Considering the many sides of LaCroix that we 
have seen as of late, I thought I'd post this story of 
mine that I had submitted to the DOW II writing 
contest.  Comments welcomed at sac116@psu.edu 
  
  
                        A Legacy To Remember 
  
        The official report would call it suicide.  Uncomfortable with 
much more than the blood, Nick walked around the emissary's suite looking 
for some clue that might lead him closer to the truth.  What would make a 
Vatican ambassador take his own life? 
        The knife had cut deep and clean. The fine Italian suit that 
hung from the bathroom door had just been pressed.  His papers lay in 
careful bundles on the bed, ready and waiting for whomever came to 
take his place.  Nothing out of the ordinary; not a stitch out of place, 
even his hands were folded with perfect symmetry over the towel that 
draped his chest.  If ever a case were as neat a package as this, surely 
Nick could not remember. 
        Rome would have to be notified, but that was something 
for the crown to do, nothing for a simple homicide cop to worry about. 
Nothing about this case, however, was simple.  Least of all the nagging 
feeling, the overwhelming familiar doubt that picked at Nick's reason and 
made the Bishop's death all the more bizarre. 
        Natalie's findings were just as Nick anticipated; suicide by 
bleeding to death.  Nothing out of the ordinary. 
        "Unless you call a prominent Catholic Bishop slitting his 
wrists ordinary.  I don't know about you, but I'd find this just a wee bit 
upsetting if I were The Church."  Natalie pulled out a plastic bag that 
contained the knife.  She held it up to the light, still in the clear wrapping, 
and turned it slowly from side to side. 
        "Beautiful, isn't it?  I've never seen one quite like it."  The 
unspoken question hung in the air.  Nick finally answered.  Natalie 
smiled to herself, knowing when to let him speak and when to wait in 
silence.  He knew that look too. 
        "But I have.  Sixteenth century.  French.  It's a model of one 
Cardinal Richelieu had in a collection of antique daggers.  Very nearly 
perfect in detail." 
        "Cardinals kept things like this?  What about all those vows 
of poverty and chastity?"  Nick smiled knowingly. 
        "Those were monastic ideals.  And even they didn't hold them 
as 'holy' as some would have you believe.  No, The Church was rich and 
powerful and those in it lived as lavishly as kings, if not better" 
        "So what is a Roman Bishop traveling on diplomatic business 
for the Vatican doing with this, and why on earth would he commit suicide? 
Isn't that some sort of cardinal sin?"  Nick winced.  Even he could feel 
the cool metal as it must have felt cutting into the skin, cutting into a 
life of dedication and devotion, washed away in a river of blood. 
        "His suicide will keep him from salvation . . . at least, that's 
what they believe."  He looked out past the morgue doors into nothing. 
Obviously Natalie hadn't thought of that or what it might mean to Nick. 
        "What's Rome going to say?  Did he have any family, does 
it affect them . . . hello . . . Nick, are you listening to me?"  She snapped 
her fingers in front of his face and he grabbed her hand in his to stop it. 
Turning around, Nick caught sight of something just beyond his vision 
and realized there was something he had to do.  He kissed her quickly. 
        "I'll see you later, Nat.  Thanks for the quick work."  He 
was gone before she could catch her breath. 
        Janette stood at the bar engaged in her usual half-hearted 
conversation.  The glass in her hand was just about empty;  the absent 
barman no doubt searching out some of her "special" vintage. 
Watching her wait--something she did not do well--was almost 
entertaining.  She caught his thought as it drifted down past her, 
tossing one of her dreadful stares back up towards the stairwell. 
Though he didn't smile, he wanted to.  He took the safest route and 
simply moved down to the bar.  The careful smile that crossed her 
lips was almost inviting. 
        "Nothing better to do than stare at me, I see.  Well, 
finally, you've come to your senses.  What can I do for you, Nicholah?" 
She knew that something always brought him here, but it was fun 
to tease him.  Some things never change. 
        "Janette...I'm looking for LaCroix.  Have you seen him?" 
Her eyes widened with amazement. 
        "You, looking for LaCroix?  Excuse me, mon chere, but 
I can hardly believe my ears.  Why?"  Nick looked around, suddenly 
uncomfortable with his back against the open dance floor.  He 
searched the crowd; nothing unusual. 
        "I have to talk to him, that's all."  He faced her once 
again, still keeping an eye out for the stranger in his mind. 
        "Have you tried the radio station?  He does seem to 
enjoy his little job, and why not; we all find our "moonlighting" 
pleasant, once in a while, non?"  The bartender stooped down to 
light the cigarette waiting in her hand.  Janette took a long breath 
in, the smoke swirling gently around the edges of her mouth. 
        "He's not there.  Hasn't been for days.  Has he been here?" 
                   She turned her head away and exhaled. 
        "What are you so anxious about then, Nicholah?  You 
can tell me...but I already know, don't I?  It's that Bishop from Rome. 
Don't look so surprised; it doesn't take long for this kind of thing 
to get around.  Besides, I have my own informants, you know.   I 
can see your memory is full of ghosts, Nicholah.  Get rid of them; 
believe me, they can only hurt you now."  Her lack of sympathy 
for the sad reminder of his life long since gone was almost too 
contemptible. 
        "He killed himself, Janette, but, I can't figure out why. 
It doesn't make sense.  Was he hiding something?" 
        "What do you care for a man like that?  What was he 
underneath his robes and golden rings?  He was just a man. 
Nothing more."  The words fell from her mouth, all antipathy 
and accusation.  Nick narrowed his eyes as she turned toward the 
bar and bit her lip. 
        "How do you know?"  Janette drank deeply from 
the glass that had just been filled.  He waited as she swallowed slow 
and hard against her drink.  It gave him just a little chill to remember 
the taste, so sweet, so- 
        "Because men are just that, men.  They don't change just 
because you put them in white and call them father.   Oh, Nicholah, 
forget it.  Perhaps it was just his time.  Perhaps he had carried his 
burden as far as he could take it.  Someone else will take it over now. 
Go back to your criminals, then.  It's none of your concern."  She 
turned to walk away.  Nick reached for her, somehow unsure of 
what lay beneath this dark reaction.  Gently, he kissed her cheek. 
        "Maybe you're right.  But if you see LaCroix, tell him 
I want to talk to him." 
                And then he was gone.  Up and out into the street and 
off into his own world.  The door behind the bar opened up, 
the unused hinges creaking against the movement. LaCroix 
stepped out and up behind her.  He leaned down into her, his 
lips just brushing past the tip of her ear. 
        "Me thinks that thou protests too much, my dear."  His 
hands rested familiarly on her silken shoulders. 
        "He's gone isn't he?"  Just a little bit defensive, Janette 
bit back against his sarcasm with a mocking voice. 
        "But he'll be back." 
        "I would have thought that would please you."  LaCroix, 
for a moment, bowed his head. 
        "Nicholas has many gifts.  Timing, however, is not one 
of them.  Keep him away from me until it's over." 
        "How long will that be?  I mean, is there any hope?" 
Her concern was genuine; LaCroix understood that much. 
        "None.  Maybe a day, maybe two; perhaps if there 
were more time.  I can only do so much-" 
        "You are doing all you can; at least she's comfortable. 
You found her. That should be some consolation." 
        "Consolation?  That I found her, only to watch her die? 
Janette, sometimes you can be very stupid." 
                The words cut deep.  The door was closed before she could 
think of something to say to make it right.  But nothing would 
ever make it right.  Hundreds of years, chasing souls across time. 
It was like hunting phantom prey; there would never be any 
satisfaction at its conclusion.  She took her glass in hand. 
                Tonight, nothing seemed to be enough. 
  
                Driving back towards home, Nick could not dislodge 
that persistent pull that tugged at the back of his mind.   Of all 
times for LaCroix to disappear, just when Nick needed him. 
Well, he always had a lousy sense of timing, showing up when 
he was least desired and now, absent the only time he was truly 
wanted.  Of all the ironic turns his life had taken in these last 
eight hundred years, Nick could not understand where this one 
would take him. 
                LaCroix had followed him and badgered him 
for a hundred years and now, when he finally wanted to talk 
to him, LaCroix was nowhere to be found.   Nick had to admit, 
that for the first time in ages, he actually felt like he needed 
LaCroix.  Just to talk, just to find that fatherly silence that 
had often marked their conversations.  Though usually, he 
would later turn whatever Nicholas had to say against him 
--a trick that LaCroix had almost perfected--still, only LaCroix 
could truly appreciate what all of this might mean.  The Bishop 
dead, and at his own hand, surely something more had come 
of this than that.  What could he have done to believe himself 
deserving of death, to be struck of all the heavenly reward 
that he had lived so exemplary a life to attain?  Or had he 
been less than what he appeared?  Janette had been passionate 
about her dislike of holy men; perhaps there was more there 
than simple discontent.  What could drive a man to this? 
                Fear, of being discovered perhaps, or shame at 
something he had done or had not done; the possibilities 
were endless.  But somewhere, at the back of his mind, Nicholas 
felt that LaCroix might know.  Could it be that he had a hand in 
this after all?  Something odd was behind LaCroix's 
disappearance.  Just before he caught sight of his building, 
Nick turned around and headed back to the Raven. 
        LaCroix removed the last of the blocks that time 
had placed in Milla's mind.  In her tired and fragile body, 
the dying girl carried with her a thousand years of memory; 
memory of the great women of the Delcastorina legacy, of 
a time when honor meant much more than life.  The visions 
went far back, as far back as he; all the way back to that first 
blackhaired vixen that had captured him and held him, 
promising never to let him go.  Milla carried more than 
her memories.  From her name to her shadowed face, from 
her full, red lips to her gentle, haunting eyes, LaCroix watched 
as that faded dream came to life before him, only to remember 
that the vessel of its journey would soon be broken, tossed 
asunder into the cruel, laughing path of fate.  He had found 
the one he had searched for, only to find her battered and 
dying.  All because of callous ambition and a fallen man of 
God.  LaCroix's rage almost made him ill. 
        Milla was the last of her kind.  They had been 
the concubines of the church, passed from pope to antipope, 
from prelate to priest, for almost a century of Rome's 
supremacy.  Her mother, the last surviving Delcastorina 
woman, fell in love with a painter in Salerno.  She had 
thought to have a life apart from her history, as if by some 
miracle she could escape her destiny.  When that painter 
took his vows, she did not know that she was carrying the 
child that would bring her death.  Neither did the painter. 
Years after, a farmer, who had raised the girl-child, took 
her to meet her father, then the archdeacon of Salerno. 
Not once did he deny that she was his, for how could he 
lie when all the world could see her mother in her eyes? 
He knew that she had been faithful to him, that she had 
died in childbirth five years before.  He took her, promising 
to care for her and raise her in a way that would have made 
her mother happy.  He gave the farmer some money and bade 
him farewell.  The child ran to meet her father, eager for his 
affection.  He tossed her to one side and cursed the day that 
she was born; she would not interfere with his life's work. 
The child cowered before him as he left the room.  He never 
saw the old women who had come to bring his lunch, the 
one who hid behind the door until after he had gone.  No 
one ever heard them leave and the archdeacon, later Bishop, 
never heard from her again. 
        But this little one had a hard life.  Put out to do 
what unclaimed women do best, she struggled from her teens 
into her twenties and by her thirtieth birthday, the only 
thing she had to show for her life was the disease that was 
stealing it away.  Yet the beauty never left her.  And neither 
did her memories.  For each woman born of Delcastorina 
carried all the memories of those that were gone.  For 
LaCroix, that meant the first Milla, his Milla, the one he 
had loved despite himself.  Now, staring at the lingering 
one, the last Milla, he knew he could at least find what he 
had sought in this one's mind.  And he could make her 
passing easier, gentler, he could soothe the pain that claimed 
her now.  But beyond that, he could do no more.  Janette 
had allowed him to bring her here, to the club, but even 
that was becoming impossible.  Of all the times for Nick 
to come to him.  Sometimes, he wondered if it was really 
worth all the trouble. 
  
                The club was just about empty when Nicholas 
burst through the door.  Janette was not pleased to see him. 
        "I thought you had gone home." 
        "I have to find LaCroix.  Tell me where 
he is."  Nick grabbed her arm, holding it just a bit 
too tightly. 
        "Nicholah, go home.  Please; let go of me. 
Anyway, he's got his hands full right now." 
        "I bet he does.  But you knew where he 
was all along; why, Janette, did you lie to me?" 
        "I did not lie.  I just avoided the truth. 
Something you are becoming very, very good at 
Nicholah.  There was a time you would never have 
spoken this way to me."  The look in her eyes told 
him everything.  It was already too late. 
        "Why do you protect him?  If he is the 
one who did this, then he puts us all at risk." 
        "What do you know of 'us' Nicholah? 
You gave up being one of 'us' a long time ago. 
What matters is your mortal life, that is all you 
care about now.  First brutality and now deceit. 
This mortal world has changed you, mon chere, 
and I cannot say it was for the better." 
        "Neither can I."  LaCroix stepped out 
of the door that was just behind the bar, a secret 
place even Nick was unaware of until now.  Janette 
raised her downcast eyes just long enough to see 
the shock and hurt on Nick's face. 
        "A girl has to have some secrets, Nicholah. 
Even from those we love."  LaCroix moved between 
them. 
        "Children, please.  Time is much too 
precious to waste on petty disagreement.  And I 
shall not waste any of mine on you, Nicholas. 
I'm busy.  What do you want?"  Janette stepped 
away from them and hurried into the little room. 
        "Something new from you, LaCroix. 
The truth.  You were there when the Bishop died; 
why did you kill him?" 
                This unfounded passion Nicholas felt over 
the death of a ecclesiast was confusing for both of 
them and far too much effort for him to sort out 
now.  Eternity was at his back, and yet LaCroix 
was running out of time. 
        "Yes, Nicholas. I was there.  I can assure 
you, however, that he very much killed himself.  A 
shame really he didn't do it years ago.  But he finally 
came to understand that he didn't really have 
too much of a choice in the matter." 
        "You mean you didn't give him a choice." 
Nick was overwhelmed with his own greedy anger. 
LaCroix's hard gaze softened; yet Nick did not seize 
upon the opportunity for understanding, and so 
hardened again once, LaCroix spoke in the confident 
tones of the just.  After all, anyone can look the part, 
but it's the soul that makes the acting real. 
        "I mean he should not have lived.  What 
kind of man denies his own child just for power and 
glory?  I ask you, Nicholas, would you deny your 
daughter, send her out into the gutters of Europe just 
so you could keep your position?  What kind of justice 
is there when one sheep is sacrificed for the flock of 
another?"  A cry was heard from the little doorway. 
Janette stepped out, a look of terrified pity on her face, 
meant only for LaCroix.  She motioned them closer. 
        "Stop it.  This is not the time, nor the place. 
Nicholah, go home.  This has nothing to do with you." 
Her eyes were cold now as she looked at him, no more 
of that compassion remained for him.  She pulled 
LaCroix toward her. 
        "I don't think it will be much longer, please, 
she needs you-"  Pleadingly, Janette looked from one 
to the other. 
        "What's going on here?  I don't understand...." 
Enough was enough.  LaCroix yanked Nick closer by 
his shirt. 
        "Perhaps the God you once served wouldn't 
understand, but I do,  Nicholas.  I do."   LaCroix moved 
to close the door behind him, but Nick was quicker. 
Rather than risk any further disturbance, LaCroix 
stepped aside and allowed Nicholas to enter.  Then 
he closed the door behind them both. 
        "Nicholas, this is Milla.  She is the Bishop's 
daughter.  She is dying." 
        "She needs a doctor-" 
        "What she needs is peace.  The peace you 
broke when you barged in here when you weren't 
wanted.  Maybe now you'll go and leave me to my 
grief." 
        "What do you know of grief, LaCroix? 
You have always denied me mine.  Why should I 
care for yours now?" 
        "Not mine, Nicholas, but hers.  She is a 
lost child, cast out by a father that didn't want her. 
Hers is a pain you have never had to suffer.  Out of 
respect for at least that much of what I've given you, 
leave me.  Leave us now."  Nicholas said nothing. 
He remembered nothing of all his fine anger.  He 
watched him go to her.  Nick turned to leave. 
        Janette was waiting at the other end of 
the bar.  She was writing something, scribbling quickly 
as he came closer.  She pulled the paper back to her, but 
not quickly enough to stop Nick from ripping it out 
of her hands. 
        "That was not meant for you. Give it back, 
for pity's sake-" 
        "What is it?"  Half disdain, half remorse, 
Nick didn't know what he was feeling right now. 
Janette spoke up. 
        "I wrote that down just as she said it, word 
for word.  Be careful, Nicholah where you tread; you 
may find yourself in a place you never would have 
dreamed you would be."  He ripped the note out of 
her hand, his defiance more than customary, his 
determination something less than his courage. 
He brought the paper up towards the light, and 
read the words that Milla had meant for someone 
else. 
        "..She loved LaCroix, please tell him. 
Maybe he already knows. I can remember nothing 
greater than the love she carried for him.  The sadness 
and betrayal when he left her, the grief-she'd wanted 
to give him a child.  I can see her dark hair blowing 
in the hot summer wind, I can feel the tears she shed 
for him. Never once sorry for it.  Passed down to her 
daughter, and her to hers, until at last, I can bring it 
back to him.  I know thats why he's helped to keep me 
alive, because I remember my mother, and all the mothers 
that came before.  He shares my disease and I have shared 
his.  I wish that he could bring her back.  Tell him that I 
can feel the love.  If someone had loved me in this life as 
loyally as that, my time might have been different, but 
he has given me more in these few stolen days than I 
have known all my life." 
        Nick turned back.  He could feel the betrayal 
as sharply as if it had been his own; this time, he had been 
the one wielding the knife.  He passed her and she grabbed 
his arm, the fire in her eyes much hotter than her words 
as she spoke. 
        "Whatever you do, Nicholah, you do for a 
reason.  Perhaps next time, you might think about that 
when you condemn someone else.   Everyone, including 
LaCroix, has their reasons."  Pushing his arm away as 
she pulled back her own, Nick felt the sting as she cut 
the wound just a little bit deeper.  She had meant to 
make him wince.  He knew it.  Janette's eyes told him 
that she knew it too. 
  
The glow of the red lights shone in on the place 
where Milla lay.  LaCroix sat still by her side, watching 
her watch him, watching her die.  In that silent communion, 
Nick felt terribly out of place, like an unwanted dinner 
guest. For as much as he wanted to leave, he could not; 
he himself, this night, had set the table.  He was the host 
for this last supper and as such, could not run away; 
and how very much he wanted to run. 
        He moved over toward LaCroix.  Standing 
beside him, he wanted to reach out a hand to him, just 
to touch him on the shoulder, just a token of his sorrow. 
Through all the years together and apart, he had never 
considered LaCroix's feelings in any matter.  The 
struggles over domination had made mute any bond 
of brotherhood, and though he had fought for life and 
death, even dreamed of felling him by his own hand, 
it was indeed a strange and terrible thing to see the 
master somehow made more human.  Terrible and 
amazing. LaCroix jerked his head upward, meeting 
Nicholas eye to eye.  He started to speak, started to, 
but did not.  Whatever he had been moved to say, had 
vanished back into the darkness.  Nicholas stepped closer. 
        For a few minutes, all was silence.  The look 
shared by Milla and LaCroix almost made Nicholas smile. 
Searching, yet knowing, concerned yet somehow just a 
little bit cool, the two met in a place that Nicholas 
could not see.  Milla started to fade into the oblivion 
that claimed her body.  Closing lids twitched open and 
closed.  LaCroix's hold on her, too, was fading.  But he 
never looked away.  He started once again to speak, 
but he never looked away.  He spoke as if in a dream... 
                ". . . Tomorrow can ravage, time can torture, and 
tragedy falls in random tales, forever masking all the 
stories of unencumbered slumber and moments none 
too changeable to be nothing less than average.  Why 
then is it the last thing we remember when faced with 
death?  Why are we so superior that we claim failure 
at not taking fate by the neck and shaking it to our 
own accord?  How do we dare to imagine that any 
part of destiny has slipped from our hands, when we 
had none of it within our grasp and none of it to call 
our own. . ." 
                Armed with centuries of grief and lost 
reminiscence, still LaCroix could find no resolution 
to this eternal battle of human desperation.  Despite 
his seeming imperviousness to suffering, he bore the 
look of sadness as if it were a familiar burden. 
        "How strange this mortal shifting of souls; 
will I sense that it has flown?  Will I know it the next 
time it passes me?   Does it know its destiny?"  The words 
floated up and found their mark deep within Nicholas. 
They burned in a place that like himself, was hidden from 
the light within.  Without thinking, he turned and spit 
his anger back at LaCroix. 
        "What do you know of souls, LaCroix?  What 
do you know of destiny?"  LaCroix almost shivered at 
the baited words that Nick offered up with empty hands. 
Had he expected anything different?  Still his eyes never 
left the dying woman there before him. 
        "More, Nicholas, than you would dare to 
dream.  What you see here is a moment of magic, the 
moment when life gives way to that master of memory, 
that magician called death; he comes for her, and for her 
soul.  Witness, if you will, the moment when she sees her 
own death.  It is enough to make one weep." 
        "Then, surely, heaven mocks us in our tears." 
        "Heaven has no time for us, Nicholas.  We 
are drawn away from its blinding light by something 
much greater.  Can you not feel the pull of earth upon 
your weak and desperate heart?  Where is that man who 
knew no bounds of living and dying, of no remorse at 
the turning wheel of life and death?  Have you forgotten 
so much as to have killed the very thing you claim to seek? 
Where is your soul, Nicholas?"  His breath was hot, his 
words singed the very last of Milla's air, and all the while, 
LaCroix moved not his gaze from where she lay.  The 
world could have cracked, and LaCroix would have 
simply moved it out of his way.  Milla's world, Nick's 
world; weaving one upon the other in a somber 
mourner's suit of pain and sadness, resignation and 
regret.  The wasted lessons of one, the knowing 
certainty of another; how far the enlightened have to 
fall when time comes for them.  LaCroix's stare became 
more intense as he sensed the moment at hand.  Milla 
coughed.  Nick turned back towards her, her dying 
words left dying in her throat. 
        "I remember so much..."  With that final 
recognition, Milla faded into stillness. 
        "She is dead."  LaCroix repeated it without 
emotion.  How heavy was the burden of knowing LaCroix 
was not the monster he had so often called him; the guilt 
bore down on him until he could no longer stand his 
own weight. 
  
 
        Nick fell down upon his knees and wept.  With 
one hand LaCroix closed her lifeless eyes and with 
the other, stroked the locks of Nicholas's downcast 
head.  Blood tears stained the blanket as Nick pushed 
his face deeper into its softness.  He could hide himself 
from the world around him, but he could not hide 
from himself.  Try as he might, he could never hide 
from LaCroix. 
        "Life goes on, Nicholas.  More will be lost 
than this one, you know.  As long as you play at your 
humanity, at this wretched life of mortals, then you 
subject yourself to watching them die.  You play with 
them like toys and when they break you are left with 
nothing.  Nothing..."  LaCroix's voice trailed off, the 
truth of his own realization rising in his chest, 
smothering the sounds before they broke the surface. 
More than a lecture for his misguided pupil, the cruel 
rebuke mocked everything he had himself once done. 
        "What did she do to die this way?" 
        "This way?  You mean with me by her side? 
I freed her from her pain, from her suffering. " 
        "We should all die free, LaCroix."  Nick 
made no attempt to conceal his meaning. 
        "Free?  Free from me, is that what you mean 
Nicholas?  I barely knew her, yet she didn't want to be 
free of me, she didn't throw my affections back in my 
face.  Ungrateful child; you will never be free unless 
I give you freedom." 
        "My morality gives me freedom, LaCroix. 
I want nothing from you." 
        "You lie!  How can you say you want 
nothing, when you almost took away what I wanted 
most, to be here by her side, to remain near her in her 
final hours, to give her something you have never 
wanted-" 
        "What about what she wanted?"  Nick 
choked back his own foul words.  The note; yes, 
 Milla had wanted to be with LaCroix, and it had been 
Nick who had tried to interfere.  A figure moved 
silently through the open doorway. 
        "Nicholah; you know what she wanted." 
Janette's clear, strong voice ripped through his words 
like steel. 
        Struck by the chords of conscience, Nick 
reached down into his pocket and pulled out the rolled-up 
note that he had taken from Janette.  His hand trembled 
slightly as he extended it towards LaCroix. 
        "Milla wanted you to have this.  She told 
Janette.  I..." The paper slid into the waiting hand of 
LaCroix.  As he read, the stillness grew around them, 
like unseen perils in the dark.  He raised his eyes from 
the page and settled on Nick's.  What burned within 
was more than silent rage, it was almost more than 
Nick could take. 
        "What are you, then, some kind of 
masochistic animal?  You speak to me of freedom and 
yet you build the prison walls with your own righteous 
indignation?  You've hungered for this haven't you? 
This time you can't blame me for your faults.  I never 
taught you to be that cruel, Nicholas.  I never taught 
you to love someone else's pain so well."  Stabbed, as 
if by more than shame, Nick pulled away from 
LaCroix's crafted control. 
        "She was, important to me.  They all were. 
Especially, the first.  Milla was brilliant, she had a mind 
that was quick,  an understanding of the world that went 
beyond her small years...this one was the shade of a 
memory that I had not forgotten.  She knew, she 
understood.  She was tired of her burden, as was 
her father.  Tired of carrying the weight of a thousand 
years on their shoulders.  Hers from the memories 
of a majestic legacy, his from the misbegotten crimes 
of a pathetic and pristine world; no, they had both 
reached the end.  I was there only to see it over and 
done.  But this one, she understood, almost as if she 
remembered something that she could not have 
known.  And now she is gone."  Janette wanted 
to comfort him, but she did not know how. 
Nick wanted to slip away unnoticed.  Nothing 
would go unnoticed this night. 
        "Don't run away, Nicholas.  You always 
run.  Stand and accept responsibility for what you 
do, for what you are.  I'm getting tired of chasing 
you.  Someday I might stop, you know."  The 
half-threat hung heavy in the room. 
        "LaCroix....I am sorry." 
        "Don't be.  She gave me what I wanted, 
she allowed me to wait with her until it was time 
for her to go.  In the end, that's all it would have 
been anyway." Nick didn't believe him; it seemed 
that LaCroix barely believed it himself. 
        Hands once wrung in anger yielded.  Nick 
reached down to touch her.  The light was gone now, 
but somewhere inside, somewhere in the darkest 
part of death, a spark remained of Milla.  That spark 
was his memory now.  His and Lacroix's. Nick 
looked up towards him.  When their eyes met, they 
were, but for a single moment, still.  For a silent 
memory, at peace.  For a brief second in a shared 
millennium, at one. 
        LaCroix rose and placed a hand on 
Nicholas's shoulder. 
        "I have something else to do, then, if 
you'll excuse me.  I promised her to take her 
somewhere clean."  LaCroix reached down and 
raised her in his arms.  Nicholas stood before him. 
        "Shall we be going then?"  Nick looked 
down at the empty body of Milla then back again 
at LaCroix. 
        "What's this?  Compassion for the 
abandoned father? Pity, perhaps, Nicholas?" 
        "Can't I do this for you?  Can't we do 
this thing together?"  Janette blinked back the tears 
that she knew LaCroix could not shed.  Still, you 
could see the silent gratitude, the relief and joy 
that Nick's gesture had brought him. 
        "All right.  We go together." 
        The journey was over before it had begun. 
LaCroix and Nicholas stood at the edge of the 
mountain.  Just below the drop, a mound of new-fallen 
snow covered the tracks that led to the ledge on which 
Milla now lay buried.  She had wanted to be free of the 
fire in her veins, free of the heat that stole her life, free 
of the filth that claimed her body.  Here, on this 
mountain of ice and storm, Milla was finally at peace. 
        They stared at the open night below them 
in silent wonder.  Knowing more of one another and 
less of themselves, the two immortals stood in a careful 
equality, not likely to outlast the dawn. 
        "We've come a long way tonight, Nicholas. 
Do you think it was worth it?"  For the first time in 
centuries, Nick watched a look cross the great man's 
face and found nothing of the thing he hated.  The 
longer he gazed, however, the farther the look became, 
until finally it faded beyond recognition.  But not 
beyond his memory. 
        "Who can say, LaCroix?  Who can say?" 
LaCroix swallowed hard against himself.  After all, 
there was no more to be said.   It was, from now on, 
nothing but a shade of something wondrous, a spark 
of some eternal flame.  It was nothing but a memory. 
  
All Comments to Sandye Chisholm 
at Sac116@psu.edu