HOUSE CALL 4 (iii)

by Apache

Content:
Het
Vachon; Nick/Natalie
No Sexual Situations
No Violence

It was funny.  Well, sort of.  Okay, okay, no, it wasn't funny at all.  It was appalling, fascinating, impossible, unbelievable... and most of all, beyond duplication.  So far.

Long winter nights.  Fewer murders in the cold and snowy season, always a relief.

In the lull, I was spending a lot of time in the morgue's little lab playing chemistry set with endorphins, adrenaline, and vampire blood, trying to figure out what could possibly have made Janette du Charme mortal.  The process made me remember a gift someone gave me as a very little girl, a perfume-mixing kit in a box.  It came with five or six scents that could be mixed together, about ten tiny bottles that were perfectly doll-sized, and a bunch of labels with romantic, feminine names for the new concoctions.

Those childish perfumes had one thing in common with the results of my current experiments.  They stank.

I can't figure out what did it.  I've tried most of the obvious things. Well, except one *really* obvious one.  Semen?  Absorption of human semen directly through the walls of the long-dead womb in the female vampire?  Something that simple?

Oh yeah -- *how* am I going to explain to anyone that the M.E. wants a semen sample?  Who do I ask?  Or do I wait till the next time I get a rape/murder and siphon a little off from what I send to Forensics? //Oh God, Nick, what I do for you.//

Four years.  Straw-blond hair and river-blue eyes that look at me with so much hope sometimes.  Other times, those eyes look at me from a huge distance, swarming with thoughts he won't share.  He doesn't really have to.  It's pretty clear what they must be:  picture-perfect memories of hundreds and thousands of murders.

When that happens -- and it's been happening a lot lately -- no hope lights those eyes, just a bleak determination to make up for it somehow, never mind saving the life or soul of Nicholas de Brabant, just try to make up for *some* of it *somehow*...  Even in his worst hours, even locked in despair, there's that desire to make up for it.  Most of the time, I think that desire is the single noblest thing I've ever heard of.

But I have to stay real.  Focus on what can be dealt with in terms of fact, not tangled, confused, conflicted, dangerous emotions I don't really have a grip on and couldn't give a name to if I wanted to -- so I throw them into that capacious bin called " love" and try not to stir them up too much.

Sometimes I think he's doing the same thing, others I think he's gotten so far away he's on another planet.  If this is love, it's brought anger with it-- but, sticking to that resolution to stay real, I have to admit love always has done that, in my life.  And this time-- impossible desires and possible expectations that keep being thwarted.

//Love a vampire?  Natalie, get a life.//

A life...

Nick:  "I'm not willing to take that kind of chance with your life."  And old articulate me, I just went, "yeah, I know."

But the truth is, these days, the idea of going to bed with Nick Knight does not represent the kind of happily-ever-after to me that it did a year ago.  For starters, talk about in-laws.... that whole charming gang at the, you should excuse the expression, revamped Raven.

And the archfiend himself, LaCroix.

To whom Nick apparently ran like a shot when he needed help.

OK, maybe that was the right thing to do.  Would I have taken Nick to an exorcist?  Hell, I wouldn't even take him to a chiropractor.  I'm a scientist, period.  And no matter how much either Nick or, for that matter, LaCroix, prefers to believe in hants and magic, curses and voodoo, I, Natalie Lambert M.D., scientist and staunch practitioner of the Empirical Method, was the one who ended the vampire community's first plague.  LaCroix may have tripped over the cure, but it took science to recognize it for what it was.

Yet Nick's "exorcism" seemed to work.  Nah.  I don't buy it.  Any more than I bought the magic cure during a sunlit stroll with Marian Blackwing on the Spirit Walk.  I shouldn't have used that flippant expression about 'beating the devil' to Nick; it was bad to reinforce the mystical mumbo-jumbo streak in him.

Nope, it had to be psychosomatic -- whatever the "soma" part of a vampire is.  Maybe it was autosuggestion?  Vampires can hypnotize almost everyone else, why not themselves?  After all, this was a -defrocked- priest who was trying to scare devils out of people. If the universe is really playing by the rules of the medieval Catholic Church, as Nick seems to believe, why wouldn't the defrocking have -- uh, defanged? -- him? (what would my life be without bad vampire puns? and I have to keep them all to myself...)  But yeah, wouldn't any self-respecting demon just thumb its nose at a defrocked priest and go, "nyah, nyah, nyah... I got hold of a *vampire* now?"

Great... alone in the morgue, the coroner is laughing.  Well, how else do you get through a day where when you're not thinking about the dead, you're preoccupied with the undead?

And now back to the interesting question of vampire/human intercourse...

Oh why don't I just read Emily Weis some more?  I swear, one of these nights, I'm going to wind up out there looking for Mr. Goodbar.

And yeah, right, going to bed with Nick doesn't mean happily-ever-after?  Who am I kidding?  So who was that feeding Nick chicken soup and apples and hiding the blood from the fridge when he had amnesia?  Who cozied up to the man with no memory who thought he was somewhere between thirty and forty years old?  Who would have hopped a plane to the Bahamas with that guy to go get a winter tan in *seconds*? //Get a life, Natalie.//

The timer's chiming:  time to see how the vampire blood withstood a mega-dose of endorphins related to human sexual arousal.  A-a-a-nd, after an hour or three of examining samples, the verdict is:  "just fine, thank you."  In fact, all that happy vampire DNA seems to be saying, "Feed me some more.  Yum yum, human fluids...."  Nick's blood, Screed's, and Vachon's, they all had the same answer. Damn.

Vachon.  Wonder if he...?  Oh, *bad* idea, Nat.  But he seemed to be trying to be nice, in his own twisted way.  I wonder...

No Vachons listed in the phonebook.  Nick is, but he's aberrant even among vampires.  What about.. in the plane crash... J.D. Valdez?  No listing, nice try.  But I do have the number at the Raven...  oh why not.

I asked the bartender (who knows what *he* is?) to page J.D. Valdez.  Vachon did seem to have a sense of humor; it might be just warped enough to answer a page for a dead guy... well, an even deader guy.

Paydirt.  "Yeah?" said the ironic, cracking voice I recognized.

"This is Natalie Lambert.  Uh... can I talk to you?"

"You already are."  The tone was hostile.  Well, no vampire would like to have attention drawn to itself.  Getting phonecalls from mortals at the Raven on a regular basis would probably be a bad idea.

"About something medical," I continued.  I gritted my teeth, and added "please."  This is not a word I like to use with vampires.

There was a long silence.  I rode it out, hoping the vampire was reminding himself who saved his life.

"Here at the morgue," I added.

"No," Vachon said instantly.  "Tracy."  //Aha, that explains the hostility.  He thought it was Tracy Vetter calling... how far has that gone?//

"Okay, okay, you're right," I said.  "Uhh... the Raven? -- Same problem."  What would be safe neutral turf?  "Pick a restaurant?  Subway station?"

"Shall I wear a trenchcoat?" snapped the vampire.  "Or do you want to have a rose in your teeth?"

This made me laugh -- it gave me mental images from about twenty of my favorite old movies all at once.

"OK, come to my place," I said on impulse.  Better judgment kicked in a second later, but it was too late.  Besides, if a vampire wants to find out where you live... it will.   "I'm booking out at three, and dawn is..."

"I *know* when," said Vachon.  I rolled my eyes.  //Well excuse me. Guess I pushed a little vamp button there.// "Give me an address."

~ ~ ~

I went home, and walked in looking at my place the way you do when a guest is coming.  How messy is it?  What's the highest priority tidy-up? I dropped my bag and started to fluff pillows and stuff, and then it hit me what this visitor is.

//This makes the third one.//  Nick, Spark, and now this one.  Plus LaCroix hovering around outside now and then.  Great.  Natalie Lambert, Hostess of the Undead. //Well, they don't eat much.//  *Bless* that demented sense of humor.

Vachon showed up less than a minute after I let myself in; he must have been waiting.  I opened the door, he walked in, and then we were both just standing there in my apartment. I felt edgy.  // No, really?// Yes, there's a vampire I scarcely know a few feet away looking at me intently.

//'Can I get you something?' is definitely out as a conversational gambit.//

"So, how ya been feeling?" I said.  I winced inside, hearing the tinny note in my voice, but this is *not* a kind of small talk that I know how to make.  Janette had the same effect on me, but I was always with Nick when I saw her, not to mention it wasn't ever in my own place.

"Peachy!"  He sounded like a TV sitcom character. Vachon grinned, and the grin rolled into a laugh.

Dammit, this vampire keeps laughing at me.  That's something Janette never did.  In fact, Janette did not look capable of laughing.  It's annoying, especially since all he looks like is some scruffy kid who can't get his act together.  //The operative word there is "like,"// I reminded myself. //This is a murderer who's got to be at least ten times your age.// It's extra annoying because I kind of enjoy him laughing at me.  Sometimes, I do have it coming.  And Nick doesn't laugh enough. Especially not lately.

"So...what's up Doc?" said the vampire cheerfully.  A centuries-old murderer with an adolescent sense of humor. God help me.

I wanted him gone as fast as possible.

"OK, I'll cut to the chase.  Have you ever successfully had sex with a mortal woman, and left her alive?  If so, did you notice any changes in yourself afterward?"

I put my questions into a crisp doctor voice designed to cut into his smugness.  //Bet no one ever asked you that before, huh?//  But I didn't really anticipate the response.

The smile vanished.  Vachon stood unnaturally still and stared at me for a long moment, then blinked.  His eyes were not the eyes of a twenty five year old man anymore.  Hell, they weren't even the eyes of an eighty year old man.  He was waaay out there in vampire space somewhere.  And when he spoke, the words came very slowly.

"Cut back to before the chase," he said.

I exhaled, only then realizing I'd been holding my breath. //Prey, // I told myself.  //You're just prey.  Food that makes conversation. Damn him, damn them all.  All but one...//

How to tell this story?  Did you know Janette, the owner of the Raven?  No, don't say who.  He might have known her, it might create trouble for her if it got around.  Be scientific.

"There is a documented case of a vampire coming back over to humanity," I said flatly.  "The change appears to be connected to intercourse with a human being."

"You're kidding."

I looked at him very carefully.  Vachon clearly meant it. Undisguised shock stood out all over him.

"No," I said, sticking to a professional voice.  "It happened.  I saw it myself."

"The Marcus Welby of the undead," the vampire said.  It sounded like a curse, an insult.

"I didn't say that I -achieved- it myself," I gritted.  "But I witnessed the result.  The vampire -- the *ex-vampire* --" (was there just the smallest bit of malicious triumph in my tone?) "attributed it to a continued sexual relationship with a man that she was in love with."  OK, that was leaving out the who-was-shot-dead-in-the-street part, but Vachon didn't need to know that.

Vachon went back to silence, punctuated by blinks, standing still as a statue while he thought.

I decided to sit down. After all, this is my own house.  The vampire's preoccupation gave me a chance to study him; with the insouciant expression gone, he was kind of interesting-looking, especially with those... um. adult... eyes in a young man's face.  He has nice features, or would have if he'd clean up a little bit and shave.  If he's cultivated that Wuthering Heights look to appeal to women... well, he's done an OK job.  Of course, for what he appears to be -- a Gen X-er -- the look is just right.  Pure grunge.  Very disarming.  //Good hunter's camouflage.//

On that thought, I looked away.  I know none of the vampires can hunt very much, especially in a city, but some intuition was saying that if any of them are, this one is.  He's too smug, too comfortable with himself.  Also, Nick told me that this one lives outside the construct of false identities that protects, but also binds, much of the vampire "community."

In fact, listening to him talk about Vachon, I thought Nick found Vachon's life a little bit alluring precisely because his history was so radically opposite to Nick's -- masterless, basically wild in the woods, reckless and irresponsible even by vampire standards .  //Let's see, that translates into killing and not cleaning up after yourself,// I thought. It was not a heartening concept.

Vachon came out of his reverie.  He gave me a hard look, but I didn't understand what he might mean by it.

"No," he said.  Rough, unfriendly voice. "I've never done it and I've never heard of it.  Anything else?"

"Why are you angry?"  A second too late, I thought back to having said that to LaCroix.  It was a bad question then, and not much better now.  Then I gasped, because his eyes had turned a glaring gold.  A blink, and they went back to black.

//Nick.  Spark.  Now Vachon.  Wolf eyes.// I really could live a long and happy life without ever seeing that again.

"You threaten my existence, doctor," the vampire said in a voice dry as dust.  "What do you think?"

"I don't see how," I said. "It's just a possibility..."

Vachon moved closer, stood over me and looked down.  His voice altered again.

">>>Forget this conversation.  Forget the vampire you saw changed.<<<"

I could feel it... it's like steam rising around your mind, and you have to shake it off, blow it to shreds.  I shook my head to clear it -- Nick tried this the night we met -- and so did LaCroix last year, but he hedged his bets with a Mickey Finn in the wine.

I threw off his attempt, seething.  The arrogance of these creatures-- they think they rule the world.  They think they can do anything they want, and walk away... nothing matters but their desires.  And all of their desires add up to death.

"How dare you!" I screamed at him.  I jumped up, boiling with contempt, and pushed him hard.

Vachon backed away. "You too?" he said unhappily.  The vampire quality in his expression disappeared under rueful regret.  "What is it, a job requirement with the City or something?"

"A resister you mean?  Yeah, me too," I snapped.  "Don't *ever* try to pull that with me again."

Vachon's eyes widened, but he was back to his humorous mode.  "Or you'll tell Knight?  You'll have your boyfriend beat me up?"

I closed my eyes.  I couldn't begin to think of an answer. Although 'yes' was tempting me mightily.

The predatory quality returned.  "If this is true, why aren't you rolling around on satin sheets with him right this minute?  I thought that's what you wanted.  Hell, I *know* that's what he wants."  He brought himself up short.

What? //You do?// I thought wildly. // You do?//

Vachon came close again.   //I bet he hears my heart pounding.  Great...//

Vachon looked down at me again, but without putting out any of that vampire energy, not making any effort to either charm or hypnotize me.  Instead, he smiled at me with a kind of bitter humor.  Somehow, that was almost as devastating as the vampire stuff.

"Beautiful Natalie," he said mockingly.  "Beautiful Natalie. You make such trouble."

"I'm just trying to help Nick." The crispy doctor voice failed me; it came out as a whisper.  "I don't understand..."

"I know," said Vachon.  His voice was very soft. "You -don't- understand."  The grin resurfaced.  "I mean, you *really* don't."

He walked over to the telephone and scribbled a number on the pad next to it.  "My cell phone," he said over his shoulder.  "Good luck."  He headed for the door, then turned. "Incidentally, if I were you, I would *never* use that word 'documented' again."

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