I've had a couple of stories sitting on my computer for while, but
I've been having the darndest time with my beta-readers.  Thankfully,
April French came through for me.  Thank-you!This one occured to me
while watching 'Curioser &Curiouser' (you'll see why), and is kind of
a sequal/companion peice to a story I wrote several years ago called
'Deja Vu'.  For those of you who don't like variations on a theme,
tough.  I can't help myself.  <G>Permission to archive at the
fkfanfic2 site, and anyone else who wants to put my name on it.  I
don't own nobody, don't know nobody, it's just li'l ol' me and my
computer.  Comments, praises, constructive criticism, and cute
vampires (dressed, please, for the sake of my roomie's heart) can be
mailed to mistrydder@yahoo.com.  Flames will be doused with protien
shakes.
All Over Again (1/1)

      "Whew!"  Nick wrinkled his nose as he came into the morgue. 
"Who had the Italian?"

      "No-one.  It's part of a case, thought I can't figure out
how," Natalie said, glancing up.  She pointed to her newest
'customer' lying on the table.  "This guy came in with a knife
through his heart about an hour ago.  It shouldn't be too hard to
find the killer: there are prints all over the knife.  The weird
thing is, the knife was rubbed with concentrated garlic juice before
it was used."  Nick raised an eyebrow.  "Yeah, that's what I
thought," Natalie answered the unvoiced comment.  "Why would someone
do something like that?  Unless they thought the guy was a vampire?"

      Nick shrugged.  "Garlic would be annoying, even keep the wound
from healing, but it wouldn't do any serious damage.  If someone's
going to try to kill a vampire by putting something through their
heart, why wouldn't they stick with a steak?"  Suddenly Nick's eyes
narrowed as a though occurred to him.  "Unless..."  He turned and
took another long look at the deceased.  "Natalie, stay back," he
muttered, then firmly addressed the body on the table.  "Up.  Get
up."  There was no response.  "I said get up, before I dump you onto
the floor."  There was a long pause, then one of the eyelids cracked
the slightest bit.  The eye considered Nick for a moment, then the
other joined it, the face taking on a sour expression.

      "Who are you?" the formerly dead man snarled, sitting up.

      "That's it!  I quit!" Natalie burst out before Nick could
answer.  "I'd be better off with a nice, quiet job in the Mercy
Hospital's ER."

      "Nat, calm down.  We'll get this straightened out."  He turned
back to the strange vampire.  "Nick Knight, Metro Homicide.  Look, I
don't know what you think you're doing, but I don't appreciate it."

      "*You* don't appreciate it?  I went to a lot of trouble to set
this up!  All you had to do is leave it alone!"  His voice dropped to
a mutter.  "One vampire cop in this whole world and I had to end up
on his beat."

      "Yeah, well, joke's over.  Get out of here."

      "Uh, Nick?" Natalie interrupted.  "How am I supposed to
explain that?  And I really don't think 'losing' the body would look
good on my record."

      "He... wasn't really dead?  Surely that happens every so often."

      "Anyone hurt bad enough to end up here would be sent to the
hospital.  And we all know how well that would go over."

      "How about... his family refused to let you do the autopsy and
demanded you give the body back."

      "Would it still be a murder case?" the vampire asked.

      "Well, yes.  But without forensic evidence, it would end up in
the 'unsolved' file pretty quickly.  Look, who are you, anyway? 
What's going on?"

      "Cedric Turner.  As for what's going on, isn't it obvious? 
I'm framing someone."

      "Framing someone," Nick repeated under his breath.  "Why?"

      "Because I want to force them to move on."

      Nick gritted his teeth and bit back a growl.  "Look, Cedric. 
I'm only going to ask this one more time.  *Why*?"

      Cedric sighed.  "He's been monopolizing a girl I want to..."
he glanced at Natalie and cleared his throat, "um, get close to.  I
thought I'd just set the cops on him, he'd skip town, and I'd
introduce myself to the girl.  Look," he turned to Natalie, "can't I
just lay back down and you pretend none of this ever happened?"

      Natalie didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  "Out!  Out!  Get
out!  Both of you, out of my morgue!"

      "C'mon, we better go," Nick whispered knowingly.  "Besides, I
don't think you really wanted to do the dissection."

      The vampire looked suddenly dubious.  "Dissection?"

      "Yeah."  Nick gestured to the instruments lined up on the
table.  "Standard procedure.  Quite painful, I'd imagine.  Even for
one of us."

      The vampire took a long look at the gleaming stainless steel,
then made a quick exit and headed for the street.



End


"Eternal nights too short,
How quickly melt away,
With all the love we shared once,
Forever in a Day."