Vampires Are Useful For More Than Just Hickeys 
by Imajiru 
imajiru@mindspring.com
imajiru@unicorn-x.net



Hours after Nick had stumbled out of her apartment into the 
late afternoon sunlight, grinning like a fool, headed off 
to work and a souvlaki dinner with Schanke, LaCroix came to 
pay Natalie a visit.

"Doctor Lambert," he said, courteously enough, though the 
venom in his voice couldn't be masked by so transparent a 
thing as politeness.  "I see you've finally discovered the 
cure Nicholas has sought for so long."

Nat leaned back in her chair and smiled at him.  "Nope," 
she replied casually.

His eyebrows raised at that -- disbelief at her statement, 
and honest startlement, for his keen vampire senses would 
have surely detected a lie, if she'd told one.

"Nicholas," he stated, "has spent the last three hours on 
the phone with me, smugly describing the glories of sunsets 
and garlic sauce; and you deny that you've given him back 
his mortality?"

"I do," said Nat promptly, "because I haven't."  She 
watched his bemusement with glee; it was nice to have 
caught the formidable LaCroix wholly off guard.

"In that case," he asked her, "pray tell, what have you 
found?"

Her smile widened into a fierce grin that would have looked 
quite at home on her adversary's face: it was feral, and 
full of teeth.

"I think," she said, "I've found my fortune."

Now, he was intrigued; the last traces of his anger 
disappeared, replaced by consuming curiosity.  "Tell me 
more," LaCroix said.

She waved him to a chair, and he sat down, and listened as 
she related the tale.

-------

Afterwards, he studied the vial she'd handed him with 
interest.  "A derivative of lidovuterine," he commented.

"I was thinking of calling it the Natalie serum," Nat said, 
with a note of triumph in her voice.

"How terribly immodest.  By all means, the Natalie serum it 
is."  LaCroix chuckled faintly.  "Does Nicholas know?"

"What, that it's not permanent?  He knows.  He doesn't 
care."  She fixed the other with her gaze.  "He doesn't 
feel the vampire inside him," she said, "and that's what 
matters, as far as he's concerned.  He can see the sun 
again, he can eat, he can," and a light blush colored her 
cheeks, "do other human things... the symptoms are 
suppressed; never mind that the disease is still there."

"And you're quite certain that the drug's effects will wear 
off?"

"Oh, yes.  Eighteen hours, like clockwork."  Nat frowned 
slightly.  "So far, it seems as if regular doses will work 
as a maintenance regimen, but I'm not certain if those 
results will hold...  It's definitely temporary, though.  
And it won't get you high, and it's not addictive.  That 
much, I'm sure of."  She eyed him consideringly.  "Want to 
try it?"

His eyes darkened to stormy steel.  "If anything untoward 
happens to me," he mentioned, "I'll kill you."

"I know," said Natalie steadily.  "I wouldn't offer it to 
you if I wasn't sure.  Not after what nearly happened to 
Nick, last time..."

"Mmm."  LaCroix thought it over.  "All right," he said 
finally, almost defiantly.

He held very still as she administered the injection; his 
attention seemed to be turned inward, focused on the 
changes happening within him.  No violent reactions this 
time: this drug was far more gentle in its effects.

"I don't feel any different," he advanced tentatively, 
after a few moments.

Natalie got up from the couch and headed to her kitchen, 
pulled out a liter bottle of cranberry juice and poured two 
glasses, brought them into the living room and handed one 
to him.

Dubiously, he sipped it, seemed startled by the taste.  "I 
see," was all he said.

She went to the window and opened the curtains -- hours had 
flown by, and dawn was lightening the sky.  "Come here," 
she said, and he moved to stand beside her, gazing into the 
unaccustomed glow unflinchingly.  She couldn't help but 
admire his courage, for he had no evidence but her word 
that the sun's rays wouldn't cause him harm, and yet he 
chose to face the danger...

"Ah," said LaCroix, and was silent, staring into the 
distant sunrise.

"I'll never understand Nicholas," he said at last; there 
was no malice in his tone, only calm statement of fact.  
"Why does this matter so much to him?"

"I think," said Natalie carefully, not wishing to offend 
him, "that he's tired of feeling like a monster."

LaCroix considered that.  "I have never felt like a 
monster," he said conversationally.

She stole a sideways glance at him.  "Never?"

"Perhaps once or twice," he conceded, without apparent 
dismay.  "But never with the passion with which Nicholas 
convicts himself."

"You're better at dealing with your pain than he is," she 
offered, as an explanation.  "Which is a good thing... I 
think."

"What, no sweeping indictments, no accusations of my evil?" 
he wondered aloud.

"Well, I've only ever heard Nick's side of the story, 
right?" she countered.  "And there are two sides to every 
story."

Sudden comprehension lit his face.  "As you discovered 
during the meteorite incident," he probed.

"Mmm-hmmm."  She met his piercing stare with her own best 
defense: absolute, unflagging honesty.  "I'm beginning to 
learn that Nick has a... unique perspective," Nat said.  "I 
love him, but I don't always share his viewpoints... and 
sometimes he's such an idiot that I just want to *slap* 
him..."

LaCroix's eyes widened, and he laughed -- a merry, 'I-know-
exactly-what-you're-saying' sort of laugh that Natalie 
rather liked; it made him seem less remote and formidable, 
more... well, human.

She stood beside him at the window, thinking that it was 
remarkable how comfortable she was beginning to feel with 
him, now that his presence was no longer an imminent 
threat.

"So this is how humanity is supposed to feel," he said, 
after a while.

"I guess so," she answered.

"I don't like it," he pronounced.

"You've hardly tried it," she pointed out reasonably.

"I don't need to.  Unlike Nicholas, I enjoy my nature."  He 
favored her with a small smile that was anything but 
innocent.  "I have no wish to be anything else."

"Your choice," she replied, undisturbed by his affirmation 
of the beast within; she hadn't actually expected him to 
sample her serum in the first place.

"But your potion will certainly revolutionize our society.  
The ability to deflect suspicion so simply..."  She could 
see him considering and weighing the possibilities inherent 
in her discovery -- could see him simultaneously figuring 
the potential profit; from the gleam in his eye, it was 
significant.

"Tell me," he said, and his utter casualness was in itself 
a tip-off, "have you considered the possibility of a... 
business partner?"

Natalie laughed.  "Nick said you'd want a piece of the 
action," she told him.

"Really.  And I suppose he advised you to decline..."

"Actually, he said that you'd probably make me my first 
million within the year," Nat said.  "That of all the 
people he knew, no one was as good at making money as you 
are.  And that, as long as you were getting a fair share of 
the profits, you probably wouldn't cheat me out of mine."

"Really..."  Clearly, LaCroix had not expected such praise 
from his wayward child.

"Nick's not good with money matters," she said idly, "but 
of course, you know that."

"I do indeed.  He has absolutely no head for business."

"Neither do I, really.  When it comes to high finance, I'd 
just as soon let someone else deal with it."  She studied 
him closely, to see how he'd react.  "Someone, you know, 
really talented with these things.  Someone who's been 
doing it for a long time."

He just looked at her, head tilted slightly sideways, 
evaluating her offer, evaluating her.

"A *long* time," Natalie added, just to be certain he'd 
understood.

"And you believe Nicholas wouldn't object?"

"He's the one who suggested it," Nat said, and watched 
LaCroix do a double-take.  "That's why he's not here; we 
knew you'd come to see me, and we both knew that if he was 
here, you two would get to fighting, and nothing would ever 
be resolved.  It seemed a much better idea for you and I to 
talk privately... don't you think?"

It took him awhile to assimilate all that he'd been told; 
she let him have the time to think.  "You really are 
serious about this," he said at one point, and she nodded; 
he fell silent again, and she waited patiently for him to 
decide.

"Six weeks," he said finally.

Nat roused herself from the reverie she'd fallen into: 
thinking about some of those 'human things' she and Nick 
had so enjoyed doing together.  "Excuse me?"

"Your first million," LaCroix said.  "Six weeks."

She grinned up at him.  "I'll hold you to that."

He extended his hand to her, and she took it; his grip was 
human-firm, under the influence of her drug.  "You and I, 
going into business together..."

"And Nick," said Nat.  "You and me and Nick."

"Why?" LaCroix asked.  "Your discovery, my financial acumen 
and marketing strategies -- what will Nicholas add?  Why 
should we share our profits with him?"

There was a gleam in his eye, but it was impossible to tell 
whether he was joking; Nat opted to play it safe and assume 
that he was serious, and donned her best fierce glare.  "I 
love him," she said strongly.

"What has that to do with anything?"

"Because I say so," she snapped.  Then reconsidered, as a 
random thought crossed her mind.  "Besides, he's our guinea 
pig," she added, because that was an argument LaCroix would 
surely understand."

He burst into laughter.  "Oh, I like your style!" he said 
approvingly, and Nat just had to laugh with him.

She gazed out at the sunrise, the beginning of a whole new 
day -- of a whole new life, actually.  A mortal life, and 
an immortal one; she'd managed to wrest that promise out of 
Nick, shamelessly preying on his love for her in a weak 
moment in order to procure that vow.  After all, now she 
could live forever without becoming a killer; what reason 
was left for him to deny her wish to share eternity with 
him?  He hadn't been hard to persuade...

"This is going to be an interesting decade, I think," said 
LaCroix from her side.

"An interesting century," said Natalie, "and a profitable 
one," and she smiled, thinking of the times to come.



In The Age of Transparent Aluminum, A Brick Is Still A 
Brick; and Bricks Need Cement to Keep Them from Falling 

(a sequel to Vampires Are Useful For More Than Just 
Hickeys) 

by Imajiru September 21, 1995



In a century which offered a plethora of opportunities for 
the immortal undead, in a society which knew and accepted 
vampires as being no more strange or fearsome than any 
other unearthly being one might encounter in a space 
station or on a planetary colony...  in a universe where he 
could have ordered a synthetic blood product from any one 
of a double-dozen fast-food menus and consumed it in public 
(fangs and all) without attracting a single odd look, 
Nicholas was half-starved.

The hunger burned inside him, consuming him: flames licked 
at his veins, slowly subsuming his guilt in the bright heat 
of desire.  He welcomed that rising insanity -- nowadays, 
it was the only way he could bring himself to drink blood 
at all.

All at once, his senses narrowed to a single focus: there 
was fresh human blood, just ahead.

She was young, oh so young, and so fair and blonde and 
innocent -- dressed in white lace: the perfect sumptuous 
feast to sate his ravening hunger.  He resisted, he tried 
his utmost, but the effort was more than he could endure; 
it had been so long, so damned long, and everything inside 
him cried for relief...

He took her so swiftly that she didn't have time to 
protest, didn't have time to make a sound.

The taste of her blood sent a swift, hard shudder through 
him; he drank deeply, gulping it down, unable to take it in 
fast enough to satisfy his needs.  But not even that sweet 
sensation could eradicate his shame: it lurked just beneath 
the surface, a dark ominous mass of anguish, ready to 
strangle him the moment the rush of blood abated.

-------

Natalie waited patiently for Nick to emerge; when at last 
he made his way through the heavy door, she asked, "So?"

His skin was flushed, from his recent intake of blood and 
the accompanying rush of almost sexual pleasure that 
feeding could produce -- a feeling she knew quite well 
herself.  "Very... realistic," he managed, in a rough voice 
that suggested he still hadn't quite recovered his 
equilibrium.

She went to him, took his arm and guided him to one of the 
easy chairs; he sank into it gratefully, his eyes closing.  
"The latest in genetic engineering," she said 
conversationally -- to fill the silence, mostly; he knew it 
all already.  "Not quite human, but an incredible 
simulation.  No mind, no capacity for thought or emotion -- 
but plenty of fresh blood.  Combined with the holographic 
imagery, it's awfully effective, don't you think?  All the 
action and excitement of the hunt, and none of the 
danger... and no one dies."

His eyes flickered open, fixed on hers.

"I figure the franchise rights alone will make us rich all 
over again," Natalie said prosaically.

"It's realistic," Nick repeated, in a voice more nearly his 
own.  "Too *damned* realistic for my comfort."

She shoved him to one side, nestled beside him -- there was 
room for them both in the easy chair; it had been designed 
for a race that stood eight feet tall and twice as broad as 
the average human.  "I know what you've been doing," she 
murmured.  "And I can see what it's been doing to you.  
Nick, you can't starve yourself..."

"I can hardly bring myself to drink anymore, either," he 
said, nearly inaudibly.

Nat shook her head in dismay, wrapped her arms around him 
and hugged him hard.  "Nick, you can't..."

"What's happened, Nat?  To you, to us?"  His eyes were 
filled with pain as they gazed into hers.  "You used to 
search for our cure; now, you spend your time designing 
artifical blood products, and mindless creatures for us to 
hunt..."  Nick drew a deep breath, and with certainty, Nat 
knew what he was going to say: the question she'd been 
dreading for centuries.

"Don't you want to be mortal again?" he asked her.

She sighed, and gave him the truth she knew would break his 
heart.  "Actually, Nick," she said, "no, I really don't."

His silence was more eloquent than any diatribe could have 
been.

Knowing that he had already pronounced his judgement on 
her, Natalie defended herself anyway.  "I like living," she 
said urgently, clutching at him, hoping against hope that 
she could make him listen.  "And nobody dies, Nick, not any 
more!  We're not killers..."

"Right," he nodded.  "That's why you stand to make billions 
with your Hunt-a-rama concept.  And why you came up with 
the idea in the first place."

"It was LaCroix's idea!  I just designed the simulants..."  
She shook her head, and tried again.  "Nick, try to 
understand...!"

"I do understand," he said gently.  "But I don't agree with 
you; and I can't accept your choice."

He tried to disengage, to rise and leave her, but she held 
on for dear life.  "Nick, you need help!" she pleaded.  
"You're only hurting yourself!"

To no avail; he was over seven hundred years older than she 
was, and stronger despite his disabling regimen of self-
deprivation.

"I thought you wanted mortality," she called after him 
anxiously, "not suicide!"

At the exit, he turned and glanced back at her, one last 
time.  "The end result is the same," he said quietly.  
"What does it matter which I find?"

The defeated tone of his voice, the despondency in it, was 
enough to make her jump from her seat in alarm -- too late; 
he was already gone.

-------

He wandered along the corridors of the space station that 
had been their home for the past six decades.  His home, 
and Nat's, and LaCroix's. The necessities of business: and 
in fact, he had ceased to mind the proximity to his creator 
some few decades before, when he had finally realized that 
straining against his leash only made the other tug on it 
that much harder -- but when he didn't struggle, LaCroix 
left him pretty much alone.

That leash had not bothered him overly much, since Nat had 
been there with him, sharing his captivity.  She didn't 
consider it captivity, of course.  LaCroix had always been 
much more lenient with his daughters.

Despite Nick's promises, he had refused finally to bring 
Nat over; she had had to go to LaCroix to gain immortality, 
and she had never really forgiven him for that.

Was that part of the reason she'd forsaken their shared (or 
so he'd thought) quest for humanity?  Or had she never 
really believed in the dream at all?  Had she only paid lip 
service to his beliefs, long enough to gain the toehold she 
needed in the vampiric world, and snatch a piece of 
eternity for herself?

Nick paused in his tracks, shook his head as if to clear 
it.  He couldn't quite believe that his Natalie was capable 
of that level of cold manipulation -- but the thought 
persisted, no matter how hard he tried to wish it away.

And it troubled him so greatly that he was unaware of the 
shadowy figures slipping stealthily up behind him, right 
until the moment when his hands were wrenched cruelly 
behind his back with vampiric strength... 

-------

The holographic chamber had been decorated to resemble an 
ancient castle -- the details were off, but damned if he 
was going to beta-check Nat's software, under present 
circumstances -- and all around him, the simulants went 
about their feigned routine, smelling more irresistible 
than any normal human had ever been.  That was part of 
their allure, of course, that they were 'more human than 
human' in all the ways that mattered to a vampire... and 
they were arousing every dark desire within him, making it 
impossible for him to resist for long.

He tore himself away from the illusion, dragged himself 
over to a wall that looked like solid stone, that he knew 
from the blueprints was actually a one-way observation 
window.  "LaCroix!" he shouted.  "Natalie!  Let me out of 
here!"

They would not, he knew they would not; to their minds, 
they were doing the right thing.  To their minds, this was 
his salvation.

To his way of thinking, it was pure damnation.

The scent...  he turned unwillingly, to see one of the 
simulants approaching him.  Blonde and ethereal, like the 
other; Natalie and LaCroix both knew his preferences, too 
well for his own good.  "Damn you," he muttered, under his 
breath.

"My lord," said the simulant, and knelt at his feet in a 
flutter of anachronistic white lace.

With the last remaining bit of rationality that remained 
inside him, Nick wrenched himself back to the unseen 
window.  "I hate you for this," he hissed, from between 
clenched teeth.

The simulant's hands reached for him, the unbearably 
seductive aroma of blood wrapping itself around him like a 
cloak; and the desperate hunger welled up inside him and 
flooded him with helpless urgency.

He clutched at the simulant, ripped its neck open and 
drank; and all the while the blood was filling him with 
renewed life and energy and power, he was consumed with 
loathing for the ones who'd brought him here: who'd forced 
him to face and acknowledge the monster within him, who'd 
brought that demon back to full glorious health.

The shattering of his soul was complete, for he would never 
forgive Natalie for this, never never never.

-------

Behind the window, Natalie turned away from the spectacle, 
dashing blood-tears from her eyes.  //Hate me all you want, 
Nick,// she thought, anguished.  //As long as you 
survive... as long as you're alive to hate me, I can 
withstand the pain...//

-------/end