From v4s@FKFANFIC.COMMon Feb 17 07:41:06 1997 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 01:56:30 -0500 From: Virtual Fourth Season To: FKFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: V4S: A Dish Best Served Cold (6/8) Episode Number: Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season - Episode #7 Episode Title: "A Dish Best Served Cold" "Air" Date: February 13, 1997 Author: Elizabeth Ann Lewis Part 6 of 8 This story is based on characters and situations created by James Parriott and Barney Cohen and owned by Sony/TriStar. No infringement is intended. Copyright 1997 Elizabeth Ann Lewis -------------------------- A DISH BEST SERVED COLD Nick slathered another layer of paint onto the canvas, and tried to ignore the thoughts pounding inside his brain. An empty bottle of blood sat on the colorfully splattered table beside him, next to a half-drunk protein shake. Strains of music filtered through the loft, soft strings, the gently melancholy sound of Eric Satie. None of it blocked out in the voices in his head. Miklos kept insisting, "These are your people, and your kind!" Nat kept asking, "Are you human, Nick? Are you even close?" Divided loyalties. Everywhere he turned there was someone clawing at him, someone demanding that he be faithful to them alone. No man could serve two masters. No man could live in two worlds. Yet he tried -- and every day tore him a little more in two. Abandoning the painting, Nick crossed the loft to the refrigerator and pulled out another wine bottle. Drinking deep, he pressed his face against the cold black steel of the door and laughed. Nat would be furious with him if she saw him drinking blood again. The only contact she allowed was their professional relationship and her search for a cure. She let Westwood get closer to her than Nick nowadays. But she didn't understand. The blood fed a hunger it could never satisfy. Animal blood was like bread and water. It filled the belly, satisfied the basic biological need for sustenance. But it never... was... enough. Human blood had the complexity of the human mind, the human soul, smoky with passion, vibrant with life. And Nat's blood... now that he had tasted of her, he couldn't help but hunger for more. Like a drug, one hit and he was addicted. For her sake, he needed to keep the beast in him sated... if not completely satisfied. Nick turned to look at his painting. It didn't cheer him. It was a gloomy modern interpretation of hell, based on paintings Nick had seen in Brabant... although Bosch's works had not appeared until a few centuries after Nick's mortal life. Weird monsters danced with erotic abandon, twining in corners, bodies twisted in either passion or pain. In a tip of the hat to the old medieval painting master whose work he emulated, Nick had loosely sketched a portrait of himself on the central figure of the devil. Picking up the painting, Nick carried it off to one side to dry. He wouldn't work on it again tonight. Perhaps he should try a different style. He had always wanted to see how Seuret's painstaking method of tiny individual dots of paint would translate into his own works. He certainly had time enough. Eternity offered the chance to sample everything. That thought didn't cheer him either. The CD player shifted to the next track, and Samuel Barber's hauntingly beautiful Adagio for Strings trailed through the room. Nick leaned back against the table and drank again from the bottle of blood. Barber's piece had been written *in memorium* for the death of a dear friend. Somehow, Nick had always identified strongly with it. So many had passed through his life. So few had stayed. They moved on or perished, taking themselves from his life. Now the strings wept for two more, two vampires he had never met, two children of the night who were victims of an unknown mortal woman with an unknown vendetta. Nick had no warning, no time to prepare. One moment he was standing next to his windows brooding, the next he had been flung across the loft to land by the carved fireplace. Recovering, he snarled at the intruder... only to find himself face-to-face with Miklos. The cool, remote vampire was neither calm nor detached now. Fury burned in his gaze with the force of a sun. "Damn you, Nicholas," he snarled. "She's dead!" Nick backed up a step. "Who?" he asked carefully. "Who's dead?" Miklos brought his hands to his face, dragging his fingers through wildly disheveled hair. "What do you care?" he said, furious. "It doesn't matter to you. Another dead body... although this time, there *is* no body!" Nick backed off another step. Distance, objectivity, rationality... he reached for all three, and found them crumbling in his grasp under Miklos' anguished gaze. "She killed another one?" Fury drained, Miklos nodded. "Fantine. The bitch staked her with a crucifix and left her in the sun to disappear. Nothing left but a few scraps of clothes. Nothing." --<--<--@ ~*~ @-->-->-- New Orleans, April, 1837 If there was anywhere in the New World that he could forget he *was* in the New World, it was New Orleans. The city held families generations removed from their French and Spanish roots, and yet their values and judgments were still European. New York was for Americans, but New Orleans was a sister to Paris, younger, rougher, to be sure, but filled with both grace and energy. Nicholas wandered through a ball, enjoying the light and music around him. His hostess knew how to live and entertain well. The musicians were the best to be had, the soprano had abandoned her role in Cosi Fan Tutti to her understudy this night to perform here, the flowers were hothouse beautiful. Nicholas was quite sure the food was superb as well, although he had not the slightest inclination to sample it. "Ah, Monsieur Chevalier. It is with great pride that I wish to introduce you to my niece." Mme de la Fauve brought forward a slim, lovely girl with light blond hair and sweet blue eyes. "This is Celestine. Celestine, make your curtsy to the good gentleman," her aunt prompted when the girl stood dumbly for a second. Automatically, Celestine dipped into a charmingly graceful bow. Nicholas was entranced. Her eyes were guiless and beautiful when she raised them briefly to his, lowering her lashes shyly when he stepped closer. "Mme de la Fauve, if I might be so bold as to ask you niece to dance?" "Certainly, Monsieur," Mme de la Fauve said delightedly. She nearly pushed Celestine into the arms of the handsome gentleman who seemed so taken with her. Nicholas led the young girl into a waltz. Shy and soft-spoken, she didn't say much during the dance. But there was a light in her, a passion, that Nicholas did not understand. It drew him, surely as a moth to flame. He could not let her be. --<--<--@ ~*~ @-->-->-- "I --" Nick couldn't quite find his voice. Grief for a woman he did not know swamped him. "I'm sorry. Did you -- did you love her?" Miklos looked at the blond vampire for several long moments before he began laughing, a sound which held no humor whatsoever. "What does it matter? You think I would only grieve for her if we were lovers? She looked to me for protection. They all do. And now, they all have to fear for their lives, because *I* *can* *do* *nothing*! She was a child," Miklos continued in a calmer voice, although it was still strained. "A child when she was brought across, and a child as a vampire. She never raised her hand to anyone, never harmed a living creature. She was as pure an innocent as this squalid world could ever find. And she died with the word 'monster' ringing in her ears, begging for life." "You saw it?" Nick asked, suddenly urgent. "You saw the murderer?" "For all the good it will do me. It was just after dawn. I arrived just in time to see the killer pull the stake out from what was left of Fantine's body. Had I stepped out into the sun, I would have died as well. All I could do was watch murderer run away." Miklos spread his hands in a gesture of futility. "All I could do was stand there -- and do nothing." "But you saw the murderer," Nick insisted. "Can you describe her to me?" "What does it matter? What do you care?" Miklos asked tiredly. "The woman is a killer, Miklos. It's my job to catch killers." "How could it possibly be just a job to you still? Don't you understand? Is she any less a murderer for killing us rather than killing one of your precious mortals?" Miklos asked. "They are your people. Your kind." Nick looked at his painting, at the two empty bottles of blood and the half-drunk shake, at the safe, insulated space that tried and failed to blend two worlds. "No. We aren't the same." "Then you've not heard a word I said. Nicholas," Miklos said fiercely, "you have to understand: if you don't stop this killer, the repercussions could be disastrous. The Community won't stand for being victimized. Not again." "The mob with pitchforks and torches, except this time the mob is made up of monsters chasing humans," Nick summarized bleakly. "I will stop her, Miklos. I've already said that. But you have to stop them." "I don't know if I can stop them. I don't even know if I want to at this point," Miklos said viciously. "We've suffered too much in this past year. From a disease that we could not fight, from a creature who tore through our ranks. There was no enemy to focus on, no point to rally around. Now there is. And there is always the problem of the fact that our blood supply is diminishing." Miklos grasped Nick's arm, forcing Nick to look him in the eye. "Find this murderer, Nicholas. For Janette's sake, for the sake of what is left of what she built here. Stop this woman before it's too late." (to be continued ...) -------------------------------------------- For more information or to participate in the Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season, write to V4S@fkfanfic.com. From v4s@FKFANFIC.COMMon Feb 17 07:41:13 1997 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 01:56:36 -0500 From: Virtual Fourth Season To: FKFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: V4S: A Dish Best Served Cold (7/8) Episode Number: Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season - Episode #7 Episode Title: "A Dish Best Served Cold" "Air" Date: February 13, 1997 Author: Elizabeth Ann Lewis Part 7 of 8 This story is based on characters and situations created by James Parriott and Barney Cohen and owned by Sony/TriStar. No infringement is intended. Copyright 1997 Elizabeth Ann Lewis -------------------------- A DISH BEST SERVED COLD "I got her." Nick's statement made Adam look up sharply. They'd been working most of the night on trying to track down the mysterious Mara, possessor of an exotic crossbow and hawthorn bolts. They weren't out questioning suspects or gathering physical evidence. They were doing paperwork, phone work, all the stuff that, Adam thought impatiently, they had never shown in the police shows when he was growing up. Occasionally, they had run up against the fact that this was the second murderer in a very short time to have a need for such weapons, which had complicated their task immeasurably. "How did you find her?" Adam was already on his feet, grabbing for his jacket, ready to move. Nick was moving too. "Postal records. Mara was very careful not to buy the bow and the bolts from the same person, but they were both shipped to the same address. Her name is Mara Gallen," Nick continued, briefing Adam on the fly as they went to the Caddie. "Age 26. Independently wealthy, so she could afford the expense of the bow and bolts, and had the time to develop her skill." Nick unlocked the car door and got in, reaching across to get Adam's side. "That's all I could find out in five minutes." "No clue on why she killed those people in the Raven?" Adam asked, jotting notes and sketching a little diagram. MARA GALLEN was circled in the center of the page, with the few sparse facts Nick had given him branching off from it. "None at all," Nick said, his voice deeply troubled. They didn't speak again until they were on the street where Mara's house waited. It was, literally, the middle of the night. Streetlights cast a feeble shadow over freezing rain that was fighting to turn into snow. The houses themselves were quiet and dark, set back far from the road and isolated by wide yards and tall fences. "How are we going to get in?" Adam wondered. "Knock," Nick said briefly. He went to the security gate with a small, discreet intercom mounted beside it and buzzed for entry, waiting. Adam felt his ears try to warm slightly with embarrassment because he hadn't seen it. "If she's asleep, she won't hear it," he argued, trying to save face. "If she's asleep, she'll wake up and hear it eventually, and be that much more disoriented by being woken up in the middle of the night," Nick pointed out. He leaned on the buzzer again, letting it sound for several long moments before releasing it. After five minutes, Adam couldn't tell whether or not his nose had fallen off. He could, however, tell that Nick's periodic ringing of the bell wasn't getting much done. "Can't we just go over the wall?" "No warrant," Nick said, dismissing the idea. "Probable cause," Adam argued back. "I'd still prefer that we --" Nick's voice ended as though it were cut with a knife. Adam started to speak, but Nick stopped him with an abruptly raised hand. She stepped out from behind the ornamental shrubbery, crossbow in hand. Her eyes were unreadable in the uncertain light, but the crossbow was very understandable. It was pointed at Nick's heart, just as her eyes were fixed on him. She hardly seemed aware of Adam's presence. "Detective Knight." Her voice streamed out in a chilly cloud. Nick put his hands out to prove that there was nothing in them. His tone was quiet and easy. "Put down the bow, Mara." She shook her head. "No." "Bad idea," he told her calmly. "You don't want to shoot me. You don't want to shot a cop." "But you aren't a cop, are you?" She was rigidly controlled, restrained, but her whole form radiated fury. "You're a fake. A lie. You aren't what you pretend to be. Damn you." Adam waited, his mind racing. She was ignoring him. He had the opportunity to stop her. Trying to edge around her, he began to pull his gun. Her reflexes were excellent. The bolt burned his upper arm. His jacket tore. Pain made him drop the gun he had just drawn. His arm began to warm as his blood slid down it from the minor crease in his flesh the bolt had left. Immediately, she swung the crossbow back in Nick's direction. Adam had no doubts that it was a deadly weapon. He had seen what it had done to the two in the Raven. "I'm going to end it now," she said. Her voice was eerie in its dreamy calmness. "They are all there, all of the monsters. I'm going to kill them all. I'm going to make them pay. And you, Detective, are going to pay next." The bolt shot out of the bow and buried itself in Nick's chest, spinning him around and crashing him to the ground. Without another word, Mara turned and fled for her car. Adam began swearing under his breath. Torn between calling for help and going immediately to his partner's aid, he obeyed his first impulse and went to Nick's side. He knelt down and helped Nick turn over. The bolt protruded from Nick's chest only slightly. "I'm fine," Nick snapped, and Adam nearly fell on his butt at the clear, strong voice. "She missed." Without a second thought, Nick pulled the bolt from where it had lodged several inches above his heart and snapped it viciously in two. "But... but...," Adam spluttered, confused. "You have to get to the hospital. You must have lost a lot of blood, and your shoulder is probably broken..." "Adam, listen to me. She missed." Nick's voice was low and compelling. "The bolt went over my head. I fell so she wouldn't shoot again, and she got away." Adam began nodding. "Yeah, yeah, that's what happened...." **** He stood guard for them, the children who had nowhere else to go. Even when it was patently obvious that the Raven could not protect them, the vampires clung to the illusion of security that it provided. At least three of their kind had been killed within the past three days. Four others were missing, and no one knew if they had died and been exposed, or if they had simply fled. Miklos couldn't leave. He'd failed Tabby and Brian. He'd watched Fantine die before his eyes. There were four whose fates he did not and most likely would never know. If there was any vampire in Toronto who needed his help, he would give it. What Janette had spent twenty years building in Toronto, a mortal woman had destroyed in three days. Walking out into the silent main room, Miklos stood in the center of what had once been a dance floor. The irony was he had always been a lone wolf, a man more interested in his privacy than in others. But he believed in what Janette had built, believed enough to serve her when he would rather have been elsewhere, and to take over what she and LaCroix had abandoned. Miklos had been ignoring the sense of a mortal loitering around the Raven. This neighborhood attracted transients as a filthy dog does fleas. The Raven was locked tight against the coming dawn, and he felt secure that the creature that preyed on them could do them no harm this night. That was when Miklos smelled the acrid stench of gasoline. He burst out of the front doors of the Raven just as a geyser of fire lit up the night sky. Forced by pain to fall back, he felt the skin of his face and hands blister. The fire would kill him as well as any mortal; fire was one weapon he could not fight. The mere fact of his helplessness in its face was half of its destructive power. His eyes sought out the form of the mortal woman. Her long dark hair lifted in the hot wind of the flames she had created. She stood with eerie stillness, a small, flat box in her hand. Not even the arrival of Nick's Caddie could keep her from her rapt fascination with Miklos' eyes. The flames shifted and eddied between them, now revealing, now concealing. Adam opened the car door almost before it had stopped moving, and swore fluently when he saw her. Both he and Nick recognized the detonator in her hand. It was common -- because it was effective. Adam finally ran out of scathing curses. "When did she plant explosives? There's no way she could have set anything up in the time it took her to get here. Damn! I should have checked to see if she had anything other that those bolts!" he chided himself. "Call the fire department, then see if you can evacuate the block," Nick ordered. Janette had made sure the Raven was safe from fire, Nick knew. Fire was something all vampires feared. It was one of the few things that could destroy them. They abhorred and loathed it with a terror far stronger than what mortals felt. The Raven could withstand flames. So long as it remained standing, that was. But if explosives brought the building down, then there would be no protection from the fire... --<--<--@ ~*~ @-->-->-- The pain ripped through Nicholas' back, tearing him from sleep into a savage world. He came awake with a roar. A fiery brand was thrust in his face, and he backed away from it, stumbling away from the burning bed. Barely able to focus, he saw a slight figure moving just out of his reach, just beyond his power. She held a sharpened stake in one slender hand and a torch in the other, and the fire kindled a gleaming halo around her blond head. Maddened with agony, Nicholas knew her. Celestine, his *douce ange.* Now that sweet angel was a Fury. Her clear blue eyes were darkened with rage, and her mouth was twisted and ugly. "What do you want with me?" he snarled. "Revenge," the voice he had grown to love answered. "You killed my family. I watched you. I was but a child, and I watched you tear their throats out. Now I will take my vengeance on you." Tossing the flaming torch at the empty fireplace, Celestine took the stake in both hands and aimed it at Nicholas' heart. With laughable ease, Nicholas batted it away. Face and back burned by fire, threatened with death at her hands, there was nothing left of the charming gentleman she had danced with in her aunt's ballroom. Nicholas had no control over the vampire within him, freed of its chains by pain and wrath. When Celestine tried to back away, the predator in him gave chase. He caught her around the waist with one arm, and with his other hand tilted her head back, brushing her hair away from her neck almost tenderly. "I nearly loved you," he whispered to her. "I loved the spirit and fire within you. But it was a fire fed by hatred. Now it destroys us both." She gave only one choked cry when his teeth sank into her neck -- and then silence. --<--<--@ ~*~ @-->-->-- (to be continued ...) -------------------------------------------- For more information or to participate in the Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season, write to V4S@fkfanfic.com. From v4s@FKFANFIC.COMMon Feb 17 07:41:23 1997 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 01:56:42 -0500 From: Virtual Fourth Season To: FKFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: V4S: A Dish Best Served Cold (8/8) Episode Number: Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season - Episode #7 Episode Title: "A Dish Best Served Cold" "Air" Date: February 13, 1997 Author: Elizabeth Ann Lewis Part 8 of 8 This story is based on characters and situations created by James Parriott and Barney Cohen and owned by Sony/TriStar. No infringement is intended. Copyright 1997 Elizabeth Ann Lewis -------------------------- A DISH BEST SERVED COLD The flames leapt higher, beginning to blacken the already murky walls of the building that housed the Raven. The light was an image of a false dawn, glowing with copper and red and gold -- and destruction. Slowly, without any sudden moves to set her off, Nick made his way closer to where Mara stood. His reflexes were slowed by bloodloss. Her earlier shot had been too close. Weakened and hungry, he was at an unusual disadvantage. Fleetingly, he wished for LaCroix, his strength and his presence. But LaCroix was not omniscient, couldn't know that the mortal woman had chosen to attack so directly. He would not have left her in Nick's hands if he had. "Mara," Nick called, trying to distract her from what she saw in the flames. "Put down the bow and the detonator." Startled, she turned to face Nick. Miklos saw his chance. Heedless of the fire, he dove through the flames for her, snarling in rage. She turned on him. Reflex had her finger moving on the release of the crossbow. Bitter luck guided her aim this time. The bolt connected. Miklos stumbled back several steps on impact. Slowly, he sank to the ground. He curled on his side, one hand to his chest where the bolt protruded. Mara took a step away from both Miklos and Nick and held the box in her hand out. "If you touch me, we're all dead. I set up explosives all around this building. I've been planning this for weeks. Months. More than a year. I know what I'm doing, believe me. If I touch the trigger on this, they will go off." Nick stopped as though he had slammed against a wall. She smiled bitterly as all three of them heard the sound of the fire roaring, starting to find the fuel to live. "I don't even need the explosives. Those are my backup. Fast or slow, this building will be destroyed. And all the vermin within it. I lit the roof first," she confided. "They can't escape that way." "Why?" Nick asked. She tilted her head in his direction. The flickering light revealed her face, light, shadow, light again. "Vengeance. Justice. I was eight years old and I watched as your kind killed my parents!" "Vengeance and justice are not the same," Nick told her, trying to move closer without alarming her. The fire was growing; they could all hear it. The heat was beginning to be intolerable for Nick and Miklos, although the woman barely seemed to feel it. She only shook her head. "How could you?" she asked Nick imploringly. "How could you be one of them? I thought you were bright and shining, the noble one protecting us from the darkness in the world. But you're nothing but a monster, a lie. You're a vampire, like all of them in that building. You're nothing." She brought the crossbow to bear on Nick's chest. "Listen to me," Nick told her slowly and clearly. He ignored the trigger in her hand, the crossbow with its deadly bolt, the heat of the fire that was growing, moving ever closer to the explosives that could detonate in its heat, focused on nothing but the woman's dark eyes. "No one here ever sought to harm you. Vampires don't exist. Do you understand? *Vampires don't exist.*" She shook her head, dazed. "They don't... but they have to... because..." Her gaze was no longer focused on the flickering fire. It was turned inward. "No... I... Mama?" Her voice jumped into a childishly high-pitched tone. "No, Daddy, no! Don't hurt Mama! Please, Daddy, no! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" As Nick listened to her react to a scene that only she could see, he crossed closer to her. He wanted to reach for the detonator, but she was holding it and the bow in a death grip. She flinched once, twice, then settled into sobbing, crying out for her mother. Then she jumped once more, as if in response to a loud sound, and stopped. She blinked, then looked at Nick, seeming to come back to an awareness of her surroundings. Her hands were shaking, and she didn't even attempt to resist when Nick took the crossbow and trigger from her. "Mara, where are the explosives? I have to get them before the fire can set them off." Mara wrapped her arms around her body. "By the front door and the rear door," she said in a monotone. "And some on the roof, near the roof access." Working rapidly, Nick retrieved them all. The painted brick of the Raven would resist the flames, and keep those who sought refuge in the building safe. Quickly, he crossed to Miklos. The other vampire was barely conscious. Nick pulled the stake from his chest. Miklos' face was a pasty grey, and it took him several moments to gain his feet. Pressing his hand over the hole in his chest, he stared at the woman. "You heard?" Nick asked him. Miklos nodded at the shattered woman a few feet away. "I heard. What was it the Frenchman said? Revenge is a dish best served cold? The remains of this one will be bitter for a long time to come," he said heavily. Nick heard the sirens wail as returned to Mara, who stood dumbly where he had left her. The few fires set around the Raven would quickly be extinguished. Adam came back just as Nick carefully set aside the explosives. "Whoa. How did you get those so fast?" "Fear's a great motivator." He turned back to Mara as she spoke. "He killed her," she said in a low, dull voice. "Who did?" "My father." She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. "He called her a lying, cheating whore, said she didn't deserve to live. Mama was begging for her life. He didn't seem to hear me, didn't know I was there. He shot her twice. Then he shot himself." Confused, she looked up at Nick. "It wasn't vampires. It wasn't vampires at all. My father killed my mother. And I killed to avenge him. God help me." Sinking to the cold asphalt, she curled into a ball and wept as the icy rain turned to snow. Nick turned away. "Take her," he said to Adam, indicating Mara's huddled body. When they were gone, Nick turned back to speak with Miklos again. And found him gone. ******** "Subject combined two separate and usually distinct disorders. From the age of eight, hysterical amnesia blocked the memory of her parents' murder/suicide from her mind. She refused to believe that her father would have killed her mother. Sixteen years later, false memory syndrome created a tale of creatures of the night to account for her missing memories." Westwood put down Dr. Abromowitz's official report on Mara and braced his elbows on his desk, massaging his temples for a moment. Taking a deep breath to fortify himself, he resumed his silent reading. "The subject is now unable to distinguish which memories are real and which are false. A tale of being attacked by a vampire during the asteroid panic is now viewed by the subject with as much suspicion as the initial memory of vampires attacking her parents. After several hours of consultation, I deem Mara Gallen unfit to stand trial, and recommend that she be placed in an asylum for the criminally insane, there to remain until she is fit to be tried." Westwood tried to close the folder on Mara's case -- and found he couldn't. She too had pursued vampires. She had let the pursuit take over her life, until she ate, breathed, and slept nothing but revenge. Obsession was an ugly thing. With one quick shudder, Westwood closed Mara's file and put it away. It was too easy to see himself in her case. **** "The way that fire was burning, she had it doused with fuel. She must have been stockpiling gasoline for weeks. The fire didn't do that much damage, though," Nick explained to the captain. "Mostly, it was the gasoline that burned. Had it lasted any longer, or if any of the charges had been set off, it would be a different matter." "Well, at least the whole thing is cleared up." Reese sighed noisily. "Damn. Are there anything but nutcases in this city?" "I don't know, Cap," Nick said, just as Adam spoke. "Sure there are. But all the weird ones seem to have a magnetic attraction to Knight here." Adam jerked a thumb at his partner and laughed as Nick glared at him balefully. Leaving Reese's office, Nick smiled, shook his head, and returned to his desk to do all the requisite paperwork. A trace of fragrance made him freeze, the smile dying. Nat stood by his chair, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He tempered the automatic urge that made him want to touch her, take her, controlling it with hundreds of years of practice. It never grew any easier. "Nick? Everything... cleared up?" Her voice was a bit hesitant. Nick nodded. "The fires were put out before they caused any more damage. Mara Gallen is going to get the help she needs, for all the good it will do her." "Nick, I've... Nick." Nat fumbled for words. Finally she sighed and sat down on the edge of the desk, facing him. "She spent her whole life on revenge, on hatred. Now, she has nothing." Shaking her head, Nat got to her feet. "I don't want to have nothing, Nick. I don't want hatred to be the central focus of my life. And yet... looking at her, it's so easy. Too easy to slide into a trap." "'And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you,'" Nick quoted quietly. "Revenge is nothing to base a lifetime on, Nat. Believe me, I know." Nat nodded. She raised one hand and touched him, gently, casually, the way one friend touches another, and then let it drop. "I know. Well, I'll see you around, right?" she asked. "Right." He watched her walk away. Her smiled had seemed to hover in that gray area between easy and forced. But it was there. **** "They call it a crime of passion, a momentary insanity, when the chains of civilization snap and let loose the beast within. But what do they call it when the beast is always off its leash? When the insanity has taken over completely and is the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe? When the anger and hatred are your reason for being? "Where is the line between sanity and madness? Can it truly be so easily defined? Or do many of us walk the earth -- perhaps some of you, gentle listeners -- who could be called mad? Your friend, your neighbor, you lover, your child. You. "And with that cheery thought, the Nightcrawler bids you good night. Oh, and in case you wonder... I am quite sane. Quite." ------------------------- For 'Ganger. Happy Birthday!!! Acknowledgements: Additional LaCroixian dialogue by TJ and Tigon (when I got stuck). Thanks to Libby for picking up the slack when the Bridging Plague delayed this episode. I owe you muchly! Thanks to evil dictators: TJ, JH Great-Cyber-Niece Red, JT and Sorcha, for making me think of the idea to begin with. Thanks to Patrick for holding my hand through this, even if I didn't want LaCroix in the finale! Thanks to my Alpha and Beta readers, particularly all the ones who pointed out glaring errors and gave me *much* better ideas! Hugs and kisses to the CyberFamily from Auntie Lizbet. Thanks to the Fang Gang and the EC. ------------------------- Correction: John T. Folden should have been listed with the Alpha Readers. Sorry, John! -- TJ -------------------------------------------- For more information or to participate in the Forever Knight Virtual 4th Season, write to V4S@fkfanfic.com.