When I wrote this, I'd seen only about
a dozen episodes, most of which I viewed in one weekend. This was my first attempt
at writing FK fan fic. I still can't decide whether "Those Were The Knights, My Friend" or "Those Were The Nights,
My Friend" is the better title. ;)
by Celeste
Hotaling-Lyons
Detective Nick Knight sat in silent abstraction in the office of the
Toronto coroner, expensive black leather jacket hanging on the back of the
chair upon which he sat, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He glanced at the
yellowed face of the institutional clock that hung on the wall and began to wonder
idly if Natalie was going to let him get out of there in time to beat the
sunrise that was so near at hand. He did not relish the thought of even the
merest touch upon his skin of those first wan rays creeping up over the
buildings.
"...deoxyribonucleic acid blockers in recombinant form," Natalie
nattered enthusiastically at him. "...so, Q.E.D., the genome would revert
to its original, un-recombinant form! Get it?...Nick,
are you listening to me?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, Natalie, you were saying?" His preoccupation was not
meant personally, normally he found the attractive coroner a most fascinating
conversationalist, but she would go off on these medico-babble jags.
Over the centuries, he'd managed to follow most of the speculation on biology
that mortals calling themselves 'scientists' had come up with, if only for
clues to the solution of his ultimate problem; but the explosion of knowledge
that had come about in recent years had been a bit much, even for him. When had
he let his subscription to The New England Journal of Medicine lapse?
1971?...'72? About the time he'd dropped his medical
persona, after leaving the strife-torn country of
"Nick, for heaven's sake, will you listen to me! This is it!"
Natalie held up a paper cup, the kind hospital nurses used to dispense
medication on their rounds. "This is the stuff! The cure, the
remedy; the - you should pardon the expression - Holy Grail!"
He stared at her, dumb-founded. "I thought you just wanted some more of my
blood!"
She grinned and shook her head. "I wondered why you rolled up your
sleeves. My, my, I do have you well-trained, don't I, Nick."
"Do you mean to say I've been sitting here for 25 minutes listening to you
spout theory at me and you had it there, sitting on your desk, all the while?
You might have said so!" He stared suspiciously at the little white cup
and sniffed. "Is that... sugar... I smell?"
"None other," she said, "and a 'spoonful of sugar helps the
medicine go down', you know."
He had a feeling she expected him to know where that quote came from, but
dismissed all thoughts of fleeting popular culture from his mind as he took the
small cup of salvation from her steady hands. He held it to his lips... then
stopped. "Uh, what is it?" he asked her.
"Nick! Haven't I been telling you what it is for almost the last
half-hour! Oh, all right, I'm sorry: the short form, then. It is a virus. A
spliced-gene virus I've been working on with an old medical school buddy of
mine... he's head honcho at Star Labs in one of their genetics departments. He
thinks I'm nuts, but he's rather a mad genius himself and he appreciates leaps
of insanity in others, for the sake of science."
Nick looked dubious. "You're... infecting me with a virus, then?" He
put the little white cup back on her desk and stared at it suspiciously.
"Are you sure this is something we want to do, Nat?"
"Nick! Don't you understand? We've postulated that your
original DNA pattern is locked deep within the strands, suppressed and
re-arranged by the virus introduced into your body some 800 years ago. We
needed a key-and this is it! An anti-viral virus tailored to attack the
lock and open up your old pattern. You'll be restored." She bit her
lip as if to stop the rush of hopeful words, then continued "...and the
virus will live on in your body, fighting the good fight, keeping your DNA to
its original matrix... until the day of your natural, and one hopes quite
normal, death."
Was that the glimmer of tears he saw in her eyes? He reached over to pick up
the cup and peered into it. Even with his vampirically sharp vision, he still
could not see the virus within its syrupy home; but if it acted
true-to-viral-form, it was in there, mindlessly moving about, replicating
itself, seeking its ultimate destination and foe: the vampire virus that
infested and maintained his body.
He drained the cup.
Somewhere in the city of
"Whoa, too rough, man!" cried his sound engineer, ripping the padded
earphones from his still-ringing ears. "Thank God the dude just signed
off; that wouldn't a done our ratings any good!" He could see that LaCroix
guy through the sound-proof glass, pounding his fists on the table, tears
streaming from his eyes.
"You all right, man?" asked the early-morning soundman who'd come in
to replace him. "What's with that spooky dude, anyway? He's usually so
buttoned-up! He pulls a gun, I'm outa here."
"No, it's okay," said the engineer. "He's not destroying
anything in there - see, the mike's okay. But talk
about your perfectionists! Myself, I didn't think tonight's show sucked that
bad, you know?"
The two men shook their heads sadly at LaCroix's, in their opinion, unwarranted
histrionics.
Warm summer evening sun, soon to go down, a gentle caress on
his skin, not a roaring solar wind to strip an immortal's flesh from his very
bones. His luck seemed unstoppable this day, for there was a parking
space directly in front of the Raven's darkened facade. The club looked rather
worn and sad in the waning day, its flash and mystery stolen from it by the
unforgiving light. He parked his drop-top caddy and hopped out over the
driver-side door, then took a jaunty saunter to the Raven's ornate front
entrance. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, he threw open the door and stepped
through.
"Fermez
He threw his arms about her. "Janette, my dearest Janette, I-" The
words of joy trailed off as he looked past her worried eyes to meet those of
his father, his creator, his master... his ex-master.
"Yes, 'Nicolah'," the mocking voice known and loved by many a Toronto
insomniac insinuated itself between the two who held each other tight and
seemed to push them apart; Janette turned her back to Nick and walked across
the empty nightclub to the other end of the bar, where her drink stood.
LaCroix's smiling face, so pale in the dimness, seemed to float like a
malevolent balloon in a dream towards him as the black-clad vampire came
closer, close; and was upon him. Janette's strong, concerned grip was replaced
by LaCroix's iron one, and he, too, shook the ex-vampire, a brief shake with
every phrase.
"I did not know where you were. I did not know if you
were," said his mentor through clenched teeth - fortunately, not vampire
teeth. "Dazed, benumbed, I barely made it to this place before the dawn. A
void, like an empty ache, lies where once I felt your presence,
Nicholas-"
"Oh, I think you'll heal, LaCroix," Nick knew better than to try
pulling himself from the vampire's grasp, but he'd be damned if he'd stand
there, silent. "...you always heal, don't you.
The endless centuries will pass, and I'll be but a brief,
eight-hundred-year-long memory to you; you'll laugh at my insipid desires and
beliefs. It will pass, LaCroix; let it pass...." LaCroix hissed and his
eyes grew red --
"Please! Not here, not now," Janette appeared, as if she were a ghost
and not a vampire, by their side and cast an urgent glance at the door.
"...at any minute, my employees will arrive, soon to be followed by the
club's first guests of the evening. I do not think they would find a mangled
corpse upon the dance floor an amusement, do you?"
LaCroix, all injured dignity, flung Nick from him, and the hapless detective
was fetched up against the bar by the small of his back. He pulled himself up
to glare at his opponent, but LaCroix only turned his back and fell heavily
into one of The Raven's ornate chairs, his head falling into his hands. Could
it be true, Nick thought to himself-had he really scored one against LaCroix,
after all this time? And how long would that last....
As if he could still read Nick's thoughts, LaCroix's voice, thinner than Nick
had ever heard it, came from between the hands that covered his face, in a flat
statement. "Nicholas, do not think this is the end of the matter. The
Enforcers may find this interesting. If they do, I cannot save you, or your precious Dr. Lambert. Be warned. Beware."
Nick fled the nightclub, aware that the night was no longer his friend.
After he had gone, Janette set to right some of the chairs that had gotten
knocked over in the brief, if bloodless, altercation. She then went over to the
table where the seemingly defeated figure of LaCroix sat, to sit beside him,
and laid a hand upon his shoulder. One of her bartenders, the vampire Miklos,
had drifted in by then for the first shift of the evening; unbidden, he brought
them a tray, two tall glasses of her finest O-negative-mixed-with-cabernet on
it. She smiled a thanks at him and he withdrew. She
swirled the potent combination in the elegant glass; LaCroix looked up at the
silken sound and took hold of his drink.
"I know, it hurts me, too," she said to him, softly. "It
feels... wrong, somehow. I feel so...odd, all of a sudden."
"It will be better when we are together again. Nicholas cannot hope to
stand against the Enforcers, and will be one of us, again. It is the only
way." The older vampire held his glass up in salute. "To we three,
together once more, and soon," he said, and took a healthy swallow...only
to cough on it. He pulled a white linen handkerchief from his pocket and spat
what liquid was left in his mouth into it, staining it irrevocably. "This
drink, it tastes terrible!"
Janette delicately dipped her tongue into her glass, like a cat, for a tiny
taste, then made a mou of disgust. "Oh! I am so
sorry... it must have gone bad. I will have Miklos throw out this batch and mix
us another."
LaCroix shook his head and shrugged, suddenly looking weary. "Do not
bother, my child. I'm going home now. Or to work. No,
home, I think. I shall take a 'sick day' at the station." He smiled
humorlessly at her. As he left, the first of the evening's customers, some of
them human and several vampires, passed him at the door. Janette sighed. It
occurred to her that she had never before seen her mentor look so...so old. Oh,
well, she had a business to run, and the customers didn't like to be kept
waiting. It was Saturday night, her best night of the week. Soon, everyone who
was anyone would be there...she just wished she didn't feel so tired....
It had all gone so wrong, so fast, thought Natalie, clutching
They had spent so much time finding a cure for Nick's vampirism, she and Nick;
that they'd never given a thought to the repercussions a real cure might cause.
What a blind fool he could sometimes be! It was so unfair! "Him and his
stupid, noble face, I just want to hit him," she muttered fiercely.
"It's not my fault! How could I know!"
Nick had appeared in her office soon after dusk, in a panic. They were to leave
the city of
Natalie tucked
The ex-vampire in question hung up the phone and lay back on his comfortable
leather couch, basking in the rays of the midday sun streaming in through his
unshuttered windows. As soon as Nat showed up, and their I.D.s were delivered, they could take off for... wherever they
wished. Now that he was mind-blind to LaCroix, the master vampire could not
follow him so easily. Natalie would pick their final destination so that any
habits he might have formed over the centuries would not tip their hand to his
'old friend', either. They would be a married couple here, a wealthy man and
his assistant there, a wealthy woman and her assistant elsewhere, perhaps even
play the role of brother and sister for a bit... spontaneity would be their
greatest asset in confusing the trail. It would be fun... it was his
dream, to go off somewhere with Natalie and just be a man, a person, a human
being.... So why did he feel so... so unsatisfied?
It seemed to Nick that, of all the people he'd been, of all the personas he'd
adopted over the years, the one he liked most was... Nick Knight, police
detective on the
The phone rang. Through force of habit, Nick picked it up.
"Cheri! Cheri!" wailed the voice of Janette over the receiver.
"Mon Dieu, have I not been calling you for hours! Busy
signal; busy, busy, busy!"
"Janette? Calm down! What is it, Janette?" Dread grew in his
heart when he considered what calamity she had called to warn him about - good
old Janette! "Are the Enforcers after me? Is that it?"
"Wh-what? The Enforcers?
Yes, they are here. But it is of no matter. Nicolah! You must find your good
Doctor Lambert and bring her to The Raven. At once, do you hear me?"
"...to The Raven?" Nick echoed. He was honestly confused. She had as
much as admitted that the Enforcers were there. And still she asked him to
bring Nat there - as traps went, this was not a particularly clever one.
"You want me to bring Nat to The Raven?"
"Immediately!" she cried. "We are going to die! Do you
understand? Me, LaCroix, Miklos, Beverly, Stasia, the rest...we are all going
to die! You and your 'Nat' get over here. Now!"
And she slammed the phone down on him.
"I let myself in. What the heck was that all about?" He looked up
into Natalie's concerned brown eyes - brown, but also red-rimmed. She stood,
puffy-faced, clutching a large satchel, which she then dropped in order to pull
a worn tissue out of her pocket. After blowing her nose, she sniffed, "I
must look a sight."
"You look terrible," he agreed, "but surely no worse than I.
It's amazing what no sleep for a mere 24 hours can do to the human body - but
I'm re-learning fast." He stood up and escorted her to the couch. It was
time for a talk now that panic had subsided, but she beat him to the punch.
"Nick, this is stupid. There's no such thing as a witness protection
program for ex-vampires. We're running away, half-cocked, to who knows what and
who knows where - shall I drape a garlic necklace around my neck for the rest
of my life? Will we look hard at every stranger we pass in the street after
dark, wondering if he or she will be our assassin that evening?"
Nick looked uncomfortable. "Natalie, that call
was from Janette. It was a strange call - even for Janette. She claimed that
she, LaCroix, and the rest are dying... she seemed to think you could
help."
"Perhaps I could help them in return for our lives," said Natalie
carefully, looking pensive. "Unless you think it's a trap?"
"If it's a trap, it's a not a good one...she admitted the Enforcers were
there, but shrugged off their importance."
"Come on... I've always wanted to see what a nightclub looks like in the
daytime...," she grabbed his arm and pulled him from the couch to the
door. Oddly light-hearted considering that she could be escorting him into the
jaws of true death, he followed. It seemed Natalie wanted to fight for her
life, too....
Nick gently pushed Natalie behind him as he opened the front door to The Raven
and peered around the door jamb, trying to see what horrors awaited them. Not
much help there; his pupils, contracted to pin-dots from the bright
mid-afternoon sunlight, made it impossible for him to see into the dark depths
of the club. He wished desperately for his superior vampire hearing at that
moment, his sense of smell, anything that might help him determine his next
move. He eased into the club and took a few steps forward... and realized that
the room was full of people - vampires, in fact, most of whom he knew; some
forty to fifty of them. They all sat silently, staring at him accusingly.
"Tell Dr. Lambert to come in, too, Nicholas," the world-weary,
insinuating tones of LaCroix came from behind him and a heavy hand clapped onto
his shoulder. "My dear Natalie; enter, do!"
"So it was a trap," said Nick bitterly as she joined him,
carefully keeping to his side opposite LaCroix, much good it would do her.
"A trap? No, merely a reception
committee. Nicholas, I am wounded to the core that you would suspect me
of any underhanded doings in this most unfortunate matter," the older
vampire said.
"Stop this nonsense!" cried Janette. "Your
games throughout the centuries-how they have bored me! I can say that
now! Nicolah, my love, you are as foolish a one as ever I have seen in all my
life! I am certain our old friend, Shakespeare, based his character of Hamlet
upon you! Eight hundred years old, and you have yet to purchase a
clue!" It was interesting how her accent deepened when she was angry. She
turned on LaCroix. "And you, mon vieux! Do you
take my devotion for granted? Shame on you! All the time it is Nicolah and his
problems I must listen to you go on and on about, and how you want him back by
your side! What am I? The pate de fois gras? Well, now
you must listen to me. I do not like this. I want an end to this. Even if you
both must die of the old age, it must stop. I wash my hands of the both of
you!" And she flounced off to her office, slamming the door behind her.
Nick stared at Janette's office door, surprised to his depths. He had never
seen her like this; true, she had yelled at him a few times in the past- an
uncommon occurrence, but one he could handle. But what really stunned him was
the fact that she had yelled at LaCroix. In front of a room
full of vampires. It was beyond belief. His gaze turned to LaCroix, who
still stood before him, arms folded grimly. LaCroix met his gaze and shrugged
marginally.
"She's a little upset," Nick said in understatement.
"And who would not be in such circumstances. I am upset...,"
LaCroix gestured at the room full of vampires, "...they are
upset...these two, in particular, are very, very upset." With a start,
Nick recognized the two Enforcers he'd run into during the Civil War, and
again, a few months ago when that newswoman had taken a videotape of Nick
flying. At his look of recognition, the two leapt from their seats and assumed
their 'attack' positions, snarling at him. He drew back, trying to protect the
terrified Natalie, knowing how futile it was against the awesome power of the
Enforcers...then stopped. Something was missing. They had been, in life, big
men, but he'd faced down larger men as a police officer. Their size had not
been the key to their dominance. It had been the ravening beast within, brought
to the surface, that had made them so terrible.
"They are not so fearsome without the red eyes and the fangs, are
they?" came the languid tones of LaCroix. He rounded on the growling
Enforcers, "Sit down, both of you! He is a 'cop'. He can arrest you. And
you won't like that, will you?" The two Enforcers sat down, glowering.
"They are human," said Nick with sudden realization. "Natalie,
they're human. You're all human, aren't you... even you, LaCroix!"
"Even LaCroix is human," that individual agreed, speaking of himself
in the third person. "Dr. Lambert's cure appears to be a highly
communicable one."
"Natalie! We're saved! We can go where we want, do what we want, we can
pick up the threads of our lives and continue on as we please! We're
free!" Nick picked her up and spun her around, and she laughed with a
giddy relief.
"Not so fast." LaCroix's warning brought them back to earth. "I
believe you have heard the expression, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'?
Now the work begins."
"...'the work'? What do you mean?" asked Natalie.
A vampire Nick recognized as Stasia, one of Janette's waitresses, stood up.
"You've made us all sick!" the pretty girl said. "You've created
a horrible disease and now you must find a cure for it!"
Nick held out his hands to her, "But - you're cured! You're human
again!"
She recoiled. "I am a vampire! And now I'm going to die! What about the
Hippocratic Oath, Dr. Lambert? You've created a disease that puts us all under
a sentence of death!"
LaCroix nodded. "And a long, slow, horrible death it will be, too: death
by old age. As soon as we realized what had happened, we made calls to our
network, to spread the terrifying news-news of the plague you have brought upon
us, Nicholas. We're calling it 'Lambert's Plague', in your honor, Natalie.
Within an hour or two, our entire race knew
The days to come would be long ones. Nick knew that he could not live with the
guilt of the deaths of almost fifty ex-vampires on his conscience - he was
beholden to them now. As for Natalie, she would not be able to live with the
misery she'd caused - she was a healer and she'd created a plague. She would
have to find a cure for the cure, if it took a life time to do it.
He was glad he liked
The End.