GLAIVESTER'S FOREVER KNIGHT SEASON 4
Not affiliated with the virtual fourth season.
Forever Knight belongs to TriStar or whomever. This work is not intended to infringe on any copyrights. If the owners of Forever Knight wish to profit off this story, it's fine with me. Permission to archive and post to anyone. Please give credit to "The Glaivester."
NOTE: I will continue to use the "looks like celebrity" method for describing some of my characters. It's an easy way to paint an entire picture in a few words. Gearheart University is, to my knowledge, fictional.
EPISODE 3: PARTNERS
Harchin looked out the window and then at the new recruit. She was standing in the morning light with Draygon. Harchin was a carouche, a cow-carouche, actually, a very rare breed. Draygon a normal vampire. They were part of the Ontario branch. The Enforcers numbered very few. Only five thousand or so in all, out of perhaps one to one-and-half million vampires in the world. Only ten were in the Ontario branch. Now there was another.
Harchin spoke with a U.S. accent, Draygon with a slight Scottish one. Morning was coming. The sun was rising. They were in a small cabin somewhere in a clearing in the woods. The new recruit stared at the sun as it rose. Suddenly smoke began to billow out of her body. She cringed, and waited. Then she burst into flames.
Suddenly the blinds fell and a bucket of water splashed on the new recruit, dousing the flames. Draygon had shown almost no sign of discomfit, with only a small wisp of smoke coming from his head. He gave a bottle of blood to the girl, her face burned nearly beyond recognition. She drank it as quickly as she could, and then collapsed.
As with all such fires, her clothes were almost completely unharmed. Vampires burning from sunlight generally burned very cold. It wasn't like regular fire, not really.
Harchin gulped down his own bottle of cow blood. He looked at his waist. He could swear that he was getting fatter. Weight gain was actually not unheard of for vampires, if they drank enough blood. "Sorry, really I am, but this is a necessary part of the training. Builds resistance, you see. Some of the oldest of us can actually spend several minutes in the sunlight if need be. We -have- to be stronger and better than the rest, or we're finished."
Draygon smiled. "Young lass, y'see we protect not only our own kind but the mortals as well. If they ever found out about us, well, there'd be a war. We'd most likely be wiped out, and the mortals would lose a fair number more to our kind in a few nights than they have in the past century. We must be strong enough to maintain order."
"Don't worry," spoke the recruit, healing very quickly and noticeably. "If it'll prove my mettle, then up with the curtain again. I don't care how much it hurts. But I am strong enough to do this job on my OWN."
---------Flashback---------------
Draygon was on the phone.
"Yes, yes, I see. Well, we do owe you a favor." He put the phone down and looked at Harchin. "We need to get to the Toronto General hospital, quickly."
"Why?"
"Because Commissioner Vetter of the Toronto P.D. has finally called in that favor that the OVEG owe him [author's note: Ontario Vampire's Enforcers' Guild]."
-----------End flashback--------------
"Well, that's admirable. But it is unnecessary. And dangerous. You will flare up more quickly if we do it too soon, and we will need more blood. Don't worry. You will earn your position, or you will lose it. Whatever you think you have to prove, we think you have already proven your worth while you were mortal."
The woman looked at the two vampires. Her wounds were healing very, very rapidly, and her face began to take on its familiar shape. She opened her mouth to speak.
Draygon spoke first. "I say it every mornin'. Welcome to the Enforcers, Tracy."
Back in New York, Nick was looking in his refrigerator. He hadn't seen Natalie since the night Janette had visited. He would see her again tonight and talk with her. But she had left two things when she came. First, a bottle of blood. Human blood. Only a pint was left, or had ever been there in the first place. Janette had made Nick promise not to get rid of it, and had also made Natalie promise not to make him do so. "This blood," she had said, "was donated with explicit instructions that it be preserved for Nick. I, of course, added the special preservatives that make sure it keeps - at least for our kind's use of it."
The other was a tape. Janette had refused to say what was on it.
Nick put the tape in his VCR. When it came on, he stood aghast for a moment.
"Hello, Nick. If you are seeing this, it means I am dead."
"Schanke..." whispered Nick.
---------Non-character Flashback [i.e. not associated with a character's memories]------------
Schanke thought about what he had discovered, as he washed Nick's Caddy. Best to let Nick think that he had chalked it up to his experience shooting the perp. That wasn't really it at all.
Nick was a vampire. Schanke knew it now. So was Janette. So was LaCroix. But that did not give him the right to go distrusting his fellow officer. Sure, Nick had lied to him, but never in bad faith. And damn it, what right did he have to go snooping around in the personal life of someone who -had- after all, saved his life. No, it wasn't wrong to think that the man who had saved his life that night was a vampire, but it was very, very wrong, to look down on him for it, especially as the vampirism was what enabled Nick to save him.
Natalie must have known. So that's why Natalie seemed to be an item with him but never actually seemed to go out. She was probably afraid that Nick would kill her if they tried to get physical - or else he was afraid he would kill her.
This explained her strange behavior too, during that asteroid crisis. "I don't have to die." She wanted Nick to bring her across, of course! But then, didn't she also want to treat his "allergy" to the sun? He was probably looking for a cure to his vampirism!
-----Flashback---------
Schanke heard Nick talking as he walked into the room.
"Oh do I? Do I? I can have my humanity back, but only for as long and for as much as you're willing to give it to me. And they will give me back my immortality. But only by night. And only for exchange for my soul."
-----End flashback---------
So that was what that business about Lytovitamin C - lytovigorvim A - whatever it was called - was. That's why Nick was eating so much, and so happy to be in the sunlight! But it obviously hadn't worked, or the side effects had been too much.
-----------End non-character flashback-------------------------
"Nick. I know your secret. But it's okay. You are a good guy, and a good friend. Listen, I can't get over these dreams I have been having - I feel like I am about to die in oh, about six weeks. I couldn't die without letting you know that I knew, and it's okay with me. I don't know if you noticed, but I have tried to use mouthwash after eating souvlaki these past few months so a not to poison you with my breath.
"In any case, here is a souvlaki recipe. Maybe garlic isn't so bad you know. Maybe it's the solution you're looking for, so I though I'd try one last time to convince you to try some."
He looked around nervously. "Listen, if these dreams keep coming up, I'll tell you just before the predicted deadline approaches. Especially if something happens to make the death appear likely or - I don't know, if I get some omen while I'm awake. In any case, Janette is leaving, and I am giving this tape to her, as well as a pint of blood. So yes, that means she knows I know. It's okay, I hear that vampires can find out stuff - feel stuff about a person - from drinking blood. Well, if I -am- going to die - soon, I mean, and you need - need a friend- well, that's what the bottle is for. A last farewell, some of my crime-solving expertise - or just a friend. Uh, Nick - I know that feeding can be - er - sexual - so I just wanted to say that it's not like that at all, okay? I have also heard that feeding off one another or on blood from a friend can - be - friendly, just normal, male bonding friendly. And I thought that that might help you ease your pain, okay?"
The tape ended, and Nick looked at the bottle as he put it in the refrigerator. He would have to talk about this with Natalie. She had been devastated by Schanke's death as well.
Tracy listened to the lecture. She was the entire class, so she couldn't daydream, they'd notice.
"Around the middle of the fifteenth century, the problem of vampire hunters because so bad that it threatened to put an end to our kind once and for all. So we developed our own group of hunters. Especially strong vampires, were recruited, and 'selective breeding,' or more precisely selective bringing across, was used to create the group now known as 'The Enforcers.' We began to get more and more secretive around mortals, and tried to downplay our history as mere legend, in order to avoid detection by frightened villagers who would alert those who would destroy us. With the advent of modern recording equipment, particularly camera and other visual devices, concealing our presence became more difficult.
Tracy suddenly looked very tired.
"Let's take a break," suggested Harchin, and Draygon nodded.
"Aye, that's a good idea."
Tracy relaxed for a moment, and once again the night of her "death" flashed before her eyes.
-----Flashback-----------------
Shortly after Nick had visited, her father came over, with Macintosh and Draygon by his side. "I helped you once. Now you have to help me. Save her life."
"How do you know its what she wants?"
"I was under the impression that they can choose while being brought across."
"Usually. Not always if they don't understand what's going on. They may choose by mistake."
"Her boyfriend was a vampire - yes, mortals have sources, not just you guys. Yes, I was worried that he might do her in. Sort of made worrying about her getting pregnant from a guy in college seem - frivolous. But I figured that her police partner would kill Vachon himself if something like that happened, so I didn't worry about it. Well, in any case, she'll understand."
Macintosh lowered his head to her neck and bit it. Tracy's vital signs began to drop. Macintosh quickly opened a wrist. Tracy's blood rushed through him and he fed it back to her through her mouth.
Tracy somehow managed to sense all of this even in her weakened state. But she was slow to begin remembering it. She still didn't remember choosing, the door that she had heard others speak of, except that she had chosen to come back. Hearing about other experiences, she had discovered that the "door" was not always universal. Vachon had apparently been too wrapped up in his external circumstances to have had such a moment.
The next part, she had been told of, but did not remember.
Suddenly her body had gone limp and all of her vital signs had apparently disappeared. The doctors came in and tried to revive her. They could not. Fortunately, she had forgotten to fill out an organ donor card, so that was not an issue. Her "dead" body was wheeled away.
She woke up in the morgue an hour later, with two bottles of blood in her hands. She drank both by instinct before realizing what had happened. She heard a voice over her link with Macintosh.
"Stay still. Don't worry. Vampires don't have - excretory functions. All our excretions are in the form of gases diffusing through the skin. You can sit still until the funeral. We'll bring you through this."
-----End Flashback----------
"And now, for the problem of religious symbols," said Harchin. "There is a great deal of speculation on why they harm us. Due to the fact that sacred relics from faiths with beliefs that contradict one another can harm us, it is now widely assumed that the power of the relics do not lie in the validity of their faith, or in the power of what they represent. Therefore, we do not believe that the reaction we have to such relics necessarily implies that we are unholy, if indeed such categories exist."
Tracy sighed. In her mind she noted that Harchin looked a lot like the guy who played the bartender in the last episode of "Quantum Leap," as well as how much Draygon looked like David Ogden Stiers from M*A*S*H. It would be a long, long day. And when night came, the physical training would begin.
The Boss looked out from his window. Sunlight. He stepped into the light, his back turned to the door. He faced the window which served as a two-way mirror to those on the outside. He began to smoke, and then to burn. After ten seconds, the fire died down, and his body began to heal - while he remained in the sunlight. Few vampires could stand the sunlight like he could, but then again, he wasn't just a vampire, was he?
He called in Thomas Krull.
"Hello, Mr. Krull," said the Boss.
Suddenly the Boss was on Mr. Krull from behind, draining blood from his neck without ever showing Mr. Krull his face. After a few seconds, the Boss was finished. He tore open his wrist and gave a few drops to Mr. Krull.
In a swoon Thomas Krull fell to the ground. "Don't worry, I didn't drain you to anywhere near death," hissed the boss, "When you wake, you will not be a vampire, but you will be half-brought over. This will enable you to become a hunter. I've come too far to let a vampire who has decided to join the police force stop my plans."
When night fell, Natalie began preparing for her new job. She was teaching night classes on anatomy. But for the time being she could not do anything that involved actual cadavers. She might be too tempted to eat. But she need some job. She really couldn't just live off her savings, nor could she stand drinking the increasingly "animally-diluted" blood she was forced to buy. Maybe she should have drunk animal blood her first time. That way, she would be able to enjoy it more. But then Nick could never love a carouche, she was certain, and she was uncertain whether becoming a carouche would have turned her - well, would have given her all of the not-so-charming personality traits of Screed. So she had insisted that LaCroix had brought human blood, and now she was forced to crave it without being able to afford it.
Natalie turned on her car radio. When LaCroix had moved to New York, he had kept his radio name.
"Hello, out there in radio land. I am the Nightcrawler. Tonight I speak of old friends, long since past. They say that if we keep them in our hearts they never truly die. But I wonder, are we keeping them alive, or are we simply living in denial?"
Nat thought about Nick's earlier call. He had said something about meeting him in the morning at his apartment for a "drop of Schanke and Auld Lang Syne." As it was no where near New Year's, the last part of that made little sense. Nick had only explained by saying that Schanke had apparently left a gift before he had died, that Nick had only found out about now.
She didn't have a car in New York, so she decided to walk to her job. Flying would be far too conspicuous in such a big city.
On her way to the university, she suddenly met Nick's new partner.
"Detective- Detective Green, isn't it?"
"Yes, fair lady," he said in jest. "That was my name when we met the other night. I hope that Detective Knight did not give you too much trouble in his asking you questions. But you know, you were kidnapped, we needed to find out as much as we could about the kidnappers. But I couldn't help noticing - you have the same skin condition as Knight. He was quite adamant that you get home before the sun came up. I'm sure that your similarity is more than a coincidence."
"What are you implying?"
"Are you related? I'm sorry if I'm intruding, but I like to know as much as I can about my partners; it makes working with them easier." He was holding a two-liter bottle of Creme soda, and he put it to his lips and drank between sentences.
"No. By the way, do you always eat and drink like that?"
"When I can get away with it. It saves me from preparing food or getting drinking glasses." He took another swig. "So where are you headed?"
"To Gearheart University."
"That's on my way to the police station."
"Great. So we can walk together. I suppose that -is- the idea?"
"Of course. I sometimes like to walk rather than drive. A policeman needs to be in shape! And I need to be in shape for my personal life, too. Never know when you'll meet an interesting person and it might come in handy!"
"Like me?" asked Natalie.
"Perhaps. But I was thinking more of meeting someone who wants to play a game with you. Sports, you know. I seem to get involved in sports a great deal, through no desire on my part, I can tell you."
"So you want to be in shape to do some one-on-one basketball?"
"Something like that."
"And you don't think you can do that with me?"
"Perhaps I can..." Green seemed uncertain what to say next. "You just don't strike me as the sort who would play the... types of sport I play. I thought that because I said 'personal life' that you were under the impression that I was coming on to you, so I wanted to dispel that notion. I hate people who try slick come-ons."
"Well, Detective Green..."
"Call me Charlie. Nicky-boy does."
"Do you give everyone nicknames?"
"Only those I like." Green smiled broadly as he said this.
"And those you don't like?"
"Well, they get nicked but not named."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think that we are at Gearheart. I really must be going." And Green was gone.
Tracy fell exhausted into her bed. Sleeping at night was not normal for a vampire, but then again, none of what she was doing was normal for most vampires. She was drinking diluted garlic, as well as being constantly exposed to objects of religious significance. Interestingly enough, she had discovered that some vampires had strong religious beliefs; a few had made it their burden to practice their faiths without using symbolic objects, others saw the pain as - cleansing or something. However, in her case, being exposed was all part of the process of "toughening her up." Enforcers had to be tough. Still, it wasn't what she imagined - the pain of the cross might be psychic or psychosomatic, but it wasn't psychological. It hurt like fire, but she didn't get any sense of damnation or something.
"I guess I am meant to be a cop even in undeath," she laughed to herself. She wondered when she would get a chance to tell Nick that she was still alive. Would she?
And Vachon - now that she could finally consummate their relationship, he was dead. She had been hypnotized into forgetting by LaCroix - the SOB was so powerful he had somehow found a way of getting past her ability to resist. Of course, her desire to forget that awful memory of burying Vachon alone probably had helped. The funny thing was though that being brought across undid the "whammy" and now she remembered it in vivid detail. And poor Screed - she'd never even been told to forget him. She also had some knowledge of an unhappy blonde vampiress named Urs who had been killed. Damn it was sad.
But there were some good things. Watching Harchin eat a stick of garlic bread in the first class to prove his superior endurance. Watching him run into the bathroom, holding his mouth for a second afterwards with his face turning green.
Well, she'd make new friends soon. She knew she could. It could be justified by the new PR campaign.
-----Flashback----------
After the funeral, Tracy got out of the coffin. She looked at her father, who was standing there.
"Ooooh.... she said, holding her head. Laying still all that time has given me a headache. Thank God you know people, Dad, so you could get a funeral home that wouldn't embalm me."
"Well, one of the people in the home is... one of them... I mean, one of you, but not of -you-. A vampire but not an Enforcer. He's helped people to deal with this situation before. Give them funeral and then let the 'dead' person go just before the coffin is closed. Much more workable than finding a replacement body."
"Dad, I'm really, really, hungry. And I think I need a shower. And what is an Enforcer?"
"You'll get food and bathing water," said the tall man who had just walked in.
"You are?" asked Tracy.
"I am Cornelius Draygon and my associate, who'll be here shortly, is Neill Harchin. We work under Macintosh. We're Enforcers. Protectors of the secret, keepers of the peace. And you, my dear girl, are now one of us."
------End Flashback--------------
Boy, oh boy, was she lonely. Oh well. She hoped she'd get a classmate, soon.
Back in Nick's apartment that morning, Nick and Nat were talking.
"Not today?" asked Nat.
"We can - stay in separate bedrooms. I really - need time, Nat. And we have that now."
"I won't wait forever, Nick."
"Yes, well - in any case, have some of this. Drink it slowly." Nick poured a small amount of blood into a tiny shotglass. "It's human."
"I thought you were off human blood."
"In this case - in this case, it's not just food. Sip the blood carefully, Nat."
Natalie raised the glass to her lips and took a taste.
"Focus on the images, Nat. Focus on the blood not as food but as the window into the soul."
"Oh my... oh no... it - it can't be. Schanke."
"Janette dropped it off. Here, I'll show you the tape."
Over on the couch they watched Schanke's last message to them.
"So he knew," whispered Nat. "And he didn't mind. Uh-oh. That reminds me, there's something odd about your new partner. I'm not sure what it is, but I get the feeling he knows something about us."
"Well, he has to know something. He doesn't know how to use utensils for eating, so he must compensate somewhere else."
"Well, he's not as bad as all that - other than his eating habits, he seems like a classy guy."
"Why do I always get a partner? I asked to be alone. I'm going to get him killed. I just know it."
"You could tell him - and I'm sorry, Nick. I'm the one who killed Tracy, not you."
Nick stared at Nat. "What do you mean?"
"You could have brought her across. I stopped you. Not because I thought she didn't want it, but because I was jealous. I suppose if she had preferred death to undeath, she could have gone into the light."
"It's okay Nat," said Nick. "I'm sure you were under stress at the time. I - I probably caused it..."
"Nick, you idiot! Not - everything - that - happens - is - your - FAULT! I made a terrible error, and Tracy is dead because of it! My fault! My jealousy! My -" she started sobbing hysterically.
Nick put his arm around Nat. "Nat, I understand how you feel... I've felt this way every day for the last century or so. It's the reason I didn't want you to be a vampire; the massive, massive guilt - "
"Nick, this happened when I was mortal. It's not what you did to me - what I tricked you into doing - that caused this. I did it. Nick, mortality is not all-good and vampirism is not all-evil."
"Okay, let's just sit back, and enjoy the company of an old friend. You will have to work through your guilt like I do. One day at a time." Nick sipped his glass of Schanke.
Gage fingered his bribe money. The pellmethylene shipment - with the addictive agent - had arrived. It would soon flood the city. The new "tough on crime" policies might be reducing the crime rates in the city for now - but if this drug got out, it would soon cause pure havoc. And in that havoc, he would be able to play both sides - obtain promotions and status at the police station through arresting dealers - only the less important ones, of course, and obtain lots and lots of bribe money from the mysterious crime lord known as "the Boss."
Thrush and Krull were back from a patrol. They had caught another vampire. He was wrapped in plastic bags to shield the sunlight. This was the fun part of their job. Slowly draining the vampire of blood, and then bottling the blood to make strange potions with - youth elixirs, muscle-enhancers, all of the new drugs the pellmethylene trade was financing.
The vampire was about two or three centuries old, Thrush reckoned. That meant that its blood was powerful enough to make the higher-quality drugs. Vampires needed time to develop the proper chemicals. Otherwise, The Boss would have just kidnapped mortals and brought them over, and then used them for their blood.
Thrush and Krull walked into a small room, where a youngish woman was preparing a blood-letting machine.
"Hello, Miss Ward. We have another one for you," said Krull.
Tracy lay back in her chair, when suddenly a figure appeared in front of her.
"Hello," he said in a French accent.
"What are you doing here? And who are you?"
"A friend of Vachon's. The last of his crew."
"Really?"
"Around the mid-twentieth century, I got tired of running with him, and decided to break off on my own. But I soon found out that blood was getting harder to get without raising suspicion. And I had never bothered to save any money, so I wound up poor and very, very hungry. and then, I became an informant for the Enforcers. Pays well enough, fortunately, and I can afford the blood I need."
"And you are here because?"
"Harchin thought you might want some company; someone who could talk to you about mutual friends."
"Well, sit down then. But I warn you, I don't bite. Not without flowers and a long courtship first." Tracy thought that was a clever remark, but the man was unimpressed.
"Well, the Enforcers are mainly male and few non-Enforcers will have anything to do with them, so you are probably going to get a lot of come-ons. I don't know if you see that as a dream come true or as an annoyance, but let me just say that even if I were coming on to you, I would not be the last. But anyway, I just wanted to talk about Vachon."
"And you would be?"
"The name is Bourbon. Pronounced Borebone, not Burban."
THE END