Reclaiming

Chapter 2

Nick kissed Natalie, no longer worrying about holding back. He pulled away, kissed her wrist, and looked at her with the longing she'd always hoped had been there. He pushed her hair away from her neck, and after a reassuring, yet hungry look, he sank his fangs into her neck.
Natalie gasped, caught off guard at the quickness of his movements. But just as the pain, the pull began, she started to feel as if she were watching the scene from outside herself. A fuzziness crept into her thoughts, panic formed in her chest. Just a little, Nick, just a little . . . .

Nick tasted how much she loved him. And from the first drop of her blood he knew he was doomed. He thought *stop*, he begged himself, willed himself to stop, but he could not. He felt her slipping away from him even as he felt his pull strengthen. Glass shattered above him, then iron hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him away from Natalie.

LaCroix caught Natalie as she slumped. She opened her eyes and started when she saw LaCroix' face instead of Nick's. He looked into her eyes, through the haze, and willed her to sleep, deep, dreamless and long. Sleep. She resisted, but her weakened state allowed the suggestion to take force. He carried her to the couch.

Nick panted, barely able to stand upright. "LaCroix, Natalie, oh . . . oh please . . . ."

"She is sleeping. She might be a bit weak for a day or two, but the good doctor will recover."

Nick covered his face with his hands, his voice shaky with emotion. "I almost took too much."

"May I ask, Nicholas, what you thought you were doing?" He suspected he knew. He hoped he was wrong.

Nick dropped his hands but didn't look at him. "Janette's cure. We . . . I was trying--"

"You failed." LaCroix regarded the pale doctor, listening to her slow but steady heartbeat. His relief at her condition surprised him.. It wasn't as if he really cared what happened to her, though he did admire some of the qualities she possessed: Passion, determination, intelligence, optimism. But she was a mortal, after all. He was only concerned with her life because of what the alternative would do to Nicholas.

He'd considered killing this woman more than once, and idly wondered how things would be now if he had. LaCroix knew he could blame her for Nick's withdrawals and rebellions and attempts to shed his nature, but if it hadn't been Dr. Lambert by Nick's side, it would have been someone else, perhaps someone less virtuous, just as it had been often enough through the centuries. As easy as it was to blame Nick's foolishness on her, it wasn't her doing. He knew where the blame lay.

Nicholas.

He had to put an end to this little saga once and for all. For all their sakes.

LaCroix snarled and backhanded Nick, knocking him into the air. Before Nick had a chance to stand, LaCroix projected himself across the room and jerked his son up by the shoulders, pinning him to the wall, his feet suspended above the floor.

"We've been through this how many times? How many centuries of this foolish, fruitless search for mortality? How many disappointments, Nicholas? How much more of this can you take?"

Nick closed his eyes. "I can't be this anymore." LaCroix watched the muscles in his son's jaw twitch.

"You said those exact words once, if I recall. Yet here you are, being what you are, centuries later. Doesn't that tell you something?"

Nick's eyes snapped open and he struggled against LaCroix' immovable grip. LaCroix snarled and dug his fingers in, sliding him farther up the wall.

"It is not going to happen, Nicholas." LaCroix' face was mere inches from Nicholas'. "It's such a simple concept. You will never be anything other than what you are at this very moment. You will never be mortal. Never." As he spoke the last word he jerked Nicholas, snapping his head into the wall. "Never."

Nick looked beyond LaCroix at Natalie, and his defeated expression made LaCroix want to slam Nicholas through every wall in the loft. Their relationship had come so far recently, with his sharing of his past, and then Divia, and now it was as if none of it had happened. Nicholas' wish for mortality had destroyed what they'd been building, rebuilding, over the last several months. All that concerned Nicholas now was the fate of his mortal friends, and where the fault may lay. As he watched a tear trickle down his son's cheek, he felt the zephyr tinge his eyes and twitch his still-concealed fangs.

"Nicholas, she is mortal. Mortals die. Whether she dies now or fifty years from now, does it really make a difference?"

"I almost killed her. I should have left. I should have moved on without saying anything."

"You should have, but you didn't. She will live. And now we will go." LaCroix said the words, doubting if his son was capable of doing so. "How long do you think you could have stayed here before someone noticed the fact that you don't age? Another five, ten years?"

Nick looked through LaCroix, his eyes hollow, dull. "She wanted to go with me when I moved on."

"So, if she left with you and you were part of her life until she died at a ripe, old age, how much longer would that have been? Fifty years at best? You are eternal. How insignificant is fifty years to a man who has forever?"

"I love her."

"I know. You'll get over it." LaCroix growled as his fangs ached to descend. "Now or fifty years from now, you'll survive her death and the deaths of all your mortal friends." He struggled to maintain his control. "But I have always been here, Nicholas. I have always taken care of you, always accepted you for what you are, not despite it. And I will always be here. Eternally." He lowered Nicholas to the floor without letting go and stepped forward, their bodies nearly touching. "What could she possibly give you in the next fifty years that I can't give you with all eternity stretching out before us?"

Nick focused on LaCroix' face for an instant.. He whispered, "She could give me . . . my humanity."

Nick nearly fell as LaCroix jerked his hands away and stepped back, stunned. He stared at Nicholas, unmoving. "She will live, Nicholas. But if her continued existence is so important to you, you can make her life eternal. It's not too late for you to bring her across."

Nick leaned over and kissed Natalie. "I can't condemn her to this darkness."

LaCroix nodded. "A wise decision."

Nicholas walked toward the window and picked up an ornate walking stick. "She had faith in me. In what's beyond. That we could have a life together. That this would be a beginning, not an end."

Nick knelt beside the couch, looking at Natalie. "I have that faith, too. I can't go on this way to be with her. And I can't condemn her to my existence. So whatever comes *after* . . . . I'll be there waiting for her."

"Don't be foolish, Nicholas," he said, watching his son stare at the unconscious doctor. "Life is a gift. As sweet as the freshest peach. As precious as a gilded jewel. I have never been able to understand the logic in willfully surrendering such a treasure.

"What is there to gain? How dark can your existence be, when compared to an eternal void? Or do you have faith, that there is something beyond?

"What do you see from where you are? A bright light at the end of the tunnel? Is it a ray of hope? A glimmer of something better? Or will it burn you like the morning sun? Are the sounds you hear, the trumpeting of St. Peter's angels, or the screams of Memnoch's tortured souls?

"You can't answer that, can you? Because you will never know the answer, until after the deed is done. And is your faith really that strong?"

Nick slowly nodded his head, tears filling his eyes.

LaCroix, stunned, spoke his fear: "And so, in your eyes, I'm the devil."

Nick stood before LaCroix and shook his head. "No, not the devil, LaCroix."

"What then?"

"You . . . are my closest friend." Nicholas slid the ornate knobkerrie into LaCroix' hands, one tear sliding down his cheek. Understanding passed between them like electricity.

LaCroix watched, stunned, as Nicholas turned and knelt. He clasped Natalie's hand in both of his, and waited. Leaning his head forward, he exposed his back to LaCroix. His heart.

The horrible realization sank home. "Damn you, Nicholas." LaCroix hoisted the weapon into the air, his mind reeling with his son's words. He held the impromptu stake high as he struggled to find one last line of reasoning that could snap Nicholas out of this madness.


...damn him everything tossed away tossed away for this for mortal guilt this is my punishment for creating him, my punishment for his lifetimes of regret how can he give up like this you have norighthowcanyouaskthisofme...

"Please, LaCroix," came the whispered plea. "Please."


...you really want to die, do you...

Nicholas' sob made LaCroix' decision for him.

LaCroix slammed the toe of his boot into Nicholas' side, flipping him onto his back. As Nick grunted in surprise, his eyes wild with confusion, LaCroix steadied his grip on the wood and set his jaw.

...then look me in the eyes...

Understanding flashed across Nicholas' face and his body tensed in anticipation. As LaCroix hoisted the Celtic stick high into the air, he spoke, barely a whisper:

"Yes, mon fils. As you wish."

Staring into the wet, blue eyes of his son, LaCroix drove the stake home.

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End Chapter 2 of 3

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