Author's notes: 

The song lyrics are from "Ice" by Sarah McLachlan, from her album
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. More than one song on that album just
screams "Janette" to me, which is probably why I keep making music
videos. Archive? Sure. Oh, and none of these characters are mine.
More's the pity. Shameless plug: 

Please visit my new fanfic site . Thank you  And good Knight. 

 

Here to Stay       by Eve

        the ice is thin come on dive in
        underneath my lucid skin
        the cold is lost, forgotten
        hours pass days pass time stands still
        light gets dark and darkness fills
        my secret heart forbidden... 

I knew he would return to me. He always has. 

It has been almost ten years since her passing--an eye-blink, as
Nicolas so becomingly phrases it, to those of us who have eternity. He
would deny it, of course, but he has never quite been himself since it
happened. 

Nicolas has played many roles in his time: he has been Romeo, and he
has been Hamlet. Now, too, he has become Othello, mourning the loss of
his innocent. 

Nicolas also tried to destroy himself, once he realized what he'd
done. 

Unlike the Moor, Nicolas did not succeed. 

Lacroix was always one to consider Nicolas' tragedies as comedies in
disguise, and to play along if the role suited him, but this time was
different. For reasons that surprised them both, Lacroix could not
give Nicolas the respite for which he begged. Instead, he brought him
to me. 

After our last encounter, I had gone home--for, despite time and tide,
Paris has always been my home. She may wear a glamourous new face with
every season that passes, but underneath she is still the loving
mother, shelter of lost souls. I had not expected I would never see
Nicolas again. The world is a small place, after all. It becomes
smaller with each passing day. But I had not expected to see him so
soon; certainly not laid out on my very doorstep, in that damp, chill
time just before dawn. 

The threads that once bound us as blood-siblings are now so hopelessly
snarled by the new bond that it was impossible to read him, but I had
only to look in his eyes to see the dull, dazed horror at what he had
done. I knew he had killed, even if I didn't yet know whom. But this
was grief without energy, self-loathing without anger; the bright
flame of passion that had always illuminated him was gone, burned out.
That was so unlike the Nicolas I knew that it frightened me. 

We installed him in one of the guest rooms, and Lacroix informed me of
what had happened. He gave no details; he hadn't any to give. He
wasn't there when it happened, and Nicolas was not inclined to discuss
specifics. Lacroix simply remarked that Nicolas had capitulated to his
Natalie, and she had died as a result. I felt sick and hollow inside,
Robert's loss still an open wound. Nicolas had wanted to die, but
Lacroix could not let him. In a sense, my crusader and I had come full
circle. 

 He wouldn't speak, and refused to feed. The latter was typical of
him, but the former was not. Every night, I brought him a bottle, and
every morning, I collected it, untouched, from the bedside table in
his room. At first he even refused to use any of the opulent
furnishings, preferring to lie, face down, on the cold, hard floor.
And I could tell by the odour of burnt flesh in the air how he spent
his days. I threatened to have the window boarded up if this went on.
He gave no reply, only gazed at me like one already dead. When I
picked him up and placed him in bed, he gave no resistance. 

 Lacroix spent day after day with Nicolas, insisting that he give in
to his hunger, but Nicolas remained resolute. It reached the point
where I could not bear to watch, to hear Lacroix alternately
whispering endearments and roaring obscenities at the motionless form
tucked under the duvet. He finally left, feigning disgust with
Nicolas' weakness. The truth was, he simply couldn't stand to see it
any more. His golden child, his favoured son, had been reduced to such
utter despair that it unsettled and even sickened him. We were both
accustomed to Nicolas' depressions, his fits and starts, but none of
the twisted machinations that Lacroix, in his favourite role as the
stern father, had ever concocted, had led to this. He wished me good
luck on the evening he left, and told me to let him know immediately
if Nicolas recovered. 

 Not when. If.    

        tied down to this bed of shame
        you tried to move around the pain
        but oh
        your soul is anchored 

I allowed no one else in my household to attend him; the few domestics
I employed were instructed not to venture into that part of the house.
He was starving himself to a dangerous point, and, once he came out of
it, he would pounce ravenously on the first thing that moved and had a
beating heart. If that happened to be my pretty young maid, Heloise,
he would feel even more guilty afterwards, prolonging the whole
business even further. All through the day and night I could feel his
pain, washing over me in waves. The heavy, almost languorous stupor
within which her death had left him trapped. One morning, I could not
stand it any more. I went to him. 

"Nicolas," I said, "this ends now." I pulled back the covers. He was
thin, too thin, almost emaciated. It startled me. 

 "No." It was the first word he had spoken to me since his arrival. He
turned to look up at me; his face, beneath the unruly snarls of beard
that obscured it, was painfully gaunt. 

 "Yes." I bared my wrist to him, and watched the hunger flare in his
eyes. 

 "I--can't." 

 "You will die." 

 The words came falteringly; his tongue was a hinge, grown rusty for
want of use. "I--want--to die." 

 "Maudit!" I screamed. "Idiot! How can you be so selfish? You stole
death from me and now you think you will claim it for yourself? Je
pense que non, mon ame." I had meant to say "mon amour". Strange how
our words betray us. But, in a sense, Nicolas has always been my soul.
My humanity. 

I bit deep into my wrist and held it over him. "Mon beau gamin," I
cooed soothingly, pressing him to drink. "Bois. Mon pauvre Nicolas." 

Blood dribbled across his mouth and down his chin and cheeks. At
first, he resisted, turning his face away, and I was terrified that he
was really going to leave me. 

"Natalie," he whispered. 

Then he licked the blood from his lips and reached for me. 

The first few moments of contact gave me nothing but pain: his, and
hers. This gradually faded, and before long I could discern a distinct
essence. Natalie. I was able to taste her final words and thoughts,
before she had gone, as she believed, to meet her maker. 

At first, she had cursed my crusader; afterwards, she had cursed
herself. He had wanted to leave her, to save her life the only way he
could, and she had refused to let him go. She had been willing to
follow Nicolas into darkness--something he would never have asked of
her. She was his light, and he would not see her extinguished. But the
notion that her bright flame might pass to him, combined with her firm
belief in amor vincit omnia, had killed her and nearly destroyed the
man she loved. 

For the ultimate, overriding emotion, the one Nicolas carried inside
him like poison, and the one that wounded him far more than her curses
had, was love. She had loved him. She had trusted in him, in whatever
forces had brought them together. And her love had blinded her, until
it was too late, to the danger of what he was. What we both are. 

I have often, in times past, seduced Nicolas away from his other
mistress, Guilt. This was not the same. He took me, with no sense of
who I was, and fed, blindly, yet somehow tenderly. Loving her through
me. Finally I had to fight him off before I drifted into
unconsciousness. 

        the only comfort is
        the moving of the river
        you enter into me
        a lie upon your lips
        offer what you can
        I'll take all that I can get 

When I woke the following evening, he was already up, sitting quietly
in the armchair on the other side of the room. I'm not sure what I
expected--tears, perhaps, or a passionate outburst of invective--but I
felt strangely disappointed in the polite nod I received instead. 

"Thank you," he said, gravely. "For last night." He was dressed and 

clean-shaven, and had taken pains with his appearance for the first
time since his arrival. He glanced over at the bedside table, and I
saw there was a half-full bottle there. Not his usual vintage, either.


"Do you still want to die?" I rasped, still dazed with sleep and
weakened from the night before. 

"She wouldn't have wanted that," was his reply. Which didn't exactly
answer my question, but I sensed that the subject was closed. And so
it has remained. 

There are nights when I can delude myself that it is like old times
again. He has stayed of his own volition these past years; Lacroix has
been twice to visit us, and Nicolas played the role of the cordial
host to perfection. As always, he is far too indulgent with the staff;
they come to him more and more frequently with their concerns, and
Nicolas listens patiently. 

Little Marielle, who has been with us since Heloise left, has quite
fallen in Love with him, with disastrous results--I have had to
restrict her cleaning duties to rooms with few breakables as possible.


Most of the time, however, I cannot deny the changes in our life
together. He shares my bed every day, but his nights are his own. I do
not ask him where he goes, and I do not need to: he often returns just
before dawn, with a sheepish smile and the stink of Notre-Dame on his
skin. The rites and objects of his Christian faith have ceased to
trouble him; I am quite certain he could comfortably wear a crucifix
now, and would, if not for his consideration for me. He has begun
saying the Pater Noster before bed, a ritual that nauseates me to such
an extent that I have to leave the room rather than witness it. He
does it on his knees, politely waiting at the foot of the bed until I
have finished at my vanity table and can exit to the hall. He speaks
the words in Latin, but lately, at times, I have overheard him talking
quietly in modern English as well. 

Once, I asked him to whom he spoke, and he replied, "To heaven,
Janette. To heaven." Then, almost his old self, he made a face and
added, "Embrasse-moi, ma belle, take the taste of those words away."
And I kissed him, knowing full well whose name had been on those lips
a moment ago. 

He does not often speak of her, but nor is she entirely absent from
our conversation. Occasionally, in one of his more reflective moods,
he will relate some anecdote from his days in Toronto. He has always
been a good storyteller, and he paints a vivid picture. These are
times when I feel almost as though I know her, in a way I never did
while she was alive. 

He loves her still, even now.  

It isn't as though he keeps a picture of her on the nightstand, or
calls her name while we are making love. Not since that first night,
and he was not to blame then; he was delirious from hunger. Nothing in
our home is a reminder of her, and when he reaches for me in his
sleep, he knows it is me he holds, and not his tame doctor. He would
never do anything quite so... cliche. No; Nicolas is, if nothing else,
a gentleman, and it is a gentleman's duty to remember, in the evening,
who he took to bed the morning before. It is far more insidious than
that. 

I think that, given the chance, he would trade my life for hers. Even
he does not know this--or, at any rate, he will not admit it to
himself--but the truth is there, in his blood. Nor is this the only
truth Nicolas refuses to see. 

I noticed the first silver thread at his temple three months ago.
There had been other, more subtle signs before that: a certain laxity
in his once-proud carriage, a creeping stiffness in his movements. I
had dared to hope they were merely products of my imagination, or of
his despondency. But every day, new lines appear around his eyes, and
I am no longer able to deceive myself. Nicolas has always far
outstripped me in that area. He has no way of knowing how much his
appearance has changed; this new Nicolas, unlike his previous
incarnations, has grown disenchanted with mirrors. 

If he happens to encounter his reflection in passing, he sees only
what he Expects to be there. What has been there for almost a
millennium. He still keeps out of the sunlight, still drinks blood to
survive. His essential nature has not changed. He is a vampire. But,
as if through sheer strength of will, he is slowly fading. Before
long, his aging body will start to pain him in ways even he will not
be able to ignore. Humanity may be out of his reach, but he has,
somehow, been granted the gift of mortality. I should not be
surprised; Nicolas has always found a way to have what he wants in the
end. And I will not interfere. I have always been the stronger of the
two of us; I will survive his passing. 

In spite of the changes, in my heart he will remain that golden boy
who caught my eye in a tavern one evening, not knowing I'd been
watching him for weeks. That brash young crusader, guided by his
impulses, with no concept of the true meaning of eternity. I bought
his soul with my body, because I wanted him for a plaything, only to
be conquered by the depth of his love for me--a love I was never quite
able to understand before now. And, as his last dawn encroaches
steadily upon us, it is Nicolas who will soon leave me behind. 

Forever.   

        offer what you can
        I'll take all that I can get
        only a fool's here to stay
        only a fool's here... 

  

FIN 

  

Eve 

umdutto3@cc.umanitoba.ca