Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 18:20:00 CDT From: Jill Kirby Subject: Asteroid Challenge: Unto Dust (1/1) Warning: this one isn't especially lighthearted, but this is the story that wanted (demanded) to be told. There are some non-canon names in here, FYI. Thanks to Lillian Feden for her feedback and patience. Constructive criticism, praise, Diet Coke or flames to jtkirby@mcs.com. Unto Dust (1/1) a Forever Knight Story by Jill Kirby He was the last. In all likelihood, he was the last living, sentient being to walk the earth. He would not walk it much longer. His strength was failing rapidly. There hadn't been mortals to feed from for longer than he could remember. Some animals had survived, and the blood of a rat was sweet when you were starving. But even rats had lost the ability to propagate in this wasteland, and they eventually disappeared along with all other animals that vampires could feed from. They had turned on themselves, and LaCroix had been the final victor as the vampire population disappeared. There was no sun to kill them, but a drained vampire left without a way to replenish himself suffered agonies of tortured thirst, madness, and eventually a merciful disintegration into ash. Only the very old ones lived for long and eventually they, too, were gone. There hadn't been that many old ones left to begin with. There was no sanctuary, no peace, no succor for the last vampire on Earth. Once he was too weak to fly, LaCroix found a structure - it might have been a building, once - to crawl into. It provided some shelter from the vicious storms that ravaged the planet. He didn't know any longer where he was. Shapes of continents had changed, shifted. He might have been in Canada, or in China, or in Africa. Inside his shelter, LaCroix lay shivering under a makeshift cover of rags and debris. He had thought it impossible for a vampire to be cold, but this "second ice age" had proved him wrong - over and over again. There was but the unrelenting cold. His thoughts strayed to his children. LaCroix thought of them often. Those he had made, such as Alexandra; those he had killed, such as Daniel. Philip. Margarethe. His favorites - Janette. Nicholas. He had kept those two close for half his life, and losing them to this darkness had been the cruelest blow. He remembered Janette's face as they knew the meteor was about to hit. She had turned away from him, her voice even. "This is the end, is it not?" "It is." He did not lie to this one. She did not need lies - she never had. "Then it is the end for me." He did not immediately understand. "We have a few hours of sunlight left before hell takes over." She turned back towards him, her chin lifted proudly. Her eyes were clear and fearless. "I will see the sun before I go." Even now, he felt a fierce pride at the remembered courage of his favorite daughter. She had touched his face gently. "You will tell Nicola of my choice?" He nodded. She left the cellar they were hiding in and met the light. So strong. So brave. She had been spared the devastation. She had spared herself a lingering death. Once the earth had stopped shaking from the impact, LaCroix had ventured out into a landscape so alien that he thought he must be caught in a nightmare. Nothing looked like it should, and the smells of fire and death were everywhere. There were still mortals alive then. Most were wounded or crippled; many were mad with grief. LaCroix had ignored them, not even caring to feed, and searched for Nicholas. The connection had been weak but distinct. He did not have to search very far. LaCroix had found his son huddled in the corner of an old bomb shelter, near the ruins of what had once been a hospital. He was surrounded by debris, and corpses, and rats - the rats had still been plentiful - and covered with dirt and blood. Nicholas was rocking back and forth, eyes shut, cradling a body in his arms and singing as if rocking a beloved child to sleep. As he approached, LaCroix recognized the song Nicholas was singing - an old French lullaby. Nicholas did not stop singing, nor let go of the body, as LaCroix came up to him. Nicholas was singing to the broken body of Natalie Lambert. Quietly, LaCroix sat down next to him, resting his back against the wall, watching his son. Nicholas would speak when he was ready. His hands were bloody and raw, and the pain must have been excruciating - he needed blood to heal - but he didn't appear to notice. He just rocked and sang, rocked and sang, his voice rough and cracked but impossibly beautiful. When Nicholas finally raised his head, LaCroix knew he was looking into the eyes of a man who'd lost all hope. The anguish in them was so great that LaCroix reached out and put one hand on Nicholas' arm for a moment in silent support. "She died instantly." His face was red with dried tears. "She went to the hospital to act as part of the post-impact medical team. The building collapsed." "It was a merciful death." "Was it?" Nick's voice was raw with pain. "She begged me to bring her across. I wouldn't." LaCroix could see the self-recrimination, the agony, in Nicholas' face as the tears began again. "She tried to go to someone else, and I stopped her." Nick had to bend his head and compose himself before he continued. "She begged me... and then she stopped begging. She'd still be here if I had done as she asked." "Nicholas." The tone of LaCroix's voice brought Nick's head up sharply. "Would you condemn your Natalie to ?" He gestured around the rubble. "Even we will die, eventually. You might have given her a day, a week - but her death would have been far more horrible. She would have been too young to protect herself, and you could not have kept her safe for long." "I love her." Nick's arms tightened around Natalie involuntarily. "I love her so much." "I know." LaCroix had always known, and when he had met Natalie he had understood. He knew, now, what Nicholas was thinking. "You don't want to go on." It was a statement, not a question. "No," said Nick quietly. "I do not." "Then do what you must. Find your own peace in this, as Janette did." Nicholas' slow nod told LaCroix that he had felt Janette's death. That knowledge was certainly part of his pain - but he was also confused and bewildered. LaCroix had held him tightly for a thousand years, and Nick was unable to believe he'd ever let go. What he could not know, could not understand, is that LaCroix would not damn his beloved Nicholas to the nightmare that was to come. Oh, if Nicholas wanted to stay and fight, LaCroix would be by his side - but Nicholas would lose, eventually. Better that he choose his own time, and his own way. LaCroix would stay, and fight. That was way. "What were you thinking of doing?" Somehow, in the obscenity that the world had become, the conversation made perfect sense. Nick bent his head again, his eyes fixed on Natalie's face. "The sun." "There is no sun." "There is, if I go above the clouds." And there it was. Nicholas, like Janette, would end everything by facing the light. "But I can't leave her " Nick's voice was fierce, and he brushed Natalie's hair back from her bruised forehead, his hand lingering with ineffable tenderness. "Not like this. She deserves better." LaCroix remembered the luminous eyes that had met his bravely, unflinchingly; the unexpected beauty of the woman who fought so hard to love Nicholas despite everything. He rose. "Come." They buried the body of Natalie Lambert below the broken surface of the earth. LaCroix stood silently while Nicholas prayed with his face in his hands, as the dust swirled around them, as the smoke from fires near and far choked their lungs. When Nicholas was done praying, he turned and faced LaCroix. "Thank you." "If there is a God..." LaCroix stopped. If there was a God, then this entire nightmare made even less sense. "If there is a God, I hope you find Him." Nick was silent, looking at the flat stone that marked Natalie's resting place. It was time for him to go. "You'll need blood to fly high, Nicholas." Nick's face was uncomprehending, and LaCroix held out his arm, offering his wrist. "Take your strength from me." So the son had accepted his father's last, kindest gift. Now, LaCroix lay freezing and close to unconsciousness. He hadn't fed in months. Or years, perhaps. His memories were his companions, and he let himself be lost in them. It was kinder to be with them than to understand where he was, and what he had become. Janette came to him, swathed in red velvet, and asked him for a dance... *** Jill Kirby *** jtkirby@mcs.com *** MsJill@AOL.COM Natpack Fashion Cop and Member, Box o'Puppies She wasn't good, but she had good intentions.