This is the first time I've posted to the
fiction list so I hope the formatting
I chose works out okay.  Comments,
criticisms, suggestions welcome.  Much
thanks to Rastro for her editing (and
posting - my mail system does weird
things).
Maddog - lxd3@po.cwru.edu
 
 
Remembering
by Maddog
 
        "There are some things that you remember clearly.
There are some things that you remember so clearly its like
being there, breathing the air, hearing the sounds.
Sometimes memories are so strong that when you leave them
and return to the present your ears ache from listening to the
sounds of the past,"  Nick thought to himself as he inhaled a
deep breath of the crisp air.  The sharp smell of the air
reminded him of endless evenings hovering over bodies,
solving cases.  He was sitting on a park bench looking over at
the bright lights of Toronto, remembering.
 
 
        "Hey, Knight, there you are,"  Detective Don
Schanke called out to his partner.  His footsteps loud across
the frost brittle grass.  They sounded as loud in memory as
they had when he'd first heard them.
        "Hi, Schanke,"  Nick replied.
        "Damn, its getting cold early this year,"  Schanke
groused as he blew on his hands.  "You'd think even the
criminals would have enough sense to go into  hibernation
until spring."
        "And miss part of hockey season?"  Nick retorted, a
grin on his face.  There was stubble on his cheeks and his
hair was curling wildly as it tended to do when he went too
long between cuts.
        "You've got a point,"  his partner acknowledged as
he sat down on the bench beside Nick.  A lone lamp was
positioned by the bench, casting a dim light.  The other man
was staring contemplatively into the distance, a frown on his
features.   Schanke managed to sit in silence for several
moments before his tendency to talk and move constantly
reasserted itself.   "So, what's up Knight?  There something
you need to talk about?  'Cause I'm here for you, if you do."
        Nick considered  Schanke's friendly offer of
support.  What would the other man say if he told him that he
was a vampire?  Probably mumble something about how that
was okay by him, partner, and that it did explain Knight's
unnatural aversion to pizza and all the bottles of so-called red
wine in his refrigerator.  "Just thinking about our case."
        "Yeah, that one could make anybody think about the
complete weirdness of the world.  I mean, bodies drained of
blood, that's just weird shit in anybody's book.  Go figure
some people out,  probably had bad potty training or
something."
        "Or something,"  Nick's attention was drawn away
from his partner by the approach of footsteps that he knew as
well as his own.   How many times in the past had he heard
them and felt anxious happiness.   How did he feel now
remembering them so clearly?  The quick, no nonsense steps
of Dr. Natalie Lambert, Toronto coroner.  "Nick, there you
are, we need to talk,"  her voice was hurried, anxious.  "Oh,
hi Schanke."
        "Hey Nat,"  Schanke responded,  "Nick and I were
just talking about the serial murders.  Anything new from the
forensics?"
        "Uh, yeah, there is,"  Nat tried to control her
worried, distorted features into a neutral, professional look.
She didn't elaborate further, merely walked around the bench
to stand in front of Nick.
        "Well, give Doctor,"  Schanke prompted.
        Ignoring the darker haired homicide detective,
Natalie looked directly into Nick's shuttered eyes and said,
"Its what you thought, Nick.  What are we going to do?"
        "We're going to do nothing,"  Knight stated firmly,
his normally gentle voice hardening.  "Schanke is going to
take you back to the morgue, I'll deal with this problem."
        "No.  Look Nick, this has been going on for weeks.
You've had no luck finding out who it is, neither has
Janette.  We need to call in an expert, I think we should call
in Inspector O'Neal."
        "No way, Nat.  We need to handle this quietly."
        "What are you two talking about?"  Schanke
interjected, standing up from the seat to stand beside Natalie.
"If you've got anything on this guy we need to turn it over to
the task force now!"
        "No, it's better if..."  Nick's reply was interrupted by
a low pitched hiss that cut, knifelike, through the night
around them.  His ears rang with the recollected noise.  He
was no longer talking to Schanke and Natalie on a park
bench, he was once more home.  Remembering being safe at home,
one more time on a cold night.
        "Nicola, finally, I've been looking for you
everywhere,"  Janette's voice was tight and anxious.
        "Jannette, what's wrong?"  He was at her side in an
instant, hands on her shoulders, offering safety and comfort.
        "They've destroyed him, the rogue, le bete.  The
cornered him in a building and burned it to the ground with
him inside."
        "Are you sure?  There was no chance that he
escaped?"  Nick questioned, knowing how hard his kind
could be to kill.  Remembering his failed attempt to kill
LaCroix, his maker.
        "I'm sure, the Enforcers are very efficient,"
Janette's dark eyes bored into his.  Fear radiated out of them,
brittle waves of it washed towards him.
        "Then why are you still so afraid?  There's nothing
more to worry about now,"  He pulled her into a tight
embrace, as if its power of it could erase her fright.
        "Stay with me, Nicola, please,"  she whispered into
his shoulder.
        "Of course I will, Janette.  For as long as you need
me but I need to know why you're so frightened."  He lifted
her face from his shoulder with a fingertip under her
porcelain chin.
        "Please, no questions, for once, please just do as I
ask,"  Janette's voice was thick, tension lowering it.
        Kissing her forehead gently, he replied, "Please,
Janette, tell me what's wrong."
        "No," her voice became louder and she pulled
suddenly away from him.  Her face softened when she again
looked at him.  "No questions, please, just stay here with me."
        Nicholas had known Janette for eight hundred
years.  There are things you know about a person after all that
time.  Things that are not spoken but are communicated as
loudly as a scream.  "Why do you want me to stay here?"  He
grabbed her arm, bringing her close.
        "You'll be safe here,"  she replied, her hand cover
the grip he had on her.  "Stay with me and be safe."
        "What happened with the Enforcers?"
        "They know, Nicola, they know that a human has
proof of our existence,"  Janette whispered back.  She could
see the words hurting him as she spoke them, see the fear
entering his heart.
        "No, Natalie!"  Nick yelled as he turned away from
Janette towards the park bench.  His reminiscence
transporting him instantly while the actually flight had taken
minutes too long.   Instead of his two friends, his wonderfully
full of life human friends, there was nothing but two corpses,
throats ripped out.  They lay across each other in front of the
bench.  Frost already forming on their faces, eyes staring out
into the night.  Blood stained the ground.  Rushing around
from the back of the bench, he knelt by them, his grief forcing
him to rock back and forth, an inarticulate moan lost in his
tightened throat.
        "They'll blame it on the serial killer,"  LaCroix's
voice broke through to his consciousness.  "The last two
victims to be claimed.  A terrible loss to the entire city,"  he
continued, tone light and mocking.
        "You did this,"  Knight forced the words out.
        "Me, Nicholas?"  LaCroix's features twisted into
something resembling human sadness.  "No, I had nothing to
do with their deaths.  The Enforcers came to kill Dr. Lambert
to make sure that our secret would be protected.  Detective
Schanke was, unfortunately, with her when they arrived."
        "They didn't have to do this!  She was no danger to
us!  It was one of our kind that put us all in danger!"  Eyes
glowing red, he shouted at his creator.
        "That is true.  One of our kind nearly exposed us all
but Dr. Lambert would have had no idea of what she was
looking at if she hadn't known you."
        Nicholas looked up from the bodies towards
LaCroix.  It was only the two of them, facing off over the
park bench.  Standing up, he drew closer to the other vampire.
"I am not the cause of this!"  he raged.
        "Aren't you?"  LaCroix shrugged, eyes digging into
Nick's, eyes glowing now, voice deepening  "You wanted to
be mortal.  You wanted to be around them.  They are prey,
Nicholas, and the hunter can only bring death to prey!"
        "No!"  the response came involuntarily from the core
of Nick's being.
        "Yes!  You put them in danger the moment you
befriended them.  Accept it, Nicholas, you are a vampire, you
are a killer that belongs with other killers."
        "I will not accept that,"  Nick's words were little
more than a whisper.  They barely registered on the other's
sensitive hearing.
        "You have to.  You may not have killed your friends
directly, Nicholas,"  LaCroix reached out a hand and gently
caressed his cheek, the emotion in his eyes unreadable.
"But you are responsible for their deaths.  I wonder if they
 had time to scream before the Enforcers ripped away their
lives?"
        Staring blankly at LaCroix for a moment, Nick
stiffly turning halfway away from him.
        "You belong with us, Nicholas."
        "I'm a danger to every mortal that I come in contact
with,"  Knight confirmed, his head giving a jerky nod, eyes
looking past the other vampire.  Eyes seeing things as they
had been, as they should be.
        "That is your nature.  The lion does not befriend the
antelope."
        "I'm not, I'm not..."  the younger vampire started to
speak but found himself unable to draw enough air to fill his
lungs.
        "You are, "  LaCroix confirmed, resting his hand
lightly on Nick's shoulder.  "Janette is worried about you.
She wants you to come back to her at the Raven."
        "No, I'm not.."  Nick let his words trail off and
turned his back on his master and faced the city lights.  "Not
again, no one is going to die because of me ever again."  He
stated firmly to the empty air around the bench.   The
LaCroix he had been listening to was there no longer.  The
echoes of his voice rang only in Nicholas' mind.   The lamp
winked out as the twilight began to lighten.  "No, not ever
again,"
        He looked out over the city he had tried to hard to
protect for the last few years.  He remembered all the smells,
sights and voices.  Schanke's voice laughing and teasing him
about his strange diet.  The pounding music at the Raven
thundering into his senses.  Janette's perfume driving itself
into his blood..  LaCroix's snake-soft voice winding into his
mind.  The sound of Natalie's voice cajoling him to take his
medicine.  Recollections piled around him like stones. So
many things to remember, every nuance so clear seen from
the present. The reverberations surrounded him. His mother's
voice.  The sound of sirens wailing in the night  And the
sound of a scream he had never heard.  The aftermath of the
scream echoed in his ears, as if a loud noise had suddenly
stopped.  He looked away from his memories at the present
around him.  It was so very light.  So very strange that with
all the things that he remembered as if he were there once
again, that he hadn't remembered how very brilliant the sun
was.

END