
He turned then, the smile he wore genuine and _caring_ for the
first time in Nick's very long memory. He extended a hand toward
his son.

"Come, Nicholas. It is time we were on our way home."

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*