I'm not even going to attempt to guess what brought this story on.
Let's just say it appeared and I wrote it down <g>, and leave it at 
that.  
     In case you don't receive a story part, they can be found on
my website at:

     http://www.loftworks.com/wftk/fiction.html

     This story may also be archived at www.fkfanfic.com, but no
place else.
     As always, thanks to Kayleen and Liza for comments on plot and
character, and Jeanne for the grammar.  I couldn't do it without
any of them.
     Enjoy...


Curiouser Still...
By Dorothy Elggren
copyright June 2000

     Nick wearily stepped into the elevator and punched the button.
The door groaned as it slid shut, echoing his mood. It had been a
hard, hard day.  He tiredly pushed his gritty blonde hair back from
his face as he leaned against the back wall and closed his eyes.  Nick
tried not to inhale, not smell, not sense... anything.  But the
tantalizing odor of blood drifted up and he shuddered at it.
     The elevator creaked to a halt and he shoved the door open
impatiently, need wrenching at him.  Nick ripped his blood-splattered
coat and shirt off and violently threw them away, needing to get the
blood as far away as possible.  Sweet, human blood.  His hand shook as
he opened the fridge and pulled the bottle of cow out and jerked the
cork out with his teeth.  He spat it out and drank the bottle's cold
contents without once stopping.  He needed the blood.  He needed
it...a lot of it...since it wasn't human.
     Slowly he wiped his mouth and dropped the now empty bottle in the
sink.  He stared resentfully at his ruined jacket and shirt, some part
of him begging that he pick it up and ... just taste it.  Not all of
it was dry or sticky, some of it was still...  He closed his eyes and
turned away.  He wasn't that...desperate.  He didn't need it, he
didn't want it.  But he did.  With a muffled groan, Nick took another
bottle from the fridge and drank greedily from it.  Staring at the
bottle he felt only resentment stirring.  Nothing sated his hunger.
Nothing but human blood.  He glared at the shirt, lying in a crumpled
heap on the floor and cursed.  He slid down the wall to sit in abject
misery, torn between the cold cow in his hand and the sweet, sweet
aroma of human blood tantalizingly rising from his bloody clothes.
     He'd never seen this coming.  But then, he rarely did.  How could
he?

                               *****

     He and Schanke had been returning to the precinct after a
difficult interview with Morris L. Westervaald's widow.  They'd gone
to inform her of her husband's death.  She'd been neither grieving nor
regretful of her husband's death.
     "Bet she killed him," Schanke muttered.  "She could make hell
freeze over just by glancin' at it."
     Nick glanced over amused, but in agreement.  During the interview
he'd had an insane desire to introduce her to LaCroix.  Just to see
someone give LaCroix the same kind of cruel punishment that he had
dished out time after time to Nick.  He couldn't decide whether Miriam
Westervaald or LaCroix would be the first to try and murder the other.
Too close to call.  He wiped the smile from his face.  Schanke would
never...
     He never finished the thought.  The radio interrupted calling for
assistance at a break-in in progress.  They'd been close.  Schanke
responded with their ETA while Nick dumped the light on the dashboard
and put the pedal to the metal.
     Dispatch informed them a silent alarm had been activated at a
electronic store that had closed at nine.
     Schanke grunted with annoyance.  "Well, that tells us a helluva
lot."  Nick said nothing.  Schanke's heartbeat had doubled and that
told Nick more than his words.  Knowledge was power, and for any
police officer, it was what kept them alive.  Going in blind was
always the worst.
     "An alarm.  Middle of the stinkin' night.  Gotta tell you, Nick,
I hate this.  Feels like a stacked deck, you know, not exactly in our
favor."
     "Then let's not play fair," Nick answered calmly as he killed the
siren.
     Schanke tilted his head and looked at Nick through suddenly
narrowed eyes.  "Make 'em think we went elsewhere, huh?"
     Nick turned off the light.  "Yeah."
     "Good thinking.  Evens the odds."  Both were silent as they sped
the last six blocks.  Schanke checked his gun and chambered a round as
Nick brought the Caddy to a halt and parked along side of the
building, out of sight of any windows.  He killed the motor and they
slipped quietly out of the Caddy.  Schanke went for the front while
Nick went for the back of the building.  Containment was the name of
the game.  Schanke would hold while Nick would flush.
     Nick tried the back door, found it locked, easily broke the
handle and slipped inside.  All was quiet.  He moved quickly past rows
of boxed TVs, VCRs, and DVDs confident there was no one in the stock
area.
     Heartbeats throbbed in his head.  Three of them thudding an
erratic syncopation somewhere up front.  He pulled his gun out and
held it at the ready. He peered around the door from the stock room
into the plushly carpeted display room and saw nothing.  Nick closed
his eyes and listened, focused on them and located them at the front.
Crouching down, following the vampire's hunting instinct, he slipped
down the aisle, carefully, quietly, excitement rising.  His eyes
glittered with suppressed gold bubbles.
     He caught a glimpse between the tuners and CD players.  Three
white males going for a wide-screen TV.  The oldest was approximately
twenty-five with his long dark hair caught back in a ponytail, but the
other two probably couldn't shave yet.  Fourteen at the most.  One was
blonde, the other a redhead.  Nick grimaced.  Age made them
unpredictable.
     "C'mon! Let's go," whispered the oldest.
     No one was looking Nick's direction.
     He stepped out and brought his gun down.
     "Police.  You're under arrest..."
     The TV dropped with a thud on the foot of the redhead who gave a
shrill cry and went down.  The blonde whirled with a curse and fled
behind a stack of VCR's, then began scrambling towards the front door.
Ponytail brought a gun out of nowhere and fired as he dove sideways.
     Nick returned fire at the same time.
     Schanke came barging through the front door just as the blonde
was trying to exit.  The crashed together and the blonde went down in
a heap.  He never had a chance against Schanke's solid bulk.
     "Nick, are you okay?" he bellowed as he grabbed the kid and threw
him on his stomach.  "Don't even think about it kid--freeze."
     "Schanke, get down!" Nick yelled, knowing that Ponytail would
fire.
     BLAM!
     Schanke fell flat on the blonde.
     "Get offa me!" Blondie screamed.
     "Shut up!" Schanke yelled back.
     Ponytail headed for the back door, laying down fire to cover his
retreat.
     "Don't leave me!" the redhead cried, still clutching his bleeding
foot.
     Ponytail never glanced back.
     "Hold them!" Nick yelled over his shoulder at Schanke as he
followed Ponytail out the back.
     "Nick, wait for backup!" Schanke yelled back, knowing that Nick
wasn't listening.  "Man," Schanke muttered, "he never listens."  He
snapped cuffs on the blonde while keeping an eye on the redhead who
rocked back and forth clutching his foot.

     Nick stopped at the back exit of the store and focused on
Ponytail's rapidly receding heartbeat, then slipped out the back.
Rather than chasing after his quarry on foot, he looked around for any
witnesses.  Confident there were none, he rose in the air and landed
gently on the roof and let the vampire loose.
     Exhilaration flowed through him as he focused on his quarry and
began moving from rooftop to rooftop, stalking his panicked quarry.
Anticipation slivered a cruel smile across his face as he dropped
silently down into the street next to the alley Ponytail was fleeing
down.
     He stepped around the corner, pulled his gun and said clearly,
"Freeze."
     Ponytail skidded to a halt about 2 meters from him.  His breath
was raspy and ragged, the gun in his hand wavering at his side.
     "Don't even think about it," Nick warned moving towards him.
     Without warning, a door opened out into the alley between the two
and an older man, wearing only plaid flannel pajama bottoms, stepped
out whistling, holding a garbage sack in his hand.  Ponytail, a scant
half-meter from the man, grabbed him, throwing an arm around the man's
neck, pressed the gun's barrel to his temple.
     "Think again, cop," he jeered as the garbage sack splatted to the
ground.  Fear and shock stared out of the man's face, while a soft
gurgle struggled past the armlock Ponytail had on his throat.  His
eyes begged Nick to save him.
     "Let him go," Nick ordered softly.  "You can't win this."
     "Oh, yeah?" Ponytail sneered.  "Try me."
     Nick focused his power, his eyes glinting with specks of
suppressed gold.  "Let him go..." His voice was deep, the power of it
pressing in on Ponytail.
     Ponytail stared at him, his eyes growing distant, vague, as his
brain slowly succumbed to Nick's powerful command.  His tight,
throttling grip loosened from his victim's throat.  His hand wavered
and the gun began to sag.  His hostage, sensing freedom, like a fox on
a hen, lashed out with his elbow and turning, grappled with Ponytail.
     "NO!" Nick yelled as he rushed forward into the fray.  He grabbed
at the gun...
     BLAM!
     The gun's report deafened Nick as blood gushed over him, down
him, and splattered his face and hair.  Ponytail's shocked eyes met
Nick's suddenly golden eyes as the vampire roared to life at the rush
of hot, sweet blood..
     "No...I don't wanna die...," Ponytail whispered and sagged
against Nick, slid down out of his horrified grip to the ground.  The
other man fell against the wall gasping.
     "You saved my life, man.  You saved my life..."
     Nick stared down and watched the light go out of Ponytail's dark
luminous brown eyes.  And then they were dull and dry.  Empty.  Dead.
He dropped to his knees and struggled for control.  Shut his eyes
against it.  He wanted the blood.  It was still warm.  Seductive.
Hot....  He bit down on his tongue and fought it.
     A hand on his shoulder, brought him violently upright.
     "Are you okay, man?"
     Nick pushed the vampire away, down.  Tamped it into a compartment
deep inside.  Shut the door.  Locked it.  Opened his eyes.  He pushed
his hair back, and slowly wiped the blood off of his face.  "Yeah."
     "You're not hit or anything?  You're covered in blood."
     Nick shook his head.  "No.  Are you all right?"
     "Yeah, man.  I mean, no...  I mean I ain't hit or nuthin'.  But
if you hadn't grabbed the gun, it woulda been me, man."
     Nick stared down at Ponytail.  And could've wept for the waste.
Whether it was the lost life or the lost blood, he couldn't have said.

                               *****

     Nick wearily pulled himself off the floor and stood staring at
nothing for a long moment, his mind blank and empty.  Then with a
sigh, he found a garbage sack and thrust his ruined, bloody clothes in
it, tied it tightly and took it down to the garage and threw it in the
Caddy's trunk.  He'd lay odds they'd want his clothes for the
investigation.  As it was, he was on leave until the incident--what a
tame word for complete mayhem--was evaluated and investigated.
     He returned to the loft and slowly, wearily trudged up the
stairs, almost like a man doing penance, and sought the haven of his
shower.  Washed away the odor, the stains, the blood, but not the
guilt.  Never the guilt.  He festered like an open wound.  Outwardly
clean and damp, inwardly sick, he sought his bed.  Oblivion would be
nice.  Oblivion.
     But it wouldn't come.  He lay on the bed, reliving it.  Tossing.
Turning.  Wrestling with his soft silk sheets.
     Nothing he ever did was enough.  Tonight he'd really screwed up,
he'd destroyed rather than saved.  Shame warred and wrestled with
hunger, and sweat beaded up on his forehead.  Nick wiped his forehead,
pushed his sweaty hair back and stared up at the ceiling, luminous in
the vampire's enhanced vision.
     What would Natalie say when she heard?  He shook his head.  She'd
probably try and comfort him.  Hold his hand, stroke his brow and tell
him in acerbic one-syllable words that it wasn't his fault.  With
calm, logic, she'd attempt to debride his guilt, peal away his pain.
She'd try to clean out his wounds with the sanitizing alcohol of
reasoning words; no matter how painful, bring it all into the light of
reason.
     Much, Nick thought, like his mother would've done.  She had
always been remarkably abrasive at times like this, when he'd really
made a mess of things.  Nick stopped, stilled on the thought.  His
mother.  He wondered what had made him think of her, and then hard on
it's heels, he wondered what she would think of him.  Shame closed his
eyes and he turned restlessly, trying to escape the thought.  It was
one of the reasons he avoided thinking about her.  He knew what she
would think, and he would be found wanting.
     "I'm sorry," Nick said softly, wishing he could tell her how
sorry he was, how very sorry the centuries had made him and find
comfort in her arms, his head cradled on her breast.  Tears leaked out
and stained his cheeks.  It was better to think of Natalie.  She
wouldn't heap guilt on him.  Her logical twentieth-century mind
wouldn't assign him the blame.  Not like he did.  Not like his mother
would...
     Words and thoughts began to whirl together and tumble and twist
in his head.  The sound rose and rose to a roar, and somewhere in the
windstorm of guilt in his mind, he slipped away into ... oblivion.


     Nick awoke to the smell of coffee percolating through his senses.
Deep, rich, enticing.  He stopped on that thought.  He'd never thought
of coffee as enticing, rich or otherwise.  He opened his eyes and his
brow wrinkled in puzzlement.  "I must be in worse shape than I
thought," Nick murmured.  But still...it did smell good.  Natalie must
be here.  Heard already.  Hardly surprising.  She had a better network
of spies than MI-5 or the CIA.  Nothing escaped her.  Especially when
it came to him.
     A smile crossed his face.  Even knowing she would rip open his
barely scabbed over wounds couldn't stop him from being glad to see
her.  She was like light splashing across his dark and lonely soul.
     He slipped out of bed and headed back to the shower, feeling
hopeful.
     Dressed and ready to face Natalie's searching gaze, Nick took the
steps quickly.  "Nat..."
     Nick stopped and stared at the woman in his kitchen, skillfully
cooking an omelet on his stove.  It wasn't Natalie.  She *definitely*
wasn't Natalie.  Looked nothing like Natalie, in fact she looked
like...  It couldn't be...  It was impossible...it was...
     "Maman," Nick whispered.

End Part 1
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