This wasn't beta read, so all mistakes are mine.
 

"Yes."

The whispered response hung in the air between them as Natalie's eyes
widened in surprise and LaCroix' closed in horror.

Natalie closed the short physical gap between them only to sprawl on the
empty spot her lover had vacated in a whoosh of displaced air.  She stared
up at the open bedroom skylight through which he had flown so abruptly,
debating whether to follow him.  But by the time she had pulled on clothing,
the rectangle in the ceiling was filled with the blinding light of dawn.

She gasped at the implication, but tried to rationalize her fears as she
hurriedly found the remote to slide both glass and blinds across the
now-deadly opening.  Lucien had trained her well.  Not even her confusion
about what had just happened kept her from performing the tasks necessary
for her survival.  But what of *Lucien's* survival?.

The fledgling vampire quickly marshaled the arguments against anything
happening to him. Surely her master was old enough to withstand brief
exposure to dawn's first weak rays.  He had repeatedly told her that she
would gain more strength and more abilities as she became older.  And he
certainly wouldn't have left if he would be endangering himself.  Right?

A sob tore from Natalie's soul as she realized the flaw in her reasoning.
LaCroix would have done anything to escape the consequences of his answer.
Why had he given it?  Why hadn't he lied?  Or had he?  Why had she asked?
Why hadn't she accepted what he had been able to give her?  Her experience
with Lucien, so different from what Nick had described, should have been
enough.  But she had to push, to probe, to...research.  Why couldn't she
have put aside the scientist for once?  Did she really need concrete proof?
Must she always seek constant assurance that she was loved?

She sank onto the bed, still rumpled from their lovemaking, and buried her
head in her hands.   She let the red-tinted tears stream down her face and
leak through her fingers, wiping her hands on the sheets, streaks of pain
overlaying the smudges of pleasure left so recently.

When the tears finally dried, Natalie stood up and headed to the bathroom.
The lethargy of daylight pulled her toward the bed, but she couldn't sleep
there until she had changed the sheets.  And she needed a  shower.  She
would rest until nightfall and then find LaCroix and...and what?  Beg his
forgiveness for not trusting him?  Scream at him like a banshee for leaving
her?  For scaring her to death by flying into the dawn?  Maybe she would
just stand demurely in front of  him and hope he took her back.  That image
made her laugh despite her fears.  Lucien would never believe *that* act.
He had been the victim of her temper and her stubbornness too often.  So she
would just have to find him and play it by ear.

She dragged herself another few steps toward the bathroom.  She really
needed that shower.  Would she drown if she fell asleep with the water
running?

The pain lanced through her, driving her to her knees as it seared along her
nerves and filled her mind with blinding agony.

She only had time to scream, "LUCIEN!!!" before she fell unconscious.
 
 

Janette DuCharme was brushing her hair in preparation for retiring for the
day.  The Raven had been packed last night and the crowd had become somewhat
rowdy before the staff could contain everyone, resulting in some breakage
that had to be cleaned up before she could retreat to her apartment.

The brush fell from her suddenly numb fingers and she hissed in pain.  The
numbness turned to fire that seemed so real she began swatting at her arm in
panic.  Her vision blurred and she slid to the floor, mewling in agony.  She
fought to regain control, realizing that none of this was actually
happening.  At least not to her.

Nicolas?  She probed into the pain looking for his signature.  It wasn't
him.  There was only one other  person whose pain would affect her this
strongly.  She searched again.  LaCroix!  But that made no sense.   What
would he have done to cause this torment?  He would never endure this amount
of pain.  For her to feel it this intensely he would have to be in total
agony.  But he could withstand almost any torture, and could certainly block
it from his links with her and Nicolas.  LaCroix would never let either of
them have proof that he was anything less that superhuman.  Unless he was
unable to control his reactions.  But what would cause him to do something
so foolish?  She spat as she realized it was not what but who.  Only
LaCroix' foolish penchant for the former medical examiner would cause him to
forget centuries of caution and rush into the sunlight.  That bitch. If she
had caused this, she would regret - .

Janette quivered as a wave of fire spread from her arm to her chest and then
scorched her belly.  She gasped.  He was in the sun!!!  Burning up in the
daylight.  She pushed herself to her knees.  She had to go to him.  Find him
and bring him back here.  She coughed as the heat seared her lungs.  She
wanted to break the link, but she couldn't.  She needed it to find him.

She fumbled blindly for one of her heavy cloaks and dragged it across her
shoulders, one end trailing on the ground with the other side barely
covering her arms.  Stumbling erratically, Janette made slow progress toward
the door that lead to the alley behind the club.   She jerked it open and
instantly fell backward when the sunlight pummeled her already savaged body.
She tried again, but finally had to slam the door shut.  She lay huddled
next to the door, sobbing in frustration.  Under normal circumstances,
heavily cloaked and staying in the shadows as much as possible, she could
withstand a couple of hours in the daylight.  But not with LaCroix' pain
pounding at her unrelentingly.  She put her head down and wept.
 

It started as a tiny tingle, like an itch he couldn't scratch.  Trying to
ignore it, Detective Nick Knight turned the final pages of the book he
wanted to finish before he retired for the day.  He'd forgotten how much he
enjoyed having no one to answer to but himself.  Perhaps Natalie had done
him a favor.  Opened his eyes to the folly of his dream of sharing his life
with someone.  Someone who loved him despite what he was - not because of
it.  He had taken several months of unused leave and come here to get away
from the sympathetic glances and the not quite casual questions.  It had
done him good.

He shut the book, the last two pages unread and looked out the window at the
mountain lake that filled the picture window of his cottage's bedroom.  He
had wholeheartedly embraced the Canadian tradition of "cottaging", buying
this hideaway on Prince Edward Island as enthusiastically as his fellow
officers had bought their summer refuges.  The only difference was they
family and friends to share theirs with, talking about the difficulties of
scheduling everyone's time and the  fun of sharing the sometimes crowded
space with whoever showed up.  He had never invited anyone here.  Not even
Natalie.

The lump in his throat at the thought of her was smaller today.  As it had
been yesterday... and last week...and last month...  But it was still there
and would probably always be - a small hard stone of regret.  How could she
have chosen LaCroix?  And this life of loneliness?  What would she do when
"Lucien" - he still hated the passion in her voice when she said the name -
tired of her and she was left to fend for herself?  Then she would see that
he had been right.  She would hate what she had become.  What he had exposed
her to.

The tingle became a prickle and the blond detective stood up, trying to
shake off the feeling as he closed the blinds.  But he couldn't ignore it.
It felt familiar but not like something he'd experienced recently.  He
double checked all the blinds and turned the doorknob for the third time to
be sure it was locked.  But finally he ran out of distractions and forced
himself to go to bed.  He lay in the dark, yearning to be able to look at
the lake through open blinds.  Cursing himself for all kinds of a fool, he
turned his back to the window and pulled the comforter over his head.  And
immediately sat up again as he remembered where he had felt that tingle
before.  The Crimea.  LaCroix staked and dying on the battleground,
desperately calling him through their link.  And also when Jack the Ripper
had tainted his blood so badly.  Nick hadn't felt the call since then - more
than a hundred years ago; LaCroix would never have shown his weakness once
the two of them had become so...estranged.  But suddenly, here it was again.

Nick walked back to the kitchen, uncorked a bottle of cow's blood and
drained it in one long swallow.  What was it to him if LaCroix was in
trouble?  He could ask Janette for help.  Or Natalie.  Natalie!!  He choked
on the last drops from the bottle.  Suppose it wasn't LaCroix who was in
trouble, but Natalie.  Would LaCroix call him to help?  What if LaCroix
*were* injured?  Who would care for Natalie? She was still a fledgling - and
a cocky one, he was sure - who wouldn't know how to survive alone.  Or
worse, would think she did.

The prickle had become a full-blown rash, squirming under Nick's skin.  No
matter what the cause of  this "summons", he had no choice but to answer
it..  He would find no more peace in his sanctuary until he saw for himself
what was going on in Toronto.
 

Natalie Lambert pushed herself off the floor and stood in the center of the
bedroom.  The sky was dark and she had to find him.  What had he taught her?
How had she found him through their link?  She couldn't remember.  She
twirled around and around until she was so dizzy she had to sit on the bed.
But she couldn't think.  She raked her hands through her already tangled
hair and screamed at herself to , "CALM DOWN!!.  Remember what he told you.
Concentrate on his voice, his thoughts."

She couldn't feel him - not even his pain.  She gasped.  Suppose she
couldn't feel him because he was dead - really dead?  Panic threatened to
overwhelm her.  How could she survive without him?  She had just learned how
vulnerable she was to the appetites of her new life.  Without Lucien, how
would she...

She wouldn't.  Wouldn't give in to the panic.  Wouldn't live without him.
Wouldn't sit here like a Victorian heroine with a case of the vapors.  She
would do what she always did when confronted with an overwhelming problem:
face it head on and *do* something.  Anything.

Natalie pushed herself off the bed, got into the shower and let the hot
shower wash all the indecision and fear down the drain.  She got dressed and
left the loft.  She'd figure out where to go once she was outside.

Janette wasn't fortunate enough to have her panic block LaCroix' pain, but
now that the sun was setting it was almost tolerable.  She stood up and
rearranged the cloak so that it hung correctly.  Not caring that her clothes
looked like she slept in them - if only she'd been able to sleep, she
thought ruefully - or that her hair was a mare's nest, she flung the door to
the alley open and stepped into the waning daylight.

She knew she was getting closer to him when the pain flared down her legs,
threatening to drop her to her knees.  She kept going; she'd crawl if she
had to.  She had been searching for hours, long enough that she was starting
to worry about being caught by the dawn herself.  LaCroix wouldn't survive
another day without shelter, so she shoved the thought away and stumbled
forward.

A soft moan drew her down a narrow side street to a rumpled pile of
discarded newspapers.

"LaCroix?"

A muffled groan answered her soft inquiry.

She threw herself onto the pile and clawed through the stained newsprint
until her hands touched something solid - too solid.  She cleared the rest
of the papers away and stared down at -.

"LUCIEN!!!!"

Janette turned toward the shriek, to find LaCroix' current paramour gaping
wide-eyed at the...thing that lay on the ground in front of them.  The
woman's eye's looked like they were going to pop out of their sockets and
then she gagged as though she could still vomit.  She looked like a mad
woman, confused and useless.

Janette had no time to coddle her, LaCroix' fledgling or no.  She snapped,
"If you want to help come down here and feed him.  He needs as much blood as
possible if he is to survive, and, as much I wish it were not so, yours will
be the most beneficial to him right now."

Natalie stood frozen in place.

"Well, Doctor.  Are you going to help or have you tired of your...fling
already?"

Natalie swallowed several times before she could whisper, "I - I can't."

"Cannot?  Or will not?"

Contempt was obvious in the French woman's voice.

Natalie wanted to help.  She really did.  But she'd never been good with
burn victims.  Not since she'd seen those people in the car when she was a
kid.  Even doing the autopsy on the burn victim from one of Nick's cases
hadn't really cured her phobia.  And this...this was so much worse than
anything she had imagined.

LaCroix lay on his side facing them, curled into a ball, his skin charred
and blackened - where it wasn't cracked and oozing pinkish fluid.  His hair
and eyebrows had been burned off and his fingers were curved into claws, the
tendons shortened by the heat.  He lips were burned, pulling back from his
teeth in a grotesque parody of the vampire rictus.

He wasn't dead, she would have known that.  Once she'd calmed down a little,
she'd been able to follow the faint thread of their link.  If he were dead
she knew she couldn't have done that.  But she didn't know how long he
could stay alive, or even if he should.  She'd never seen anyone this badly
burned and survive.  To last this long he had to be very powerful indeed.

Natalie realized that Janette was still waiting for an answer to her
question.  Can't?  Or won't?

She tore her eyes away from the horror that Lucien had become - that she had
driven him to - and cleared her throat.

"I don't think my blood would help him right now.  He and I -."

"I have no interest in your private problems, Doctor.  If you cannot help
him then please stand guard while I do."

Clearly expecting compliance, Janette turned back to her father's burned
body, sliced open her wrist and held it to the spot where his lips should
have been.  She sighed in relief when he began to drink.

Fifteen agonizingly long minutes later, LaCroix took a shuddering breath and
groaned loudly.  He didn't look any better, but Natalie took his response as
a hopeful sign.  She asked diffidently, "Will he recover?"

Instead of answering, Janette stood up,  reached forward, jerked Natalie's
head to the side and sank her fangs into the exposed vein.  Natalie gasped
at the invasion.  Only a vampire's master could take blood this way - and
even then only in punishment for a severe disobedience.  It was the
equivalent of rape for another to do it.

Janette drank her fill, replacing the blood she had given LaCroix, and
contemptuously flung Natalie to the ground in disgust when she read what had
driven him to fly into the sun.  She turned back to her father, trying to
determine a way to lift him without doing further damage as she flew him
back to the Raven.  Sunrise was barely thirty minutes away.  She glanced
briefly at Natalie and shrugged.  The fledgling could fend for herself.

She was just gingerly working her left arm under LaCroix' shoulders when an
achingly familiar voice asked, "Can I help?"

End  Part 9