I forgot to mention: Permission is given to archive the story on the FTP site, the FKfanfic site and FKfanfic2. Others are welcome too, but please ask. Cheers LaCountess This is one of the first Forever Knight stories that came to my mind, one that even I admit, is not truly my style. It is sort of a N&N piece although it might not seem like one—or even like a FK story—in the beginning. But just stick with it and, hopefully, it will pay off in the end. “Forever Knight” and its characters are creations of James Parriott and Barney Cohen. The song “Scarborough Fair ” is by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Many thanks to my incredible beta readers Jean Graham, Helena Handbag and Nancy Kaminski. You guys helped me a lot. This story was called a 3-hanky story by Jean, so be warned. I’m not N&N, nor do any of my factions include Natalie in any form or pairing. I took it as a challenge to write her character, and now, I give it as a gift to the Nick and Natpack authors who, too, at times, wrote about *my* favorite stuff in their stories. Any comments, feedback, virtual chocolate? Please send to countessa2000@yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------- Velvet Sunset (Aunt Natalie’s story) by: Sunny LaCountess The day I decided to sell Aunt Natalie’s story to the paper was the day she passed away. I knew I would miss her very much, and would never be able to hear more about the real story of her life. For a long time I had contemplated whether or not I should publish her story for the public. Frank, who was my supervisor at Psynopsis at the time, was reminding me of it almost everyday, ever since he had heard that I had an old aunt who claimed her life was a fable. To him, it made a great story about human psychology and the different faces of schizophrenia for the magazine. To me, it was like betraying Aunt Natalie’s trust. It had been a quiet time back then. Peter and I were living on the North Shore with the kids, in a small, neat suburban house. I always liked the peaceful and friendly atmosphere of the mountainside neighborhood. It had been my home ever since Mom and I moved to Vancouver from Toronto, after dad died in a shooting accident. I remember how terrified Mom was in those days in Toronto, when the case was over. Especially since she couldn’t get the sensation out of her mind that somehow, days after they had pronounced him dead, dad had spoken to her on the phone. She had told Aunt Natalie about it and she had reassured her that it most possibly was a dream. Still, Mom felt uneasy living in our old home, jumping nervously every time the phone rang. She had nightmares she never talked about, but I could see how they haunted her. Finally, she decided to quit her job and move to a different place, away from the memories and the nightmares that plagued her. I had always loved nature, the mountains and the sea. I remember Mom asking me where we should move, and I had said, “Lets go somewhere where there’s both mountains and sea. Somewhere that we can buy a house in the woods and feed the squirrels in our backyard.” She said ok, and a month later, we moved to Vancouver. We both loved the city and it became our home for many years to come. We decided to live on the North Shore where we could see both the mountains and the ocean. And I got to feed many squirrels in our backyard, and raccoons, and even deer. After I married Peter, we bought a house in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks away from Mom. We had a great time after the kids were born and celebrated many birthdays and Christmases together. The only thing we missed from our life in Toronto was Aunt Natalie. Of course we kept in touch. Years after Mom and I moved to Vancouver we still exchanged letters and chatted on the phone as often as we could. She even came to visit us a few times. She was quite cheerful the first few years, younger than her age and always so full of life. So much in contrast to the job she performed everyday. She wrote to us about Toronto, her friends, how they became host to a great novelist that had them all obsessed with her books. About the one time that they had a TV crew in the morgue filming their work and how they ran to the bathroom as soon as she had uncovered one of her ‘patients.’ About the asteroid scare and how it had them all worked up until finally, her division, or more precisely, her two best friends and star detectives of the 96th precinct had uncovered the fraud. Life was always a story with Aunt Natalie, and she seemed to value every second of it. I don’t deny it, though, that sometimes her letters seemed a little strange. I guess we all make things up to make our letters more interesting to our family. A little extra salt and pepper maybe? Doesn’t necessarily mean anything serious, does it? The ideas weren’t entirely crazy either, just strange. Like when she told us about the Valentine’s Day she had spent with a friend and couldn’t remember. That it was like she had dreamed about spending it more with this darkly dressed Gentleman who had bought out an entire restaurant. Or the demon possessing her best friend’s body, which she had witnessed by walking right into his exorcism. Or when she told us how she had saved a whole community from a deadly fever using a modified version of the AIDS virus, something I’m sure we would have heard on the news if it were really the truth. Still, we even enjoyed the weirdness of her letters, and the imagination, humor and love that went into them. Unfortunately, after the strangest ones, she only wrote a few more and then she stopped. For months we didn’t receive any word from her, not even a message. Mom got worried and called her twice to see if she was all right. The first time she didn’t answer, the second time she said she was ok but didn’t feel like talking. That was the end of our communication, until she moved to Vancouver and moved in with Mom. After Peter and I got married and moved to our own home, Mom was a little lonely. She never remarried after Dad died. She dated a few guys, but she always said no one could replace Dad in her heart. When Aunt Natalie finally wrote to us and said that she, too, was alone and retiring soon, I suggested she come to Vancouver and move in with Mom. She liked the idea and a month later, she and Mom were living together. It was strange looking at the two of them. Two middle-aged women, both retired, both very successful in their times, and both alone. With Mom I knew why. But I never understood why Aunt Natalie, with all her charm, intelligence and natural beauty, stayed alone for the rest of her life. I remember this to be one of the issues brought up on the day of her funeral. When they read her will, to see to whom her not-so-significant assets would go, they saw that most of it was either donated to charities or distributed among family members. No mention of a significant other. To me, she gave her notes for her secret research, her albums, and a pile of letters she had received over the years. I was the only one who knew the sad story behind them. The first person who brought the topic up at the reception was Uncle Harry. He took a big gulp of his wine and smugly proclaimed, “Well I guess she wasn’t much of a relationship person, was she?” We all turned to him in surprise. The entire day, that was the first time he had opened his mouth since the ceremony had started that morning. He seemed to enjoy the attention because he kept on, “Ya know, one might say she was a loner. Couldn’t find a man who would put up with her odd habits.” I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I stepped up to him and said, “She didn’t have any odd habits, nor was she a loner. She only despised insensitive, macho freaks.” He turned to me and shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m not judging. Just tellin’ the truth. That’s not wrong, is it? I mean, you guys ’ve been close. Did you ever see her date anyone?” Peter, wine glass in hand, came to stand beside me. The whole room had gone silent all of a sudden. They were all watching us, probably waiting to see where this conversation was headed. I gathered my breath, straightening to look taller and replied, “Yes, I have. I thought you’d remember that cop she knew from the 96th precinct. She even had a picture of him, it’s still in her stuff.” “What cop? The homicide detective you mean? Yeah, I remember him. That was a part of her imagination too, wasn’t it? She made it up, they say, to use as an excuse for her lack of social skills. For all I know the guy didn’t even exist.” Peter had to keep me from jumping at him. I shouted, “You have no right. Besides, what do *you* know about social skills? You barely talked to her, or anyone else. If you had, she would have shown you the picture she had of him. Then you’d see for yourself that Nick Knight did really exist.” “What picture?” Uncle Harry snuffled. “Oh, you mean the one with that blond Calvin Klein model in it? That ain’t no Nick Knight. Nick Knight was a forty-year-old bald guy with a beer belly, kind of a doughnut-dunker who used to grab a quickie with your aunt down in the morgue once in a while. Hey! Maybe Knight was a real stiff, you know? Yeah, I've heard about that. I mean, you've gotta be some kinda sicko to *wanna* spend your time around dead people." I was beyond myself from anger after that. I remember Peter putting his arm around my waist, trying to pull me away as I screamed my next words. “You bastard! How can you talk like that? She was the sweetest, smartest woman around and she’s dead now, you sick moron. At least try to show some respect instead of calling her a sicko and a liar? What do you know? You’re just jealous because…” Mom silenced me before I could utter something that would probably ruin our whole relationship with Uncle Harry, little as it was, completely. She didn’t want me to go too far. We all knew where his resentment came from. Everyone in the family knew he had once fancied Aunt Natalie and had approached her, only to be dumped flat. I didn’t blamed her at all, I couldn’t put up with Uncle Harry even for a minute. Aunt Natalie only acted out of self-preservation. On the other hand, very few knew about Nick Knight. His name had been mentioned here and there, but beyond that, nobody knew who he really was. Some like crazy uncle Harry thought he was a ghost, the man in the frame, someone Aunt Natalie had made up to fill the void of her loneliness. Others, especially those who had seen him, said he had been a failed romantic liaison. He and Aunt Natalie might have dated for a while, but eventually, nothing had come out of it, or worse, he had left her. Reluctantly, Peter was part of this group. Then there was Mom and I, who had seen the two of them together, and believed in their romantic relationship. Yet from what we remembered of him, we couldn’t bring ourselves to believe that he had left Aunt Natalie just like that. The man was an old-fashioned white knight, Mom used to say. One who would never leave a lady in despair or play with her heart only to throw it away later. There must have been something deeper, more poignant behind it all. Something Aunt Natalie never opened up about, to anyone. Except me, and under the oath of never revealing her story to anyone until I died. Velvet Sunset -- Part 2 of 8 Sunny LaCountess That was why Frank called me that day, after such a long time. Of course, he said he only wanted to give me his condolences for my aunt’s passing away. But he still couldn’t keep the enthusiasm from his voice when he finally mentioned what was gnawing at his mind. He assumed, with Aunt Natalie passing away, there was no obligation in me to keep her secret anymore. Besides, he needed it for a good cause; schizophrenia was becoming an increasingly common problem these days. My fault. I shouldn’t have blurted out in front of him. Should never have told him I had an aunt who was schizophrenic. What did I know? I wasn’t a psychiatrist, just a major in psychology. Just because her story was too fantastic to believe didn’t mean she was sick, did it? And now, I had this insistent publisher on my back. First time he mentioned it we were at a party, and I discussed the issue with Peter. He had met Aunt Natalie and both loved and respected her. He knew about my vow to her, didn’t even ask what her story was about, or how on earth I had concluded she was schizophrenic. He only said that if I had promised her not to tell anyone, I should stand by my word and shrug Frank off the best way I could. I agreed and did just that, politely telling Frank that my aunt didn’t wish for her story to be published and that I had made a promise not to do so without her consent. Frank insisted a bit more, but when he saw I was getting upset, he let it pass. He said that he understood my obligation to my aunt and didn’t want to make me, or her, upset. But if by any chance I got free of that obligation, for instance in case she changed her mind or—and he said this very deftly—when she passed away, he would want me to reconsider his suggestion again. I said ok. On the day of the funeral, I was riding in a black limo with my family to the cemetery for the final part of the ceremony, and my cellphone was ringing incessantly in my purse. I didn’t care who it was, Frank, the kids, or the fire department calling for an emergency. For the first time that day, after all the long, tiresome services we went through, and the stressful argument I had with Uncle Harry, I just felt tired. I sank back against the upholstered seat and released all my pent up emotions. I thought about Aunt Natalie and how much she had meant to me. How she and I, and Mom, had gotten so much closer after Dad’s death. I also remembered how much I loved her, especially these last couple of years when she had moved in with us. How much she must have trusted me to open up and share her most precious secret with me. And perhaps Frank was right; perhaps the public did deserve to know how she had suffered, what her real pain had been about. I thought about that night, years ago, when Peter was away and I and the kids were staying at Mom’s. I remember I went to her room on the second floor. She was sitting at her dressing table, brushing her long, wavy, chestnut hair. I lingered by the door and watched her for a while. She was humming a tune. It wasn’t familiar, but it was very sweet. Her hands worked skillfully through her tangled curls. Even at her age, she had great hair, with only a few gray and white streaks here and there that only added to its charm. I think I made a noise because she stopped and looked at me in the mirror. I looked down embarrassedly. “Sorry!” I said, “I didn’t mean to disturb.” “You know, when you sneak up on me like that, you remind me of someone else who used to do it.” I looked up; she was smiling. She pulled her hair up in a bun and fixed it in place with a big clip. I looked around her room. It was one of my favorite places since she had moved in here. Warm colors, cozy atmosphere, and a lot of her own personal touches. The walls were a pretty shade of pink, a reminiscence of her apartment in Toronto. The rest was a mixture of white and cream. Her bed was covered with a beautiful embroidery, and soft cushiony pillows. But what was most striking were the paintings, on the walls, dresser, nightstand, and end table. All beautifully framed in cream and white, they spanned a spectrum of artistic styles from Monet to avant-garde. Nevertheless, they all matched her décor somehow, and seemed to bear the marks of the same brush. One could say they were all done by the same artist. We both sat on the bed as she collected the papers and stuff that was strewn all across the bedspread. I watched her as she carefully tidied them up and put them in a drawer at the bottom of her nightstand. Then she turned and met my eyes, a lot of brightness and care showing in her own beautiful blue ones. “So, Amy! You decided to pay me a visit then. Something bothering you, dear?” I hung my head again. How did she guess that so quickly? “Not really.” I said, “I think I just miss Peter.” She looked a little worried. “Why? He is coming back, isn’t he?” “Well, yeah, it is just a business trip. But I don’t know. I guess I’m a little paranoid. Every time he goes away I think he might not come back.” She sighed and looked away, far away, as if watching something in the distance. “I know the feeling, girl. It’s called love. I’ve experienced it too, many times.” A hint of sadness swept across her features, which I was quick enough to catch. Since Aunt Natalie had moved to Vancouver, she and I had become especially close. Even as a grown, married woman, I sometimes felt like I needed someone to talk to about things I couldn’t discuss with anyone else. That person was always Aunt Natalie. She was a very good listener and always came up with the right thing to say to make you feel better. She had become my whining post. Whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on, a chest to lean on, or just someone who would listen and not complain, I would be up in her room. That night, however, as I looked at her profile sitting silently on the bed and in deep thought, for the first time I thought about her end of the deal. What about when *she* wanted to talk to someone? Why hadn’t it ever occurred to me to offer her the same kind of comfort she had offered me so many times so freely? “Aunt Natalie, was it the same for you, too? When you were in love?” I asked cautiously. She nodded, very slightly. Then she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Only in my situation back then, it was quite a great possibility.” “What? That he would go and never come back?” “Yes.” “Because he was a cop?” She smiled wistfully. “No, because he was something else.” I pondered the conversation for a while. She still hadn’t even mentioned a name. Yet we both knew whom she was talking about. Unlike Uncle Harry, who had the attention span of a monkey and a brain the size of a fish, I knew all about Nick Knight and what he had been to Aunt Natalie. The real question was, did I know enough? “Tell me about him, Aunt Natalie. How was he different from anyone else? Was he into dangerous things?” She gave a short laugh at that. There must have been something ironic in what I said because her laughter sounded a little scathing. She must have felt it too, because she immediately quieted and regained her composure before she spoke again. “Let me tell you something, Amy. It doesn’t matter why a man might or might not leave you. It is just the thought that kills a person: that the last time you saw them had truly been the last time in your life. Only you never thought of it at the time and so you didn’t value it as much as you should have. And now that you know, it is already too late.” I nodded at what she said. She fell silent again and I suspected that she didn’t want to go on with the conversation anymore. But now I wanted to. I felt like I needed to know more about her romantic past and the guy who had been the center of it. “Is that how it happened? For you?” I asked. She looked up, a little startled. “What do you mean?” “I mean Mr. Knight. Is that how he left you? I know you might not want to talk about it Auntie Natalie, but I see how it is chewing you up inside. You think I don’t notice, but I do. I just wish I could help you somehow, but it’s impossible when it always feels like you don’t trust me, at least not as much as I trust you.” She shook her head. “It is nothing like that, Amy. I do trust you and you know it. It’s just that, some things you just can’t talk about. Because if you do, your audience will think you are crazy.” I stuttered hastily, “Never…I mean, how could you say that, Auntie Natalie? You know me, don’t you? Do you think I would ever think about you like that?” “No, Amy. You are the sweetest, dearest girl I know. It is not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I don’t know if you would trust *me* the same way after I told you what you want to know. And I wouldn’t want to lie to you, or make things up, or prune it because you might not be able to accept it.” Slowly, I reached for her hands and held them between my own. Then I slid down the bed to fall on my knees in front of her, looking deep into her eyes. “Aunt Natalie, please listen to me. I am the one who’s asking to hear your story. Please, let me be the one person who knows about your secret. Try me and I promise I won’t disappoint you. I see how you are all the time. Drawn into yourself and always a tiny bit sad, even when you’re laughing with us. Maybe, if you talked about it, you would feel better afterwards. And I promise I wouldn’t make fun of you, or think you crazy. I would believe every word you say as if it came with the News.” She looked at me in silence for a long time. I was about to give up when all of a sudden, her face broke into a broad grin and she patted the side of my face in a playful, maternal gesture, saying, “You know, dear, you shouldn’t be believing everything that came with the News either, or all the crap they write in those magazines.” I brightened up. “I know, Auntie. I’ve been in the business for almost five years.” She punched my arm. “Have you? Then I bet you know how to add some extra spice to a story to make it zestier, don’t you?” I shrugged. “Not really, I write psychology articles. I only know that big shiny Latin words are always great eye-poppers on a page, so I use them a lot for that reason.” She broke into laughter and I followed her. Velvet Sunset -- Part 3 of 8 Sunny LaCountess She was still giggling when I handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes and took one for myself. When she finished, her expression became solemn once again and at last, she started. “I met him in the morgue. On one of those busy nights when as soon as they wheeled one body out, they brought in another. He had been injured, killed, to tell the truth. They brought him in a body bag that was dripping with blood. The guy who brought him said he was blown up by a pipe bomb. He said there was no face left on the body for ID.” I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. What a heck of a way to start a love story. “I opened the bag and looked at him. Surprisingly, he did have a face, handsome too, and not a single lethal wound on his body. I was confused. I decided to call forensics. While I was on the phone, he woke up and sat upright on my table… You still with me me, Amy?” I realized that I was gawking at her with wide eyes and open mouth. I shook my head and said, “Yeah, I guess so. Please go on. So the corpse woke up on your examining table.” “Right, and then, he grabbed a bag of blood and started sucking at it.” “Yes,” I repeated, “he got a blood bag and sucked the blood…” I shook my head again. I looked at her incredulously. “Aunt Natalie, are you pulling my leg? Or is this a test to see if I’ll keep my word and believe you no matter what?” She laughed. “See, I told you. I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what really happened.” I countered, “But this is absurd. You yourself said he was dead when they brought him in. Are you saying that the guy got mended all by himself while he was lying on your table, and then woke up? Or maybe that wasn’t really what happened. Maybe they brought in the wrong guy. That’s it, isn’t it? He was misplaced.” She shook her head no. “He was the right guy, and he was dead when they collected him. You actually got it right the first time, he did mend himself on my examining table.” “But how?” I asked in bewilderment. “What was he? A zombie?” “No,” she said. “Nothing like that.” _Maybe there is some sense in this story,_ I thought. “He was a vampire.” _What?_ Only a gargantuan effort on my part at that moment kept me from showing my real feelings and the depth of my shock at what she had just said. Aunt Natalie was scrutinizing me intently, hunting for any signs that might suggest I was doubting her word, or perhaps thinking her mad. I carefully kept my expression neutral, although my mind was in a true jumble. I mean, she said the guy was a what? Not that at first I didn’t imagine her poking fun at me for asking if he was a zombie. But then I saw the complete look of seriousness on her face, and knew for sure it wasn’t a joke. It was then that a new, more serious thought began to form in my head: Trauma induces mental illness. As a psychologist, I knew that whatever happened next depended entirely on my own reaction right at that moment. If I showed any hints of denial, she would most likely go silent and refuse to tell me the rest of the story. There was little doubt in my mind then that Aunt Natalie had suffered from a severe mental blow in the past that had caused her to mix up fantasy with reality. Perhaps creating all these scary details was a defense mechanism to ward off the real, much scarier truth she had faced in her life. I wanted to know what that was and the best way to do it was to play along. So I asked, “Vampire? Like Dracula, you mean?” “Yes.” “Are you saying they exist?” “I know it sounds strange. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen him…them, with my own eyes.” “Why didn’t he attack you? I heard they drink human blood.” “Nick was a different kind of vampire. He was repentant. He wanted to become mortal again.” _Ann Rice! She had a novel about that, a vampire who regretted his existence. Maybe that was the source?_ “So what happened after that? You took him to your place?” “Not that night. But we made a pact, that I helped him with his quest if he let me examine him. A few months later, he joined the Metro PD. We became colleagues in a sense.” Aunt Natalie carried on, weaving an incredible tale of mystic creatures and secret societies hidden in the shadows of the metropolitan landscape of Toronto, with her own mundane life mixed up with it in a way that made me gape and gulp more than a few times and wonder at her power of imagination. Had she read all of it somewhere? The story she was telling me left any number of Ann Rice’s best selling novels in the ditch. It was also shedding light, frighteningly, on all of the odd things we had heard about her in the past. A fairytale story that at the same time, made a lot of sense. According to her, Nick Knight was an 800-year-old blood sucker who had become a vampire—came across, as she called it—in the year 1228, and his real name was Nicholas de Brabant. He was immortal, drank blood, could fly like a glider jet, and was able to hypnotize people with a mere few words spoken to them while staring in their eyes. It was the craziest thing I had ever heard. What was most important was that this guy had killed many many people in his eight centuries of un-life and now, he felt guilty about it and wanted to atone for it. Apparently, he also wanted to become human again, and that was where Aunt Natalie came in. She somehow was performing this semi-medical research on him to see if there was a way for him to come back. There were also other vampires involved. A woman named Janette who was Nick’s vampire sister and had a hand in turning him into one of their kind. Things got weirder from then on. She claimed they were lovers too, had been married once in the Renaissance or something, and she suspected that there was still something more than just friendship going on between them. The bizarreness didn’t end there. There was another vampire in the picture, a Lucifer or Lucien LaCroix. Even listening to Aunt Natalie speak about him gave me the jeebies. She said he was almost 2000 years old, very dark and dangerous, and was one of those who had no qualms about killing mortals, us, on the spot. He also had a lot of power and a lot of wit, and could drop in anyone’s home as if he were a nightmare. She knew of at least a couple of people who had died at his hands, a friend of hers included. The worst part was, this LaCroix guy was Nick’s master, the vampire who had bitten him and brought him across. He seemed to have a habit of following him everywhere he went, trying to stop him from achieving his goal, as well as—and that was the scariest part—killing any mortals who dared to aid him in his quest. I listened to Aunt Natalie very carefully until she came to the part where Dad had died. I was a little surprised to notice as she deliberately skimmed over most of that chapter and moved on to the next. I was tempted to ask her about the left out details, but decided against it. If she truly was suffering from an illness and this was her way of dealing with it, it would be too cruel to force her to remember something she evidently wanted to put behind. “So was it this LaCroix who met you at the Azure that Valentines Day?” I asked. She nodded. “At first I didn’t know anything about it. He had drugged me, or hypnotized me, I’m not sure. I could vaguely remember the place and the conversations, but that was about it. I felt like I had dreamt most of it. I guess you get used to that when you live the way I did.” “So how did you find out what had really happened?” She immediately became sad. The same familiar expression I had come to know so well when I happened to catch her off guard. “I think you already know how I felt about Nick, that’s no secret. Even the second time we met and I offered to help him in his search for a cure, there was more to my attraction than just the temptation of solving a scientific puzzle. It was one of those electrifying things that might only happen once in someone’s life.” She closed her eyes and paused for a moment. ‘Love!’ my psychologist brain immediately concluded. Love at first glace no less. Aunt Natalie might have suffered from a troubled mind, or got lost somewhere along the way in the mystifying labyrinth of her own fantasies. But what she had felt for this guy, vampire or not, had been genuine love. And she was right, it _was_ truly a one of a kind experience. One that came around only once in a lifetime, if at all, and hit you like a baseball in the head, only to make you lucky and miserable both at the same time. “If he were a man,” she continued, “the story of my life would have been different. There might have been a house, one like the one you and Peter share now. And kids. He loved kids. And Sunday morning walks in the park, like you and Peter do. We would have gone on honeymoon every year, just because. And he would have bought a boat and learned how to sail; of course he would have been terrible at it, but who cares, I would have taught him. I would have helped him steer. And together, we would have sailed under the clear blue skies.” Her words stirred strange feelings in me, passion and longing; as if I could see the image she was painting with her mind. She didn’t allow me to bask in it, though. “But it wasn’t meant to be. He was a vampire, and that made a world of difference when it came to our being together. He always feared, always dreaded his reaction to every touch, every contact that might bring out the beast in him. It was as if he was touching a ball of fire. He kept himself distant as much as possible for fear of losing control and taking my life. I bet you don’t hear that too often, do you, Amy?” She looked at me. “Someone saying ‘My boyfriend didn’t get close to me because he was scared of accidentally killing me’.” Honestly, I didn’t. This whole idea of him being a vampire was just incredible. I could perfectly see now why Aunt Natalie had came up with it. It was the perfect consolation to think that your lover didn’t love you because he feared for your life. It was also very sad. “For years we danced around each other. Close to the end, I wasn’t even sure what we were, colleagues? Friends? Lovers? I wasn’t sure. I felt lost. And his dream of having a mortal life seemed as far away as my dream of sharing it with him.” Velvet Sunset -- Part 4 of 8 Sunny LaCountess I put my hand over hers to reassure her as she went on. She looked up at me and smiled. But her smile was short lived. “Then the worst of times came. A time when I sensed that his behavior toward me had somehow changed. Before, he used to come visit me in the lab almost every night. And we sometimes went to his place to watch a movie. Now it was just work related visits with his partner and then he would just leave. Or he showed up for his weekly examination and we went through the tests methodically before he took off again. Even the way he talked to me was different. He was treating me more like a stranger as the days went by. “At first I thought he had found another woman. I went to their club, the Raven, and asked around. Nothing seemed to be any different. According to the staff, he just sat in a corner and drank alone, like he always used to do. Well, except when LaCroix showed up to taunt him every now and then. It was all the same as before. So I figured it must be me, and I didn’t have the heart to ask him about it.” Another pause. I thought I saw tears form in her eyes, but perhaps I was imagining. “It was a time when everything had been sort of rough on him. I don’t want to go into details but I guess I wrote to you about the demon possession, the amnesia, and the fever that hit their community. I tried to write it off to the post-traumatic stress he was suffering from and just live on. It was very hard, his cold indifference, very hard to take. It had been a month or two, but to me, it seemed like years. I began to get bitter and depressed. I lost interest in anything besides work. That’s all I did in that horrible time, just work and go home. To feed Sydney and sleep. And then wake up and go to work again. Like a robot, a marionette.” She was sniffing now, although there were still no tears. Her voice, however, sounded rough. “I got bitter with him, too. After all, it was his fault I was feeling so depressed. And I was still too damn proud to confront him about it. It was so frustrating. Loving him—because I still did love him no matter what—and hating him at the same time. I didn’t say a word to him. I did, however, treat him coldly. I thought he only deserved it. Once I remember he came into the lab to hand me a report and I didn’t even look up at him, just showed him the door. He stood there for a while, staring as I kept my eyes on the paper. I was at my desk, pretending he wasn’t even there, until he finally dropped his head and walked away. Before he left though—and that was because I wasn’t strong enough to keep my head down until he was gone—as his hand was on the door handle, I looked at his face and what I saw struck me.” She took a deep breath and pressed her lips. I saw the tears in the corner of her eyes even as quick as she was to catch them before they fell. “He had,” a choked pause, then, “this incredibly sad look on his face. Like a lost little boy. He looked so lost and alone and oh my god, so hurt. And I did nothing to soothe him. I just sat there like a dumb cow and did nothing to ease his pain.” More tears. Now they were getting harder to catch. Aunt Natalie motioned to me to get her a tissue from the bedside table. When I handed her one, she blew her nose and wiped the rest of the tears from her eyes. Then she spoke in a nasal voice, looking down at the tissue she was folding in her hands. “ I acted like an idiot. If only I knew…” and she looked up. “Thanks, Amy. Sorry I got all messed up. It was a bit hard to talk about that one.” I held her hands in mine again. I, myself, was close to breaking into tears. Poor Aunt Natalie, that heartless guy had given her the cold shoulder treatment and she was blaming herself. Vampire sounded like a good metaphor for him now. I thought that I finally understood what her real pain had been about. I was wrong. “I understand, Aunt Natalie. I would have felt the same if I were in your place. He shouldn’t have treated you like that.” I rubbed her hand reassuringly. “So, is that how it ended? He left you?” She gathered herself up a little bit and dabbed her nose with the tissue before discarding it to the wastebasket. “No, I wish that was it. I wish it were that he simply had gone mad and decided to ditch me like the heartless playboy I thought he was. But the real truth was far more painful than I had thought.” I shivered inside my skin even as she went on. <+……… “Hello, Dr. Lambert.” The voice reached her from behind as she was kneeling on the floor to look under the couch for Sydney’s favorite toy. She jumped, almost hitting her head on the bottom edge of her coffee table, and looked up. She remembered that voice. The voice from her nightmares. He was standing at the entrance to her bedroom, framed by the darkness inside. _I must have forgotten to lock the window last night,_ she thought. _Not that it would stop him from coming into my home._ Slowly, she stood up. “What are you doing here?” Not taking her eyes off him. _God, I hope he’s not here to kill me._ A perfect eyebrow arched slightly on his forehead. “Is that any kind of hello, my dear Dr. Lambert? You were much more courteous last time we met.” He walked casually into the room and sat on one of her easy chairs, draping a leg over the other. Natalie noticed his expensive tailored suit, his polished Italian shoes, all of course in black. His entire outfit must be worth more than her whole living room, and she knew that he knew it too. And most likely enjoyed it very much. She decided not to let his appearance throw her. He was right, she had seen this man before, knew how powerful he was, how cruel he could be. It was a difficult situation. Last time, Nick had been there. No, she corrected herself, an amnesiac Nick had been there. And they were both fighting for his trust. He couldn’t have done anything crazy back then because Nick would have seen it and he would have lost the match. Now, on the other hand…Natalie suddenly became increasingly aware that she was in her apartment, alone, with a 2000-year-old vampire who most surely didn’t like her very much, and she had no way to defend herself. “Please, make yourself comfortable,” she said with as steady a voice as she could manage and just a hint of sarcasm. She sat on the couch across from him, keeping the sham of a safe distance between them. “Don’t fear me, Natalie. We agreed last time that I call you Natalie, didn’t we?” He interlinked his fingers casually on his lap while a ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. _How did he know…? Oh, right. My heart rate._ She only nodded, seemingly agreeing with the second part of his statement, but in her heart, struggling to accept the first and to force her muscles to relax. LaCroix was watching her every move. Just as she started to feel a little more relaxed—after all, if he had anything homicidal in mind, it was unlikely he would waste so much time before doing it—she became aware that she had not offered her guest anything yet. “Would you like something…uh… to drink?” LaCroix leaned forward in his chair. “I’m not here to exchange pleasantries, Natalie. And I doubt anything you could offer me would be as satisfying as that which I can get myself.” His eyes fixed on the side of her neck. Natalie trembled, losing all the fragile pieces of courage she had mustered just minutes ago as her hand moved instinctively to her neck in an alarmed gesture. He was playing with her. She knew he was doing it intentionally, and kicked herself for her weakness. She let her hand fall to her side and confronted him crossly, “So then tell me why you are here.” He leaned back again, hands folded once more on his lap, one leg draped over the other, creating the picture of a king sitting on his throne. He watched her through half-closed eyes, like the same king observing an insignificant servant. “I had guessed you would be smart enough to know why I would take the time to visit you. Obviously, there must be something important about you that would cause me to go through that kind of trouble. And there are very few things that I consider important in my life.” Natalie gritted her teeth. “Drop the act, LaCroix. I know this is about Nick, so get to the point.” The hell with his gigantic powers and his lightning reflexes, she would die before she’d let him ridicule her. LaCroix didn’t react to her outburst a tad, not even moving a muscle. He continued to scrutinize her for a few more minutes before he finally unfolded his hands and sat straight in the chair. He cleared his throat. “Yes, Nicholas, indeed he is the reason why I’m here. We need to have a talk.” “You should leave him alone, that’s what I’ll tell you. It is none of your business what he does with his life.” “Please, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? I assure you the matter I intend to talk to you about today is rather for *your* personal benefit, Doctor. So if I were you, I’d be wise to listen carefully.” Natalie bit her lip. She didn’t like the way that sounded. With Nick behaving all strange and different lately and now LaCroix dropping in to discuss personal matters with her, she could see something ugly beginning to creep up. But she’d be damned before she showed him her distress. “Ok, I’m listening.” LaCroix assumed a more serious and less casual pose and started, “First of all,” he emphasized, “I know how you feel about Nicholas, and that your research to gain him back his mortality is as much for your own benefit as it is for his. But that is beside the point as I see you already look bored.” He leaned forward and gazed at her face. “What I really want to say is that I also know how he feels about you.” At his words, Natalie’s heart clenched in her chest. She felt tears stinging her eyes as the emotional weight of the past couple of weeks threatened to crush her, and she got angry. How dare he do that to her? What did he know about how she felt about Nick and the torment she had gone through? “I know you feel betrayed.” he continued, “You did so much for Nicholas and he never paid you back for all you did, am I not right? Yet you must realize, it is your own foolishness that makes you hurt like that.” “Are you finished yet? Have you come here to insult me, or torment me like you always do with Nick? At any rate, you can applaud yourself now, LaCroix. You have accomplished both. So why the f… won’t you get out of my house and leave me in peace?” Velvet Sunset -- Part 5 of 8 Sunny LaCountess LaCroix silenced her with a cold glare and a raised hand. “I have no intentions of being insulted by you. Nor do I take pleasure in tormenting a minor mortal; and what I do with Nicholas is for his own good and none of anybody’s business. Now listen, because what I will say next is very important and I will only say it once. Believe me, you would regret not hearing it.” He waited for her to calm down, then continued with a deep breath. “Recently you have probably noticed a change in Nicholas’ behavior towards you. You might think that it is a passing depression period or another one of his guilt trips, but I want you to pay attention to how things have changed around you. Even if you try your hardest to deny it, some changes are irreversible. It is high time you realized that failure is sometimes an option, if your experimentation in reversing the vampire condition has not already proven that to you. “We all know that Nicholas is a moody creature by nature. He could be happy one minute and sad the next. But what he is miserably trying to achieve with you now has nothing to do with his mood. It is far more complicated than that and unfortunately, it is not providing him with the results he wants, either.” Natalie couldn’t stop her outburst. “Ok, I got it. So he’s trying to tell me something with his behavior and I’m not getting it. Why don’t you go ahead and enlighten me? You are right, he’s been acting like an ass lately and I’m really anxious to know why.” LaCroix looked at her with overt disinterest in his eyes and replied flatly, “The reason he’s been acting like that, dear Natalie, is because he is leaving you.” Natalie’s next unspoken protest came out as a choked squeak as her breath caught in her throat at the words registering in her mind. So far, she’d thought LaCroix was only there to enjoy a sick joke at her expense. Now, she was shocked by a painful revelation she had not been prepared to deal with. Nonetheless, she gathered herself and asked in a low ragged voice, “How do you know that?” LaCroix pulled his chair closer. His arrogant mask was dropped and he didn’t look that threatening any longer. Of course, it could all be the after effects of the mental blow she had received that had caused her not to care anymore. If she were to fool herself even further, she might have thought she saw a hint of sympathy in those icy blue eyes. “Natalie,” his voice was surprisingly gentle, breaking through her grief-stricken daze, “how much do you remember from the last Valentines Day you spent with Nicholas?” Natalie turned her head like a robot, looking at him and blinking. “Not much,” she replied. “I don’t know, I think we went to a restaurant and I had a little too much to drink. I forgot most of what happened that night.” What did it have to do with anything? Nick was leaving her. LEAVING HER. Her Nick, the one objective of all her ambitious dreams, her tedious research, was going away. “You are lying, LaCroix.”_ Please tell me that you are._ “No, Natalie, I am not. Try to remember that night.” “I don’t remember. I told you, we went to a restaurant and I got drunk.” “No, that is not what really happened. You did go to the restaurant, but the person you met there wasn’t my son. It was me.” He paused at her shocked look, then, “Yes, that is true. And the reason I did it was because I had sensed Nicholas starting to have some feelings for you, which gave me the opportunity to remind him of our bargain.” “Your bargain?” Natalie croaked in a tiny voice. LaCroix nodded, then proceeded in telling her a story about when he, Nicholas and Janette had visited Nick’s family in Brabant, where he fell in love with Nick’s sister, and how Nick had convinced him to refrain from bringing her across although the price he paid for that consent had been very high: LaCroix’s right over his mortal lover should he ever have one. Natalie was overwhelmed with the emotional weight of the story, how difficult it must have been for Nick, and even LaCroix, to go through that episode and live on, knowing they would be losing a part of their heart every day that passed by. “Although I never managed to completely forget Fleur, Nicholas and I went through so much in the subsequent centuries together that at times, that bargain seemed long forgotten in my mind. Plus, I never got the opportunity to collect. I came to notice that although Nicholas had a thing for romancing a lot of different women, the core of his heart always belonged to Janette.” He noticed her slight wince at that remark and silently applauded her for her self-restraint. “But then, petty vengeance has never been much of interest to me. His quest to regain his mortality, on the other hand, was becoming an annoying nuisance in the past years. I was looking for a means to divert him from such madness and just as I was beginning to think it was hopeless, your presence came to my attention.” “What do you mean?” He stood up and started pacing the living room patiently. “Perhaps if you stress your mind a little, you will remember some parts of what happened that night. Nicholas and I had a fight; he claimed he didn’t love you. He even made an attempt to prove it by bringing you across, or rather feigning to do so. I, of course, wasn’t fooled by his performance a bit. Nicholas was never a good actor, but then again, I could read his mind as easily as I can read a paper. Had I not came up with an entirely new idea at that moment you and I might have not had this conversation at all. “Of course I left. I felt his rush of relief from miles away as I flew to my place, and it only served to confirm my assumption about him, not that I had any doubts. It all worked perfectly towards my new plan though, and for that, I have to thank you.” Natalie trembled. She couldn’t believe Nick had gone through so much with LaCroix to keep her safe. He had been ready even to break his century-old vow if it meant that LaCroix wouldn’t hurt her. And it sickened her to her stomach to know that even that wasn’t really what LaCroix had had truly in mind for him. “I paid him a visit the very next day. He was rather weak and tired, and not too shocked to hear that I had faked my assent the night before. All he did was to plead with me to spare your life. I did, and we struck another deal.” Natalie felt her skin crawl. “What was the other deal?” she asked apprehensively. LaCroix stopped his pacing and stood in front of her, “I promised not to lay a hand on you, not to approach or threaten you in any way, and to alter your memory of that night so you wouldn’t remember anything that happened. In return, Nicholas agreed to move on with me in exactly 28 months.” Natalie let out a sob. “Oh god.” LaCroix sat down on the couch next to her. His manners had changed entirely to an uncharacteristic gentleness that would have surprised her had she not been so distressed. He reached out and put his cold palm on her hand. She flinched but didn’t pull back, too drenched in her misery to care. “Natalie, I know you think me a monster. But the reason I made that bargain wasn’t cruelty. You may think you know plenty about our race, but in fact what you know is just the tip of the iceberg. There are those among us who are more powerful, more uncompromising even than I. And they had been watching Nicholas ever since the day he started making progress in his cure. He walked in the sun once, didn’t he? That was his undoing. The others couldn’t be deterred any longer, not even by me. All I could do was to give them something, the promise that he would be moving on and once again be under my control in less than three years.” Natalie was crying. She couldn’t believe what was being said. Poor Nick! How unfairly she had judged him. “The time is fast approaching now. I can feel Nicholas preparing himself for the journey. The treatment he is giving you is part of that preparation. He soon would be visiting you to tell you of the news.” “Then why did you come here before him? I don’t understand.” LaCroix sighed. He seemed to hate doing this as much as she hated receiving it. “I am here to ask you to go along with whatever show he is planning to put on. I know what Nicholas is trying to do with you. He cannot bear the thought of you being unhappy. He knows you love him and his cold manners towards you are an effort on his part to abolish that love. I know how this sounds, but I also know Nicholas and his judgments about what is good for other people have always been a little flawed. I want you to understand that and make it somehow easier for him. I do not want him to suffer any more.” Natalie burst out in a flurry of anger and sobs, “Then don’t force him to go, you mean bastard. How could you be so cruel as to make him leave behind all he has worked so hard to build in all these years and simply take off with you? You are such a heartless monster I can’t even begin to imagine how it feels to be in his place.” Bitter tears continued pouring over her face. LaCroix stood up, reverted to his arrogant self once more. The kindness and sympathy that showed up in him just a moment ago were once again completely gone, replaced by the smug stony mask he wore all the time. She heard him above her sobs. “If you think you love Nicholas enough to sacrifice this much for him, then I have nothing more to say to you. You will do it not because I asked you to, but because of him. Do not tell him anything about our conversation. Let him think that for once, his strategy has worked. Show him that you hate him like he wants you to so that he can leave in peace and have the assurance that after him, you will go on with your life and find love somewhere else. Do this if you love him.” He disappeared as the next sob rent her throat. …… “Hi, Nat. It’s me. We need to talk.” The receiver shook in her hand and she had to hold it with both hands to prevent in from falling. She was acutely aware of Grace’s worried gaze on her but didn’t dare to steal a look. Instead, she did her best to remain calm. “All right, Nick. Your place or mine?” “Why don’t I pick you up after the shift and we both go to the loft?” “I have my own car. I’ll come by the loft after the shift.” “All right, Nat…then, I guess I’ll see you then.” Velvet Sunset -- Part 6 of 8 Sunny LaCountess The loft looked even more vacated than usual. Scattered candles lit here and there and some other attempts were aimed at creating a homey atmosphere. But the boxed up antiques and the partially covered furniture spoke volumes about the owner’s condition. Everything smelled of his imminent going away. Nick came from the kitchen with two wine glasses, one filled with a clear drink and the other with a red one. He was wearing one of his silk shirts and black pants. His hair was, for once, uncharacteristically tidy. If it weren’t for the total lack of expression on his face, something she’d learned to get used to in the past couple of weeks, she would’ve punched him in the arm and ruffled his hair. They sat on the couch opposite each other. _Like strangers_ she thought, _that’s what we are now, two strangers. And I am supposed to keep it that way until we part._ She did. She could see him fidgeting, playing with the drink in his hand, picking up lint from his shirt. Part of what remained of his shame prevented him from drinking the blood in front of her, or at least that was what she told herself. She knew that had ended a long time ago. There was only one more string left to break, the last one that still held them together, and it would all be over. “Nat,” he started in a low voice, almost too low for her to understand, “Nat, I have to tell you something.” She kept her demeanor carefully passive. He looked up at her lack of response and in that instance, she got a glimpse of the haunting sadness that was hidden in the deep blue of his eyes just before he swiftly masked it with the newly forged icy reserve. Her heart ached in that moment, and only by sheer will did she manage to keep the hot tears from rolling down her cheeks. _We can get through this. We *must* get through this._ “You are going to tell me that you’re leaving, aren’t you?” The complete look of surprise on his face was enough to tell her he hadn’t expected to hear it from her. Did he really think she was that clueless? She held his gaze. “I knew it was coming, one day, you know, eventually. Your kind isn’t supposed to stay in one place for too long. And everything we’ve been working on has ended in failure. You are no closer to humanity than when we started, so I guess there is no other choice anyway.” She went on, rushing through excuses and blames she feared she would hear from his mouth. _I’m doing what I have to do_ she continued telling herself. _If I love him, I will take care of this, show him that I’m heartless. _ Nick stayed bewildered, but allowed her to speak until she had nothing more to say. Then he put down his glass and lowered his head. The silence that filled the few seconds before he finally started to speak was deafening. “Nat, I just want you to know that it’s not your fault. I had no right to drag you into this with me.” “But you did.” She cut him off, “and now you’re walking away from what came out of it.” “I did my best not to hurt you.” “You did it just now.” Nick looked up. The sadness in his eyes had returned, and this time, he didn’t bother to hide it. “I’m sorry, Nat, believe me I am. But I have to continue my search. Somewhere, somehow, there’s got to be another solution. I have to move on and find it before it’s too late. That’s what I have to do instead of staying and grieving over failed attempts.” She shut her eyes. It was so hard hearing it from his lips, even if she knew it was just an act. Her heart was hurting more that she had expected. Was it possible? Could you actually feel your heart splitting in two? She pictured LaCroix, focused on his grave image before pressing on. _I can get through this. I have to, somehow._ “All right, I guess you’re right. I won’t hold you back. Why should I, anyway? It’s not like I got anything out of it in all these years that I worked on your case. It was fun while it lasted, but to be honest with you, Nick, it was beginning to grow thin in the end. I was getting bored with you. I mean, you just whine and mope about your miserable life and that you want to change, but you don’t do a thing about it. You didn’t even care to follow my simple dietary recommendations until I had to give them up. You want to gain forgiveness for all the people you killed for their blood in the past? What about the people you bored to death with your lousy manners, or the ones you buried alive in your never-ending complications?” Nick looked away, slipping into the all-too-familiar mantle of guilt. And for the first time, she did nothing to remove it. She went on. “You know what? Seriously, I’m now starting to understand why all those people left you. You said that yourself, didn’t you? That everyone you loved or cared about abandoned you in the end. Maybe they reached the same conclusion as I did, Nick, that you are a lost cause. Maybe that’s why Janette left you, too.” He winced at that. “Nat, please…” “Face it, Nick. Anyone with a grain of sense can see it. You don’t deserve the time spent on you. I figured that out some time ago, when I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore and had to leave. To tell you the truth, I’m happy that you chose to move on yourself because it saved me the trouble of leaving my job just because you were there, or having to face you every lousy night because we had to work together.” She felt exhausted when she was finally done. Like she had moved a ton of bricks. She didn’t know what to say anymore. She had played her role to the best, thoroughly convinced him how much she hated him and how happy she was that he was leaving her. Now he could be sure that she wouldn’t be sorry when he was gone. It was exactly as he had wanted. Only his face showed nothing of his satisfaction. That is, if she dared to look at it. When the silence had stretched between them long enough, Nick got up from the sofa and picked up the empty glasses. Natalie still didn’t dare to look at him and pretended she was checking out her old nail polish. She could feel him move in the kitchen, washing the glasses, placing them in the cabinet. Then, all at once, he was standing over her, his face darkened. “Natalie, I never knew I hurt you so much. Please forgive me for all the things I put you through. You are right; I didn’t deserve your attention. I didn’t deserve any of the things you did for me. But most of all, I didn’t deserve your kind and gentle heart. Please take it back and forget that a man named Nick Knight ever came into your life.” It was simply too much to bear. Natalie sat stunned. She knew if she looked at those sorrowful pleading eyes a minute longer, she would break into pieces, or worse, cry a flood before confessing it all. She had to get away. She stood up swiftly and walked up to the stairway, clutching her purse tightly under her arm. Nick followed her down to the street to where she had parked her car. It was winter and a thin coat of snow was covering everything. He reached her by her car. “Nat, please, wait, don’t go like this. I can bear you wanting to leave me. But I can’t bear you hating me.” She was facing away from him, keys in hand, praying to get away as fast as she could. But she turned and leaned against the chilly car door, still not looking him in the eye. “I don’t hate you,” she whispered. “Then forgive me. Please, Nat. I know I treated you horribly. I had no right to use you like that. But please don’t let that be the only thing you’ll remember me by. If you forgive me now I can go with the confidence that nothing of me is left to hurt you any more.” She kept her eyes cast down. She could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Why was this so hard? “All right, Nick. I forgive you. I’ll try not to be mad at you anymore. It’s all in the past anyway and I’m sure we both are ready to move on. Don’t worry about it.” He relaxed as if all the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He reached forward and drew her into his arms, crushing her into himself. “Thank you, Nat. Thank you, thank you,” he repeated as he slid down to his knees, hugging her legs, pressing his cheeks against them and kissing them in appreciation. “Thank you for everything.” She stared up at the cloudy skies. Two narrow trails of tears slid down her face unchecked and she didn’t have the strength to stop them. Damn the world, she thought, damn it all for its cruel injustice that had her play the role of a devil with an angel at its feet. Damn it all to hell. A few silent minutes later, Nick finally got up to his feet. Natalie quickly wiped away the tears and turned away. She knew she had to go soon. Her resolve had the robustness of a soap bubble. Nick had regained his composure once again and was avoiding her eyes as much as she was avoiding his. “I hope you have a great life, Natalie. I wish you all the happiness in the world, and a happy future. May you find all you desire in life.” _ You are all I desire in life. You are my future._ “Goodbye, Natalie. And thanks again, for everything.” “Goodbye.” She choked on the word but managed to get it out. He smiled up at her and hugged her one more time. As he turned and started to leave, a light snow began to fall from the sky. She stared at his retreating form. His back was slightly hunched, his hands tucked in his pants pockets. Snow was gathering on the fine silk of his shirt, soaking in, but he was paying no attention, just walking his way toward the loft and leaving a trail of footprints in the freshly fallen snow. She saw him wiggle his foot a few times to brush off the snow from his shoes. That was when she broke. She found herself running towards him, calling him in a desperate voice. Nick spun around at the sound of her, but couldn’t quite complete the action before Natalie threw herself at him with her arms around him and her face pressed against his chest. She sobbed hard into his shirt, like a dam had broken inside her and all the pressure of the past hour was pouring out of her like a rushing tide. But then, there was a thorn in her side that reminded her how she had broken her promise to LaCroix, one that she plucked and threw away. “Nat, Nat. What is wrong? Please tell me what is wrong,” Nick asked worriedly as he held her quaking body in his arms. “Oh, Nick. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me for saying all those horrible things. I didn’t want to…didn’t mean… really. Please, Nick. Please say you forgive me.” She managed to get most of it out, coherently between the sniffs and the sobs that where wracking her body. Nick held onto her, touching her back, holding her face in his hands while planting feather-like kisses all over it. “Nat, what are you talking about? What horrible things? I don’t understand. Please tell me.” Velvet Sunset -- Part 7 of 8 Sunny LaCountess She told him, about LaCroix, about Valentine’s Day, the things he had told her, and her promise to him. She told him how hard it had been to play the charade, just as she knew it was for him. And it had been too much to bear. He hugged her closer, holding her as tight as he could. His face was hidden in her tangled curls, now decked with the tiny flecks of snow. He ran his fingers through them, deeply breathing in her scent, “Nat, oh my god, Nat. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. How could I know what was going on. I can’t believe you went through all of that because of me.” Natalie panted in his arms, trying to get her tears under control. With her small fist she lightly punched him in the chest, protesting, “Shut up, Nick. Stop being sorry for a second and let me concentrate at least on my own thoughts. I’ve ruined everything and I don’t even know what to do now.” Nick parted from her slightly and looked her in the eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Nat. It was a mistake; it was my fault because I started it. I thought if I acted like a jerk it would be enough for you to hate me. I thought it would make it easier for me to leave, but it didn’t. And I’m glad it didn’t, because I couldn’t bear the thought of your hatred. I can’t imagine living with that. Please tell me, Nat. You don’t hate me, do you?” He looked down at her tear-stained face. Natalie yelled at him, “Are you crazy, Nick? I love you; I have loved you since the day we met. How can I possibly hate you? I just don’t want you to leave me.” His slight joy at her words died down hearing that. He tightened his grip on her and closed his eyes. “I wish I had a choice,” he whispered. She pressed her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes. She wanted to hold him forever, but knew she would be losing him very soon. “Then give me at least this one night, Nick. Just tonight. Let me feel what might have been if you did have a choice. Show me that it’s true.” He stiffened in her arms. She was beginning to feel cold, the melted snow seeping into her skin where it was not protected by the wool of her coat. Maybe it had been the wrong thing to ask. LaCroix had asked her to make it easier for him to leave and she had failed at every aspect of that. Now she had asked him for a final act of intimacy, which would only make it more difficult. And he had told her a hundred times how hard it was for him to maintain control. She felt guilty and miserable, regretting her mindless request. And then the world around her suddenly swayed and tilted as Nick swept her up into his arms. She looked up at his face; saw the reflection of the snow in his eyes, his lips tipping into a passionate smile. She felt his feather-light kiss on her lips, and then a whirl as he turned and carried her toward the loft. She sighed and closed her eyes. Let tonight be something they would remember forever. A taste of the forbidden fruit, a sample of what could have been had the world not been so mean. Let this one night be just theirs. And tomorrow, when he was not there anymore, it would be another day to wake up and continue living. Life was a mindless beast; it still went on, even without a heart. ………+> I sometimes wonder at the biochemical reactions that govern a human’s response to emotional situations. What chemical imbalances trigger the way we react when we are faced with an emotionally demanding event? The physiology of these phenomena is yet to be fully understood and is only partially important in dealing with a person’s psychological state. That’s why in most cases, it’s a psychiatrist that is called and not a neurologist. Still, as I was lying on my bed that night, after listening to Aunt Natalie’s incredible story, I couldn’t help but to think about how having to deal with the parting of a lover could have caused an imbalance of Dopamine in Aunt Natalie’s brain. There was no question in my mind that she was suffering from some form of schizophrenia, that the experiences she had endured in Toronto had somehow caused it. Nick Knight was a really gorgeous guy, and from what Mom described of him, he was quite a nice one too. There was no question that at some point during the long time they had worked together, Aunt Natalie had fallen in love with him. Maybe they even had dated each other for a while. But for whatever reasons he had at the time, Nick didn’t want to go into a relationship with her, and eventually stopped being intimate with her altogether. The truth of that had shattered Aunt Natalie’s mind. I always knew her as being a strong woman, and that’s why it was hard for me to believe that she couldn’t cope with the loss and had somehow snapped. But it was the only reasonable explanation for what she told me as her story. She didn’t go into the details of what happened that night, presumably because of her modesty and the sacredness it had in her life. I, on the other hand, thought that coming up with the details of how a real vampire would make love to a woman was even beyond her scope of imagination. She told me she woke up in her own apartment the next morning, with a rose and a note on her bedside table. She said she already knew what it would say and didn’t read it. She cried in her bed that whole day and the next. Then, she rose, took a shower, got dressed and went to work as if nothing had happened. Her coworkers didn’t even suspect a thing, not before the news of Det. Knight’s immediate resignation shook the place to its foundation. Aunt Natalie was the only person who wasn’t completely shocked at the quitting of one of Toronto’s finest detectives. It was months before the real Natalie recovered, though. She wore the shield of the professional for that period and quite a time after. She almost felt ready to rebuild her life and start forgetting it all, almost. Then she received a letter from Nick, and she knew it was impossible. There is an important fact about a strong heart that I learned during my education as a psychologist: it rarely shakes, but once shaken by true love, it would be fractured for a lifetime. Knight turned out to be a nice guy after all. That’s why I said that his hesitation with Aunt Natalie must have had a sensible reason. Maybe he had a wife somewhere. Janette? Or maybe this LaCroix was really his father and he belonged to one of those conservative families where children couldn’t choose their spouses without their parents’ approval. In any case, it wasn’t because he wanted to lead Aunt Natalie on and then leave her high and dry. He sent her many letters, at least in the first years after he left, and that was enough to show his loyalty to their friendship. Aunt Natalie claimed that he still wrote to her, and that the letters were sent to a special mailbox only *she* knew about, for security reasons. I sadly must admit I didn’t believe her. The letters she showed me from their most recent communications looked quite genuine, but there were some pictures that came with a few of them, of him in different parts of the world, that caused me to doubt her sincerity. You see, in all those pictures, Mr. Knight didn’t look even a day older than what she showed me of him in Toronto, albeit some of the letters were sent some thirty years later. Of course, if I were to believe her theory about vampires, it would have made perfect sense, because vampires weren’t supposed to age. Problem was, I didn’t believe that theory; so the only other practical explanation was that she wrote the letters herself and sent them there, to create the illusion that he was still thinking about her. I felt sorry for Aunt Natalie. She was such a sweet, lovely person. It wasn’t her fault that she fell in love with the wrong guy and then couldn’t cope with him not having her. It wasn’t fair that she should suffer from a mental illness that she couldn’t even tell anyone about. If I were to be true to my nature as a psychologist, I should have encouraged her to seek medical help. But it took her so long to confide in me that I seriously doubted any amount of persuasion would make her trust a shrink. It would also risk pushing her further towards the edge. After Peter came back and we went home, I sat down and wrote the entire story as a case of psychological disorder open for potential research. I didn’t mention any names, just that a woman deeply in love with a man was rejected by him and in return, created a fantasy about vampires and forbidden love to cope with his refusal. I even wrote about LaCroix, the imaginary master vampire that in truth was the woman’s own internal demon that lured her into succumbing to the needs of flesh but at the same time frightened her with his power and superiority. A metaphor for the female sexual beast yearning to reach out and grab what was forbidden to her and simultaneously in fear of its own raw sexual vigor. I was working for Frank at that time, writing psychology articles for Psynopsis. He really liked the papers I wrote and although he usually showed that he was only interested in the scientific accuracy of the work, he also hinted that the more bizarre my scenarios were, the better he liked them. “It catches the reader’s attention,” he said to me once. And if I ever had anything unusual to write about but wasn’t sure about it, it was Frank’s encouragement that made it end up on the paper. But it was different this time, somehow, maybe because the case was personal. This wasn’t some crazy old woman in a shabby old home who thought she could talk to her cats, or a rancher from Calgary who said his cows were abducted by aliens. This was my Aunt Natalie. Disturbed or not, I loved her and honored my promise to her. I wouldn’t disclose her secret to anyone, especially not to Frank. I already told you that I goofed, though. One time, we were at a party and I was arguing with another psychology major that aliens weren’t the only supernatural creatures people hallucinated about. That was when the vampire story slipped out of my mouth. I saw Frank in the crowd, and later he pulled me to the side, asking me why I never bothered to tell him about this incredible story. I had no choice but to tell him the truth, that I had promised Aunt Natalie not to give the story away. He frowned and started arguing about how the articles were important for readers who were suffering from similar cases and how my refusal to publish this one was hurting them alongside professional psychiatrists who might benefit from it. He was quite a businessman who thought emotions should not intervene where the interest of the magazine was concerned. But he was also a reasonable man and respected my sense of morality. Later that night I caught up with him again and told him I would only think about it if and when my aunt passed away. He knew she was old, and the frown disappeared from his face. Which was why I was looking at his number on my cellphone now as we rode to the cemetery. I was thinking that maybe there was some sense behind his logic. Maybe I was indeed hurting people by not letting them know how far a suffering mind could go. Perhaps if psychiatrists knew about this case, they would be able to research it better, help a patient in a similar situation get a hold of herself and not waste her entire life hanging onto an impossible dream. It kind of felt like Aunt Natalie’s silent suffering wasn’t entirely wasted this way. Velvet Sunset -- Part 8a of 8 Sunny LaCountess When the Limo came to a halt and we arrived at the cemetery, I dialed Frank’s number and left a message on his voicemail. The ceremony was small. After the priest gave his speech, the casket was lowered and one by one, people paid their respects and left. I felt Peter touch my shoulder and turned. “You wanna go?” he asked gently. I turned back. The sun was setting over the Fraser Valley. The clear waters of the inlet and the surrounding mountains were all toned in deep shades of red, purple and pink, the colors of expensive velvet. The sky was still blue, but the few clouds that could be seen were the same velvety color as the mountains. It was so sad and so very beautiful. “I think I’m gonna stay here for a while.” Peter patted my shoulder. He knew how much Aunt Natalie had meant to me and he didn’t argue. He had come in the car and he left me the keys to drive myself home as he called himself a cab. I was happy I was able to spend some time alone with my aunt in this beautiful place. I walked along the white path that went up a small hill at the far side of the cemetery. I sat by a tree overlooking the valley and the beautiful sunset, thinking about the past. So many beautiful sunsets with Mom, Peter, the kids and of course, Aunt Natalie. She had become so much a part of us that it was difficult to imagine being without her. I remembered a picture she showed me once, of her and Nick sitting in a boat after a sunset. The sun was gone but the sky was a splendid violet and the wind was blowing strands of hair into her face as she smiled happily at the camera with Nick’s arm curved around her shoulder. His face, however, was slightly turned. He was looking at her and his eyes sparkled with such genuine affection it made every woman jealous. It is strange how pictures can be deceiving. Who would have thought this beautiful couple would never be together when every pore and pixel of their image screamed of true love? Perhaps Aunt Natalie had a right to get ill. I probably loved Peter half as much as she loved Nick and yet even the thought of him going away almost made me cry. Aunt Natalie was indeed a very strong woman. It was getting dark and a bit chilly. I stood up and fished the car keys from my purse. I decided to pay her grave one last visit before I left. I was hoping the undertaker’s men hadn’t showed up yet to fill the grave so I could spend some more time alone with my aunt. However, when I made the turn in the path I saw a man standing by the open grave. I couldn’t make out his face from far, but I knew he wasn’t a leftover from the previous crowd. He didn’t have a shovel, either, and just seemed to be standing there. I first wanted to wait until he went away, but as time passed by and it got darker, I figured I’d better go and pay my respect and leave before it got late. The automatic lamplights in the graveyard came on as I walked down the walkway toward Aunt Natalie’s grave. I saw the man better now. He was wearing a long dark trench coat and holding a red rose in his hand. His head was bowed as I approached and I saw a crown of golden hair that curled every which way. My heart almost skipped a beat as I remembered something and I stopped, unable to believe my eyes. I probably made a noise because the man raised his head and saw me. It was dark but I could see the blue of his eyes and the shape of his face. A face I had seen in so many pictures before. There was no question about his identity now, yet how could it be? I started walking again. He just stood there while I kept staring at his face like a bad-mannered five-year-old. Then, when I finally reached the grave, he gave me a hesitant smile and said, “Hi, are you here for Ms. Lambert’s funeral too? Seems like we’re both a little late, huh?” It took me a while to get over my shock and start forming a sentence. “Actually, I was with the funeral procession. I stayed behind because it was so beautiful out here and I needed some time alone.” I checked his face again. Mentally, I kicked myself for being such a doofus. This was obviously a close relative of the infamous Detective Knight, most likely his son or a nephew who looked very much like him. He extended his hand and said, “I’m sorry, I totally forgot my manners. My name is Nicholas Knight.” He must have thought I’d had a stroke, standing there looking at his outstretched hand in bewilderment. Luckily I was able to snap out of it soon enough to take his hand and reply, “Yes, hi, I’m Amy Lambert Carlson. Nice meeting you. I think I met your father when I was in Toronto.” He looked puzzled. “My father? When?” I answered hesitantly, “I guess, if I’m not mistaken, he was with my dad when he passed away. I met him at the hospital. His name was Nick Knight too.” He smiled a beautiful smile that made him look even more adolescent than he already did. “Oh, you are Richard Lambert’s daughter. Now I remember you. It’s a little difficult to associate a fine lady such as yourself with the pretty little girl you were in those days.” My mouth fell open at that, and I blurted, “So it is true. You are really Nick Knight? The actual Nick Knight? But I don’t understand…” He looked away. “It’s ok for you to know about me. I’ll be leaving soon anyway.” He looked up at the tiny stars that were just beginning to appear in the sky. I came a little closer, still shell shocked, a million questions whirling in my head, too shy to dare to ask them. Instead I said, “When did you get here. How did you find out?” Velvet Sunset -- Part 8b of 8 Sunny LaCountess He looked at me. “My contact at the Brabant foundation’s office in Vancouver told me about it. I had built an account for her. It was supposed to be for her personal needs but she donated all of it to a number of research centers before she passed away. I came as fast as I could, but I couldn’t join the ceremony in the daylight.” For some funny reason, my mind kept repeating a sentence I had read once in a psychology paper: “It is a state of recalculation in which all the previous presumptions of the mind need to be redone due to the acquisition of new information that provide a fundamental piece of the overall puzzle.” All I had known to be true about Aunt Natalie all my life was proven to be wrong in about five minutes. Now I needed to reevaluate my data and come up with a new hypothesis. What was more frightening, though, was the suspicion that I might already know the hypothesis. As crazy as it sounded, Aunt Natalie might have been right about the truth all along. I stared intently at his face as the thoughts kept racing in my head. His eternally youthful features, his powerful, straight physique that hadn’t changed in almost forty years. I finally gathered my courage and asked, “So it is true? You are really, truly…what you are?” He gave me a smile. “Yes. It is true. I’m not surprised at all that you only now are beginning to believe. She told me about you and the story she told you some time ago. She was worried it would be dangerous for your life and asked if I could do something about it. I said it was ok. There is a difference between working day in and day out with a real vampire and simply knowing someone who’s done that for a while.” His eyes fixed on me before the next words. “Plus, I already knew you most likely wouldn’t believe her,” he said as I blushed. He turned to the grave again. “That’s what was amazing about her,” he said quietly, “She was a believer, right to the end. She believed that I could change, that her cures would work in the end. No matter how many times I lapsed, no matter how much disappointment she faced, somehow, she always got up and started again. Because that’s what she was, she had faith in her work, and in me.” I thought I heard a hint of a sob in the last part of his speech. It was too dark to see if there were any tears in his eyes and I really wasn’t sure if vampires did cry. Of course, I had a million other questions in my head. It was quite a surreal situation, standing over an open grave, talking to a vampire. I thought I should ask him about his real age, his past, the specifics of his nature and probably his source of nourishment. Would have made a hell of a story for Frank. One that I’m sure he would be willing to do a funky chicken dance in order to get his hands on it if he had to. But instead, I only asked him one question, “Why did you leave her, Nick?” He sighed and crouched beside the grave, holding the rose loosely in his hand. I did the same. He was staring at the dark opening below, looking at something I couldn’t see. “I’m very old. Too old to have a right to be alive. Yet in all my long years, that was the only thing that was given to me freely, the benefit of time. Our race, since the beginning of its existence, was cursed to be bound to its own made-up rules and the rules our nature forced on us. There was never really a choice for anyone, I the least, even if I had defied my master.” His master. LaCroix! So he was real, too. I could have laughed at the psychological scenarios I had created to explain him, if I wasn’t sitting next to a mournful vampire at Aunt Natalie’s grave. “So you did truly love her?” I asked him after he fell silent. He looked up at the stars again and I saw a sparkle in his sad eyes. “I only hope she knew.” We sat in companionable silence together. I wanted to talk to him more, yet couldn’t bring myself to break his Zen-like deliberation. The moon had risen above our heads when he finally rose to his feet and turned to offer me his hand. I sensed some tension in his bearing before he said, “I’m sorry to sound rude, but I think it’s better you leave now. It’s not very safe for you around here at this time.” His eyes showed a hint of worry I couldn’t understand. But I couldn’t object to his gentle request, either, and it was really getting late anyway. So I shook his hand and said, “It was nice meeting you, Nick. It would be great if you would visit us sometime. I’m sure mom would love it, too. Let me know if you ever decide to come to Vancouver again. Have a nice journey and take care.” He shook my hand with a genuine smile on his handsome face. “You too, Amy. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” I walked back to the car. It was dark but the lamplights were sufficiently lighting my way. I easily found the car and opened the door. But before I got in, I couldn’t resist stealing one last look at the grave. I saw, to my surprise, that there were now two men standing there in darkness. The new arrival was slightly taller than Knight, and had his hand on his shoulder in a supportive gesture as they both looked down at the grave. I wasn’t sure what Nick had meant at the end about his concern over my safety and decided that I already knew enough secrets for a lifetime to want to add anything more to it. So I got in the car and drove away. On my way home, I tuned in to a late night radio station. “Scarborough Fair” by Paul and Art was playing and I started humming along with the lyrics when Frank called me on my cellphone. I picked up, but didn’t turn the music down. ~Are you going to Scarborough Fair? ~ “Hello!” “Hi Amy! I got your message. You wanted to tell me something about your late aunt’s story?” “Yes, Frank. Well, I don’t know how to really put it…” ~Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme~ “Did you finally decide to publish it?” “Actually, no. I decided not to do it after all.” “But you promised me that after she passed away, you would…” “I know what I promised you, Frank. But I made a much stronger promise to her a long time ago. And now, after her death, some things have changed for me and I’m not sure I can really go through with it.” ~ Remember me to the one who lives there ~ “But, Amy. We talked about this before. Think of all the benefits it will bring to the readers. Think of the mental patients.” “No, Frank. There is no one who can benefit from my story.” “I’m sure we can discuss this in a more suitable time, when you’ve gotten a little bit more over your grief. If you’d like, I can arrange a meeting in my office on…” “No, Frank. Goodbye.” “But, Amy. Listen, please…” I hung up the phone. ~ She once was a true love of mine. ~ I settled back and drove the rest of the way in a pleasant calm, listening to the music. ~~The End Sunny LaCountess, June 2002 Comments to countessa2000@yahoo.com http://www.lacountess.com/FKnight/