Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 15:56:14 EST From: Teleri Subject: "Faith" Well, for all of you who've tried to explain the origins of vampires, and LaCroix, and all that wonderful stuff... Here's my explanation of it all. Comments and criticism cheerfully accepted. ______________________________________________________________________ "Faith" by Teleri Beaty 1994 "So you're Dr. Lambert." As the dulcet, cultured tones reached her from across the room, Natalie looked up from her files, one hand absently reaching up to automatically brush away the tendrils of hair falling in her face. Her hand froze as she saw her visitor. Standing there, she felt like a fool for gaping, her mouth open comically. She suddenly became aware of the shortness of the distance from her door to her filing cabinet, of that fact that all her instruments were put away. Of the fact that she was alone. No one would ever reach her in time. He took a step further into the room, and suddenly Nat snapped out of her fear. Almost without meaning to, she snickered. As her visitor stopped short and looked at her, she smiled thoughtfully, her humour oddly restored. "For some reason, I sort of thought about not inviting you over the threshold." "That's not necessary. It's just a Hollywood legend--" "I know," she smiled. "It's just that--it almost seems that someone like you would call for it." "Someone like me." His brow furrowed slightly, and his eyes glinted dangerously as he advanced on her. "So," he breathed, "how much has dear Nicholas told you about me?" Nat shrugged and stepped back, breaking eye contact deliberately and snapping the file in her hand shut. Taking a deep breath, she turned her back to the vampire, placed the file inside the cabinet, and shut it before turning back to him. "Not much, really." She resisted the urge to cross her arms across her chest. "Just that you've been torturing him for eight hundred years." LaCroix sighed. "Nicholas is still his old self, I see." Nat smiled. "Thank God for that." The vampire's eyes flashed. "No, you can thank me," he corrected silkily. "I don't think so." LaCroix's eyes narrowed, and he took a step forward. "So, you're Nicholas' new toy, eh?" He looked around her room, seeing pale green walls, the shining machinery. His mouth twitched as his eyes rested on the sheeted corpse waiting for her ministrations on the examining table. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that Nicholas has developed a sense of humour." Nat tried to keep up her side of the conversation. "Yeah, he has. Along with a couple of other human traits." LaCroix turned to her and smiled evilly, and Nat shivered. "You'll never make him human again, Doctor," he purred. "Cease your pitiful little efforts." She shook her head. "I don't think so. I think I'm close--" "You're wrong, Doctor. You're very wrong." Nat turned on him, anger blossoming in her mind. "You just want to keep him under your thumb!" she gritted out. "Why should I believe you?" He stepped closer to her, and suddenly Nat realized that he stood close to her, too close, his black coat sweeping out to touch her pristine white one. He smiled down on to her, and she could see his lips twitch in silent laughter. He leaned down, and she felt his breath whisper against her ear. "You should believe me," he said, "because I know the secret of vampires." She turned to face him, locking on to his eyes with hers, knowing that he would never be able to hypnotize her in this state--Nick had never been able to hypnotize her when she latched on to something like this-- Her voice caught. "What do you mean?" "I know how vampires were created." He smiled. "And that's how I know that you can never cure Nick." LaCroix laughed deep in his throat. "There is no cure for what we are." Nat couldn't help it. "And that is?" One eyebrow twitched upward. "Surely you know, Doctor. Surely you've realized what we all are." "Photosensitive mutations of humanity?" He tsked her with his tongue. "No, my dear Doctor. Not even close." He wagged one finger at her. "That's your coldly logical mind speaking, I suppose. Doctors." Nat shifted backward, breaking the spell between them. Ducking her head, she paced around behind the examining table, ignoring the corpse. Once on the other side, away from LaCroix, she looked up. "Will you tell me?" "Tell you what?" he asked innocently, his smile telling her he was quite aware of her defensive tactics. "Oh, you mean the story of vampires?" His voice sharpened. "Why? So you can rush out and cure Nick? Ever the thoughtful doctor?" She became defensive. "If I knew what turned him into a vampire, I could use that knowledge to create an antidote. Or cure. Or something." She stared him straight in the eye. "I'd make one for you, too." He threw back his head and roared with laughter. "I?? I, become mortal again?" Then his hands flew down and grabbed the edge of the examining table, and he leaned low, nearly touching the corpse, venom shooting from his eyes. "Why should I?" he hissed. Nat had started when his hands had smashed her table, leaving dents, but now she rallied. "If you ever wanted it." "No!" He shook his head violently. "And you are a fool to even think it." Slowly, he straightened. "Nicholas must not have told you too much about me, to make such a foolish suggestion." "He told me enough." The vampire waved the comment away, staring thoughtfully at Natalie. She took a deep breath and forced herself to remain still, even though her skin crawled and all she wanted to do was hide. She didn't meet his face, however. She wasn't that stupid. "I think," LaCroix said slowly, "that I will tell you." He smiled. "Then you'll realize how foolish you and Nick were--and you'll give up this idiotic quest." "And you can have Nick again, I suppose," Nat said sharply. "Of course, Doctor." LaCroix nodded. "I will have Nicholas again." Nat looked up. "Do you mind if I have a tape recorder?" LaCroix paused as he was moving towards her chair. "Yes, I do." Sitting down, he motioned at her chair across the desk. "Please sit down, Doctor. This won't take long." She did as he said, twitching her lab coat comfortably around her. "And will you kill me?" she asked easily. "Perhaps," he answered just as easily. "If I feel in the mood." She nodded. "I'm listening." LaCroix steepled long, thin fingers, bone-white, together. "You won't cure Nick," he said calmly, "because vampirism is not, as you seem to think--rightly enough, considering your career and background- -a biological disease." Nat frowned. "Did you know that you're unnecessarily verbose?" she asked. Then, without pausing, "Why do you say that?" The vampire blinking, then proceeded smoothly, ignoring her first comment. "Nicholas, oddly enough, is right--he is damned." He smiled. "Or rather, his soul is--if he ever died." Nat leaned back in her chair. "I don't understand." LaCroix leaned forward. "Are you religious, Doctor?" She shook her head. "I go to church, but I wouldn't call myself too hung up on anything." "I assume you're familiar with the story of the garden of Eden." She nodded cautiously. "Pretty well, I think." LaCroix watched her carefully. "What happened afterwards?" "After what? Adam and Eve? Or after the Garden?" He nodded. "Both." Nat's brow furrowed. "Well, let's see," she said slowly. "They were kicked out, and God sentenced them to life outside, a difficult life. Then they began living like normal people, I guess." She looked up. "Right?" He nodded. "And afterwards?" "Um... They had kids, and their kids had kids, etc..." The vampire smiled secretly. "Their children. Their names?" Nat looked up, startled at the unexpected question. "Their names? Hmmm... Cain and Abel, right?" LaCroix nodded. "Exactly," he hissed. "What about them?" Nat persisted. "You tell me, Doctor." "Cain committed the first murder." "More than that, Doctor Lambert." LaCroix was a still statue, carved into the curve of her chair. "Tell me how it happened." "Okay..." Nat frowned off into space. "Cain and Abel grew up. Abel was preferred by his father, I think. Then God told them to make sacrifices to Him, and Cain went out to his fields--he was a farmer or something--and gathered all the fruits of his land and offered it as sacrifice. Or something. And Abel, who was a shepherd, got the best ram from his herd, and sacrificed that." Her eyes were distant, far- off, and she scratched her hand absently. "And God preferred Abel's sacrifice--probably because it was alive, I think; I'm not too clear on this part--and sent back Cain's. So Cain became really upset, and killed his brother. Then he ran off." LaCroix nodded, his eyes half-closed, his body taut. "And what happened to Cain?" he breathed. "What was his punishment?" She looked at him. "I don't really remember--I think he was outcast by his clan, or something." LaCroix nodded, his eyes glowing slightly gold. "He was exiled from his people, sentenced never to live within humanity again. He would wander among them, but they were to throw him out of their houses, keep him away." He smiled faintly, and Nat caught the glimpse of fang gleaming wetly in the light. "He was marked, so that everyone would know him--marked so that everyone who looked upon him saw him as the first murderer, the first killer ever to walk the earth. The first person ever to take another life." Nat shivered as his voice crawled through the room. "And God," the vampire continued, spitting the name out, "sent angels to watch over him, to make sure no one ever killed him, to make sure Cain never strayed from the path God had set him on." "Wait--" Nat squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. "What are you saying?" LaCroix looked at her cooly. "What am I telling you?" "You're saying," Nat said slowly, "that...," she thought for a while. LaCroix merely stared at her patiently. Alarm bells began to ring in her head, and Nat looked at LaCroix, dazed. "Are you saying," she began, "that Cain was a ... a vampire??" LaCroix watched her. "God marked him with the mark of a murderer." He smiled. "The marks of a vampire." "And--the angels? The protectors?" "The Enforcers." LaCroix smiled nastily. "Ironic, isn't it? That your God could create such things?" "But--but," Nat sputtered, "they're not protecting humans! How can they be angels?" "I never said that they protected humans." LaCroix's lips lifted an instant in a sneer, baring fangs. "Sweet, forgiving angels are a mortal concept. We know better." He sighed slightly. "The Enforcers are to protect us--to make sure that we live forever." "So..." Natalie sat back, stunned. "What did Cain do afterwards?" LaCroix laughed. "Made more killers, of course. God had granted him eternal life--and so he would kill all through eternity." "You mean," Nat yelped, struggling to keep her voice from rising into hysteria, "that Cain is still alive?!" LaCroix watched her from hooded eyes. "Of course, Doctor." Nat lasped into shocked silence. Finally she spoke again. "So that business with the crosses--the religious symbols--all of that does actually hurt Nick." The vampire nodded. "And yet you," Nat continued, "don't seem to have the same symptoms. At least, Nick has never mentioned them to me." She looked him up and down. "And your name--surely that's no coincidence." He smiled. "No, Doctor, just another bit of irony. A personal joke, you might say." He shifted slightly in the chair. "A vampire can only get burned by crosses if he lets himself. Nicholas was, as I suppose you know, a knight." He smiled. "My greatest victory." "Victory?" Nat frowned. "I took one of God's followers from Him." "And you don't think God's not going to retaliate?" Nat asked harshly. "Of course not," the vampire said smugly. "That's the problem with your God--he makes promises he shouldn't." He laughed evilly. "The day he sentenced me never to die--the day that I killed Abel- -that was the day he set me free." Natalie stared at the vampire sitting across from her, her face going pale. LaCroix watched her, smiling. She was defeated. LaCroix flowed upright from his chair. "Now, Doctor- - now do you see why you will never be able to cure Nicholas?" He smiled. "This is not some disease you can medicate or treat, woman." His smile widened, and his fangs were again bared. "Nicholas is mine--forever." He turned to sweep out the door, but was stopped by her low voice. Turning, he saw her standing by her desk, staring at him, eyes deep and far away, mouth pursed in thought. "What did you say, Doctor?" he asked cordially. She looked directly at him, staring him in the eyes. Not quite challenging, but certainly not defeated. "I said," she spoke in a quiet voice, "that there's still one way for Nick to be cured." LaCroix stiffened. "And how is that?" Natalie smiled slowly. "I have faith in him." Teleri Slainte!