Fever Forever Knight season 3, episode 13 written by Gillian Horvath transcribed by Amanda P. Sridasome proofread by Marg Baskin & Nancy Warlocke Guest Cast: Screed...........................................Greg Kramer Calvin..........................................Bruce Hunter Linda Wyatt..................................Sarah Orenstein Dan Garrett..............................Christopher Kennedy Preacher......................................John Blackwood Gerald Archer..................................Chris Britton Woman in Flashback........................Catherine McGregor TEASER [A medical lab. A doctor, Linda Wyatt, is injecting something into a patient's {Calvin} arm.] Linda Wyatt: Your T-cell count is holding at one-twenty. Calvin Tucker: Oh, good. Linda Wyatt: Still no symptoms? Calvin Tucker: Nah. Just a cough. You're a lifesaver. Linda Wyatt: Yeah, well, that's what we get into this business for, isn't it? [He puts on his coat.] Calvin Tucker: Um... Linda Wyatt: See you Thursday. Calvin Tucker: Wouldn't miss it for the world. [He leaves] [SCENE: The same lab: A different room: A man is stuffing notes into a briefcase. He then goes to pick up a lab rat. Linda goes into the room startling him. He drops the rat and it runs away.] Linda Wyatt: Dan, what are you doing here? Dan Garrett: Ah, just checking up on some vi--I needed my notes. You wanted them ready by tomorrow. Looks like another all- nighter--I'd better get to it. Linda Wyatt: Wait! What were you taking? [He walks past her. She follows.] Dan? Dan! Where are you going? Why are you taking my work? Dan Garrett: [At the top of the stairs] Linda, it is not what it looks like. Linda Wyatt: The hell it isn't! [She grabs the briefcase.] Dan Garrett: Linda, please. Linda Wyatt: [Pulling it harder] You're stealing my work. [She pulls it even harder. She screams as she slips and falls down the stairs. Dan runs down the stairs after her.] Dan Garrett: Linda? [He checks her pulse. She's motionless.] Oh, God! [He runs off, leaving the body. The escaped rat makes a similar bee-line for freedom.] [SCENE: Outside the lab. Screed is approaching the dumpsters.] Screed: [singing to himself] "With a love of the liquor he was born... A gallon of a whiskey ev'ry night..." [He climbs into the dumpster and continues singing.] "...and a drop of the creature ev'ry morn..." [He hears someone coming and ducks down into the bin. Dan walks by without noticing him. Screed picks up a large rat, but puts it down when he spots the lab rat.] Screed: Hello. Where did you come from, my lovely? [looking up in the sky] Been looking out for ol' Screed, eh? [He catches the rat.] Screed: Ah, there we are. [He bites the rat. Something passes through the blood from the rat to Screed.] OPENING CREDITS [SCENE: Nick and Tracy drive up to the lab. They get out of the Caddy and walk towards the building.] Tracy: Augh. What is it about these places that always smell the same? Like they use the same cleaning service--Lab Smell Incorporated? Did you ever notice? It's like a cherry car deodorizer, only not. Nick: No, I've never noticed. [He notices the dead lab rat by the garbage bin, and veers that way.] Tracy: [following] Something? [He squats down beside the rat, pokes at it with a pen to turn it over.] Nick: It's a lab rat. Tracy: [Seeing the bite marks.] Cat must have got at it. Do you think it has something to do with the case? [Nick picks the rat up, bare-handed, and shoves it into an evidence bag.] Nick: It's fresh. [The infection from the rat passes into Nick's bloodstream.] [SCENE: inside the lab. Nick is questioning Dan Garrett. In the background, Natalie is working around Linda Wyatt's body.] Nick: Did Dr. Wyatt often work late? Dan Garrett: There's a lot of demand for equipment, Detective. We're underfunded, undersupplied. Linda was dedicated to her work. Nights, weekends, whatever it took. She must have slipped. They're always over-waxing the floors. Nick: Then there's nothing missing? Dan Garrett: No, nothing. I checked. You're not saying somebody...? Nick: I'm not saying anything right now. [He holds up the bagged rat.] Nick: Could this be hers? Dan Garrett: There would be a tattoo behind the right hind. Hers is the 700 series. Where did you get that? Nick: Any idea how this might have gotten away? Dan Garrett: No. We're very safe here, Detective, even with the animals that have a harmless antigen. We handle some things here that if they ever escaped the lab, the whole city would go down. Nick: How about this rat? Dan Garrett: Linda's work wasn't like that. Nick: What was she working on? Dan Garrett: Immune deficiency. She was hoping to clone a benign virus that attacks HIV. She thought she was getting close. She was gonna save lives. Nick: Thanks. That's all for now. [Dan walks away. Nick joins Tracy and Natalie by the body.] Nick: Her assistant called it in. He thinks it's an accident. Natalie: The landing up there is pretty slick with wax. I suppose it's conceivable that she could've gone for a skate and then fallen down the stairs. Tracy: I got her appointment calendar out of her office. It looks like she had three appointments after business hours--Janet Dornhoff, Derek Swanson, and Calvin Tucker. Nick: That's where we'll start. Natalie: Calvin Tucker... Nick: You know him? Natalie: Since med school. He was on his way to being chief of surgery at Metro General. Nick: But? Natalie: He got sick. AIDS. Howsen Pharmaceuticals isn't exactly a Fortune 500. I mean, old equipment and second string research grants. What would Cal have been doing here? [SCENE: the interview room at the precinct. Natalie and Tracy are interviewing Calvin. Nick is leaning back against a wall, listening.] Calvin Tucker: Well, I was looking for a miracle. Linda was working on an experimental treatment and she needed guinea pigs. I was desperate enough. Natalie: First trials? Cal, you're a doctor. You know the risks. Calvin Tucker: Natalie, I've been sick for four years. I've outlived a half a dozen of my friends who were all diagnosed at the same time that I was. Linda Wyatt was onto something. I wanted in. [To Tracy and Nick] See, the approval process for a new drugs takes two years, four years, ten years, more years than I have. When you're staring at death in the face, you'll try anything. Believe me. [CUT to FLASHBACK: London, during the plague. There are corpses lying on the streets. Children's voices in the background sing "Ring Around the Rosie", and man can be heard calling "Bring out your dead!" LaCroix is feeding off a dying mortal as Nick walks up to him.] LaCroix: I haven't had a decent meal in weeks. They all have the taste of plague in them. London used to be such a nice city. I think we should move on. Nick: I thought you thrived on human suffering, LaCroix. LaCroix: Disasters are a useful distraction, Nicholas. Nobody questions a few more dead here, or the way of their going. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Besides, they closed the theaters. I detest a city with no culture. [Gerald Archer, a doctor, is moving among the bodies. He spots Nick and LaCroix, stares at them for a moment, then moves on. Nick goes after him.] LaCroix: Nicholas, leave him. [Nick ignores him, so LaCroix trails after Nick. They follow Archer until he joins the crowd listening to a preacher.] Preacher: We are creatures of death, my children. We are rotting on the inside from the day we are born. Look to your souls. Tell me they are not rotten with sin. It is God who gives life and health. It is by His grace we are spared to live our few years upon the Earth. God has not spared this city, because it is a city of sin. [He pulls a woman from the crowd and shows everyone the plague boils on her neck.] Preacher: These are the marks of evil. The evil have fallen in great numbers and more will have fallen before God is done with London. But the righteous man will survive! God will spare him who is without sin... LaCroix: [softly to Nick] Well spoken, wouldn't you say? [Archer pulls the woman away from the preacher.] Gerald Archer: Is this Christian charity? This poor child has done no wrong. There is not a neighborhood in this city I haven't visited to tend the sick. There are houses stink of this terrible illness. Righteous and sinners, tavern keepers and priests, we are all equal in the eyes of this plague. [Archer puts his arms around the woman.] LaCroix: [to Nick] Not quite all of us. [SCENE: the squad room. Nick and Tracy are talking with Natalie.] Tracy: Well, that's three for three. It seems like everyone who knew Linda Wyatt thought she was a saint. A miracle worker. Nick: [to Natalie] Is it possible there might be something to this cure of hers? Tracy: What are you thinking? Industrial espionage? Nick: Well, if it worked, it would be worth a lot of money. Natalie: If it worked, it would be worth the Nobel Prize. Nick: Nat, I'm sorry about your friend. Natalie: He's thirty-five and he looks fifty-five. He's dying. [bitterly] Is it any wonder he would latch on anyone with a theory, any kind of a treatment or magic crystal? Nick: Nat... Natalie: I'm all right. Just tired. Why don't you have some samples of whatever Linda Wyatt was working on sent over and I'll take a look tomorrow and see if there was anything worth stealing. Tracy: Sure. [concerned] Is there anything else you need? Natalie: Right now ... sleep. [Natalie walks off.] Tracy: [to Nick, concerned] Is she gonna be okay? Nick: Oh, yeah. We should head home, too. [SCENE: just after sunrise. Screed's den beneath the city. Tracy enters with Vachon.] Tracy: Vachon, I found a lab rat at a crime scene, partially chewed. I think Screed might have been in the neighborhood. [She bumps into a bench, and sees an enormous heap of dead rats piled on top of it.] Vachon: Well, he wouldn't do you much good on the witness stand, assuming you could get him there. Tracy: Well, maybe he could give me a lead. Something he saw or heard. [Screed drops out of the shadows and lunges at Tracy. Vachon grabs him and pins him against the wall.] Vachon: Hands off. Screed: Smell her, V-man? [sniffs loudly] Ahhh. Fruit in her veins. Best vino on Earth. Vachon: [manhandling him into a chair] I said hands off. Screed: Hungry man'll take any wine, Jack. Any loaf you got. First kill, any kill. Jacks. Jills. [looks over at Tracy] Even sweet Baby Jane. Tracy: What is he saying? Vachon: First night, first feeding, you wake up so hungry, you'll do anything for the blood you need. Take anyone. Enemy, friend, lover. If your first kill isn't human, you don't hunger for humans. Screed: Got me dingos into a squealer that first night, I did. Rest is history. [Screed is huddled into the chair, twitching and shivering as he talks.] Tracy: [to Vachon, in confusion] But he went for me. Screed: Gotta have something. [Screed looks around desperately, then sinks his fangs into the palm of his own hand. Vachon struggles with him and forces him to stop feeding off himself. When he looks at Screed's palm, the fresh bites are not bleeding at all.] Vachon: He's starving. [Vachon offers his own wrist to Screed. Screed grabs it, bites, and drinks greedily.] Tracy: [appalled, not quite able to watch] I take it this isn't normal. Vachon: [tightly] No. Tracy: He's sick? Vachon: [smiling slightly] He can't be. We can't get sick. [He rubs his fingers across Screed's forehead, then looks at the accumulation of blood-sweat on his fingertips.] Vachon: [serious now] But I think you're right. [Screed finally releases Vachon's wrist, and sags back limply in the chair. Vachon looks at the bite marks on his wrist. In his bloodstream, the contagion starts to spread.] COMMERCIAL [SCENE: Before sunset. Vachon shows up at Nick's loft. Nick is just out of the shower--his hair wet, still wearing his bathrobe. Throughout the scene, Vachon's dialog is punctuated by frequent breaths, as though he'd run a marathon. Nick doesn't notice.] Nick: I take it you need something. Vachon: Your doctor friend. Nick: What for? Vachon: I've got a sick friend. I need her help. Nick: She's not that kind of doctor. Vachon: I hear she's pretty good with the dead. And the undead. Look, I can't take this one to the hospital. In the emergency room, what am I'm gonna tell them? He's allergic to penicillin, garlic, sunlight, crosses, and food. He's about four hundred and fifty and he can fly. Nick: One of us? Vachon: Screed. Tracy says he put the bite on some experimental rat. I guess he picked up something. Nick: It's impossible. Vachon: It's true. I've seen sick, Knight. I'm seeing it now. The fever, the shakes, the way they breathe. I've been feeding him all morning, and he's still starving. [CUT to FLASHBACK: a tavern in London. Nick and LaCroix are sitting at a table in the back. Archer walks up to them and takes a seat at their table.] LaCroix: [quietly to Nick] The young doctor, is it not? Gerald Archer: [introducing himself] Gerald Archer. Nick: We've seen your work. You've been kept busy. Gerald Archer: There are more sick every day. And fewer doctors willing to see to them. Most of my colleagues have left the city if they could or shut themselves up in their houses. Sirs, I have watched you. You move about the city with no fear. No cloth over the face. No garlic hung about the neck to ward off this plague. You stay in the center of all this death, and yet you have your health. LaCroix: Perhaps we are righteous men as the good Father Leath suggests. Gerald Archer: Righteousness does not guard a man from illness. But I believe you know what does. Sirs, if you have a physic of some sort which can ward off this Black Death, I beg you to share it with me. Nick: I wish I could help you. Gerald Archer: [imploringly] Please. I must live. I must continue my work. LaCroix: [standing up and walking behind Gerald] If there is such a physic, it will not come without cost. Gerald Archer: [turning to look at LaCroix] Anything. LaCroix: [to Nick] Free consent, freely given. Let him be saved. [LaCroix turns to face the rest of the tavern, shielding Archer and Nick from view. Nick bites Archer and brings him across.] [SCENE: the morgue. Nick and Nat are talking.] Nick: Is it possible? Natalie: You tell me. Nick: Nothing's ever touched a vampire. Not the bubonic plague. Not leprosy, not influenza, not ebola. Natalie: Not AIDS? Nick: [looking at her] Not anything. Stay out of the sun. Keep away from sharp sticks. You'll live forever. That is supposed to be the deal. Natalie: Well, God just changed the deal. Or Nature, or whatever you want to call it. Look, Nick, there have been major changes to this planet over the last fifty years. We've pushed further into the rain forest, further into cellular structure. We're discovering new things everyday. New medicines and new diseases. It's possible that there is something in this world that could infect you guys. Anything is possible. Nick: I'm not talking about something that just came out of the jungle. Screed was infected by Linda Wyatt's rat. What if, whatever it is, she made it? [SCENE: Screed's place. Natalie walks away from a bed-ridden Screed with her medical bag in hand. She joins Nick and talks to him quietly.] Natalie: High fever, extreme hunger, delirium. If he were human, I'd prescribe antibiotics, but... He's bleeding out, Nick. It's one of the effects of a multiplying retrovirus. The cell walls start to break down. The lungs and abdomen fill with fluid, in this case blood. Then the brain. He's in the final stage. [Vachon is sitting beside Screed, listening to Natalie's comments. He looks scared. Screed either doesn't understand the diagnosis, or is pretending he doesn't. He stares at Natalie, then leans towards Vachon with a lecherous grin.] Screed: Nice bit of toast, that. Vachon: [quietly] She's a doctor, Screed. Screed: [disparagingly] She can't be. She didn't try leeches or nothing. [He laughs, but it turns into a cough. Vachon looks on helplessly while spasms shake him.] Nick: [quietly to Natalie] You can't do anything? Natalie: I'll get the sample back to the lab, but we don't have much time, and I don't really know what to look for. I'll let you know. [Natalie leaves. Nick looks over at Screed, who is struggling to catch his breath. Vachon, who has an arm around him, steadying him.] [SCENE: the precinct. Nick walks in and heads for his desk. He's moving stiffly, looking ill. Tracy catches up with him.] Tracy: [cheerfully] Hey! Where you been? Nick: [sourly] I was visiting a sick friend. Tracy: Sorry, didn't mean to pry. So, I've been going through Linda Wyatt's records and I realized something. Natalie's friend, Calvin Tucker--he's on the placebo. Linda Wyatt needed a control group. Half of her patients were receiving saline injections. Nick: You think Tucker knew? Tracy: Well, she wouldn't have told anyone in the control group, but he *is* a doctor. What if he figured out she wasn't giving him anything. That even though her stuff works, it's not working on him. Nick: So he killed her. Tracy: Well, he wants to live, doesn't he? What would he do if he thought she was withholding a cure? Nick: Let's talk to him. [SCENE: Calvin Tucker's house. Nick and Tracy are interviewing Tucker.] Calvin Tucker: I went to Linda against everything that I've learned, against all the advice I would've given anybody, and I went on her program. [bitterly] Ten CCs of salt water twice a week for my trouble. Nick: You didn't know about the placebo? Calvin Tucker: No. Detective, let me explain to you what a sucker I am. I thought the stuff was working. Six months without an opportunistic infection. I--My T-cells were up! I thought it was helping. I guess I wanted it so bad... Nick: Sorry we had to tell you. Calvin Tucker: No. It's all right. I'll be fine. You've got your own problems. [SCENE: a parking lot. Tracy and Nick get out of the Caddy.] Nick: I believed him. Tracy: Yeah, me, too. But the theory might be okay, I-- [Suddenly, Nick doubles over in pain and staggers against the side of a parked car.] Tracy: Nick, are you okay? Nick: [Picking himself up] Sure. [Tracy's heartbeat begins to thunder in his ears, nearly drowning out her words as she continues to speak. Nick's gaze fixates on her throat.] Tracy: The theory might be okay. Maybe one of her other patients? [He doesn't answer, which Tracy interprets as disagreement.] Tracy: No? Nick: We'll keep looking. [He drags his eyes away from her, and walks off.] [SCENE: Screed's lair. Vachon is sitting next to Screed, cradling his head.] Screed: We had a good run, didn't we? Bit of fun. Can't say none better 'n that. Vachon: That's a fact. Screed: Been too busy to pick up after meself, I'm sorry to say. I-I-I meant to give the place a good scrub. Tidy it up. Needs a little spit and polish, eh? Do us a favor, mate. One last? Vachon: [softly] Anything. Screed: Put my bones down by the water, if you can. Bury 'em good in the sand. Never felt right on land... [Screed dies. Vachon sits without moving, holding Screed's body tightly.] COMMERCIAL [SCENE: The Raven. LaCroix strides across the club to the bar, with Nick trailing on his heels. They're arguing.] Nick: Is it possible? LaCroix: It's not possible, Nicholas. It is a fantasy. Nick: But I saw him. He was dying. [LaCroix picks up a bottle and glass from the bar and pours a drink for himself.] LaCroix: Nonsense. We are immortal. This is a convenient fantasy that you have constructed, Nicholas. [Nick grabs the glass of blood from LaCroix's hand and gulps part of it down.] LaCroix: A danger to the vampire community. Something that strikes at only us, leaving your precious mortals sleeping safely in their beds, never knowing that an invisible people have been killed off by some *germ*. [LaCroix sips from the glass while Nick paces restless back and forth behind him.] LaCroix: We are not so easy to eradicate. Men have struck at us with fire and with lies and we are still here. *I* am still here. [Nick grabs his glass again, and gulps down more of the blood. [FLASHBACK: Nick enters the tavern to join LaCroix. In the doorway, he passes the preacher, who is on his way out.] LaCroix: [quietly to Nick] It seems the good doctor was not the only one with suspicions about us. Father Leath is most alarmed. He seems to think we may have had a hand in the young doctor's most recent odd behavior. Nick: Why, if the doctor's discreet? LaCroix: Ah, would that were the case. Unfortunately he appears to have become careless. Nick: What are you talking about? LaCroix: Apparently, the sick are dying faster in Dr. Archer's dispensary than they have a habit of doing on their own. Good Father Leath was here to inquire if we could explain the strange marks on the necks of the patients. Would you care to offer an explanation? Nick: I don't believe it. He's not like that. LaCroix: I leave tonight. I suggest you do the same before the good reverend returns with holy water and a stake. [Nick leaves the tavern and searches for Archer. He finds the doctor leaning over his latest victim.] Nick: Gerald! Gerald Archer: Nicholas. My savior. Nick: I saved you for a reason, Gerald. I gave you your life so that you could help people. Gerald Archer: You made me a vampire. A man who need never worry about sickness or death. They are mere candles. Barely lit before any wind extinguishes them. It is only we who know life. *Real* life! Life unending. Nick: This isn't life. Gerald. This is the shadow of a life. What about your practice? Your work? Gerald Archer: Playthings to a man who believed he had but a short time to make his mark. Less than nothing to a man who has forever. Nick: [sadly] I've destroyed you. Gerald Archer: No, my friend. You have given me deliverance. [SCENE: Vachon's church, just after sunrise. Tracy is sitting beside Vachon, watching him with concern. He is folded forward in his chair, coughing uncontrollably.] Tracy: Are you all right? Vachon: [sourly] I've been better. [When the coughing fit finally passes, he straightens up, takes a deep breath, and smiles. He starts to become aware of Tracy's heartbeat, which is growing louder in his ears.] Vachon: Screed was right. You do smell like fruit. Tracy: [smiling, slightly embarrassed] Must be my shampoo. Vachon: No. It's inside you. Every woman has her own scent. Her own flavor. [He stands up and leans close to her. Tracy looks uncomfortable as he moves behind her. He begins to run her hair through his fingers and over his lips, play with her earrings, run his hands over her face.] Vachon: Your blood is who you are. A taste of apricot. A scent of calla lilies. Every drop tells its story. [Tracy starts to sink into the seduction, and forget the circumstances. She closes her eyes and tilts her head into Vachon's shoulder, exposing her throat. Vachon draws in another deep breath. When his eyes open, they're bright gold. He leans towards her throat, fangs exposed, then shoves her away, so violently that she lands on the floor. He, too, falls, and lies sprawled against a piece of furniture.] Tracy: [startled] What?! Vachon: Go! Get out! Now! [Seeing the state he's in, she starts to go to him, wanting to help.] Vachon: No! Don't you understand?! It's the hunger! The first hunger! Get away from me before it's too late! [He lunges at her, growling and exposing his fangs. Tracy leaps to her feet and runs for the door. As soon as she's gone, Vachon crawls over to a case of bottled blood, drags out a bottle, and drinks from it.] [SCENE: the following night. The morgue. Tracy walks in while Natalie is working on the samples of Linda Wyatt's research.] Tracy: So. Have you had a chance to look at those samples from Howsen Pharmaceuticals? [Natalie waves a test tube at her, to show she's working on it.] Tracy: Anything interesting? Natalie: Well, I don't think she was about to win the Nobel Prize. The anti-virus has very low in viability. I'm getting fragments. Dead samples. Nothing I can really get a good look at. Tracy: Nothing worth stealing? Or killing for? Natalie: Not so far. I'm thinking about calling Cal. He's been taking this stuff for six months. I might get a better breakdown from a sample of his blood. See if it's having any affect on the HIV. [Tracy walks nonchalantly over to the cooler which holds the morgue's emergency blood supply.] Tracy: Didn't Nick tell you? He's not on the stuff. He's control. [Natalie looks up, shocked.] Natalie: You're kidding? [Tracy shakes her head sadly.] Natalie: [devastated] It's stupid, I know. I, of all people, should know better, but I was hoping it was working. I was hoping Cal.... Tracy: [quietly] Hoping he'd live? [Surreptitiously, Tracy steals a couple of bags of blood from the cooler and slips them into her coat.] Natalie: It's pretty hard to watch him go, you know. He's not the first. You start to wonder who else you're gonna lose. [frustrated] I just feel like I should be able to do something! Tracy: Well, I guess everybody must feel that way. When someone they care about is sick. Natalie: [sourly] Yeah, well, I wonder if everybody feels quite as useless as I do right now. You go into medical school, thinking you're gonna save lives. Save the world. Maybe if I graduated a few years later, after all the AIDS stuff broke, maybe I'd have done something different, you know? Maybe I'd be Linda Wyatt, looking for a cure. Trying to give a few people a few more years. Instead of staying up all night, trying to figure out who pushed her over the railing. Tracy: [quietly] That's important, too. Natalie: [calming down] Yeah, I know. Just once, I wish that I could help someone before it was too late. [Nick arrives in the doorway, looking very ill, staggering slightly. He pulls himself together before Tracy sees him.] Tracy: Nat, I've got to go. [She walks past Nick, who is leaning hard against the door.] Tracy: [touching his arm] I'll catch up with you later. [She leaves.] Natalie: [as soon as Tracy is out of sight] Is something wrong? [Nick walks into the lab, looking miserable and unsteady on his feet.] Nick: [almost whispering] I'm hungry... And I'm hot. [Natalie strips off her latex glove and lays her hand on his forehead. When she pulls her fingers away, they're coated in blood-sweat.] COMMERCIAL [SCENE: continuation of the previous, a few moments later. Nick is sitting on the autopsy table while Natalie examines him.] Natalie: Are you having any kind of dizziness? Nausea? D.T.s? Nick: No. It's the hunger, mainly, and the fever. Natalie: Your temperature is ninety-eight degrees. That's not even human normal. Nick: [softly, tiredly] Well, it feels like a fever to me. Natalie: I know, I know. I'm sorry. [She looks at Nick with concern.] Natalie: Nick... Nick? Nick: [raggedly] I have to feed. [He slides off the table and staggers away. Either he's so disoriented that he doesn't know which way to go, or he's heading for some known blood supply within one of the storage coolers. Natalie catches him as he staggers against the cooler door.] Natalie: [urgently] No! Nick? Nick! No! That virus of Linda Wyatt's--it can't live in saline. It can't live in air, and the only viable specimen that I've gotten from it has been from the blood of that rat. Did you touch it? Nick: [almost losing it] I... I, um... I'm not sure. Why? Natalie: Because, if the disease is transmitted by simple contact... Nick: [cold sober] Then all vampires are at risk. Natalie: [quickly] Okay, okay. From what I know about what it does in your body and your friend Screed's, it--it binds to the vampire element in your blood and then multiples. The more you drink--the more you give it to feed on--the faster it can grow. You haven't gone as far or as fast in your disease because your blood intake is restricted... Well--well, relatively. [While she talks, Natalie returns to the autopsy table. Nick turns towards her and begins to follow, walking like a zombie, mesmerized by the sound of her heartbeat.] Natalie: [fingering her throat nervously as he stares at it] Nick... Nick, the progress you have made has saved you. You can't stop now. [He grabs her by the throat. Natalie catches his wrist, but doesn't struggle, and after a couple of seconds, he breaks away and turns his back on her.] Nick: I can't! The hunger... Natalie: [desperately, as she follows him] Nick--Nick, the blood will kill you. Nick: And staying off it will save me? Natalie: No. No, not unless I can find a way to kill the virus, but it'll slow it down. It'll give you more time. Nick: [resigned] Slow or fast, what's the difference? Maybe this was meant to be, Nat. What if Nature has decided that it's had enough of unnatural creatures feeding on this world. What if this is nature's way of getting rid of us? [CUT to FLASHBACK: a continuation of the confrontation between Nick and Archer.] Nick: [disgusted] I should not have made you. [He turns and strides away, then doubles back quickly as he sees an approaching mob of angry people carrying torches. They are led by the preacher.] Nick: Quickly. [He signals for Archer to come with him as he retreats, but Archer doesn't move.] Gerald Archer: Let them come. Nick: [Backing away] Are you mad? Gerald Archer: [in contempt] They're only men. Preacher: There is the man whose false medicine has gone against God! Gerald Archer: Move away, Father. I gave no medicine. Preacher: Explain, then, how you still live. [The crowd shouts agreement] Preacher: For months, you have gone into sick houses and allowed the sick to come to you, and yet you show no sign of the plague. What pact with the Devil is this? Nick: [stepping in] Is it a pact with the Devil to have medicine to survive? Preacher: It is for God and God alone to decide who shall live and who shall die. This plague is the word of God! Giving pause to the evil man and sparing the man of righteous faith. [to Archer] Those who come to you die, and you grow stronger. What sorcery is this? Gerald Archer: Come and see! [Archer bares his fangs. The preacher waves a cross in his face, and Archer staggers backwards. The mob sets him on fire, killing him. Nicholas, watching from a distance, then leaves.] [CUT to the present. A continuation of Nick's comments to Natalie.] Nick: [quietly] Divine justice. Natalie: [getting angry] Don't you dare! What?! God sends sickness to punish the wicked? To wipe the unnatural from the Earth? What about Calvin? I've seen too many good friends with AIDS. With cancer. With pneumonia. God does not choose! Nick: Natalie, I do not claim to know what God does. I stepped out of that light too long ago. But whoever sent this--however it came about--this plague does Nature's work. It kills vampires. Natalie: [quietly] It's killing you. Is that the kind of mortality you've been looking for? Nick: [resigned] Maybe it's the only kind I'm allowed. Natalie: Don't you give me that crap! How can you stand there and not care if you die? Not care how it's gonna make me feel. Maybe you'd like to explain that to someone like Cal? Someone who would give anything in the world just to live a little longer. [SCENE: Vachon's church. The room is lit by candles. Vachon is lying in bed, curled on his side, staring at nothing. Tracy walks into the room behind him.] Tracy: Vachon? [He rolls over far enough to see her, but doesn't answer.] Tracy: Brought you something. [She sits down on the edge of the bed, pulls the blood bags out of her pocket, and lays them down beside him. He sighs and shakes his head.] Tracy: Not hungry? Vachon: [in a rough, weak voice] Not anymore. Tracy: This isn't fair, is it? Vachon: [smiling slightly] Probably not. Tracy: I mean, I know there are some disadvantages to getting involved with a vampire, sure, but dying young was not supposed to be one of them. Vachon: If it's any comfort, you know, I'm not actually young. Tracy: [laughing softly] You know what I mean. Dying before we had a chance... We just met. Vachon: I'm the one usually left behind, Trace. In five hundred years, I've buried a lot of mortal friends. Tracy: So when does it get easier? Vachon: [slight smile] I'll let you know. [SCENE: the squad room. Nick walks in, moving stiffly and unsteadily, trying to pretend nothing is wrong, and heads for his desk. Reese intercepts him.] Reese: Knight! Your partner's taking a personal day. Said she has to sit with a sick friend. [muttering] How many times have I heard that one for everything from a golf date to a little bit on the side? So, the Wyatt case. Any progress? Nick: We're working on it. [He continues on to his desk, and sags into the chair.] Reese: Maybe you want to tell me how come nobody's gone over their personnel records, checked alibis, had this Garrett guy in for an interview? [Nick doesn't answer. He has his arms wrapped across his chest, as though he's freezing cold.] Reese: [leaning over Nick] You've got things on your mind--okay. But you're letting the case slide--not okay. Go talk with them, Nick. [SCENE: LaCroix on the air as the Nightcrawler. As he speaks, he gazes out through the one-way glass that separates the booth from the Raven, watching the crowd.] LaCroix: They say the ages of man are denial, awareness, and acceptance. A young man believes he will live forever. A middle- aged man knows he will not. And an old man is ready. [pause] What then of those taken out of sequence? How to prepare them for the bitter end? A man who knows he will not die is a young man. He is kept young by the knowledge that death shall have no dominion. [He coughs] There's nothing so hard as watching that die. A dozen in a single night. My children and my people, who should have lived forever, living their last. Who would have ever believed that they would die?... My people... My children. One short sleep past, we wake eternally and Death shall be no more. [whispered] Death, thou shalt die! [whispered/ragged] We will survive! [He leans on the table, exhausted.] [SCENE: Howsen Pharmaceuticals. Calvin is in the lab, checking a sample through the microscope. Dan is standing over him.] Calvin Tucker: What have we done? Dan Garrett: [nervously] What do you mean? You said it was working. Calvin Tucker: Because I felt better. I wasn't even on the damn drug. Look! [He stands up and grabs his coat. Dan glances briefly into the microscope.] Calvin Tucker: It only works in the test tube. HIV destroys it in vivo. What an idiot I've been! [He turns to leave. Dan grabs his arm.] Dan Garrett: Where are you going? Calvin Tucker: Home! Dan Garrett: [almost hysterical] Wait! You think you're going back to your fat job at Metro General? You're gonna leave me here, picking up mouse droppings?! Hey! What about the job you promised me? What about the research grant? Calvin Tucker: [furiously] You don't get it? The stuff doesn't work. There is no job. There's no project. You killed Linda Wyatt for nothing! Dan Garrett: [Grabbing Calvin] Dammit, you promised me! Calvin Tucker: Dan, stop! [They struggle, stumbling against various pieces of lab equipment. Chemicals crash to the floor, creating a cloud of gas. The valve on a tank of liquid nitrogen is released, shooting out a cloud of nitrogen which hits Dan, freezing and killing him.] Calvin Tucker: Dan! [SCENE: Nick arrives at the lab. As he gets out of his car, he hears Calvin shouting for help.] Calvin Tucker: [from inside the building] Help me! Help me, somebody, please! [Nick runs in and helps him up.] Calvin Tucker: Poison gas. He tried to kill me. He killed Linda. We both did. [Nick picks him up.] Nick: We've got to go! Now! [Nick leads him towards the door.] COMMERCIAL [SCENE: the interview room at the precinct. Nick is questioning Calvin. Natalie and Captain Reese are watching from the observation area on the other side of the one-way mirror.] Calvin Tucker: I thought it was working... I thought Linda--she had really found a cure. An anti-virus that binds with HIV to protect its host. It worked in the test tube, it's just that HIV overwhelms it in the body. Howsen Pharmaceuticals is a small- change operation. They don't even have a full-time patent lawyer. It would have taken ten years for Linda's treatment to get on the market. That's ten years that I don't have. That's ten years that a lot of people don't have. I have connections. I have a good lawyer. I have a good lab. I could have had nationwide roll-out, eighteen to twenty-four months. Nick: So you promised Dan Garrett a split, if he stole it from her? Calvin Tucker: It had nothing to do with the money, or the credit. God help me, I just thought it was working. I wanted people to live. Nick: Instead two people died. Calvin Tucker: I would have done anything. I would have paid any price for a cure. It would have been worth it. [CUT to the adjoining observation area. Natalie turns to Reese.] Natalie: Cap, do we have to press charges on this? Reese: He was involved in a crime that resulted in a woman's death. That's murder. We can't just let that slide. I don't like it any better than you do. He's cooperating--he's facing up to it. I don't think he's a flight risk. We'll release him on his own recognizance. Who knows, the way court calendars are these days, he might not reach trial. [He walks out as Nick enters the room.] Nick: I'm sorry, Nat. I didn't want this to happen. Natalie: I know. So the case is solved. Where does that leave us? He's still dying... [She turns away from the observation mirror and goes over to Nick.] Natalie: [a whisper] You're still dying. [She walks out.] [SCENE: Calvin's house. Calvin is sitting in his living room. LaCroix flies in and walks up to him.] LaCroix: [quietly/purposefully] You have faced human justice tonight, Doctor, and it has released you. Calvin Tucker: [surprised] Who are you? LaCroix: [menacingly] One of the damned. One of your damned. [Calvin stands up, detours around the furniture and tries to make a dash for the door. LaCroix is there before him, and holds him in place with a gesture and the power of his voice.] LaCroix: The search for a cure for your harmless little virus has brought my people to their knees. How many deaths will be on your conscience, Doctor? A dozen? A hundred? A whole race? A race that dare not speak its name, that cannot turn to medicine for help. They dies silently, invisibly, out of the light. I am their only voice, and my people cry out for revenge. [He attacks Calvin.] [SCENE: the morgue. Nick and Natalie walk into her lab. Natalie is carrying a cage of lab rats.] Natalie: At least I can get a larger viable dose from these. A better look at what you're facing. [Nick sees LaCroix standing on the other side of the autopsy table. He places himself between LaCroix and Natalie.] Nick: What do you want, LaCroix? LaCroix: Oh, nothing much. I just thought that now, in the hour of our death, the good doctor might appreciate seeing first hand, the results of her hypocrisy. You purport to help people, Doctor. You proffer modern medicine as religion. And that faith and technology will not be defeated. [He pulls back the sheet covering the corpse on the autopsy table. It's Calvin. Nick winces from the sight, but Natalie walks slowly forward as LaCroix continues to speak.] LaCroix: It's a false promise. A lie. You can't save your friend. You can't save us. You are powerless. [He and Natalie are side by side now, close to Calvin's body.] Natalie: [fighting tears] Why are you so angry? You're not sick. Nick: [confused] But you were sick, LaCroix. What happened? LaCroix: A look into that abyss, Nicholas. I have faced Death this night, and I have called his bluff. Natalie: [horrified] You killed him? You drank his blood? LaCroix: Yes. A reward for the plague that he visited on my house. Natalie: [realizing the implications] Oh, my God. Oh, my God, that's the answer. Cal... Cal said it in the precinct. HIV overwhelms it in the body. [LaCroix follows her train of logic and smiles coldly.] LaCroix: So, the killer is the cure. Isn't that fascinating? His tainted blood will be our salvation. [SCENE: Vachon's church: Tracy is sitting on the edge of Vachon's bed, watching him sleep.] Vachon: [waking up] Still here? How long? Tracy: Well, the sun will be up soon. Vachon: You'd better go. Tracy: I can stay. I don't mind. Vachon: I'm not going to make another night. You don't want to see this. [She lays her hand over his, and looks away.] Tracy: You told me once, the day you became... what you are, the woman who made you-- Vachon: --She rejoined the sun. [vaguely] Or something... I always wondered what that would feel like. [He sees Nick in the shadows behind Tracy.] Vachon: Tracy, go. Thanks... for trying. [She kisses him, then leaves quickly, without looking back. After making sure she's gone, Nick approaches Vachon.] Vachon: [wryly] Here to give me last rites? Nick: [smiling] Were you expecting a priest? Vachon: Ummm... [shakes his head] Uh-uh. [Nick takes a hypodermic needle out of his coat pocket, and holds it up.] Nick: Give me your arm. [He injects the blood into Vachon.] COMMERCIAL [SCENE: Calvin Tucker's graveside. Nick and Natalie are planting a tree by the grave.] Nick: Natalie, when LaCroix asked you why... Natalie: Why save vampires? Why not let them die? You know, there are still some people who think that AIDS isn't worth curing. That men like Calvin Tucker aren't worth saving. Who are they to decide that? Who am I? [SCENE: somewhere down by Lake Ontario. Vachon is fulfilling his promise to Screed, burying him in the sand. As he tamps the dirt back in place, he sings the same sea shanty Screed sang earlier. ("...a gallon of whiskey ev'ry night...")] Vachon: I told you I'd dance on your grave. [He squats down and runs his fingers through the loose soil.] Vachon: I tidied up a bit. Place looks... better than it did. Might even move in there myself. [He uncorks a bottle and drinks a toast.] Vachon: See you in hell, sailer. END CREDITS