31 October 1991 Toronto, ON, Canada
Nick knocked on the door.
Nick heard the sound of an older kid dashing over and colliding with the door. The door itself rocked slightly from the impact.
"You're a bit old to be trick-or-treating. I thought only little kids wanted the candy."
Though the boy's voice was muffled from talking through the closed door, Nick was still able to easily hear it. He also heard what sounded like the kicking of a plastic container full of wrapped candy. Considering what this child had been doing all night, Nick was not surprised the container was still full. "From what I've heard, you haven't been giving out candy."
"Just having a little bit of fun. Kids knock on the door and ask for a trick. I only give them what they want."
From the screams he had been hearing, Nick doubted those little kids had specifically asked to be scared. Plus, he knew Natalie had been accosted by this boy away from this apartment. "You haven't been scaring just here." He waited, but the boy didn't respond. Nick knew he wouldn't get very far talking through the door. "Why don't you open the door."
"Nope."
"I'm a police officer." Nick saw the door shift again and assumed the boy was leaning against it to look through the peephole.
"You're not dressed like one."
Nick looked down at the white short sleeve shirt and jeans he was wearing. "I'm still a cop."
"Where's your badge?"
Nick scrunched his eyes shut in irritation. He remembered he left all his cards in his jacket pocket, the jacket itself still upstairs in Natalie's apartment. He knew he didn't have too much time before she would know he was gone, so no time to go get the jacket. Opening his eyes, he decided to try a different tactic. "Trick or treat."
He waited a few moments, then heard the locks being undone, and then the door itself swung open. Nick was greeted by the boy, who had his arms raised up and fingers curled to resemble claws. The boy looked up and opened his mouth, exposing plastic vampire teeth and hissed. Nick felt his vampire uncurling, wanting to respond to this threat display before him. He crouched down to be more at eye level with the kid. "It's not nice to scare people like that. Don't do it again." Nick then let his eyes change color, extended his fangs, and snarled.
After leaving the boy's apartment, Nick quickly went up the stairs and quietly re-entered Natalie's apartment. He sat down on the beige-colored couch just as Natalie exited her bedroom.
"I heard that boy. What did you do?"
Nick grinned sheepishly. "Just some trick or treating, as you wanted me to do tonight."
"Oh, don't blame this on me. Nick, you really scared him."
"He's been scaring children all night. And you," Nick pointed out. "Besides, I made him forget most of that. But he won't be scaring anyone else." He leaned back on the couch while looking at Natalie. "Your costume looks nice."
Natalie recognized the attempt at distracting her. She ran her hand down the front of the light pink skirt she wore, which had, at the bottom, a fuzzy white poodle. "Thank you. Classic 1950s fashion." She looked at Nick, imagining what he might have been doing in the '50s. "Was this how you dressed back then?"
Nick recalled those years. "No, that trend was mostly for teenage girls." He hadn't been with Janette for most of that decade, but other times when they were together, she had always insisted they dressed as an age group old enough to drink. "But I saw many who did, and this is accurate."
"Well, then let's go to the party."
Nick got up and grabbed his leather jacket. Donning it he said, "We don't have to go if you would rather stay and watch a movie."
"Oh no. We are going to the party, Nick. This will be a great activity, and you'll enjoy it."
Nick smiled as he again ignored the building feeling of wanting to leave and retreat back to his loft. This was part of Natalie's plan to help him become mortal again, and he had agreed to follow her plans. So instead of going home, he walked with Natalie out to his Caddy and drove them to the party.
Nick carefully maneuvered into the parking area at the Coroners Building. Avoiding the few cars that were moving and costumed pedestrians walking towards the building, he pulled into an empty space and turned off the engine. Getting out, he walked around to open the passenger door.
"Hey, if it isn't Joe Cool and his car."
Nick stiffened slightly, recognizing the mocking voice. He turned around and saw Detective Schanke dressed as Elvis. He moved to stand in front of the passenger door.
"Leather jacket's a nice touch. I'm sure the whole look helps when you're working on your cases and questioning suspects."
"Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"Yeah, sure. I've got friends at the party waiting for me."
Nick stayed by the Caddy while Schanke turned and walked towards the building. Once away, Nick turned around to finally open the door and helped Natalie out of the car.
"What's up with him?"
Nick leaned against the side of the car. "Schanke's been annoyed with me since I joined. He thinks I'm too young and green to be a Detective that also works solo."
Natalie considered what she had witnessed. "It seems like it was more than that."
Nick hesitated for a moment. "Not too long ago we were all in a meeting to go over a difficult case – one Schanke was working on. He wasn't pleased when I made a suggestion as to the likely suspect, one he had dismissed early in the investigation."
Natalie began to slowly walk towards the building, encouraging Nick to follow. "Were you right?"
"Yes. When I questioned the suspect, he confessed to everything."
"Well, you do have a lot of experience in understanding people."
"No. I have a lot of experience understanding murderers." Nick reached out to open the door to the building, allowing Natalie to enter first.
"Don't let him bother you, Nick. Schanke's day shift, right?" Natalie saw Nick nod in agreement. "Good, so you two won't really cross paths with each another." She continued down the hallway towards the large room where the Halloween party was occurring. Natalie could already hear the sounds of conversation and laughter. "There will be plenty of other people to talk to at the party, so just ignore him. And try to have some fun."
"I'll try," Nick reluctantly promised as he opened the door for her.
Natalie entered the room and was amazed at the turnout. She looked around, noticing that there were more decorations and balloons than when she had first checked out the room. The previously empty row of tables were now filled with plates of sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, cupcakes, candy, sodas, and a punch bowl. The table closest to the door was covered in blank name tags and supervised by her assistant. "Evening, Grace. This looks fantastic."
"Why thank you, Natalie." Grace looked at her boss and the man she had come with. "Those are great costumes." She held out a clipboard with a sign-up sheet attached. "Did you two want to enter the contest for best couple's costume?"
Natalie glanced back at Nick, who was looking around the room. She turned her attention back to Grace and took the clipboard. That would definitely be a way to get Nick involved in the party. "Sure."
"Great," Grace replied as she reclaimed the clipboard. "Now enjoy yourselves. There are various games and activities along the walls, and," she continued as she pointed at the food tables, "snacks, treats, and drinks. The red drink down there is our house special: bloody vampire shots." She noticed Nick seemed worried. "Don't worry, it's not real blood. It's just some sparkling water and lots of Ribena," Grace whispered.
Nick nodded, then allowed himself to be tugged away by Natalie. Together, they walked around to check out the decorations and activities. He noticed lots of fake webbing with plastic spiders, and the plastic skeletons, some of which were dressed up in their own costumes. Arriving at one of the corners of the room, he saw a table set up for carving small pumpkins, a collection of scalpels and boxes of gloves laid out. Nick watched as one medical examiner was meticulously excising out an eye for his pumpkin. Continuing onward, they came to a group of people excitedly encouraging a blindfolded person. Pressing into the crowd, the people parted enough to allow him to see what was going on. He saw a foam board taped to the wall and a cartoon drawing of a vampire, eyes red and blood dripping from its fangs. At the center of its chest was a heart and Nick watched as the blindfolded person stuck a brown piece of paper in the shape of a stake right into the heart. Automatically empathizing with the staked vampire, Nick recalled the times he had felt a stake, and when the crowd cheered the player, he twitched away from the sound and backed up.
As soon as Natalie had been able to see what game this crowd was playing she had turned to Nick in concern. She hadn't known this was one of the activities for the party. He looked paler, and Natalie could tell he wanted to quickly leave this loud crowd. She took hold of part of his jacket sleeve and gently began tugging him away.
"Yes! Staked him again. Sorry guys, but I've had a lot of experience with games like this. Hey, Knight!"
Nick had been following Natalie away from the group, but stopped. Turning around, Nick saw that the blindfolded player had been Schanke, and he was coming closer. Schanke held up a brown paper stake towards him.
"Want to see if you can do this, too? I've only missed once so far, but maybe you can do better than me. What do you say, Knight? Can you kill the vampire?"
Nick gave a small shake to his head. "Not now, Schanke." He pivoted and walked away with Natalie.
"Just ignore him," Natalie said as she led Nick over to a quieter area where some people she knew were talking with each other. Greeted with smiles from the others, she tried to encourage Nick to talk with everyone. He seemed to resist, but eventually he was interacting with the group. Partially through listening to a story about a recent fishing trip, an on-duty technician came up and whispered to her. "Oh, okay. Can it wait?"
"Not really."
Natalie nodded, understanding that some work just could not be delayed. "Alright." She turned to Nick as the technician walked away. "I'm sorry, but I have to-"
"I understand."
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Natalie promised as she looked at Nick. She was still getting used to him and still trying to understand his moods; he kept so much hidden away, but he seemed agitated that he would be alone. "You'll be fine, Nick. Mingle, converse with people." He seemed to retreat more. "Ask them about their costumes if you can't think of anything else to talk about."
Nick twitched his lip in a quick smile, reminding himself Natalie was trying to help him. "Alight."
Natalie gave him a reassuring smile. As she walked away, she considered how long it would take to handle the forms and calculated perhaps five minutes, at most. After twenty minutes Natalie was able to finally return. She felt bad for being away for so long and hoped Nick had stayed at the party rather than leave. However, after searching through the gathered guests, she still couldn't locate Nick. Trying to focus on all the reasonable reasons for him to not be there, she considered where he might have gone.
"You look like you lost something." Grace waited while Natalie turned to face her. "Like the other half of your costume."
Natalie nodded, confirming Grace's observation. "I think so. Have you seen Nick?"
"Yes," Grace responded as she gently herded Natalie away from the party and towards the door in the hallway that led to the stairwell. "He's on the roof."
"Thank you, Grace."
"Just so you know, he did stay for a while after you left. Then he said something about needing some fresh air and told me where he would be."
"Thank you again," Natalie replied as she opened the door and began to climb the stairs. Finally reaching the top, she opened the door and stepped out onto the roof and into the chilled night. She found Nick looking out over the city while leaning against the short wall along the building's edge.
Nick had heard the door swing open and footsteps coming closer. He also heard the fast mortal heartbeat, but tried to ignore that. "Hey, Nat." He turned his head to look at her as she joined him near the wall.
"You told Grace you were up here."
"I didn't want you to worry, but I needed to get away."
"Why?"
Nick returned to looking out over the lighted city. "Schanke was being insufferable over his score at pinning the stake on the vampire."
"Was he really that bad that you had to come up here?"
Nick shrugged. "It's Schanke, you've seen how he can be. We're just always going to clash, so distance is needed." Nick glanced back at Natalie; he thought he detected a slight disappointment with him leaving the gathering. He returned to looking over the buildings. "He wasn't the only reason. I can't attend parties."
"You can't tell me," Natalie incredulously replied, "that in the past you didn't go to balls or Court functions or whatever they were called."
Nick turned around and leaned back against the wall. "Yes, I went to those."
"Then you can be around large groups of people." Natalie watched Nick slightly squirm. "Nick, please, talk to me."
Nick pushed off the wall and walked away from the edge. "I just can't do this."
"But," Natalie gently prodded, "you did this in the past. What's so different now?" She watched as he walked past her. She turned around; he had stopped a little past her and his back was turned towards her. "Nick, I don't understand why you can't be at this small party."
Nick clenched his eyelids shut, then opened them as he pivoted around. He reminded himself he had promised to be more open with her. "In the past," he roughly began, "those gatherings, it was all a pretense, all pretend. Everyone had a part to play, and it was fake. Everything. How everyone behaved, what they said, what they promised. Even me," Nick said as he placed a hand on his chest, then dropped it back down. "Though I was even worse than the others; they were mortals just trying to survive at Court. I was the murderer in their midst, pretending to be an innocent mortal trying to survive the politics just like them. The role I played was a complete sham, but we always tried to play and kill for as long as possible before we were caught."
"We," Natalie prompted, intrigued. Perhaps he was ready to talk a little about the others.
Nick turned his face away from Natalie. "My kind," he stiffly responded.
Natalie waited for more, but Nick had lapsed into silence as he often did when mentioning the others. "I still don't see the problem with this party."
Nick returned his gaze to her, shocked she didn't understand what he had been saying. "Everyone in there is real, Nat," he gruffly uttered while pointing in the general direction of where the party was. "They aren't playing. They aren't lying." He dropped his arm back to his side. "In the past, I understood the pretending, the lying during those social functions, it was expected. But the people here, they aren't pretending."
"Well, they are in costumes," Natalie pointed out.
Nick glared at her. "You know that's not what I meant."
"These people know you, Nick, and yes, they are not pretending to want to spend some time with you, interact with you. They want to."
Nick shook his head. "They don't know me, only what I am pretending to be. I'm still playing that same part I began centuries ago." He looked down onto the roof. "I don't deserve to be down there with them."
"Nick, that's not true. They know you," Natalie insisted. "They are accepting of you and want you to join them."
"They don't understand what they are doing."
Natalie huffed. "Maybe it's you who doesn't understand what you are doing. Nick, either you really want to interact and live in this human world, or you don't. Let me know which one you picked." She turned and headed back towards the staircase while she rubbed her arms to warm them. When she was almost at the door Natalie felt a presence behind her and she stopped. A moment later a leather jacket was gently draped over her shoulders.
Nick watched as Natalie wrapped herself in his jacket and turned around. He could tell she was passionate about really helping him. And Nick realized, again, that he was becoming attached to her. He wanted to be with her. "I want to be in your world."