Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 12:13:47 +0100 From: "Kennedy, Jean" Subject: Say "Uncle" (1/4) Well, Cousin Mel beat me to the punch! This story is in the conversation/interview genre. Unlike Mel's, though, this one was not inspired by Marci's "A Conversation with Nick Knight," but by a series of dreams I had some weeks ago during a time of high anxiety. This is my first-ever work of fanfic, and I owe thanks to my beta readers, Cousin erica and Leslie Remencus of the Natpack . Music buffs: during the writing I was nourished by Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil" (I recommend the Robert Shaw Festival Singers release, called "Vespers," on Telarc) and Disney's "Rhythm of the Pride Lands," especially the track 'He Lives in You.' I welcome all constructive criticisms and suggestions for future endeavors. No flames, please. Standard disclaimers apply. --------------------------------- Say "Uncle" (1/4) by Jean Kennedy (c) 1996 She stood at the great fireplace in the center of the windowless hall, savoring the lingering fragrance of cedar and pine ashes. Idly her fingers traced the carved granite, reading the shapes of harvest bounty: ears of corn, shocks of wheat, the sensual roundness of fruit. Odd symbols of life in such a place, she thought. She rested her forehead against the cool marble of the mantelpiece. Suddenly her scalp began to tingle and the hairs on the back of her neck stood. She raised her head abruptly, looked over her shoulder. The stone arch of the entryway opposite the fireplace remained empty and soundless. Absently she massaged the skin behind her ears. The tingling sensation faded. She scanned the hall again to reassure herself. Its walls were warm ochre, painted in a way that made her want to see cave paintings on them rather than the elaborate tapestries. The earthy color made the large space seem almost welcoming. The few items of furniture were arranged in intimate groups that blended antique wood and modern leather and glass with surprising harmony. Red Persian wool area rugs with accents of black, white, and yellow saved the hardwood floor from sterility. Comforted, she crossed the floor to a trio of glass-fronted bookcases at the end of the hall. There were similar groupings at all four corners. The heels of her flats echoed faintly with each step. She walked with confidence. As though she had a right to be there. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the leaded glass. Antique volumes filled the shelves. Cicero. Marcus Aurelius. Livy. Heroditus. Aristotle. Plato. Hobbes. Machiavelli. Pliny. Plutarch. Galen. Ptolemy. Hegel. Kant. Nietzsche. Homer. Dante. Donne. Shakespeare. Dickens. Dostoevsky. Carroll. Her breath caught in her chest. She'd never seen such a staggering private collection. She shouldn't be surprised, but was awed and delighted all the same. She longed for a closer look. Carefully, she tried to raise the front. Locked, of course. "Who *are* you?" the voice hissed into her left ear. "And how did you get into my home?" She sprang away from the bookcase so fast that she collided with another at right angles to it. Books within fell from their places to the bottom of the cabinet. She eyed them with wild dismay. Oh, God, had she damaged the books? She'd never forgive herself. Unthinking, she crouched to examine them, then remembered that she wasn't alone. Her head snapped up. He wasn't even close to her. He stood immobile in the stone arch, swathed entirely in black. His face was so white that his head appeared to float, disembodied, against the darkness of the hallway behind him. His pale blue gaze pinned her to the spot. "I'm sorry," she croaked, clumsily trying to right herself. He offered no aid. She gestured feebly at the fallen books. "I didn't mean to . . ." She felt tears of embarrassment sting her eyes and cursed herself. She hated to cry. She wouldn't, dammit. Annoyance steadied her. She cleared her throat. "My name is Jean Kennedy. I persuaded your housekeeper let me in. I told her - I convinced her I had an interview with you." He made no response. Not a muscle twitched. "She says you never have visitors." Lame and lamer, she thought. Gods, why doesn't the floor open up and swallow me? He studied her lazily, enjoying her discomfiture. She was a short, blonde woman of considerable girth. She also wore black, a simple dress with a single strand of freshwater pearls, black belt, black flats. Around her left wrist coiled a golden snake with ruby eyes. She was otherwise unadorned and unremarkable. "You know who I am," he stated flatly. "Of course. Lucien LaCroix. The Nightcrawler." She gathered her bravado and plunged on. "One of the reasons I'm here is because I am the president of the official Lucien LaCroix Fan Club. Well, the unofficial club. I'm hoping you'll allow us to make it official. I'm really sorry I intruded, but . . . " She looked at the floor beseechingly and then back at him. " You don't have an agent and you never return calls, so I followed you one night to find out where you live, and . . . I really would like an interview. Sometime." "And do you know *what* I am?" A thrill of dread and excitement crept up her spine. He could kill her, for being here, for knowing. He could kill her. What had she been thinking, to come here? She was insane. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Yes, I know what you are . . . Uncle." He cocked an eyebrow and almost smiled. "Oho. So you're a Cousin, are you?" "Yes." One with severe Knightie tendencies, she added silently. He considered her. "Well, then. I think you had better sit down." His sudden gesture toward the sofa grouping before the fireplace nearly sent her into the bookcase again. She willed bone and sinew to reattach themselves and walked slowly toward the seat he had indicated. ================================= Cousin Jean "Would that she were a less annoying woman" - LaCroix Say "Uncle" (2/4) By Jean Kennedy (c) 1996 He intercepted her before she seated herself, placing himself squarely in front of her. She found herself staring into his broad chest. He was taller than she had expected. She glared up at him. "Are you trying to intimidate me on purpose?" she asked. "Because I'm scared enough as it is." She lowered herself to the cushion without taking her eyes from his. "Forgive me. Would you care for some wine? Of the vegetal variety, naturally. I do keep one or two nice reds." She nodded. "Yes. No. No, I don't think I should. Thank you." She seldom drank. And this was no time to lose her inhibitions. "As you wish. You don't mind if I partake? I'm a trifle . . . hungry." "Please, don't deprive yourself on my account." At one end of the hall, he opened an ingeniously hidden door to reveal a small stillroom. A draft of cool air from within refreshed her. He selected a bottle and a crystal goblet. Returning, he seated himself across from her and uncorked the bottle. Caucasus Mountain Vintners: Russian Cossack, 1905. He poured slowly. He set the bottle on an end table and settled back, glass in hand, swirling the crimson liquid. The smell of metallic musk made her salivary glands contract. "It has to breathe, you know." His mouth smiled. His eyes did not. "So. Tell me about this fan club. You mentioned `us.' How many of you are there?" "Actually, just me at the moment. But I know of several others, and if I put it on the 'net, I'm sure Cousins all over the world will be interested. And members of other factions. Enough to make it worth the trouble of handling dues and producing a newsletter. It's a potentially sizable operation. The newsletter, of course, is why I wanted the interview." He regarded his glass thoughtfully. "All over the world?" he mused. "CERK's signal isn't nearly that strong. Why should people all over the world care about a Toronto DJ?" "Let's face it, you have a rather compelling personality, and vocal qualities to match. Certainly you present a unique point of view. Your monologues are what people talk about the next day at the watercooler. We could transcribe them in the newsletter. Or offer audio tapes." "And what else would you be putting in this newsletter of yours?" "The usual biographical stuff. Personal appearances. Playlists. Fan letters, reactions to your monologues. Raven events." "I don't make personal appearances outside the Raven, my dear. As for `the usual biographical stuff,' you'd be rather limited in the kinds of information you could publish. Otherwise you might attract interest you'd rather not have." "You mean from -" she started to say, `the Enforcers,' but thought better of it and bit down on the words. "From my community." "Well, they could be part of the target audience, too, couldn't they? Free membership?" she offered. He sipped his beverage. "No," he said shortly. "I can't allow it. If my people knew that you knew about them, your life and the lives of your members would be in danger, and my life would be hell - or worse - for authorizing the undertaking. And although the community might appreciate new blood coming into the club, so to speak, they surely would not appreciate the attention. You must understand, the Raven is *their* club. Mortals are tolerated but not encouraged." "But -" "Let me make myself perfectly clear, Miss Kennedy," he interrupted sharply. "Your life and the lives of your friends are frankly of small concern to me. If you want to put yourself at greater risk, that is your affair. You are fair game. "My privacy, however, and the well-being of my people are very important to me. I have a position to maintain. And I will not have the community disrupted or exposed to undue scrutiny or otherwise jeopardized in any way." He raised a hand to cut off further protest. "I will hear no more about it." Say "Uncle" (3/4) by Jean Kennedy (c) 1996 She sat quietly, with her hands in her lap, chilled. Fair game? She'd never thought of herself as *game* before. "Maybe I will have that wine," she murmured. He rose immediately and seconds later pressed a cool glass between her palms. "From Chile," he said. "I'm told it's quite good." "Thank you." She took a sip, warmed it in her mouth, swallowed. It was good, dry and fruity, with a heady bouquet. She set the glass aside. He resettled himself, watching her closely. "Tell me," he said conversationally, "why you are a Cousin." These groupies both fascinated and irritated him. In the larger scheme of things they were as inconsequential as moths around a flame, yet they kept tugging at his loyalties. She shrugged. "I didn't set out to be a Cousin. I tried to remain unaffiliated. But I really had no choice." "Oh, there's always a choice, isn't there? Do enlighten me." She wasn't much in the mood for philosophical debate. "A choice when there is no real alternative is no choice, LaCroix. And there really was no alternative. It seems to be in my nature. There is an elegance about you, and . . . something else . . . that is enormously attractive to me." She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it. Please, she prayed, take it for what it's worth and let it go at that. She was appalled when he prompted in velvet tones, "And what would that something be?" She could not remember when she had felt so vulnerable. There was something dark and sexy about him that she had never quite been able to articulate, and she didn't want to try now. She parried, "You've been around a long time. You must have a sense of these things. What do you think?" He pursed his lips and let his gaze drift toward the ceiling. "Well, now. There are so many possibilities. There have been some who thought themselves in love with me. But you're not, are you? No, I thought not. Others have been enamored of certain features of my anatomy." He glanced at her speculatively. "But that's not the primary thing for you, is it?" She was beginning to feel like a catnip toy. "No," she whispered. "Some people like to flirt with danger. No? Are you sure? Hmmm. Some are excited by power . . ." She closed her eyes as heat suffused her body, reached for her wine glass. Sipped, and kept the glass at her lips, as though its deep purple hues would conceal the color rising into her neck and face, would somehow protect her from further humiliation. "Ahhh," he purred. "Two kinds of people are attracted to power: those who want to dominate others, and those who want to be dominated. Which are you, I wonder?" He contemplated her with the benign interest one might give a colorful insect. She glowered at him over the rim of her glass. "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude to stare?" He replied calmly, as if to a child, "Hasn't anyone ever told you that power corrupts?" "Absolute power," she mumbled into her wine. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." "Power of any kind. I know what I'm talking about, trust me." "Trust you? Not by a long shot." She replaced the glass on the table. He chuckled mirthlessly, deep in his throat. "Good, very good. Very sensible." He leaned toward her slightly. "But now, tell me why you're here." She stared at him dumbly. "I told you." He waved her words away. "No. Why are you *here*? You could easily have approached me at the studio. Why did you come here?" She didn't want to tell him the truth, after that last exchange. Bad enough she'd come under questionable pretenses. And she'd lied to the housekeeper, to boot. Well, he was questioning her pretenses, wasn't he? She smiled wryly. Why add insult to injury? "Partly because I thought it would be harder for you to say no if I came here, showed you I was in earnest and all that. Partly because I'm not very comfortable at the Raven. I'm not much of a nightclub kind of gal." She grinned ruefully. "But ultimately, I suppose, out of curiosity. Being a Cousin. It was rude, I admit. Nobody likes to have their privacy violated." Your kind, especially, she thought. She wanted to say that she was sorry again, but she wasn't sorry any more. Better to let it be. "You were curious," he sneered. "What, to see the vampire's lair? Miss Kennedy, you are either a fool or you have a death wish. Which is it?" She fluttered a hand in front of her face as if to dismiss an unpleasant thought. "It was so much more than that. I wanted to see *you*. Not the owner of the Raven. Not the Nightcrawler. You. Lucien LaCroix. Up close and personal." He was at her side in an instant, his craggy face inches from hers, so close she could see only his eyes. He smelled vaguely of copper. "Is this close enough?" he growled. ================================== Cousin Jean "Would that she were a less annoying woman." - LaCroix Say "Uncle" (4/4) by Jean Kennedy (c) 1996 She recoiled, searching his eyes for any sign of tractability. But his glare was relentless and uncompromising. She was lost, her mind panicked with a flood of possible answers, all unacceptable. She could hear her own blood rushing in her ears, like hearing the ocean in a seashell. LaCroix's eyes were beginning to shimmer. She forced herself to draw breath. If you can't run away, she thought, step inside the opponent's reach. Fight fire with fire. She seized his face in both hands and kissed him as hard as she could. His eyes widened in astonishment. She pushed away with all the force she could muster. He rocked back, off the sofa and onto his feet. His eyes glowed green-gold. He snarled, showing his fangs. Her whole body vibrated with each rapid beat of her heart. She could feel the lump of fear in her throat. Defiantly, she wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. "Not quite what I had in mind," she said huskily. "But yes, close enough." He paced furiously before the fireplace, circled her, paced again. Her heart synchronized itself to the clack of his boot heel on the hardwood. She dared not move, dared not look directly at him, although she tried to follow his movement surreptitiously. The effort tired her eyes, and she lowered her lids until she could see nothing but the floor in front of her. Without warning he took her from behind, crushing her upper body to his chest, turning her face to his shoulder. She was unable to cry out. "Is *this* what you had in mind?" he rasped. His breath was hot on her neck. She tried to shake her head, but his hand against her forehead was too strong. She could feel the grain of his skin, hear the slow cadence of his heart. "No," she wheezed. "No." Yet she was filled with a consuming sense of anticipation. She hoped it was just adrenaline. She'd hate to think she was such a sick puppy. She tried to relax against him so she could breathe. "Your lips say no, no, but your body says yes, yes," he mocked. "Body . . . never did know . . . what was good for it," she chided. "LaCroix . . . can't breathe." The pressure of his arm across her chest lessened, not enough for comfort, but enough. "I should kill you," he muttered. "This is my home. *No one* comes into my home." "Housekeeper," she observed, and regretted it at once as his grip tightened. "Stop, I'm sorry! Listen, LaCroix, I won't tell anybody, I swear. If you're so worried about it, just whammy me!" He laughed abrasively. "How little you know yourself. You can be influenced, yes, but you're certainly not one to yield control. It wouldn't take. I'm afraid it's not an option, my dear." He stroked the vein along the side of her neck with his thumb. It was oddly soothing. Fear drained away from her. He felt her soften against him and relaxed his hold correspondingly. "Perhaps there is an alternative," he said reflectively. She found the rumble of his voice in his chest very pleasant. "Go on," she encouraged. "Perhaps there is another way I can *influence* you. A more permanent way." "I don't follow." "If I feed on you, there will be a bond between us. It will be weak on your part, but it may work." "LaCroix, I don't understand." He bent his head to her neck, so that his breath whispered against her skin when he spoke. "When I take from you, part of what I take returns to you when the suction is broken. It's rather like drinking through a straw, do you see? Certain, mmm, enzymes also return with the blood." "I would get a little infusion of you?" "Precisely." "It won't make me a vampire?" "No. As I say, it would be weak on your part. You may be a little more sensitive to sunlight, a little more aware of my kind. You will most definitely be more sensitive to *me*. And I will *always* be aware of you." "Built-in tracking?" He grinned, the points of his teeth pricking her neck. "Think of it," he proposed, "as a deepening of your Cousinly nature. Live as a blood relative, Miss Kennedy, or die. It's your choice." "This won't obligate me to be snack food for you, will it?" "You are trying my patience," he warned. "I'll take Life for a thousand, Alex." She gasped as his fangs tore through her flesh, reflexively clutching his arm with both hands, at once trying to hold fast and to pull it away from her. Blindly she groped for his fingers at her shoulder. He gripped her scrabbling hand firmly in his. She struggled less then, becoming lightheaded with shock as he drew the blood through her veins. There was a sinking sensation in her stomach, water in her eyes. Her breath labored. He released her abruptly, resting a monitoring hand over her heart as her terror subsided and her body stabilized itself. Satisfied, he touched her wine glass to her lips. "Drink," he commanded. She clasped the bowl of the goblet in trembling hands and sipped obediently. "I didn't mean to fight you," she mumbled. "I didn't expect the pain." "Merely instinct," he replied. "To be expected." He appraised her cooly. "I must say, I find your blood exceptionally clean in the finish." She lifted her fingertips to the wounds. "Vegetarian," she replied absently, examining their reddened tips wonderingly. "Very low cholesterol." Aside from lingering soreness and wooziness, she didn't feel much different than she had a few minutes ago. She rubbed her neck gently. "Ice will reduce the swelling," he advised her. "And now, dear *niece*, I think you had better go. I'm rather tired." She flinched at his sarcastic undertone. "Yes. I could use some rest, myself." She put out a hand and he helped her to her feet. "You can see yourself out?" "Of course." She brushed at her dress before making her way carefully toward the entryway. "Miss Kennedy." She turned under the stone arch. He stood at the fireplace, his face dispassionate. "If you utter a word of this to anyone, I *will* find you." She nodded once, pivoted slowly on her heel, and departed. Outside, in the too-bright sun, she stopped. She'd come here for an interview, but who had interviewed whom? She heard her blood shushing in her veins, surging through her arteries with LaCroix's low, rolling laughter. She looked back over her shoulder at the imposing wooden door of the manse. After a moment, she lifted her head and joined her own laughter to his. ================================= Fin. All comments welcome. No flames, please. Cousin Jean "Would that she were a less annoying woman." - LaCroix