Author:  The Wanlorn

Title:  A World in a Grain of Sand 14/?

Summary:  This is a sequel to "Every New Beginning…"

Rating:  PG13 for language

Spoilers:  I honestly don't know, so beware.

Distribution:  Ask, and ye shall receive.  Take without permission, then screw the Law of Three, I will cures you with the nefarious curse of…da da dum…WRITER'S BLOCK!!!!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Disclaimer:  Same as all of the last times, so far.  Khel and Laer and Faerûn belong to WotC.

Thank You's:  I just realized I've been being a total and complete ass.  Okay, let's see.  Thanks to Carla, my beta.  Thanks to Rouen French for not being pissed when stuff I read in her fics (hint hint, nudge nudge, go read 'em) sort of migrates into mine by accident.  And thanks to Splinter for that totally awesome review for Chapter Thirteen.  ::big grin:: 

Chapter Fourteen

            It took Vachon a second to react.  Then he turned to Tracy, who was peering over his shoulder.  "Go get your cell phone.  Call Knight and Dr. Lambert - tell the doc to bring her stuff like Nick was hurt."  When Tracy didn't react quick enough, he snapped, "*Go* Tracy!"

            Tracy disappeared in a flash.  Vachon went out in the rain, his pants instantly soaking through.  The girl was murmuring into the vampire's ear, a language Vachon did not recognize.  If he had to hazard a guess, though, he bet she was making promises that everything would be okay.  He touched her shoulder gently to get her attention.  She couldn't be more than a teenager.  Had she been an adult, or a vampire, he would have said something to get her attention.  But since she was a child, he didn't think anything of touching her shoulder.

            He was surprised by the girl's instantaneous reaction.  Faster than he could react, she had his arm pinned behind his back and him on the soaking wet ground.  He was pinned, unable to move even though he should have easily been able to throw off the mortal.

            "Sorry," she said when he stopped struggling - it only took him a few seconds to realize he couldn't get away until she let him up.  She allowed him to stand.  "*Please* don't touch me.  My nerves are really strung tight right now."

            Vachon brushed the dirt off his chest, backing off.  Honestly, he was in awe of the two people in front of him, even though one was unconscious.  They had saved his life.  And, while that wouldn't mean much to another vampire, it meant a lot to him.

            Tracy came flying back down the stairs, almost tripping and falling.  "Nick says they'll be here in a few minutes.  When I told him - I think they're going to break all the speed limits."

            "Let's bring him inside, out of the rain," Vachon said.

            The girl nodded and backed away, so he and Tracy could get the vampire.  They didn't go up the stairs; merely lay the dead eight in the foyer.  The girl followed them in closely.  She had a drastic limp - almost bad enough so that she couldn't walk.

            "What happened?" Tracy asked, the cop in her taking over.  Someone had obviously tried to kill these two.  That person needed to be taken off the streets - especially since it looked like he or she had almost succeeded on the vampire.

            "Eh," the girl waved her right hand dismissively.  "Nothing important.  People tried to kill me, kill him.  Don't worry 'bout getting them off the street.  Number one, they weren't in this particular world.  Number two, I killed them all."

            The absolute lack of emotion on her face made the smart crack die on Vachon's lips.  After seeing - no, experiencing how easily she could pin him, he knew the girl was dead serious.  Her eyes had gone cold and empty, like a switch had been flicked.  Tracy recognized those eyes - they were the eyes of a sociopath.  It chilled her to the bone to see them on one so young.

            "What?" the girl asked.  "Nobody touches me and mine.  Not if they know what's good for them."  The switch was thrown, and her eyes were alive again.  She sank down on the floor beside the unconscious vampire, fingering his hair again.  The look on her face was one of utter weariness.  Tracy wondered how much of it was real and how much was feigned.

            Vachon heard the distinctive sound of Knight's Caddy pulling up in front of the church.  What had Tracy told him to make him come so fast?  The two rushed through the rain into the church.  Nick's reaction was typical - complete shock at who was on the floor.  He just stopped and stared.  Natalie, on the other hand, got right to business, hunkering down by the girl.

            "What happened?" she asked, taking out a packet of blood.

            "There was a battle," the girl said tiredly.  "They took him, drained him, and shot him up with garlic.  Don't bother," she said as she saw Natalie beginning to cut open the blood packet.  "He won't even swallow it.  And when he does, it comes right back up."  She scrubbed her right arm across her eyes.  "Gods, he won't even take my blood."

            Natalie took the girl at her word, putting away the unit.  "Nick, I didn't think to bring anything for an IV…"

            "Then we'll have to take them back to the loft," Nick said.  He wasn't about to object - there were many things he wanted to ask the girl and the vampire.

            The girl used her right arm and the railing to pull herself up.  "He-llo.  One of 'them' is right here and does *not* appreciate being talked about as if she's not.  If we're leaving, let's go.  I don't need him dying on me a second time."

            Nick nodded his apology.  He and Vachon carried the vampire between them and lay him in the back.  The girl limped out, bobbing up and down like a buoy in a rough ocean.  She slid in after the vampire, lifting his head so it lay in her lap.  Natalie made a mental note to find out how badly she had been hurt, too.

            "Thank you so much," the girl said to Vachon, who was still standing next to the Caddy.  "This was the first place I could think of to come for help."

            Vachon nodded once.  "My place is always open for you to appear in any time."  It was the best he could come up with at the moment.

            The girl smiled slightly, even though it wasn't all that funny.  "I hope we didn't… interrupt anything."  She eyed the conquistador, and the water running down his bare chest.

            Vachon leered and turned away, returning to Tracy, who was standing in the doorway.  She had thoughtfully stayed relatively out of the rain, except for that one time, and, thusly, was *much* drier than him.

            "You look like a drowned rat," she told him.

            "Thank God Screed's not here, then," Vachon joked.  Friends came and friends went - the carouche was merely one in a line of them.  His hair and jeans were plastered to his body - he could only imagine how he looked.

            "Go dry off," she laughed as he tried to grab her, then shrieking as he shook his head and splattered her with water.

            She followed him up the stairs and leaned against the wall as he grabbed a towel and started to rub his head.  As he peeled off the jeans, she licked her lips in appreciation.

            "So, those were the guys that dug you up?" she asked as he pulled on boxers, sighing in disappointment.

            "Uh huh," he muttered, searching for his brush.  If he did not untangle his long hair when it was wet, it would become horrendously snarled, something he did not want to have to deal with.

            "And that was it?  You just pass them off to Nick and Natalie?" Tracy was amazed that he hadn't even said 'thank you for saving my unlife', or something to the effect.

            Vachon stopped and stared at her, a look of honest confusion filling his face.  "What?  They needed help, Querida, and getting the doc was the best I could do.  If they'd wanted anything else, they would've said so."

            Tracy shook her head and sighed, smiling.  Vampires were so naïve in some ways.  She wondered if she would get like that as the years progressed.  Vachon abandoned the search for the comb and came at Tracy, wrapping her in his arms.

            "You'll learn not to assign much importance to anything, Querida.  Life's too long."  He nuzzled her neck, his fangs scratching against the vein suggestively.

            Tracy grinned happily and inclined her head a little, to give him better access.

~~~~{@

            As Nick pulled away from the curb, Natalie turned in her seat to look at the two in the back.  The muscles along her side twinged, not liking the way her body was angled.

            The most pressing question in her mind was, "What's your name?"

            "Nire."  Her fingers stroked the vampire's cheeks.  "He's Jander.  If we've totally frelled up your seats from the water and blood, I'll pay to have everything reupholstered and cleaned and waxed and whatever."

            Nick shook his head slightly.  "Don't worry about it," he said, even though his first thoughts had been along the lines of worrying what their condition would do to his precious Caddy.

            "How old are you?" Natalie asked.

            "Why?" Instant suspicion filled Nire's eyes.

            "Uh, I was just curious," Natalie responded, surprised by the reaction to the simple question.

            Nire nodded once.  "Sorry.  It's been a *long* few days.  I just turned sixteen."

            That was pretty much what Natalie had thought.  Before she could get more information out of the girl, Nick interrupted with a query.  "More importantly, how old is *he*?"  By the look on Natalie's face, she didn't understand the importance of the question.  But, judging by her response, the girl did.  Jander felt as powerful as LaCroix, which boded trouble most of the time.

            Nire shrugged with her right shoulder.  "We're not quite sure.  Crazy shit happened, and…" She shrugged the one shoulder again.  "If that's going to be an issue, tell me what to do, lend me whatever I need, and I'll take him elsewhere."

            Nick risked a quick glance to the back seat, briefly meeting Nire's understanding gray eyes.  A teenager in appearance, but not in mind.  She spoke with the surety of one who had seen too much for their age.  Nick would guess that she had grown up a long time ago.

            "I don't know if it will be," he said honestly.  "It depends on the moods of the elders."

            Natalie wished she could understand what was happening.  The conversation that just transpired was important, that she knew.  But the reason behind the importance remained veiled to her.  She would ask Nick later, when they were alone.  In the meantime, she returned to all the questions any female would ask a child who was traveling alone.  As far as she was concerned, Nire was alone, because vampires could not have children.  Therefore, she had to have parents somewhere, who might be worrying about her.

            "Where are your parents?"  They were almost to the loft.

            "How the frell should I know?  I assume they're at my house, sitting in front of the TV.  My house being in the States, in Massachusetts."

            "Do they know you're here?" Natalie could see Nick rolling his eyes at her questions.

            "No.  I don't live with them that much anymore.  Khel and Laer know I'm somewhere with Jander, though.  They're my adoptive parents."  She paused for a second as Nick turned down the side street that led to the loft.  "What else do you want to know?  Or is that it?"

            "I need to know exactly what happened," Natalie replied as Nick pulled into the garage.  She was giving up on the personal questions that should be answered.

            "What happened?  What's it look like happened?  We got the dren kicked out of us," Nire said crossly.  "Us two've managed to make enemies of most of the vampire population of Faerûn, and a whole group of them decided to gang up on us and the rest of The Band.  After a while of fighting, Jander decided that if they got him to do with as they liked, they would leave the rest of us in peace.  So, the stupid bastard gave himself up and told me not to try to rescue him."

            Nire continued to tell the story as she got out of the Caddy and Nick slung the limp vampire over his shoulder.  "Half of the group took him away, and half stayed to try and kill us all."  As she talked, her accent became more and more pronounced.  Natalie, who had spent a few years in the States, didn't recognize it as any one accent, but rather a unique blend of many from across the country.  "But we turned the tables and killed all of them.

            "Of course, as the rest of mi familia took care of the wounded, I went after el chicolisto here.  I went to the shack they had him chained up in-"

            "How did you know where he was?"  Natalie interrupted.

            "Whoa," Nire said.  "What'd I do?  Why am I being cross-examined?  Telepathy, my friend, is a wonderful thing.  So, I *knew* when they were draining almost all of the blood out of him.  And I *felt* it when they injected liquid garlic into his bloodstream.  Don't frell with me - I'm not lying."  Nire glared at Natalie, a gaze that would have made the toughest vampire quake.

            Natalie spread her hands.  "I didn't mean to imply that - I was just curious."

            Nire sighed and squeezed her eyes shut briefly.  "I know, sorry.  It's- My nerves are at the snapping point right now.  Bear with me, okay?"

            Natalie smiled at the girl as Nick laid Jander on the couch.  As she went to the closet and grabbed out an IV line, and the fridge to get packets of blood she stored in the bottom for emergencies, she said a silent prayer of thanks that Abel was at work.  The young man might know of the existence of vampires, but given his experience with them, she wanted to have everything settled before he got back.

            "That is one big-ass needle," Nire commented from her spot on the floor.  She had settled herself in the middle of the couch, leaning her back against the front.

            "It has to be," Natalie explained.  "It's going to go directly into his stomach."

            Nire sighed and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling.  "How the hell do we manage to get into such messes, eh?"  She turned her head to watch Natalie as she hung up the bag of blood and pulled up the vampire's shirt.  She jammed in the needle and waited.  His body should start sucking in the blood.

            It wasn't.

            Nire watched for five seconds or so, before speaking to the unconscious elf.  "You god-damned fucking bastard.  Don't you *dare* give up.  I have absolutely no compunction for following you to the Nine Hells, or wherever, and making you miserable for eternity."  The controlled anger in her voice was overwhelming.

            Natalie felt pity whelming within her for the teen.  This wasn't working.  She glanced back at the blood packet, just in time to see it begin to drain.

            "Damn right you better listen to me," Nire muttered.  In contrast to her voice, she reached her right arm across her body and gently took his hand, whispering something in another language.

            Natalie had no idea what she said.  Nick, however, knew exactly - and his mouth dropped open in shock at the fact that the girl was speaking Ancient Latin.

            "//Please, my love, \\" she whispered.   "//Don't leave me like this, my light, my hero.  You've saved my life time and time again; don't make me look like a failure.  I need you, the babies need you, everyone needs you.  Get better, please, angel of mine. \\"

            Nick did not say anything, however.  It was a private moment, obviously not meant to be understood by anything.  Plus, Nire had an air about her that said that her private business was her own.  How she came to speak the language of LaCroix's childhood was none of his business.

            Now that no one was moving, no one was freaking out, he had a chance to study his two 'guardian angels'.  Starting with the girl, Nire, he was surprised at how she looked up close.  Obese and pimple-faced was the first thing that stuck out.  Curly brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, with two tiny tendrils framing her face.  As he watched, she ran a hand through to the elastic, pushing the two pieces back exasperatedly.  She wore glasses, making her gray eyes seem slightly bigger, and her lips had a chewed on look.  He saw why as she sucked the lower one under and started biting at it, slowly tearing off the skin in bits and pieces.

            Something seemed slightly off about her and it took him a moment to realize it was her clothes.  They, and those of the vampire, had changed in the past few seconds.  Natalie's eyes bugged out at the sudden difference, but she did not say anything.  They were both dressed in the clothes of an adventurer of… of no specific time period, but he would guess it was the dress featured in every fantasy book every written - breeches and tunics, with the breeches tucked into a pair of nice leather boots.  Both were armed with multiple weapons, and he would guess that there were more hidden on each person.

            Nick's attention was drawn to Jander, the vampire.  Natalie was changing the blood unit again.  The vampire was long and lithe, but weighed little.  His bronze skin had a sickly pallor to it, but that was probably from the garlic and loss of blood.  His ears were covered by straight, shoulder-length gold hair.  And gold was the only word that could be used - not blonde like his, not yellow like straw, but the color of spun gold, and shining in the same light.  His features were fine-boned and angular.  An errant movement by Natalie brushed a wisp of hair off his ear, which revealed it to be long and pointed.

            "What is he?" It just slipped out of Nick's mouth.  Natalie glared at him for his tactlessness, but Nire merely transferred her attention from the ceiling to him.

            "An elf.  And a vampire," was her matter-of-fact reply.  "Don't look so shocked.  If vampires can exist, why not elves?  You truly know little about your own world."  She dropped her head back and closed her eyes.  "The right hand doesn't even know that there is a body, much less a left hand."

            Natalie paused in changing the bag of blood again, asking, "Human blood won't-"

            "Blood is blood is blood where he comes from, be it human, elven, or animal."

            Everyone was silent for a long moment, Nick and Natalie watching the blood pack drain.  Jander's body should have still been sucking it in like there was no tomorrow, but it was slowing down instead.  As that bag of plasma ran empty, she put up one more.  Nire's head jerked up suddenly.

            "Mystra!" she swore.  "He's gonna heave.  Get a bucket or something."

            There was one under the sink, which Nick went to grab. He heard Nire muttering in Latin again.

            "//Mystra, Mielikki, and Ao, don't you *dare* abandon us now.  Let me use my arm for ten minutes at the most - just dull the pain. \\"

            As Nick returned with the bucket, she used both hands to roll the vampire on his side and hold his head.  Almost immediately, Jander began retching blood into the bucket.  Nick almost dropped it and began retching himself - the blood coming from the other vampire's mouth was almost pure garlic.  The scent of blood coming from the girl began to strengthen.  The back of her tan shirt was almost entirely red with blood and sopping wet, but the stain still began to spread.  As did the one on her left thigh.  She was hurt badly, but obviously didn't care.

            When the elf was done retching, Nire let go of his hair and wiped off the blood flecked around his mouth with her sleeve.  She dipped her fingers in the blood in the bucket and brought it to her nose.

            "Ugh.  Almost pure garlic," she said as she absently wiped her fingers on her pants.  "If they weren't already crumbled to dust, I'd kill the asses who did this to him."

            Natalie watched the plasma, which was slowly draining.  Too slow for her liking, but she did not know of the anatomy of an elf, so maybe it was supposed to.  Even with the evidence of his species staring her in the face, she could barely believe it.  Elves were supposed to be little, right?  This one had to be at least six feet tall.  Tall and wiry.  This pack was going to take a while to drain, so she turned to Nire.

            "What about you?" she asked.

            "What about me?"

            "You're hurt too."

            "I'll live."

            "With that amount of blood?" Nick interjected.

            "It's not all mine," she said calmly.

            "But," Natalie reasoned, "you're limping like your leg's going to fall off.  And you can't use your left arm."

            Nire sighed.  "He's going to be okay?"

            "I don't know," Natalie answered honestly.  She had a feeling that the girl would not appreciate being told all those coddling phrases that doctors used.

            She sighed and spoke to the vampire.  "//I'll be right back, baby.  I need to get some clean clothes for us both. \\" Then she turned to Nick and Natalie.  "I'm gonna go get some clothes.  Be right back."

            "How-" Natalie began, but the girl disappeared.  "Nick…" she said, drifting off.  This was too weird for her.  A dead body sitting up on her morgue table was nothing compared to this.  Nick was a problem to be solved, an extremely cute problem to be solved.  This was…this was oddity at its finest.

            "I have no answers," he said, just as mystified.  He thought he had seen everything, but apparently not.  He did notice that whenever she did something like disappear, an overwhelming feeling of danger washed over him.  Could it be an instinctive thing?

            Before he could say anything else, like commenting on the feeling of danger, Nire was back just as abruptly as she had disappeared.

            "How'd you do that?" Natalie asked immediately.

            "Magic," was the simple answer.  "Where's your bathroom?"

            "I'll show you," Natalie offered.  "Nick, call me when that bag's almost empty."  The girl was most likely going to need help of some kind with her injuries.

            Natalie led her to the bathroom.  She stopped outside of the door as Nire walked in.  Not wanting to assume anything with this teen, she asked, "Do you need any help?"

            Nire paused, her right hand on the doorjamb.  "Yeah, I guess so."

            Natalie followed her in and shut the door behind her.  She watched as Nire began using her right hand to take off her weapons.  Her eyes bugged out as the pile grew…and grew…and grew.  The teen stripped off her boots and socks with one hand, as if she did it often.  Then came the breeches, with the same ease.  More weapons came off under those.  Then she grabbed a washcloth out of the pile she had brought and limped over to the edge of the tub, sitting down, lifting her left leg with her hand and putting it inside the tub, and turning on the hot water.

            Her leg was caked in blood, more oozing out of a deep gash.  She started with her ankle and began washing off the blood.  Periodically, she ran the washcloth under the water so the red ran down the drain.  The area around the gash was eventually cleaned, but the cut itself was saved for last.  She paused before she started cleaning out the slash and took a deep breath.

            "Do you have any hydrogen peroxide?" she asked.

            Natalie silently got it for her, then watched as Nire began to clean the cut.  Her admiration for the teen was growing.  It obviously hurt like hell as she cleaned it, but there was little vocal indication of the pain - no tears, no cries of pain, no curses, just hisses every once in a while.  She let out a string of curses, however, when she poured the peroxide on it, but they were quiet and muttered.

            "Hand me the towels," she asked.

            Natalie got the two towels out of the pile of clothing.  One went on the floor and Nire lifted her leg onto it.  She used the other one to towel off the water, hissing as he patted the gash dry.

            "Mmkay, now can you give me the gauze and the tape?"  She had brought all of her own supplies.

            "That needs stitches," Natalie commented.

            "Bullshit."  She winced as she began to wrap the gauze around her fat leg.  "Okay, not dren, but no one's getting near me with any needles.  When all of the others have been healed, I'll let the clerics heal me.  Don't worry about it - I'll seriously be fine."  She continued wrapping, the blood slowly seeping through the white.

            Then she pulled on a pair of jeans and buttoned them, one-handedly.  Natalie had to admire her talent.  If she lost an arm, she would probably cope well.

            "I'm telling you right now, my shoulder's worse.  But I refuse to go to the hospital, I'm not getting stitches or staples, so don't bother suggesting it.  I'll survive - I always have.  But I'm going to have to take off my bra - so if that's going to bother you, skadoodle and I'll figure out how to clean it myself."

            "Nope, go ahead."  If it was worse than the leg, then she needed to see it.  Just in case.

            Nire paused and muttered, "Fuck it."  She shuffled through the pile of sharp objects on the floor, metal clanking against metal, and pulled out thin knife.  She slit the sleeve down her left arm and left side, then allowed the shirt just to fall off.  Natalie gasped at the blood and the wound.  It was long - six inches at the least - and was dribbling blood freely.  Her back was caked in blood from it.

(A/N:  How badly is Nire really hurt?  Will she assent to going to a doctor, or letting Natalie stitch her up?  Is Jander going to croak?  How's Abel going to react to all of this?  Am I ever going to get this fic back on track?  Can you tell I'm bored as hell?)