This is for Mary, who asked if there were any ideas that I've been kicking around. Well, here's one. For a long time it was only snippets of a story--disjointed images without a structure, but then the discussion on FORKNI turned back to LK and Mary posted her lovely story 'Detour' and my pieces fell into place. As much as they ever do, anyway. Looking for some kind of balance, I've attempted to poise my story between the Inferno that was 'Last Knight' and the Paradiso that Mary granted the characters. Usual disclaimers apply. Permission to archive on Mel's FKFanFic site ========================================================================= Purgatorio Erika Wilson September 1998 The stake did not kill him. Of course it would not. He was, after all, his father's son. LaCroix watched for a moment, counting the wrenching gasps and flinching as if each one was a splinter from that cursed staff driven into his own tortured heart. With an anguished roar, he swept Nicholas from the floor and up through the skylight. The sun was beginning to creep up over the edge of the horizon as he laid Nicholas on the exposed roof top and retreated to the shadow of the water tower. He turned his back on the crumpled form, unable to watch, but unwilling to leave until it was finished. He heard the first faint sizzling and the sound of steam rising into the air. His hand bit deep into the metal support of the water tower, but still he remained. The blood coating the staff bubbled and smoked until the wood burst into flames. LaCroix cringed away from the furious crackling, chanting the name of every god of mercy he had ever reviled in a plea to make an end of this. And then Nicholas screamed. Helplessly, LaCroix echoed him and dived back down through the skylight to lay panting and trembling on the floor below. A final wave of pain crashed over him and then he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Until he lifted his face from the floor and saw her, lying there in quiet and peace, secure in her faith that her love would be waiting for her at the doorway. Then he felt something. Hatred, as pure and as strong as anything he had ever felt during his endless existence. "Oh no, Doctor." He hissed as he crawled towards her. "You shall not profit from your perfidy. You brought this to pass, luring Nicholas to this end with your empty promises and false hopes." He gathered her head in his hands and gripped her hair fiercely. "Don't you know that hope is the cruelest God of all? She takes and takes and takes, offering only illusion and delusion in return until there is nothing left." His voice nearly disappeared. "Nothing." He shook himself out of his black reverie and looked around. Natalie's bag was on the floor by the table and he reached out to drag it close. Rummaging around, her found what he was looking for with a laugh of cold triumph. "Always prepared, eh Doctor?" He asked the still form as he ripped open the package and plunged the syringe into his arm. He drew out the plunger, pulling his thick, murky blood into the capsule. Tipping Natalie's head to the side, he inserted the needle into one of the ragged holes in her neck and injected the contents of the syringe directly into her jugular. He waited, watching her intently. She was not dead, he knew the smell of it too intimately to be mistaken, but she was not responding to his blood as she ought. Impatiently, he strode to Nicholas' refrigerator and wrenched open the door. He grimaced painfully at the sight of the bottles full of steer blood, but he found what he sought in one of the drawers. He grabbed the packets of whole blood and began setting up a transfusion for Dr. Lambert. Hours later he stared at the figure lying pale and waxlike against the black of Nicholas' sheets. She was not dead, but neither was she exactly alive. Her skin was cool to the touch and the wounds on her neck had healed, but she breathed and her heart beat. Impossibly slow for a human, but certainly too much for a vampire. "Well," LaCroix mused thoughtfully. "This is not as I intended, but the result will be the same." He leaned over and brushed the hair away from her face with a grotesque parody of tenderness. "Wherever he is," He whispered softly. "I have made sure that you will never be with him." When night came again, he gathered her into his arms and carried her off. He must be sure that Dr. Lambert received the very best of care. Always. *** Down below, in the shadow of the building, a ragged figure clambered awkwardly from the noisome shelter of a dumpster. The skin of his face and hands were pink and raw and a pair of large, black-ringed holes gaped at the front and back of his tattered clothes. He stared about blankly, registering nothing until the lights of a car flared briefly into the narrow alley. He put his hands up, cringing reflexively at a memory of brightness and unbearable pain. There was something more beneath that pain, something so terrible that he cried out in hoarse denial. The sound of his own voice, strange and unfamiliar sent him running into the night, away from whatever horror threatened to destroy the few shreds of sanity that remained. He ran until he no longer remembered what had sent him tearing off into the night. From this forgetting, a sort of mindless peace settled over him and he gradually slowed his furious pace and took notice of his surroundings. A pinking of the sky sent a sharp stab of fear through him, though he didn't understand the source of his concern. All he knew was that he must find shelter. In darkness was safety, a small voice seemed to tell him. A door loomed before him and he scrabbled at it, suddenly unfamiliar with latches and handles. Through luck, or some vague physical memory, he applied the correct pressure and fell into the cool interior of the building. A strange prickling sensation ran through his fingers and across his scalp, but there was no discomfort in it. Cautiously he crept forward, past rows of benches and trays of guttering candles until he stopped at the base of a raised dais. He lifted his eyes to the object gleaming softly on a marble pedestal and his feet moved him forward until he stood only inches away. Breathless and not knowing why, he reached out and placed his hand against the center of the large, gilded cross. Slowly he turned his hand over and stared at the unmarked flesh of his palm with astonishment. "Can I help you, my son?" A voice behind him asked politely. Nicholas turned towards the priest, wonder shining through the shadowed pain in his eyes. He held out his hand, sharing his discovery. "I think someone already has." And he fainted. *** When he woke, lying on the altar with the concerned face of the priest looking down at him, Nick remembered who he was and what had happened. He closed his eyes and a small sound of pain escaped him. "Are you all right?" The priest asked worriedly. "Are you hurt? Shall I call an ambulance?" "No," Nick whispered hoarsely. "That won't be necessary." Slowly he pushed himself up into a sitting position. "I'm just...I didn't expect to be here today, Father. I didn't expect to be anywhere." The priest's eyes narrowed and he regarded Nick sternly. "Do you mean to say that you tried to commit the sin of taking your own life? Don't you know that your life is God's gift to you and that only He has the right to take it back?" Nick held up his hands and stared at them wearily. "What about murderers, Father? When the gift of life becomes so sick and twisted that it destroys everything it touches, where is the sin in trying to give it back?" The priest jerked back in surprise, but his expression shifted into one of gentle assurance. "It is still not our decision to make. We are all instruments of His will, forever ignorant of what purpose our lives may yet serve." "Well," Nick sighed softly, feeling the symbols of his discarded faith all around and deriving only comfort from them. "It would seem that He desires my service after all, though I cannot imagine why." Feeling unsure and strangely vulnerable, he looked up into the kind face of the priest and felt the unfamiliar pricking of tears behind his eyes. "Would you...may I stay here? There is nothing left for me...out there. I'll work. Anything, it doesn't matter. I just need a chance...to understand what's happened and what...I'm supposed to do now." The priest sighed. There were so many lost souls in the world today, looking to the church for solutions to their troubles. He could never help them all, even if he did have the answers they were looking for, which he very seldom did. But there was something about this man, something in those weary eyes that caused him to reach out and smile. "Of course, my son. You may have all the time you need." As their hands clasped, the priest felt a tingling in his palms and knew what he saw in Nick's eyes. He thought to himself. . *** The two priests stood in the doorway of the rectory, looking out over the bedraggled garden. "It just hasn't been the same since you left us, Nicholas." The older priest sighed. "You had such a dab hand with the roses and now look at them." He gestured at a twiggy mass that had a few tired-looking blooms drooping at the ends of the canes. Nick chuckled. "Have faith, Father. Maybe some other lost soul with a green thumb will come staggering through your door one of these days and you will have a beautiful garden again." "Now that was a day, wasn't it?" The older priest smiled musingly. "How long has it been? Twenty years now?" "Just about." Nick murmured. "And its taken me almost that long to start believing the cockamamie story you told me." Nick looked surprised. "But you...what about my confession? That wasn't enough to convince you?" The older priest groaned at the memory. "Longest six months of my life. I had to take a sabbatical from all my other duties just to hear your confession and give you penance." "You were getting pretty creative by the end there, Father." Nick regarded the old man fondly. "And if I recall, your rosebushes played a large part." "The most motivated penitant I ever saw." The old priest nodded with pleasure. "I won first place at the parish flower show with those roses." He turned to look at Nick, the kindness in his eyes undimmed with the passage of time. "No, Nicholas. Your confession, as impressive and unprecedented as it was, did not completely convince me that you are what you say you are." "Then what finally did?" Nick asked gently. The old priest reached a gnarled hand towards Nicks' pale face and brushed a knuckle against the smooth skin with gentle wonder. "Twenty years, Nicholas and you look the same as you did when you collapsed on my altar." His eyes narrowed critically. "Except thinner. I swear, sometimes I think all you ever eat is the bread and the wine at communion." "'The Body and the Blood'," Nick answered reasonably. "What else would you expect from a reformed vampire?" The old priest rolled his eyes but then his face grew serious and thoughtful. "I don't know. You've always exceeded every one of my expectations and I suspect that you're going to do it again. I assume you've come back for more than a friendly commiseration over the state of my garden?" Nicholas ducked his head. "Yes. I've had...there's been this idea kicking around in my head and I wanted to hear what you thought about it." "And what would that be, Nicholas?" Nick looked up, his blue eyes shining with a light that had no resemblance to the fires of his vampire heritage. "I want to work in the prisons father, among the killers and the predators. Among my own kind." The old priest stared at Nick in shock, until his expression softened into one of wonder. "Of course, it is the only possible road for you. Perhaps there you will learn what it truly means to forgive. You have my blessing, my son." "Thank you father." Nick replied with gentle fervor. "That means more to me than anything else in this world." "Even more than my roses?" Nick smiled. "Well, maybe not more than that." *** Nick kissed the stole and folded it away. He looked down at the still face of his friend and watched the faint rise and fall of the old priest's chest. "Last rights, Father, just as you requested." He picked up the wasted hand that lay outside the covers of the bed. "I'm glad you wanted it to be me. It's just another example of how much faith you have always had in me. You have been my strength and my guide, through all of this. I only wish...you always helped me to see where I should place my next step, but now... "...Now I have to try and continue on without you and I'm not sure what direction I should take." Nick settled back and smiled slightly. "I know I've been doing the right thing for the past twenty years. I know what it is that I can bring into the cell of a man imprisoned for murder. I know that he sees himself reflected in my eyes. But what I did not expect to find, as an ex-cop who hunted down and brought such men to justice, was forgiveness for what they had done. I would look at these men, see the blood on their hands and reach out to take those hands between my own. "You forgave me Father. You showed me that it was possible. Through your example, I was able to forgive these men and now, somehow, I have found the strength to forgive myself." Nick brushed away the tears on his lashes and laughed softly. "I thought it might take another seven hundred years, but once they had been placed upon the path, my feet seemed to grow wings. "And now I feel I've come to the end of this road. The wings on my feet aren't big enough to carry me where I want to go. I need to take to the air. Do you know how that feels, Father?" He looked down and saw that the frail chest was motionless. He stood up, gently cradling the hand he held against his heart and pressed his lips on the parchment skin of the old priest's forehead. "Yes," he whispered. "I guess you do." *** Nick stood outside the room for a moment, giving himself one more moment before he took the last step away from his friend. A nurse approached and touched his arm. "Is he...?" Nick nodded. "Yes." He was able to smile. "Yes, he has found his peace." He placed his hand over the nurse's. "Thank you for taking such good care of him." There was a hint of awe in her expression as she looked at his face and returned his smile. "He was such a wonderful man. We'll all miss him." "Yes," Nick replied softly. "We will. Thank you again." He started to walk away, but the nurse called after him. "Father?" He turned. "Yes?" "Do you think...if you're not too busy, would you mind visiting some of the other patients? Nothing formal, you understand, but there's something about your...I think you would bring comfort to them." He smiled. It would certainly be a change from his usual routine. "Of course. That sounds like a very good idea." *** "Is there anyone down there?" Nick asked the nurse as she led him past a short hallway with a single door at the end. "I think I've seen everyone else." "Oh," The nurse replied. "That would be our 'sleeping beauty'. I guess it just didn't occur to me to take you there, since she probably wouldn't notice. She's been in a coma for..." she had to pause and think. "...Goodness, longer than any of us have worked here." She sighed. "Someone must really love her though, she receives the very best of everything. No visitors, though." A slight frown creased the nurse's forehead. "Never any visitors." "Well then," Nick smiled. "Maybe she should have one. It might do her some good." "It certainly can't do any harm." The nurse agreed, unlocking the door. "I should get back to my duties, Father. You can find your way back to the reception area?" "Of course. Thank you, nurse." As she walked away, he stepped into the room, looking with curiousity towards the motionless figure on the bed. Then he saw the pale face lying amidst a wealth of honey-brown hair and the shock of recognition resonated through him like a bell being struck. "Oh merciful God...Natalie." He choked. His legs would barely hold him as he lurched forward. They gave out at the edge of the bed and he knelt with his hands clasped together. "Thank you." He whispered hoarsely. "I don't know why, I don't know how, but thank you." Pulling himself to his feet with difficulty, he stared at her for a long time, drinking in the sight until he hesitantly reached out and touched her arm. It felt cool and smooth, like marble unchanged by the passage of time. "Natalie," he called softly, daring to brush the back of his hand against her cheek. "It's Nick. I'm here." Her face remained motionless, her breathing slow and rhythmic. "It's like you're under a spell." He murmured and checked himself suddenly. "No...that would be too easy. Besides, it calls for a handsome *prince* not a priest." And yet, the prospect was irrisistable. "All right," he surrendered. "It worked for Pygmalion anyway." He leaned over and with the soft breath of a prayer, pressed his lips to hers. It was like breaking free of winter's icy grip; surging into the air from the ocean's depths; bursting through the earth to the sun's warmth. Nick felt all of this, as well as the slow flush of warmth along Natalie's skin and the sudden quickening of her breath. He lifted his head and looked into Natalie's smiling eyes. "So it wasn't a dream." She sighed, running a hand down his cheek and slipping a finger under the collar of his office, tugging slightly. "I saw you, like this." A tear slipped down her cheek. "I was...so proud of you. Of everything you did." "How...?" Nick breathed, capturing her hand and holding it against his face, unwilling to be separated from her warmth. She struggled to find the words. "I was...waiting for you. At the doorway. The...guide?...showed me what was happening to you." "You were watching me." Nick smiled in understanding. "The whole time, you were watching me." He shook his head ruefully. "Somehow I think I should have known that." He looked around the room. "What about all this? Do you know how you got here? Who...?" His voice faded away as he figured out who it must have been. Natalie nodded. "LaCroix." There was sadness in her voice. "He...he came to doorway a few moments...not long ago. He couldn't see me. He couldn't see you. He spoke to the guide, but he did't go through the door. He walked out into the desert. Looking for you, I think." "One last debt to pay." Nick murmured softly. "But not here. Not yet." He looked at Natalie and the joy within him bubbled over into laughter. Unable to resist, she joined in and soon they were in eachother's arms. "But Nick," Natalie pulled away reluctantly. "What about this?" She tugged on his collar again. Nick drew her gently back into his embrace. "I have spent a lifetime in His service." He whispered into her ear. "It seems He thinks that was long enough. I've been given another chance, Nat, another lifetime. "Will you help me live it?" End Purgatorio ================================================================== Comments? Erika