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This story takes place after "Be My Valentine".

Permission to archive on the FK Vals site.

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"The Best Laid Plans Part 1"
By Barb Vainio

"HEY!"

The exclamation was followed by the sounds of a scuffle and then a soft
thud, punctuated by a sharp grunt.

Distracted momentarily, LaCroix stopped to listen.  He judged that the
altercation was at least several blocks away, although his sensitive hearing
made it sound as if the action were taking place just the other side of his
office door.  He returned to his book.

"Don't even think about it!!"

He rubbed a hand across the soft bristles of his hair, styled as it had been
almost 2000 years ago.  The short cut had moved in and out of favor over the
centuries, but he had never cared for following the current fashion or about
the opinions of those who did.

Another grunt from down the street.

Resigned to being unable to finish the chapter in peace, he slid a thin
strip of very old leather between the book's pages to mark his place and
left the office to find the source of the commotion.

He opened the back door of The Raven and paused to get his bearings.  Surely
there would be additional sound to guide him to the correct spot.  He
ignored the variety of sounds that provided the normal 1 AM background and
focused on the wavelength of voice that done all the talking so far.  His
reward was almost instaneous.

"Oh, no you don't!!"

He turned right and started walking toward the voice at a brisk pace.  Now
that he had chosen to be interrupted, he didn't want to miss any more of the
action.  Why he was so interested in a minor scuffle between mortals he had
no idea.  His book must be less interesting than he expected.  He had been
directly involved with mortals a great deal since his arrival in Toronto,
more than he had for a number of centuries.  It was due in large measure to
his son's rather foolish fondness for them - if he wanted to be involved in
Nicholas' life he had to come into contact with his...friends.  The concept
made him shudder.  Among their kind you had no friends, only family,
enemies - and prey.  But he also had to admit he rather enjoyed the
interaction with his radio listeners.  They were often foolish, usually
uninformed, but always passionate in their opinions.  The elder vampire
briefly wondered if talk radio were his attempt to replace, however feebly,
the "rush"  of drinking directly from his victims; they seemed almost to
relish sharing the most intimate information about themselves across the
anonymous phone lines.  And he found it enjoyable, stimulating in some
cases, to encourage their confessions - if only to shatter their
pretensions.

"NOOOO!!!"

The bellow of outrage, definitely female, but no less compelling for that,
spurred him to cover the final yards in a blur.  He stopped at the entrance
to a narrow alley, its pavement dotted with the leavings of modern
"civilization".  Sheets of newspaper fluttered in the light breeze, except
for those too sodden with liquid - its sources best left unidentified - to
do anything more than provide slippery footing for the two people struggling
about halfway down the passage.  A dumpster hid one of the combatants from
view, but LaCroix could hear the sound of her labored breathing mingled with
the more strident rasps of her assailant's breath.

Nicholas will have a lot to answer for, he thought as he stepped into the
alleyway, his vision still clear in the reduced light.

He grabbed the man's upper arm, so thin his fingers met around it.  In
perfect health he wouldn't have been very  large, but wasted from years of
drug addiction he weighed no more than a hundred pounds.  He was probably no
more than 30, but looked 50, his thin hair so matted and greasy it was
impossible to tell its natural color.

A quick jerk of his captive's arm dragged him away from his victim who
stumbled backward as the sleeve of her jacket, clutched in her assailant's
other hand, tore free.  The back of her head hit the metal dumpster with a
dull clang as she slumped to the ground.

Ignoring the unconscious woman for the moment,  LaCroix grabbed her
assailant by both shoulders and roughly stood him upright.  The vampire
lifted an eyebrow at the fresh scratches and the rapidly darkening bruise on
the man's face.  He had most definitely chosen the wrong "victim".

Moved by an emotion he would deny if challenged, he touched a fingertip to
one of the scratches and brought the blood to his mouth, licking it off with
a quick flick of his tongue.  Tasting neither AIDS nor hepatitis - or any of
a number of other diseases that could prove fatal to the woman lying on the
ground - LaCroix stared intently into the young man's eyes.  Pushing through
the haze of drugs and the fear they couldn't completely obliterate, he found
the tattered remnants of a once-promising mind and whispered a brief command
before turning the addict away with a shove that sent him stumbling toward
the street.

LaCroix walked toward the woman, all but her feet still hidden by the
dumpster.  Again responding to that nameless feeling, he bent to retrieve
her shoes which were lying about 3 feet apart in the middle of the alley.
Low-heeled, but stylish, the pumps were smeared with muck.  LaCroix dropped
them.  He couldn't imagine she would want to wear them again.

He strode past the dumpster, but before he turned to look at the woman,
whose heart was beating strongly despite her collision with the metal, he
saw her purse, its contents strewn in a semi-circle around the wide open
flap.  Cursing himself for all kinds of a soft-hearted fool, he bent down
and began shoveling articles back into the leather pouch.  Driver's license,
keys, checkbook and wallet all quickly found their way back into the bag.
He wondered idly where her lipstick had gone.  He'd never known a woman,
ancient or modern, who went very far without some form of paint or powder.

He stood up, shrugging his shoulders angrily.  Why was he wasting his time
on this trivial mortal and her pathetic possessions?  He started to drop the
bag - Coach, if he remembered Janette's fashion descriptions correctly -
next to its still inert owner, but was stopped by the squeal of brakes and
an almost simultaneous thud.

The would-be mugger hadn't had long to wait to follow those final whispered
directions.  Good riddance.

His anger appeased somewhat by the successful completion of his plan, the
ancient vampire leaned over to place the purse, still dangling from his
hand, gently on a clear spot of pavement and got his first good look at its
owner.  A less disciplined man would have gasped, or at least goggled.  This
was definitely an interesting development.  Lying here at his feet,
unconscious, totally at his mercy was Nicholas' great and good friend, Dr.
Natalie Lambert.  Whatever his son had said on Valentine's night, he was not
without feelings for her.  And she obviously had very deep feeling for him,
feelings that drove her to find a cure for his "condition".  And in the
process, forced him farther and farther away from his true nature,
convincing him that he could live comfortably among the mortals while she
continued her work.

That had to stop.  And now the perfect solution presented itself.  All he
had to do was return the scene to its previous chaos and smack her head a
little harder against the dumpster.  The cause of her death would be
obvious.  Mugged by a drug addict who then wandered in a daze into the path
of an on-coming car.  No one would ever look for another explanation.  But
he would have to hurry.  He could hear the double note of a police siren
coming rapidly closer.

LaCroix took a black silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped
off the purse, flinging it about 4 feet away.  This time the contents didn't
spill.  Should he shake them out?  No time - he could hear the sound of the
police car doors opening in the street.  He fumbled for the shoes and rubbed
the silk across both of them before dropping them and kicking them through
the muck once again.

He sank to his haunches and grabbed Dr. Lambert's shoulders.  He only had to
pull her forward and push her back onto the metal and his troubles would be
over.  He would convince Nicholas it was time to move on - not too difficult
once the good doctor was out of the picture - and they would have a few
years of peace before the younger vampire became restless once again.  He
brought the unconscious woman to his chest.

"Hey, buddy, what's going on here?"

LaCroix cursed silently, and gently replaced Dr. Lambert where she had
fallen.  By the time he stood to face the officer his face was as
unexpressive as usual.  Using his most urbane tone, he replied,

" I was out walking to clear my head before going home when I heard the
sounds of a scuffle in this alley.  By the time I got here, Dr. Lambert was
alone, unconscious on the ground.  I had just bent down to check how badly
she was hurt when you came in."

LaCroix smiled briefly.  That should cover all the details - without too
much embellishment.

The cop jumped on the one piece of information he couldn't have gotten just
by surveying the scene.

"You called her 'Dr. Lambert'.  You know her?"

Another silent curse.

"She's a colleague of...a friend.  You might know him.  Detective Knight?
Assigned to homicide."

The young officer - he couldn't be more than 24 or 25 - looked suitably
impressed

"Lucky he won't be called out to work this.  Them being colleagues and all."

<Oh yes. Very lucky indeed >, LaCroix thought sarcastically.

"Yes it is.  It would also have been very ironic.  Dr. Lambert is a
coroner."

The cop shivered and tried to mask it by rubbing his arms as though he were
cold.  LaCroix had a moment of sympathy for the young man trying to keep
control of the situation.  He remembered his first command in the Roman
Legions and how hard he had tried to keep his men from seeing his
uncertainty.  Of course, the old hands saw right through him.  But they had
engaged the enemy quickly and his insecurity was hardened to steel in the
heat of battle.  He didn't think this cop would ever get that tough.

"Did you see anyone else in the area?  Running out of the alley, maybe?"

LaCroix sighed.  He regretted the impulse that had brought him here.
Mortals and their insatiable desire to know "why".  Why couldn't they just
be satisfied with "what"?  He barked a laugh at the irony of his question
and settled in for a long, boring interrogation.

Two hours later, after giving his name, address, mobile phone number and a
lot of other information he could see no useful purpose for, he was finally
able to sit at the Raven's dark wood bar and pour himself a glass of his
special reserve.  The rich, thick blood, cut with just a hint of
hundred-year-old Bordeaux, slid down his throat like liquid silk.  He tasted
passion, groaning as it filled his groin and warmed his veins.  But it was
really no more than a distant echo of what he had known as a mortal, of what
he would have experienced with Fleur.

The thought of Fleur reminded him of Natalie Lambert.  They had many things
in common: their curiosity, their willingness to fight for what they wanted,
their generosity, their bravery. Their long brown hair...

LaCroix growled in rage.  How could he cheapen Fleur's memory, the memory of
what they had shared - what they would have shared for eternity - by
comparing her to this interfering mortal.  Why should Dr. Lambert live when
Fleur had had to die?  Why should Nicholas be able to experience what he had
been so ready to deny his father?  And above all why should this meddling
bitch be allowed to continue her destruction of all that he had left?

The ancient vampire slammed the glass onto the bar, barely avoiding smashing
the fragile glass to pieces and knocked the bar stool over in his haste to
get up.  Not even reacting to the clatter of the fallen chair, he strode to
the front door and pulled it open.

Where did that cop say they were taking her?  He was in the air before he
remembered the hospital's name.

<End of Best Laid Plans Part 1>