================================================== Bearding the Devil 01/01 a Conversion Day Challenge Story by Nancy Kaminski August 24, 2002 ================================================== Soon it will be Lacroix's conversion day, the 1,923rd anniversary of the eruption of Vesuvius, which took place on August 24, 79 AD. Once again I am marking the event with a vignette in response to Erika Wilson's 1998 Conversion Day Challenge. I would also like to dedicate this story to Kathy Whelton, in honor of her August 24 birthday. Happy Birthday, Kathy, and many more! Have some virtual beer and potato skins on me! Permission is given to archive this on the FTP site. Anyone else, please ask. ****************************** "Your doctor friend sent me a card." Lacroix's words dropped like stones into the silence that had settled over the dimly-lit room. Nick Knight had stopped by his sire's residence to pay his respects on that most sacred (if that word could be used in connection with anything vampiric) day in a vampire's existence -- the anniversary of the day that an ordinary mortal became immortal. As had become usual in the last several years, they had spent an amiable evening together, their conversation covering everything but those subjects that were at the root of their ancient conflict: freedom, mortality, and mortals. But now, Lacroix was breaking the unspoken rule about discussing mortals -- and one mortal in particular -- Doctor Natalie Lambert. After a moment, Nick said disbelievingly, "You can't be serious." "I admit I was surprised, considering the horror stories you have no doubt told her about me," Lacroix replied. His voice held a faint air of satisfaction at having unsettled his offspring. "Nonetheless, it's true." "Where is it? What did it say?" Nick's gaze swept the room. "I don't see it." "What, do you expect me to prop it up on the mantelpiece? It's in my desk." Nick rose and started for the desk. "Let me see it." "No." The word was a barrier. Nick stopped and turned toward Lacroix, raising an eyebrow inquiringly. "Why not?" Lacroix said, "It's private." Nick dropped heavily back into his seat. "I would have thought you'd enjoy flaunting it in my face. This sudden delicacy about your 'private' correspondence is -- unusual, to say the least. Why did you bring it up if you won't talk about it?" Lacroix smiled faintly. "Perhaps just to irritate you. Some habits are hard to break." Nick stood up again. "I guess that's my cue to leave. Our annual détente is obviously over." He glanced at the desk, looking like he wanted to make a lunge for the drawer where the card was, but thinking better of it at the last minute. "Why not ask Doctor Lambert if she wishes to disclose her correspondence?" "Perhaps I will. Goodnight, Lacroix. As usual, it's been pleasant -- while it lasted." Nick smiled crookedly. "We *are* pathetic, you know." "Do not include me in that, Nicholas. I am *never* pathetic. You, on the other hand..." Nick snorted and shut the door behind him a trifle more emphatically than was absolutely necessary. Lacroix leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at the door. Why had he refused to show Nicholas the card? Force of habit, no doubt. He stood and walked over to his desk, then slid open the center drawer. A beige envelope rested in the middle of the excruciatingly neat drawer, next to the pencil tray holding the usual stationery supplies. It was an unremarkable envelope, the sort that comes with drugstore greeting cards. His name and address were written in black ink in a decisive, angular hand. Not very feminine at all, to his way of thinking, but perhaps his ideas of feminine handwriting were grounded in the eighteenth century. Doctor Lambert was not the sort of woman to write in flowery loops and swashes. She, and her handwriting, definitely belonged in the present. He picked up the envelope and slid out the card. It was the sort of card that carried no pre-printed message -- not unsurprising, since a vampire's Conversion Day was not in the greeting card industry's list of occasions. The picture on the face of the card was a watercolor of a moonlit landscape, dark Tuscan hills surrounding a moon-glimmered lake. Opening it, he read the hand-written message: "Thinking of you on August 24. Natalie Lambert." What was she trying to say? Natalie Lambert had become aware of the custom of marking Conversion Day the year before. She and Nicholas had been out together on that August twenty-fourth, and Nicholas had stopped by to drop off a gift. Natalie had grown tired of waiting in the lobby and come upstairs to find them both enjoying the gift, or at least, the impression the gift made on Lacroix's neighbors.* That had been a slightly surreal occasion, and Lacroix assumed that the too- observant doctor had added to her notes, interrogated his son, and then moved on to less sociological and more medically-oriented pursuits in her vampire studies. Apparently, though, the incident had made more of an impression than he had had thought it would. "Thinking of you." What sort of thoughts? Dark ones, full of fear and hatred? Scientific, inquisitive ones imbued with the desire to dissect him with the thoroughness she did his son? Thankful ones, for having provided her with her little science experiment, in the form of one malcontented vampire named Nicholas? Fantasies, sexual or otherwise? Or a combination of all of these? It bothered him that he couldn't discern her motives from that enigmatic phrase. He had thought the doctor far too practical to be so mysterious -- or so daring as to beard the devil in his lair. "Thinking of you." Lacroix put the card back into its envelope and then into the drawer. He slid the drawer gently shut. "I shall be thinking of you, too, Doctor Lambert," he said aloud. "Perhaps not in a way you would wish...but you shall be in my thoughts. Have a care, Doctor. He smiled, a feral baring of teeth with very little humor in it. "Yesssssss...have a care." FINIS *See "A Work of Art is a Joy Forever," Conversion Day 2001, available at www.nancykam.com on my fiction page. =================================================== Comments, criticisms, and enigmatic greeting cards may be sent to nancykam@attbi.com ===================================================