Mad About You, from a song by Sting
By Elizabeth Ann Lewis (elewis@ucla.edu)

*A stone's throw from Jerusalem
*I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
*And though a million stars were shining
*My heart was lost on a distant planet
*That whirls around the April moon
*Whirling in an arc of sadness
*I'm lost without you
*I'm lost without you
*Though all my kingdoms turn to sand
*And fall into the sea
*I'm mad about you
*I'm mad about you..

****Part One****

Jerusalem, 1227

In the distance, a voice was raised in a haunting cry, calling the faithful of Allah 
to prayer.  The sound spread across the night sky until it filled Nicholas' head 
with its mystery, mingling with the scent of sandalwood and the silk of the air.  
He preferred the nights in the Holy Land; the burning sun had already singed his 
fair European skin and sapped his energy.  He braced both hands in the open 
window frame, exotic in its keyhole shape, and leaned out, absorbing it all, the 
air cool once the sun's heat had ceased, the smell of refuse that lingered in any 
city, the sky flung full of stars that burned with a brilliance that the mists of the 
north often hid.

Nicholas turned away from the window abruptly.  He crossed the woven 
patterned carpet in his finely appointed room to the desk, where a letter to his 
mother and sister rested.  But his quill dripped onto the page and dried whilst he 
wrestled with words that had come hard in the past few months.  Against the 
wall stood his lute, but his nimble fingers could make nothing but discordant 
sounds that maddened him.  His books had lain abandoned and ignored since 
Wales--he had grown disgusted with their pious morality.  When a short knock 
sounded on his door, he called, "Enter," with gratitude.

Nicholas rose to his feet and bowed whilst the Holy Roman Emperor, King of 
Sicily and Jerusalem, Frederick II closed the door behind him and went to the 
fire to warm his hands.  "Good even, your Grace.  What can I do for you?"

Frederick glanced over his shoulder. The firelight gleamed on the reddish hair 
and beard that he had inherited from his grandfather, the great Barbarossa, but 
the glint in his eyes was far different from that sturdy emperor.  "Sit down, 
Nicholas.  I came here to avoid people bobbing up and down like ducks in a 
pond."

Grinning, Nicholas sat by the fire and stretched his legs out. "You scarcely mind 
it in Sicily," he pointed out gleefully.  The two men, similar in age and station, 
had found that they also shared a lively mind and a questing soul in common.  
Nicholas had received all the benefits of being born of the ruler of the small but 
rich duchy of Brabant, but as the child of his father's second marriage was 
barred from inheriting anything, so consequently had left his home to make his 
fortune with his sword.

Frederick laughed at Nicholas' acerbic comment and seated himself.  "In Sicily, 
I am king, *imperator*, the Emperor of the Romans.  Here I am the European 
who is a friend to the Mohammedans, but still a European, still the enemy." 

Nicholas snagged a decanter off of the nearby table and poured them each a 
goblet of red wine.  "I would have thought you would be on your prayer rug 
now, facing east and muttering devoutly."

Frederick, drinking deeply from his cup, choked and sputtered with laughter.  
Although born of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty, he had spent most of his 
life in his mother's inheritance, the Mediterranean island of Sicily.  His ease and 
knowledge of Greek and Arabic languages and literature, and his known 
preference for some of the habits and customs of his neighbors to the south had 
earned him the title of "The Baptized Sultan"--behind his back.  Only one who 
knew him as well as Nicholas did would dare use it to his face.  "God's bones, 
Nicholas!" he said once his throat had cleared.  "Once you would have been the 
first to chide me for my ungodly ways!"

"Once," Nicholas agreed, his face hidden behind his metal cup.

"What happened, then?  What changed you from the God-fearing Nicholas de 
Brabant to this?"

Nicholas lowered the cup to stare into its ruby depths.  "I learned," he said 
slowly, "that there are more truths than those of which the Church tells us."

Frederick regarded him thoughtfully.  Nicholas had joined his host shortly after 
arriving in Sicily, remaining beside him whilst first the emperor had fallen ill of 
a deadly plague, and later had been excommunicated by the pope for not rising 
from what may have well been his deathbed to lead the Knights of the Cross to 
the Holy Land as he had sworn to do.  But Frederick had known, even before 
they left Sicily, that something had happened to his friend.  "Ah," he said after 
several moments.  "A woman."

"Yes.  A woman.  Gwyneth.  And I was sent here as penance for her murder."

"You did not kill her."  The statement was quick and absolute.

"No, I did not kill her.  But I am responsible for her death, if not her murder."  
Abruptly, Nicholas rose to his feet to go to the window.

"You are impatient, my friend," the emperor said softly.  "You came here 
longing for action for glory and war and find yourself locked in the diplomat's 
game that I and al-Kamil are playing.  No," he said with a raised hand, 
forestalling Nicholas' instinctive denial, "I know you.  You finger the dagger at 
your belt whilst we politely war with the Saracens."

Nicholas gripped the edge of the windowsill.  "I must go," he said.  "My lord, I 
will be back by morning, but I need--"

"I understand."  Frederick rose to grip his friend's shoulder.  "Go, get into a 
tavern brawl, find a pretty wench to while the hours with.  Then come back to 
me, and help me make this war a bloodless one."

********
*And from the dark secluded valleys
*I heard the ancient songs of sadness
*With every step I thought of you
*Every footstep only you
*Every star a grain of sand
*The leavings of a dried up ocean
*Tell me, how much longer?  How much longer...

Nicholas, however, went neither to the European tavern nor the Eastern brothel.  
The narrow streets of Jerusalem were too confining.  He felt stifled and 
suffocated by the walls of the buildings that seemed to loom above him.

In retaliation, he made for the gate.  No one was to be allowed in or out after 
sunset and before sunrise, but Nicholas was well-known as a powerful nobleman 
and an intimate of the emperor.  Several moments of persuasion and several 
more gold coins, and Nicholas was free of the city.

Behind him, the stench of offal and fear faded to be replaced by the dry 
cleanliness of dust and sand.  A crescent moon lingered in the sky, tilted like a 
contemptuous smile directed at the foolish mortals below. For untold hours, 
Nicholas wandered among the dunes, his thoughts his only companions.

Until he rounded one hill and saw her.

Although his feet made no sound on the soft sand, she seemed to sense him and 
turned. A dark cloak enveloped her from head to foot, framing a face of cool, 
remote beauty.  In the starlight, her eyes were pale, colorless gems that were as 
hard and brilliant as diamonds.  Her face, against the darkness of her cloak and 
the raven blackness of her loose hair, was as pale as alabaster, as perfect as any 
statue the ancients had carved.

But no statue had eyes like hers, eyes that contained both ice and fire.

For several moments, Nicholas simply looked at her, certain that she was an 
image of his fevered brain, and no real thing.  Then she moved, raising her hand 
in a slight gesture, and Nicholas awoke from his daze.

"Demoiselle, are you lost?"  He stepped forward, his impetus to help, to protect.

She stopped him with a slight shake of her head.  "No, mon chevalier, I am not 
lost.  But you are, I suspect."

"If I am lost, I will find my way come morning.  Who are you?  Why have I not 
seen you before?  There are few European women in Jerusalem.  I thought I had 
met all who had come with the Emperor."

The woman raised one slender milk-pale hand and slid the hood of her cloak 
down.  "I did not come with the emperor, monsieur.  I came with--"  She cut 
herself off abruptly and turned away, walking with the slow, measured paces of 
someone wandering aimlessly.

As though bound by a hawk's jesses, Nicholas followed until he stood by her 
side.  She ceased her meanderings and turned to face him. At close range, her 
beauty did not fade.  If anything, the passionate light in her eyes grew stronger, 
brighter.  "Who are you?" he murmured again.  "A demon sent to torment me?"

She laughed.  "And if I were, could you resist me?" 

The spell of the moon, the stars and her eyes had him in thrall, and he could 
only speak the truth.  "No.  I could not."  Unable to resist, he raised one hand to 
her cheek.  The skin there was chilled with the desert night, but so soft, so very 
smooth.  Her hair slid like silk against his wrist.  She stood quietly before him, 
but there was nothing passive in her manner.  But instead of the challenge her 
eyes had shot at him before, they were faintly hesitant, clouded with confusion.

She stepped back, away from his touch, and turned to walk again among the 
mounds of sand that shone golden in the sun, but now were base metal, dull and 
grey.

She spoke as if there had not been that highly charged moment between them.  
"Is it true, do you think, that treasures lie in this desert?"

Without removing his eyes from her impassive profile, Nicholas said, "Yes, 
indeed."

********
*They say a city in the desert lies,
*The vanity of an ancient king
*The city lies in broken pieces
*Where the wind howls and the vultures sing.

For the first time in two hundred years, Janette wished for the simple human 
functions that she had freed herself from.  The rituals of quickening breaths and 
pounding hearts had been physical symptoms of agitation that she no longer had 
to deal with.  She realized, however, that those outward expressions had 
somehow relieved tensions, and that she was denied their release.

She had sensed the mortal from a distance, and some perverse urge had 
prompted her not to move out of his sight.  She had been curious, had wanted to 
see who it was, why he was here--if she would feed again that night.  But 
something in her had shifted, slightly, when she had turned to see the tall, 
golden haired man behind her.  His clothes, even though he was not wearing a 
surcoat embroidered with a Crusader's Cross that would have sickened her, 
marked him a European and part of the emperor's host.

Whatever it was that had shifted when she saw him shattered when he touched 
her.  No man had touched her in two hundred years without her permission--and 
lived to tell of it.  So LaCroix had promised and so he had given her the power 
to see that it was so.  She should have had this young mortal's head for daring.

But.

His fingers had been reverent.  Hard from battle, they had touched her with a 
gentleness she had never known in her life.  They did not demand, or even ask.  
They had taken nothing from her but her will to resist.  She could not deny their 
magic.

His voice was calm and smooth, his French faintly accented but obviously 
native.  It was almost a physical thing, wrapping her in a cloak of sound, 
soothing and inciting.

And in his eyes were passions that he did not bother to hide.  Even in the 
darkness of night, she could see their clarity.  They reflected not the night, but 
the summer sky that she had been denied so often in her mortal life, and denied 
herself in order to have an eternity of stars.  In this mortal's eyes, however, she 
could have both...

If she had a heart that beat more than five times an hour, it would have been 
pounding now.  If she had blood in her veins to spare, it would have flooded her 
cheeks.  But she had neither, and so was able to maintain her poise of calm, the 
utter impassivity that tantalized and unnerved so many men.

"If there was such treasure in the desert, what do you think happened to it?  Was 
it abandoned?  Was it hidden here, and its possessors forgot? Were they driven 
from this place, as so many before have been?"

"No one forgets a treasure.  No one abandons it.  But it could be taken from 
them, ravaged and ruined.  Taken, and destroyed in its taking.  Man rarely treats 
well that which he treasures."

Turning her head, Janette caught the first glimmer of the false dawn on the 
horizon.  She needed to get back to the city, needed to take shelter in the house 
LaCroix had rented for them.  "I must go," she said softly. 

"Wait!"  His voice was urgent now, a demand that easily could have edged over 
into a plea.  "Who are you?  What it your name?"

"I am Janette," she said, knowing she shouldn't.  "And you?"

"Nicholas de Brabant.  Where do you live in the city?  Where can I find you?"

Janette knew that she should lie, misdirect him.  Instead, she gave in to her 
weakness and said, "Come back out to the desert.  Meet me here tomorrow 
night."

"What, here?  Impossible.  There are no landmarks, no way to find each other."

Janette reached out, and gripped his arm.  She could feel the life force in him, 
the taunt strength, the power.  Her control slipped even further.  "I will find 
you," she said fiercely.  "Be here, and I will find you."
*******************
The gatekeeper was a very happy man.  Night after night, the rich, foolish Frank 
had paid him a gold coin to let him slip outside the gates of the city, and to let 
him back in just as dawn was breaking.  He did not know what the golden-
haired Crusader did for so many hours out in the sands, and he did not care.  For 
the first time in over a century, the European invasion of his homeland did not 
mean bloodshed for his people, and he was getting rich.  Allah was kind.  Life 
was good.

Janette knew that what she was doing was madness. Every night, she met the 
young mortal in the desert, in a world separated from both hers and his by more 
than merely miles.  They talked endlessly, arguing Aristotle and Anselm, Ovid 
and Abelard.  Janette dredged the old *chansons de geste* of her childhood out 
of her memory and sang them to Nicholas, her voice clear and pure in its 
solitary tones.  In response, Nicholas brought his lute and sang her the explicitly 
passionate verses of the *court d'amour*, his fingers delicate and sure on the 
strings of the instrument, his eyes only leaving hers to dwell on her lips, her 
breasts.

They never touched.

Janette made very sure of that.  Every night, the desire rose higher in her, and 
she fought to push it aside.  Every night, she could see a matching desire in 
Nicholas, and had no way to defend herself against it. She wanted to feel his 
mouth on hers, his hands, his body.  She wanted his blood and his soul, the 
bloodlust indistinguishable from the sexual passion.

LaCroix knew.  She could keep nothing from him.  If nothing else, his 
heightened senses had caught the scent of him on her skin, even though they 
never touched, a scent so faint that she barely could register it after she left the 
desert.  But LaCroix was more than one thousand years old; his power was 
considerably greater than hers.

Every night, just before dawn, she left Nicholas and returned to the city, to 
LaCroix.  She had her own room in the house LaCroix had rented, to keep her 
belongings in, but he insisted that she sleep in the same room as he. After a brief 
struggle, she gave in , as she always did to his wishes.

The room was nearly barren, stone walls unadorned by tapestries, the flagstones 
bare of rushes.  The single window was sealed with a heavy wooden shutter that 
allowed not a single beam of the sun through.  The only furniture was the 
beautiful, elaborately carved bed of Arabic workmanship that LaCroix had 
procured for her rest, and the narrow, hard pallet that he lay on, lying against the 
opposite wall.

Janette woke shortly before sunset.  LaCroix still slept on his pallet across the 
room; rising, she crossed its length to look at him.  What did he think when he 
looked at her?  Was she but another one of his beautiful treasures, to look at, to 
touch, to value but never to open himself to. She knew he admired her spirit, 
encouraged her independence--so long as it did not break the bonds that tied her 
to him.  And of what use was independence when it was dependent on another 
person allowing you it?

Without stirring, without even opening his eyes, LaCroix asked, "What do you 
want, Janette?"
 
"Why did you make me?  Why did you bring me across?" she asked quietly, 
voicing questions that she had not dared in two hundred years. 

LaCroix rose and walked to the window, opening a shutter to let in a crimson 
stream of light from the setting sun.  Standing in the shadows to one side, he 
said, "Because I wished to.  Because I loved your beauty, your courage, the 
fierce glare in your eyes.  Because I knew at heart, you were a creature like me.  
Indomitable."

"Indomitable," Janette repeated.  She moved forward until she hovered just at 
the edge of the pool of light on the floor.  "Indomitable--by everyone but you?"

LaCroix snapped the shutter closed, and turned back to her.  "It is the nature of 
the relationship between a master and a protegee."

"How can you love someone whom you control?" she whispered, shaking her 
head.

LaCroix turned to her, the faintest of smiles touching his mouth.  "Ah, ma chere, 
it is very easy to love what you possess.  It is, however, very hard for the 
possessed to feel the same about its possessor."

There was no sorrow in his voice.  He did not want her love, not the way she 
once thought he had.  He wanted her obedience, her loyalty, her company.  He 
wanted her to be his eternal daughter, eternal companion.  In return he had given 
her protection, riches, power--immortality.  Who would willingly give up those 
gifts?

Janette could say nothing.  Turning away, she went to the door.  The sun was 
sinking; night would fall soon.  She needed to go to her room, dress herself, 
anoint her body with perfume before she met Nicholas.  She needed to feed.

"Janette."  The lazy voice from behind stopped her abruptly.  She refused to turn 
around, to acknowledge LaCroix as he continued. "Your young lover is going to 
die, you know:  at your hands, of a battle wound turned putrid, of a fever, of old 
age.  You love him, do you not?"  Janette didn't answer; LaCroix went on as if 
she had.  "Why do you not bring him across, offer him our eternity... an eternity 
of your love?"

After a long moment, Janette said merely, "I thirst."  She didn't know if it was in 
avoidance or answer to his question.

"Then, ma protegee, go feed."  And she didn't know if he meant the hungers of 
her body or of her heart.

Or even if there was any difference between the two.

Silent as a wraith, she left the room.
********
*These are the works of man
*This is the sum of our ambitions
*It would make a prison of my life
*If you became another's wife.

For the first time, Nicholas was left waiting for her.  Every other night, she 
found him--he knew not how--among the dunes within minutes.

But when she did come to him that night, she was hours late and without the 
mask of impenetrable calm that had always shielded her before.  Her cheeks 
were, for the first time, slightly flushed, a delicate color that only made her more 
beautiful.

Nicholas forced his nails into his palms. forced his desire down into a dark 
place.  For whatever reason, she had made it clear that such advances would not 
be welcome.  And he had been so completely under her spell that he had not 
pressed her for reasons, had asked no questions.  Not who she was, where she 
was from...

If she were married...

It was this question that tormented him.  He wanted her.  Forever.  And she was 
his, body and soul.

"Nicholas," she said quietly, her lilting Parisian accent making music of his 
name.  "I cannot see you again."

The words broke his tenuous control and he grabbed her, fingers sinking deep 
into the rich silk of her gown to the cool flesh beneath.  "No," he gritted 
between his teeth.  "You are mine!"

He would have let her go at a word from her.  They both knew that. Instead, she 
curved her arms until they cupped his, her hands lightly clasping his shoulders.  
His grip relaxed, hers slid around his neck, and suddenly they were in each 
others arms, mouths seeking, finding, until Nicholas was dizzy with her taste, 
her scent.  In a moment, he would drag her down into the sand and--

At that moment, Janette broke away, stumbling back several steps.  "Why?"  
Nicholas asked her hoarsely.  "Are you wed?"

"No," Janette whispered.  She shook her head as if to underline her emphatic 
refusal and said, "No, I am not married," in a fierce voice. 

He stepped toward her, and she held him off with an upraised hand, in an eerie 
imitation of the first night they met.  "I love you," he said quietly, absolutely.  
Janette shook her head again, but he persisted.  "I love you!" he told her 
intently.  "Marry me.  Be my wife.  Be mine--"

Tempted beyond anything she had ever known, she cried out in desperation, 
"You do not know what I am!"

Nicholas moved closer, and she was utterly without the will to move away.  He 
did not kiss her, but instead cradled her face in his rough  warrior's hands.  
Gently, with the reverence that had destroyed her defenses, he threaded his 
fingers through her hair.  "You are," he told her, "the woman I love.  The 
woman I will love forever.  Nothing else is  important."

Janette closed her eyes and shuddered, but managed to hold back the blood-
tinted tears that would have proved him wrong.  She rose on her tip-toes and 
brushed his lips with hers.  Then she opened her eyes, and looked into his 
summer sky blue ones for the last time.  "Sleep, Nicholas. Sleep and wake with 
the morning."

She did not have the strength to tell him to forget her.
********
*With every prison blown to dust,
*My enemies walk free
*I'm mad about you
*I'm mad about you

Janette knew that she had no hope of keeping the events of this past night 
hidden from LaCroix.  He knew the moment she stepping into their house hours 
before dawn.  Rising from his chair by the window, he crossed to where she 
stood by the door, wordlessly questioning.

"I sent him away," she said.  She raised her head to look her maker in the eye 
and spat, "I sent him away!"

LaCroix's expression did not change.  "Why, Janette?" he asked with 
unexpected gentleness.

She moved away from him, pacing the floor so that her long cloak swept the 
rushes, gesturing with odd, jerky movements.  "He is a Crusader, a soldier of 
Christ, and I am everything he fights against.  He is a creature of light," she 
insisted, as though LaCroix had said something in objection, "and I am a 
creature of the darkness."  She stopped her pacing abruptly and turned to face 
him.  "I know what I am.  I revel in it.  But it does not change the fact that we 
are two different things!"

"All right, Janette."  He brushed her hair lightly with a tender hand. After a 
moment, he said, "I'm bored with Jerusalem.  All these Crusaders do is talk 
endlessly.  What do you say, Janette?  Shall we leave?  We could go to Paris."

Janette nodded, drained.  It would be a relief to leave the Holy Land, to go to the 
city that after all these years remained her home.  "It's nearly dawn," she 
murmured.  "We should sleep."

LaCroix dropped his hand onto her shoulder and they walked to the door of 
their shared bedchamber.  But a faint pressure stopped her.  "But think, Janette, 
just think.  Could he have loved you so dearly if he were completely a child of 
the light?"

Janette closed her eyes and turned away.
********
*She's gone.*

After a week of waiting in the desert, Nicholas had to accept the truth of it.  
Janette was gone, and he had no way of finding her.  She had disappeared into 
the night as though she had never existed.  The thought produced a murderous 
rage.  She was gone.

Nicholas looked down at the lute in his hands.  He had been composing a song 
for her, like any foolish love-struck troubadour yearning for his unreachable 
lady.  Maddened, he swung the lute against the wall, and tossed the shattered 
remains onto the fire.

He went directly to Frederick's rooms.  The emperor was dictating a letter to his 
general in Germany, where Frederick's uncle was leading a rebellion. Nicholas 
paced in the antechamber until Frederick was finished and sent the clerk away.  
"Well, Nicholas.  I have not seen much of you in the past few weeks.  What can 
I do for you?"

Nicholas said without preamble, "I'm leaving Jerusalem."

Frederick leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arms and his chin 
of steepled hands.  "Where will you go?"

"Toulouse."  Frederick made a quick motion, as though to cut Nicholas off, but 
Nicholas ignored him and continued.  "I've heard that there is much land waiting 
to be won there."

"And much blood to be shed," Frederick murmured.  "Tell me, Nicholas--do 
you go on the Pope's crusade to harry the heretics, or to make your fortune?"  
Nicholas said nothing.  "Ah, I see.  You go to fight, to
spill blood, to rage."

"I must leave here," Nicholas said violently.  "I cannot stay.  I cannot!"

Frederick rose, grasped his friend's forearm in a gesture of affection and 
farewell.  "I understand, my friend.  Only too well.  Go with God, Nicholas."

****END PART ONE****

*I have never in my life
*Felt more alone than I do now
*Although I claim dominions over all I see
*It means nothing to me
*There are no victories
*In all our histories, without love.

****PART TWO****

Paris, 1228

"Victory!"  The shouts rang through the narrow Parisian streets, echoing 
through the night mists.  The soldiers, newly returned from the battlefields to the 
south, celebrated their dominance over the peaceful Cathari with wine and 
women.

In the tavern, Nicholas drank the wine, but he was not celebrating.  The crusade 
against the heretic Cathars had completed what Gwyneth's murder had started.  
He now knew, absolutely, that human life was worthless, that the struggle for 
existence was doomed to end in nothing but a disjointed sprawl of limbs, 
without dignity, without peace.  That death was nothing but an end to be 
avoided for as long as possible.

He had not been in the city of Beziers the day a papal legate had told the troops 
to "Kill them all, and let God sort out his own," but he had seen the results.  No 
one had been spared--heretic and Catholic, young and old, mother and child.  
No one.

Nicholas had walked through villages where no soul had survived the ravaging 
army, the mud clinging to his boots made of blood and dust.  He had seen the 
bodies of men, women and children dumped carelessly into ditches with 
quicklime poured over them to hasten decomposition.  He had smelled the stink 
of burning flesh as another village had been put to the torch, the people in their 
homes shrieking as flames licked their bodies. The few who had fought their 
way out of their homes had been cut down without remorse.

The Pope's grand crusade against the heretics had not been a war.  It had been a 
slaughter.

Nicholas had won the land in the south he had been seeking, taking over the 
estate of a petty but wealthy nobleman who had been foolish enough to give aid 
to the holy Cathar heretics.  But the release he had sought, the draining of the 
rage within him, was denied.

Abruptly, Nicholas flung his wooden goblet on the fire and stormed out into the 
misty night, ignoring the complaints of the innkeeper and the drunken cries of 
his compatriots.  The night was not peaceful, but it was at least silent.  Nicholas 
doubted he would ever find peace again. 

Slowly, as he wandered the streets to the river, he became aware of someone 
behind him, alerted not by sound or sight but by the primal instinct of the 
battlefield.  He was being followed, no doubt by a thief who wanted his purse 
and his neck.  Carefully, Nicholas maneuvered until the thief was forced to 
move closer or lose him.  Welcoming the enveloping fog that hid the motion, 
Nicholas slid his dagger from his belt, paused, then whirled to face his attacker.

There were two men, not one.  Both had eyes that gleamed like a rat's in the dim 
night.  They seemed invigorated, rather than deterred, by the fact that their prey 
was going to fight. Lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace that was part 
growl and part grin, Nicholas feigned at one, stabbing with a short upward 
stroke that made the brute jump backwards whilst his companion thought to 
attack Nicholas from behind.  Perfectly balanced, Nicholas recovered from his 
lunge to turn on the second man, the swipe of his hand casually taking an ear 
and part of a cheek.  The scent of blood seemed to madden both of them, and 
they rushed Nicholas as though only one feeble mind existed between them.  
Caught under the onslaught, Nicholas felt the blade of a knife bite though his 
tunic and the warmth of blood streaming down his arm.

He buried his dagger in the gut of the slower of the two men, twisting as the 
man gasped and slowly began to die.  But the crossbar handle on the dagger 
caught on the lower ribs, resisting Nicholas' efforts to pull it free.  Finally, he let 
it go, turning to stand bare-handed against the man with a long, wicked knife 
already stained with his blood, ready to fight even though he had no weapons 
with which to do so.

But there was no need for a fight.  The second man lay in the mud at Nicholas' 
feet, his head bent at an awkward angle, his eyes bulging as though startled by 
the death that had come for him, and a bleeding gash showing at his throat.

Nicholas snatched the blade out of the dead man's hand, dropping into a battle 
stance to face the new danger, not feeling the throbbing of the wound on his 
arm.  For a long moment he neither heard nor saw anything. Then, so slowly as 
to seem to materialize out of the mist, a woman in a dark cloak appeared.

"*Sange du Christ*," Nicholas swore softly.  "Janette."

She moved to him, graceful as a ghost.  "Are you well?" she asked urgently. 
"Nicholas, are you well?"

Nicholas lifted his arm.  The blood was already drying.  A visit to the local 
barber for stitches and he would survive so long as infection didn't set it.  "Yes."

Janette withdrew into herself again Raising one hand to his face, as cold and 
impassive as he had ever seen her, she stared at him fiercely and said, "You will 
not remember this, you will not remember you saw me.  You will for--"

Nicholas grabbed her slender wrist, and she gasped slightly from the shock.  
"Who are you?" he gritted between his teeth.  "What are you?  Why did you 
disappear from Jerusalem?"

"Let--go--of--me."  The words were bitten off, evenly spaced, and ringing with 
authority.  Nicholas ignored them.

"You killed that man, didn't you?  I don't know how, but you killed him. Damn 
you, answer me!  What are you?"

Janette pulled away from him, wrapping her cloak and her pride around her.  "I 
am," she said softly, intently, "the worst nightmare of man.  I am the creature 
that haunts the darkness, never to see the sun again.  I am a killer and a drinker 
of blood."

The faint night wind stirred her hair, rippled the edges of her cloak.  She stood 
before him, waiting as though for a judgment to be passed on her.  He said 
nothing for several long moments.  Then he breathed, "You are a vampire."

If possible, she became even more remote, unreachable.  "Yes."

"An immortal being," he said in growing wonder.  "Never to age, to sicken, to 
die."

"Never to see the sun," she countered.  "Never to be accepted in the ranks of 
humanity.  To become the damned of God."

"I am already the damned," he said harshly.  "And the blood on my hands would 
not be washed away in an eternity of Purgatory.  But an eternity of Paradise, 
with you..."

The ice that seemed to surround her cracked.  "Nicholas, you do not know what 
you ask..."

"Do I not?" he demanded.  "You think I do not know what I mean?  I love you.  
I loved you under a moonlight sky in Jerusalem when I knew naught of you but 
your name and your voice, your face.  And here, now, in this filthy street, it has 
not changed.  I wanted to make you my wife for the pitiful amount of time God 
lets us have.  But this...  Is it not true that you can give me eternity?"

Shaken, Janette nodded.  "Yes, but Nicholas..."

"Do you regret what you are?" he asked her.  "Do you?" he asked again when 
she did not speak.

"No."  It was said with extreme satisfaction and dawning desire.  "No, I do not."

He approached her then.  Pulling his long hair away from his neck, he offered 
her the strong curve of it.  "Make me what you are," he told her. He could see 
the hesitation in her eyes, then the decision.  She reached for him with her 
slender, delicate hands, burying them in his hair and tilting his head to give her 
access to the lifeblood that throbbed below the service.  He caught a glimpse of 
her fangs, her eyes glowing gold before she pushed him away.

"No.  Not now.  Nicholas... come to me tomorrow night if this is what you truly 
want.  Come to me, and I will give you what you desire."

"Where?" he asked.

"The tavern where you went tonight.  I will find you there."  With that, she 
disappeared again into the mist, leaving Nicholas wondering if he had not 
merely dreamed the whole weird interlude.
********
"LaCroix," Janette said urgently.  "You must!"

Her mentor turned from his candlelit reading of the latest poor translation of 
Aristotle to face his child.  Her eyes were wild, her hair tumbling around her 
shoulders wantonly as she pounded his desk with her fists.  He had never seen 
her look so desperate since the night he had brought her across.  Then it had 
been human agony that had tortured her.  Now, it was the contemplation of 
eternity.

"Why me, Janette?  Why not you?  Surely he would rather feel your sweet lips 
on his flesh than mine."

"You are older than I," she evaded.  "You could give him more than I could."

"No"  He said it bluntly, emotionlessly.  "You wish him to be brought across 
into our world, you must do it."

Dismissing her, LaCroix turned the page of his treatise.  Janette snatched the 
finely illuminated manuscript and flung it across the room.  "I have asked you 
for little in two hundred years.  I ask this now."

"Why, Janette?" The soft voice held steel.  He would not acceded to her request 
until she gave him something.  This for that.  With LaCroix, there was always a 
paying of debts.  But with Nicholas...

Turning away, she could speak more easily.  "I do not want Nicholas to feel for 
me what I feel for you," she told him.

"Which is?"

Janette did not want to answer, but she knew LaCroix would not let her alone 
until she did.  "Duty.  Loyalty.  Impatience, anger.  Loathing, sometimes."

"Which, simply put, means you do not want to be Nicholas' master?"

"No."

LaCroix said nothing, merely crossing the room to retrieve his book.  It wasn't 
until he returned it to his desk that he said, "I will bring the young Crusader 
across, then."

Janette closed her eyes, overwhelmed with the flood of relief.  "What 
conditions?"

"No conditions.  He shall be mine, my son as you are my daughter.  Forever."
********
She wasn't coming.

Hours after the sun had set, Nicholas drank and cursed himself for a fool yet 
again.  He had not slept since he had found Janette.  Rather, he had spent the 
day wandering the city, asking himself again and again if this was truly what he 
desired.  And the answer returned, always:  Yes.  To have life eternal.  Never to 
be ill, injured, weak.  To have power beyond  mortal man's dreams.

And Janette.  Most of all, Janette.

The sun had not appeared the length of the day.  It had spent his last hours as a 
mortal sulking behind heavy clouds.  When the dim grey light had faded, he 
returned to the tavern to join his friends there, to celebrate their hollow victories 
yet again.  And to wait for the woman he wanted more than life itself.  But she 
didn't appear.

A breath of sound, a wisp of fragrance... he did not know what lured him from 
his brooding.  But suddenly, there she stood.  The remoteness that had so often 
protected her was gone, completely eradicated.  In its place was a passion like 
he had never seen.  Her eyes flared with the desire she had disguised before. Her 
lips moved, and somehow across the deafening noise of the hall, he heard 
clearly what she said.

"How badly do you want me?"

Slowly, he put aside his wine cup and rose to his feet, following her as she 
glided away from the crowded, noisy room to the silence that reigned in more 
private chambers.

He shut the door behind him and reached for her immediately.  No less eagerly, 
she reached for him, the passion them flaring between them again, this time fed 
by the knowledge that it would finally be sated.

*And though you hold the keys to ruin *Of everything I see

"Nicholas," she murmured, her voice husky and breathless.   "Brave knight, 
brave crusader, conqueror.  Are you ready to be conquered?"

If there had been any doubts left in her, they were driven away by his fierce 
answer.  "Yes."

He tried to capture her mouth with his, but she turned away, playing the 
temptress with the last shred of her control.  "Can you truly surrender, after all 
you have won?  Surrender to the darkness of the soul, the richness of the night, 
the weakness of desire?"  Teasing gone, she looked into his eyes.  "How badly 
do you want me, Nicholas?  Just how strong is your weakness?"

*With every prison blown to dust
*My enemies walk free

"Brave crusader, strong, good, defender of the Cross.  Who are you?"  Who was 
he?  None of those things, not any more.  He was need and desire alone...

Against his ear, she whispered, "Can you feel my darkness, Nicholas?  Feel it 
absorbing your light?  Can you feel the power and the danger of my darkness?  
The beautiful risk?"

Nearly out of his mind, he pulled her to the bed.  Laughing, drunk on triumph, 
she let him, let him drag her down to the smooth sheets and yank away her 
clothing, caressing her until her tenuous hold on her vampire nature nearly 
slipped.  Her pale arms and shoulders gleamed in the candlelight.  Victory 
surged in her veins, mixing with the blood she had fed on earlier that night.

Nicholas was hers now.  Forever.

*Though all my kingdoms turn to sand
*And fall into the sea

Janette leaned over him, arousing with her hands and mouth, and glorying in 
feeling and hearing his increased heartbeat.  "Say goodbye to the light, 
Nicholas.  Now you know it will never satisfy you.  Only darkness can satisfy 
you.  No matter how shining and good a knight you are, the darkness was 
always there.  Always stronger than anything else in your heart and mind."

*I'm mad about you
*I'm mad about you.

It was time.

Janette rose from the bed, evading Nicholas' searching hands.  "Where are you 
going?" he asked, his voice slurred with desire.

Janette said nothing, merely waiting as LaCroix entered the room.  Nicholas 
narrowed his eyes, startled by the sight of the tall, pale-eyed  man in rich 
clothing.  "Who are you?"

"His name is LaCroix," she told him.  *Not long now, mon amour.  Soon we 
will be together forever...*

LaCroix stepped closer to the bed.  "Hello, Nicholas.  We are going to be 
friends--"

Suddenly, his eyes turned glowing gold and his mouth opened to show his 
fangs.  That was when Nicholas understood.  The time of his transformation was 
at hand.

LaCroix continued, "--for a long, long time."

Nicholas smiled.  And welcomed it.

*A stone's throw from Jerusalem
*I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
*And though a millions stars were shining
*My heart was lost on a distant planet
*That whirls around the April moon
*Whirling in an arc of sadness
*I'm lost without you
*I'm lost without you

**Epilogue**
Jerusalem, 1996

Nothing ever changed.  And nothing stayed the same.

Blood was still shed in this holy city for their God, their mortal beliefs. The sun 
still burned in the day, the night was cool and filled with stars.

But the lonely desert dunes where she had met Nicholas were now tenement 
buildings, narrow and putrid.  Their wars were now at least nominally political, 
where once they had been nominally religious.

And Nicholas.  Had he changed?  Or had he remained the same, and she had 
simply never seen it?

When she had risen that night, nostalgia had prompted her to don a long, hooded 
cape, just as she had a few months before in Toronto.  That night, she had joined 
Nicholas by the riverfront as he had stood pondering one of his tiresome mortal 
quandaries.  He had turned to her, and for one moment, memory had leapt in his 
eyes, of the night they had met in a far-away desert under a smug moon and a 
sky full of stars.

And he had recoiled in horror from that memory.

That was when Janette knew she would leave.  It had taken her months to do so, 
but she knew her time in Toronto was finished.  The practical aspects were not 
the trouble--the club could go to LaCroix for all she cared--but the weaning 
away had torn her apart.  Her weakness was strong enough that she had finally 
fled into the night without a word to Nicholas, knowing she could not bear to 
tell him goodbye for the last time.

She knew she might still see him again.  She always had before.  But before, 
they had parted to return as lovers.  This time, she knew it was finished.  She 
finally believed that he truly wanted his humanity back, and would do anything 
to get it.

And the final straw had been when she had seen him with his little mortal friend, 
the doctor.  He had pressed a kiss to her cheek, touching her hair with a tender 
hand, and Janette had turned away, unable to face the gift of his reverence that 
had once been given to her.

Restless, hungry, she walked through the slums of Jerusalem.  Her gamble all 
those centuries ago had paid off.  Even though Nicholas loathed what he was, 
loathed his maker, she still had his love.  All his hatred had been deflected onto 
LaCroix's head.

But she refused to be anyone's convenience.  Not LaCroix's minion, not 
Nicholas' consolation.

She made her way through the night.  The hunt was there.  And the kill.
She was what she was, forever and aye, world without and end.

A creature of darkness, in love with a creature of light.

*Though all my kingdoms turn to sand
*And fall into the sea
*I'm mad about you
*I'm mad about you...

FINIS