Part One


The Sea

Standing on the beach just after sunset, Nick smelled the sea breeze.
Looking up, he stared at the stars at night. He loved life, but what
he was living wasn't life, it was existing. He had regretted becoming
a vampire immediately after he had been brought across. As hard as he
tried, he just couldn't fully accept this life. No matter how many
times LaCroix told him to let go of his mortal bonds, he couldn't.
They were what kept his sanity in tact, in spite of the guilt he
felt. LaCroix landed a few feet away from his `son'. Nicholas was in
one of his moods again.

"Nicholas, what has gotten you in this melancholy state again?"
"You wouldn't understand, LaCroix," he whispered.
"I understand more than you think, Nicholas."
"No, you've never understood me at all."
"Nicholas, I know you love life. If you didn't love it so, you would
have ended it centuries ago."
"No, I was too much a coward to end it. I feared death and besides,
you would have never let me walk into the sun."
"But you no longer have to fear death. You are the master of it. I
gave you the greatest gift of all."
"You gave me a curse. If I had know all the true facts, if I had not
let Janette into my head those nights I thought I was chasing her, I
wouldn't be in this condition now."
"But you love Janette."
"Not at first, it was nothing but lust on my part. All I wanted was
to have sex with a woman. The fact that Janette was beautiful was
just an added bonus. When I saw her, I wanted her. She led me on a
merry chase for three nights as she talked to me about the night and
how powerful the night could be. I thought at the time, she meant
while I was there, before I moved on to home. I was drunk, LaCroix
and I think I had been subtly hypnotized to say yes. She wanted me to
join her in her darkness, to give up the light and the sun. Had I
not been drunk or under her spell when I met you, I would have said
no and run."
"Really Nicholas? I think you are fooling yourself. You were
disillusioned with the church. You hated what you and your comrades
had done on your crusade to the Holy Land. You had been injured, had
been sick and you almost died in that god forsaken land. You wanted
power and revenge on what was done to you. You wanted to live the
thousand lifetimes I offered you. Had you not, you would have walked
into the light and never returned to me."
"You left out a few details of this life, LaCroix. You never
mentioned the eternal killing, followed by eternal hunger. The hunger
that never goes away. The hunger that once one has drunk and drained,
demands you go forth and drink more. It is never satisfied."
"It is eternal hunger followed by eternal pleasure. We are what we
are Nicholas, you must accept it."
"No, I can't accept it, LaCroix. I will never accept it."
"Then what will you do about you new daughter, Nicholas? Abandon her?
Leave her to suffer and fend for herself?"