Chicago's midnight streets teemed with mortals. The lowest of the low they may be, but Janette reveled, none the less, in striding through their midst.

Four prostitutes glared at her in passing from their places in front of a seedy hotel. Doubtless they were sizing up the competition, checking out the new girl in town. But then, they had no idea just how formidable this particular rival could be.

High heels slapping cold sidewalk with a satisfying, rhythmic clip clip clip, she passed the ladies-in-waiting without returning their stares. Her gaze focused instead on the street, where more than a dozen automobiles prowled, several of their drivers unabashedly inspecting the sidewalk's human "merchandise." Janette knew that look all too well; had known it, in fact, for close to a thousand mortal years.

One of the drivers had just parked his brand new ‘54 Chevy near the hotel. He'd gotten out to converse briefly with the quartet, but the prices they quoted had apparently displeased him. Janette's preternatural ears heard him spew a series of drunkenly slurred epithets before he turned and headed down the street – after her.

She smiled, and continued walking, assured now that her prey would follow. Like the mortal women of the street on this night, she was hunting. Unlike them, she would take something of far greater value to the "john" than his money.

From a nearby rooftop, LaCroix watched with pride as his daughter lured her inebriated victim through an alley to the broken remains of an abandoned loading dock. He drifted closer to listen, to watch, and to savor the moment of the kill...

"C'mon, c'mon!" the mortal was demanding loudly. "How much?"

Her characteristically demure reply echoed off the cinder blocks now surrounding them. "Nothing less than all you have."

When the mortal reached to shove her forcefully against the bay wall, Janette feigned helplessness, meekly permitting the assault. LaCroix watched with mounting interest, one corner of his mouth quirking slightly upward.

"Damned whores," the human grunted, and shoved her again. "Jus' gonna take what I wan'..."

"Oh, yes, please." Janette's suddenly-enthusiastic response baffled her would-be rapist, making him hesitate. "One should always take what one wants," she went on. "And I..." One deceptively delicate hand snaked up to clutch the man's throat; he began choking at once. "...want you."

LaCroix noted with pride that she attacked with all the graceful precision of a viper. In moments, the mortal lay drained at her feet, and Janette, with eyes of glowing amber, gazed upward as her master landed silently beside her.

"And now, my dear Janette," he said, "we really must attend to the matter at hand."

"Nicolas." She breathed the name as though it were an invocation. "You know where to find him? Is he at the university?"

"As he so helpfully informed the newspaper and television cameras, he is the night curator and associate professor of the university's archaeological museum. Or was." LaCroix drew the word out, delighting in it. "It would appear that, for once, our beloved Nicholas has been forced from his mortal guise under circumstances that were not of our making."

"A mortal forced him out?"

"So it would seem." Closing his eyes, LaCroix probed at age-old vibrations that linked him to Nicholas – and sensed three most-promising emotions. His rebellious progeny was disillusioned, distraught, and very, very angry. Excellent! "This is a situation we can most likely use to our advantage," he told Janette, his pale eyes open once again. "The only question will be how best to use it to draw Nicholas back into the fold."

"Well now..." His daughter's sultry eyes fell briefly to the corpse sprawled on the concrete below them. "I think you might perhaps leave that to me..."

His name plate had been the last item packed, the last of many pieces comprising the life of Professor Nicholas Girard. Of all the mortal lives he had adopted and abandoned in seven hundred years, Girard's was proving the most difficult of all to leave behind. Perhaps because this time, moving on had not been his choice, nor his master's. This time, the catalyst for his change of venue had been the vindictive manipulation of an entirely mortal rival.

"There's something about you, Girard." Mark Trimble had stood in this very office six months ago, and with the smug mortal arrogance that defined the man, had sworn, "Whatever it is, I'm going to dig it out. And then I'm going to expose you."

Nick had commandeered the archaeologist's cold gray eyes and tried to exert the vampire's mental persuasion. "That really wouldn't be wise," he'd said, and for a moment it had seemed that the influence would take hold. "You really don't want to do that. Trust me, Dr. Trimble. For your own sake, if for no other."

But Trimble had shaken off the mental hold with an almost-inhuman ease, stumbling away from him and nearly colliding with a shelf of priceless artifacts in the process.

"What are you doing to me?" he'd demanded, and now there was genuine loathing in his colorless eyes. "What were you trying? Hypnosis? Is that what you practice down here in this crypt of an office all night long?"

Nick tried a more human means of intimidation then. "I was merely pointing out," he said forcefully, "that investigating me would not be in your best interest."

Trimble glowered. "Is that a threat?"

Nick permitted the vampire's deep bass voice to reply. "Call it what you will."

"Oh, no." Trimble's face had gone red, a hue very nearly matching his hair. "I don't know who you really are or where you came from. But I can guarantee you, I have connections who can find out. I didn't spend eight years working my ass off in this mausoleum to lose the curatorship to a johnny-come-lately who pops up out of nowhere and convinces the board to hand him the position! It was supposed to be my job, Girard. Everyone knew it. I worked for it!"

Nick's expression remained ice hard. "Did you? The way I hear it, your ‘work' consisted of plagiarizing others' papers, politically ruining your competitors, and carrying on sordid affairs with married secretaries and grade-seeking coeds."

"Prove it." Trimble was a master at matching threat for threat. "And believe this. I'm going to find the chinks in that brick wall of a phony resumé you turned in. And if that doesn't rout you, I'll find something else that will. One way or another, I'm going to destroy you."

Nick's unblinking response seemed to unsettle Trimble for the first time. "That," the vampire said coldly, "would be far more difficult than you imagine."

But Trimble had proven true to his word. Of all the tactics he might have employed to destroy his hated rival's career, informing the House Un-American Activities Committee that Chicago U's night curator was a secretly a "Communist" was the last thing Nick had expected. And it had indeed ended his career.

The dean had made it official yesterday. His services would no longer be required. He was to be off the premises by this time tomorrow. So ended the too-brief life of Professor Nicholas Girard.

"Dr. Girard?"

The sudden proximity of a human heartbeat startled Nick from his reverie. The visitor was – had been – one of his less-promising students, an uncommonly pretty brunette named Gwen Vollinger. The cosmetic aspect of her beauty was slightly marred at the moment, however, by twin streaks of dissolving mascara.

"Miss Vollinger." He stood to offer her the lone chair beside the desk piled with boxes, but she shook her head.

"No, I... can't stay long." She glanced nervously back at the door, as though she expected someone else to appear there. "I just came to say that... well that I think it's wrong, their letting you go like this. I know it's all lies, what they've said about you. And I know it was Dr. Trimble who started it. He hates you. He always has."

"How do you know that, Gwen?" The use of given names was an impropriety not permitted between teacher and student. But then, he was no longer a teacher. "Did he tell you that?"

Her bitter laugh puzzled him for a moment. "You always gave me the grades I deserved," she said, "even if they were lousy Cs and Ds." She raked the back of one hand across her cheek, smearing the make-up all the more. "But Dr. Trimble... Well, it's not exactly a secret what a girl has to do to get an A out of him, is it?"

"Gwen..." He started to extend a hand, but she rejected the gesture with an uplifted palm.

"I didn't mean to talk about that. I only came to say that... well, to tell you I know you're no Communist. You were the best prof in this entire department. And I'm gonna miss you."

There was an awkward silence while Nick tried to formulate an appropriate response. "That means a great deal," he finally said, the sentiment sincere. "Thank you."

She gave him a forced smile before losing her battle with tears and turning to flee. But Nick had the unshakable impression there had been something more she'd wanted to say.

Locating Nicholas' signature had never been difficult. At times like this, however, LaCroix might as easily have followed a lighthouse beacon. He found Nicholas, resentments seething, lurking on the third floor balcony of a university office building, peering in at a mortal who appeared to be packing boxes.

LaCroix chose a landing point near his son, yet still out of the mortal's line of sight. "Not your usual fare, surely?" he chided in hushed tones, and smiled at Nicholas' annoyed reaction. "Or is this, perhaps, the mortal who caused you all that terribly public grief with the Communist hunters?"

"Leave me alone, LaCroix. I don't need your help here."

"Indeed? Well, my encouragement, then. Your loathing for this mortal is discernible  a continent away. Can our dear, reluctant Nicholas actually be contemplating retribution? How delightful." As he spoke, LaCroix sensed Janette's arrival on the rooftop just above. Nicholas glanced upward, apparently having felt it as well.

"I wasn't contemplating anything," his son said, even though the lie was painfully transparent.

"He's packing to move from this office into yours. To take your place. Is he not?" Nicholas' bitter expression was all the answer he required. "Well then, it's quite simple. You have only to act on your entirely natural impulses."

"No."

"Oh, come now. Admit it to yourself. You'd like nothing more than to grip his vile neck in your very powerful hands and snap it like so much dry tinder. Just think of it!" Nicholas shook his head, but his eyes betrayed the gesture as insincere. He had obviously been thinking of precisely that, and little else, for some time now. "You know it's true," LaCroix pressed. "Vengeance, my dear Nicholas, is thine."

Defiance overwhelmed all else in Nicholas' gaze then, and he flew from the balcony in a flurry of cold, rushing air. LaCroix made no move to follow, but peered again through the window at the packing mortal's smug demeanor, and smiled to himself. Nicholas would be back.

And from the roof above, he felt Janette's reaffirmation of that thought, along with a promise. And now, her soft voice purred across their mental link, it is my turn.

The Nicolas she had known in centuries past had most definitely possessed far better taste. Janette stared at the mundanely drab apartment building in an equally nondescript neighborhood, and marveled that Nicolas' vibrations did indeed emanate from inside. How could he live in such a place, packed so tightly round with mortals?

Well, best not to dawdle here wondering. The night would end soon, and to spend the day with Nicolas, even in a hovel, was far preferable to huddling for hours in one of these wretched alleys.

She entered through an open window to find him brooding (hardly a surprise, that) on the overstuffed sofa in front of one of those television devices. The black-and-white image flickering on the screen portrayed some ridiculous melodrama with men in gun belts and silly hats facing one another down on a dusty street. The object of her attention, however, seemed oblivious to the fictional gunplay. He sipped at a wine glass half full of.... Janette sniffed. Something not of human vintage. So, he continued in his quest to spare humanity, even to become one of them again. A dream as foolish now as it had been six hundred years ago.

"Hello, Nicolas."

He made no reply at first, though she knew he had sensed her arrival. He stared into the wine glass, appearing to address its deep red contents. "If you've come to do LaCroix's bidding..."

"I came of my own free will," she pouted. "But if this is how you greet me after so long a time, perhaps I shall go away again."

She turned back toward the window, but apparently her wounded tone (some of which had been genuine) had sufficiently roused Nicolas from his torpor. He was beside her in a flash, one hand firmly but gently grasping her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Please, don't go."

She squeezed his hand in pleased response. He moved briefly away to pull a heavy drapery across the window, returning to draw her at once into his arms. The kiss said without need of words that he had missed her, but beneath the passion lurked the smoldering rage that both she and LaCroix had already sensed in him.

"I worry for you, Nicolas," she told him truthfully, "when you are so angry, yet you give your anger no outlet. Even for us, mon cher, this cannot be healthy."

"Tell me," he said, and all the bitterness of seven unhappy centuries weighted his words, "why the dead need be concerned with being healthy."

"Oh, Nicolas. Why must you hate us so?"

He drew her closer, breathing his reply into her ear. "Not you. I never hated you."

And from the intensity of the kiss that followed, she knew it to be true. More gunfire erupted from the forgotten television set as he lifted and carried her to the pathetically small bedroom. Well, no matter. It was shelter from the daylight, and it was Nicolas. Her Nicolas, even if he had been away for many years. He would be hers today, for just this one day at the very least, and all would be as it had been in the beginning, before he'd begun this relentless crusade to be mortal again.

He made love to her with an almost-savage desperation that both surprised and pleased her. But more pleasing still was another, far darker savagery that she had tasted in his blood.

Nicolas wanted revenge.

She awoke shortly after dusk to find that he had already gone. So like him, to leave without a word. Not that it would be difficult to find him again...

She indulged in a bath before dressing, and on her way across the apartment's living room, the wine glass he had left on the coffee table caught her eye. It was still half full. She swept it up with one hand, warily took a sip... and winced. "Oh, Nicolas!" She shuddered. "How on Earth can you drink such swill?"

Resisting the urge to smash the vile libation against a wall, she placed it back on the coffee table instead, and flew off in search of a significantly more vital form of nourishment.

Her repast concluded, she followed Nicolas' signature to the university, and found him once again haunting that unsavory Trimble person, this time in a basement full of dusty museum artifacts. Nicolas had chosen the overhead girders supporting a heating unit from which to spy on the mortal. She opted to hide from them both behind a more mundane storage crate.

Trimble was unpacking the boxes LaCroix had seen him pack the night before. This had been Nicolas' office, she realized, and this man was clearly wallowing in the triumph of replacing him. So this had been the reason for that farcical charade of a "hearing" by the collection of imbeciles calling themselves the HUAC. Trimble had wanted Nicolas' job, and now he possessed it. Well, for the moment, anyway. If Nicolas did not kill him, Janette mused, then she would.

Reflecting on such pleasant prospects, she nearly missed the intrusion of a second mortal, an attractive young woman carrying an oversized shoulder bag who marched angrily up to the distracted professor.

"Gwen!" Trimble dropped a glass paperweight he'd been holding, and it shattered noisily on the concrete floor. "You shouldn't be down here at this hour. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You bastard. You know why I'm here!"

"Gwen, sweetheart..." Trimble's voice became suddenly cajoling. "Didn't I promise I'd take care of it? I can get you on a flight to Mexico City, just like I said. The people I know in the clinic down there will take care of your little problem, no questions asked. You'll be back in class inside a week, with no one the wiser. Didn't I promise? Didn't I?"

"My little problem?" The girl's voice broke, choked with tears. "You had nothing to do with it, I suppose? And it's not bad enough you've ruined my life, you had to ruin Dr. Girard's, too. You son of a–"

He struck her, a vicious, backhanded blow that sent her reeling back to land in a sprawl on the floor. He'd taken two steps toward her when something large and dark dropped out of seemingly nowhere, laid incredibly powerful hands on him and slammed him – very hard – against a tall metal file cabinet beside the desk.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you here and now," Nicolas growled, and the fury in him made Janette thrill with anticipation. Do it, Nicolas. Do it now!

"No!" Trimble croaked in a pathetic, squeaking plea. "Please! It's not what you think!"

"Isn't it?" The vampire's voice was deep and deadly. "I should crush the life from you here and now. It's less than you deserve."

Just when Janette thought he would do it, a sound drew his attention away. He did not release the man, but he turned aside to look at the mortal female, who had retrieved herself and the shoulder bag from the floor – and was now pointing a large, ugly pistol at Trimble. "You're not going to ruin anyone else's life," she sobbed. "Never again."

"Gwen, don't–" But Nicolas' effort to cross the space between them and grab the gun was a split second too late. Perhaps his subconscious intention? Janette could but hope. Gwen pulled the trigger. Nicolas had been moving to intervene at the time, and the bullet, as bullets were wont to do, passed through him to strike Trimble squarely in the chest. Mortally wounded, he tried to bolt, grabbed at the desk, and then fell with a strangled cry. While the tantalizing aroma of warm blood began filling the air, Nicolas cradled the weeping coed in his arms, belatedly pulling the gun from her hand and casting it away.

"It's all right," he soothed. "It's going to be all right." Janette watched him capture her gaze, and once again with the vampire's commanding voice, he said, "Stay here."

His shoes crunched on the paper weight's broken shards as he crossed the floor and knelt beside Trimble, who had collapsed in a sitting position against the desk. Janette could feel the turmoil of conflicting emotions as he touched two fingers to Trimble's neck. The mortal's glazing eyes refocused briefly, staring with undisguised terror at Nicolas. "What... what are you?" he rasped, but there was no time for an answer to his question. Even from her hiding place, Janette could hear the man's heart falter and come to an abrupt halt. She stepped out of hiding then, aware that Nicolas had long ago sensed her presence anyway. All the same, she maintained a discreet distance while he returned to the mesmerized Gwen, looked deeply into her eyes, and again exerted the vampire's influence.

"Listen to me carefully, Gwen. You never came here tonight. You never slept with Mark Trimble. He was just an archaeology professor who mysteriously disappeared on this night, and no one will ever know what became of him. By next week, there will be records in place to prove that you were legally but secretly married to your child's father. His name was David Wilkins, and he was part of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He was killed last month in an accident while on duty there." Janette observed a single tear escape to run down the young woman's cheek. Nicolas gently wiped it away. "Go home now," he said. "When you wake up tomorrow, you'll just be college student Gwen Vollinger again, except that now, you'll be mourning the death of your husband."

"Yes," she answered in the flat tone all mesmerized mortals employed. "I should go home now."

By the time Gwen had made her way out the door, Nicolas had retrieved the discarded pistol and moved to stand over his late adversary, whose mortal remains were about to disappear.

"You will have to disappear as well, you know," Janette said quietly. "Dr. Girard will surely be suspect when it is learned that Trimble is missing." She'd felt a glimmer of hope in him when Trimble had died. A hope that he might somehow salvage this life now that his rival was gone. Impossible, of course, but Nicolas would have to be convinced of it. "Come with us, Nicolas. We have missed you."

His attention focused on the corpse, Nicolas made no reply. Even when LaCroix's unmistakable signature invaded the basement, he did not look up.

"Nicholas, Nicholas." A tongue-clucking LaCroix seemed to materialize from the shadows behind the storage crate. "Will you never learn how very fragile these mortal guises of yours must always be? Come. Leave this folly behind you. Accept what you are and rejoin your family."

Still, Nicolas said nothing. He knelt, hefted Trimble's body, and finally turned to face them. "I'll make my own way," he said coldly. "Without you." And with that, he was gone, carrying his burden up a short flight of steps and out into the empty parking lot behind the museum. They followed, though by the time they emerged into the night air, Nicolas had already flown.

LaCroix's disappointment over their failure to re-ensnare Nicolas emanated across the link between vampire father and daughter. "So much," he commented drolly, "for seduction."

Janette merely offered him her most coquettish smile. "Mes oui," she said. "But there will be another time." And as they also took flight into the night sky, she added sagely, "We do, after all, have all the time in the world..."