nothing is infinite,

not even loss.

- Finn Butler, Saltwater

— — —

"Damn you, Nicholas," I growl as I raise the stake, uncertain whether I have it in me to follow through. As I hover in indecision above his kneeling form, a hard clench seizes my heart, that otherwise cold, still thing. There's a phantom hand with an iron grip that squeezes tighter and tighter. And then it pulls and tears as if rending a piece of me from my body. I gasp and lose my grip on the stake, letting it clatter to the floor.

Nicholas is on his feet in an instant, rage streaming down his face in tears. "No, damn you, LaCroix! I was wrong, you are the Devil!"

He grabs the stake and starts toward me. It is my turn to sink to my knees. A steady rhythm starts pounding in my head, and the ache in my chest is so keen it's as if he has struck true with the stake. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he sinks down beside me and presses his forehead against mine.

"Why?" He asks, a fragile despair enveloping the question.

With that relentless sound in my head, I know the impossible answer. I place a hand on his chest. "Your heart… it is beating."

He puts his hand over mine and I suck in a breath, the warmth of his hand unexpected.

"What?" He asks, bewildered and exhausted.

"You are…" I start and then pause, unable to say the words for a moment. "You are mortal." I squeeze his hand gently, careful now that I could so easily crush it. I rise to my feet, pulling him with me.

"But I took too much," he asserts, confused.

"How much is too much ?" I ask. "Of blood? Of love?" From what he told me of Janette, her beloved had died too before she became mortal. "Of sacrifice?"

"I didn't want it like this. I didn't want it without Natalie."

"Nonetheless," I respond and put a hand to his chin, forcing him to look into my eyes, "You have it." And because it is amusing in a way that's not funny, I add, "It seems the universe has a perverse sense of humor."

He pulls away from me and turns back to the lifeless body of Dr. Lambert.

"I could still..." He starts and then swallows before saying, "I could still go with her."

No. I grab him by the shoulders and turn him back around, my eyes intent on his. "Nicholas," I tell him firmly, his heartbeat steadying in my ears, his eyes becoming slightly dazed. "You should not do that."

But he knows what I'm doing. He's done it a thousand times himself after all. He blinks his eyes rapidly and shakes his head before pushing me away. "Don't," he whispers. "Please don't do that."

I could force him to do my will. I have that power now. I never used it on him before I brought him over, but back then, he hadn't needed that kind of convincing. I could use the power now to save him from himself. He need never even know the choice wasn't his. Yet, I find myself unwilling. Some part of him would know, even unconsciously, and it would divide us forever. All these centuries of push and pull between us and I've finally lost. For now. I was a soldier long enough to know defeat on the field, to know when to make a calculated retreat.

"I won't stop you, Nicholas," I tell him, the weariness of the night catching up to me. "But I will have no part in taking this from you. You have spent too long excoriating me for all the ways you think I've wronged you. I won't add to the tally."

I circle around Dr. Lambert's body. Unfinished business. "As I said, there's still time for a burial."

He looks but does not look at her, his eyes distant. His tears have dried, but I suspect it's because there are no more left. "I can't," he says. "I can't say goodbye to her."

He shifts his gaze to mine and he says, "You said you would leave Toronto with or without me. Take me with you. I can't do this on my own." The vulnerable despair in his voice is a greater temptation than he knows.

I close the space between us and touch his face with my fingertips. "Oh, Nicholas," I breathe. "I've long waited for those words." If only he'd spoken them just ten minutes prior. But the world can change in the blink of an eye and ten minutes was a lifetime ago.

He feels almost like a stranger to me. I realize the lingering ache hollowed out in my chest holds the dead remnants of our immortal bond. If I try to take it back now, I'll truly lose him.

I continue speaking, hardening my voice with a firm indifference that I do not feel, "Under the circumstances, I think leaving without you is best."

There is disbelief in his red and weary eyes. "You're really turning me away?"

In a flash, I demonstrate the problem, allowing my eyes to shift and fangs to emerge. I see him take an instinctive step back and I can taste mortal fear in the air.

"I cannot help you with this, Nicholas," I hiss at him, the hunted look in his eyes driving my own instincts to a burn. "How long would it be before I forced you back over? A week? A month? A year?"

I close my eyes and compel the predator inside to heel. When I open them again, I see his tension ease.

I continue, "You cannot have both worlds. Such folly is what has brought us to this moment."

"I can't do it alone."

"You will have to," I tell him. Then I turn away and, with movements that I know are too fast for him to see, I gather Dr. Lambert's body and fly into the night.

— — —

The newspapers speak detachedly of his losses. Headlines. Obituaries. Tracy Vetter, killed in the line of duty. Natalie Lambert, apparently killed in a fiery car crash. The pages print the dates and times of memorials. I watch and he doesn't attend.

He goes to and from the police station over a few nights looking more and more haggard after each encounter. But after the third night of these visits, he goes home and does not return to work.

A heavyset man I recognize as his police captain comes to see him. "I wanted to tell you that you've been cleared in the shooting."

Nicholas gives him his badge and gun. "I'm done."

The man doesn't try to argue. "Nick, you've lost more in the past couple weeks, in the past year than…" He shrugs, a weary resignation in his tone like one accustomed to tragedy. "Than is right or fair. If you're ever ready to come back, give me a call."

Another heavyset man comes on a different night. I don't recognize him, but Nicholas also calls him Captain.

"Knight," he says, "You look like Hell and I can see that you've been there. Didn't you used to paint? You should maybe take that up again."

— — —

It's been a month and he's locked in his apartment. After all this, I don't think he's even seen the sun. But then again, how would I know?

— — —

He's painting again. Obsessively. In blues and blacks and grays. The same three faces: Schanke, Vetter, Lambert.

— — —

There is an article in the paper, a local gallery, an exhibition called, "Loss" by Nicholas Knight. Proceeds of all sales to benefit families and charitable causes.

I break into the gallery and see those same paintings I had watched him obsessing over the year before. They really do transmit his sense of loss. If we had stayed together, I'd have quickly grown tired of this kind of thing. It's best that he gets this out of his system now.

— — —

I can't resist attending the gallery show. The paintings are different under the lights than they were in the dark. More vibrant, still speaking to their subjects, but with a hint of warmth along with the melancholy.

Though I watch him, I ensure he does not see me. Many of the police have come. Both captains are here. There's a small woman with dark hair and a young girl, something familiar about her face. Nicholas hugs them both. He shakes the hand of a tall man he calls Commissioner, the pain in the man's eyes familiar to me.

I see Nicholas lightly kiss the lips of a tall woman with short blond hair. I recognize her from a photo in the paper as the gallery owner. I wonder if there is something between them.

In one corner, I see two small paintings, different from the others. They weren't there the night before. One, a woman, her dark hair coiling, a familiar serious but playful look on her face: Janette. The other is me. It's different than hers, more severe. On the canvas, it is strange to see my eyes through his. Have I always looked so cold?

Someone comes up behind me, but I don't turn around.

"Interesting, aren't they? He hasn't said who they were." I glance to the side to see the blonde woman who'd earned the soft kiss on the lips, her gaze intent on the paintings.

"How much are they?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "These two aren't for sale, but he said they belonged in the show."

She shrugs and turns her eyes from the paintings to look at me. She gives a small start and asks, "Who are you to him?"

I trap her in my line of sight. "These are for sale. And you sold them to a cash buyer whose name you did not catch. You don't remember what he looked like."

She nods, dumbly. "They are for sale," she agrees.

— — —

I alight on his roof in time to see an argument unfolding below.

"I told you they weren't for sale!" His voice is raised, a hot fire burning under his anger. I know it well.

"I'm sorry, Nick," she says, plaintive. "I thought they were. I made a mistake. I'm so sorry."

"We can get them back. I'll talk to the buyer."

"I didn't get a name."

He is silent and seething.

"I… I… I don't remember…" she continues. I can hear that dazed sound in her voice that sometimes lingers as the mind struggles between the truth that was and the truth I created.

"I'm so sorry, Nick." Her voice is choked. "I know it sounds strange, but I can't remember what he looked like."

" He ?" Nicholas asks sharply, and I realize I was not quite thorough enough in the verbal concealment.

She nods. "He…" And again there is a struggle in her voice. "I know it was a man. He wanted to buy them… He…"

Nicholas pulls her in and wraps her in his arms. "It's all right. I shouldn't have gotten mad. It was just a mistake." He kisses her forehead then her face and lips. She returns the affection and I leave. I'll have to be more careful. I can't push too hard for him.

— — —

There are more arguments and reconciliations. One day, there is a diamond ring on her left finger. Then another day, another argument, and the ring is left on the kitchen table and I don't see her again. But then, I suppose, it hasn't been days, but years.

— — —

He teaches art to the community two nights per week at a local library. How dull. What he does during the day, I don't know.

He's never shown his paintings again and I wonder if that is my fault.

— — —

He develops a new skill: he runs for the challenge of it. He puts up a rack and I see him add medals proclaiming farther and farther distances over time.

One night he has a party filled with people in his life and I don't know who they are. They are congratulating him for completing a marathon. What a banal accomplishment for a man who has counseled kings and seduced their queens.

But his smile is bright and that is worth something.

— — —

When she comes for him, I am there. I've been expecting her since the first night.

"Janette," I whisper against her ear. "Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?" What are you doing here?

"La meilleure revanche," she replies, breathless, reminding me of our first night together a thousand years ago. The best revenge.

The feeling I sense from her is strange, an empty echo of what we once were. Nicholas brought her back over, but neither he nor I hold any dominion over her. Not anymore.

"In a way," I say to her. "I suppose he has freed you as I never could." I nod down into the loft where he is preparing a meal, oblivious to our presence. "By becoming mortal."

She says nothing as she watches him below, a predatory look on her face. I won't stop her. It's not my fight. In truth, I hope she does it. If she brings him over then he can't hold it against me. And then he'll need us again. Need me again.

We watch together in silence for a long while until he turns out the lights.

She touches my shoulder and our eyes meet. "You are right, as you always are." Then she is gone.

— — —

There are people who come and go. Some burn bright and some just fade. There persist a few constants like stars in the firmament of his life. I don't know who these strangers are to him.

There was a time when Janette and I were his only constants. Why didn't I encourage her to bring him back to us? Ah well. He'll choose us again soon enough.

— — —

Before dawn on a cold morning in that bleak, barren time at the end of autumn and beginning of winter, he is out for a run, his warm breath condensing in the air. A ragged man with a knife confronts him, demanding he empty his pockets.

Nicholas holds up his gloved hands, placating. "Of course, take it easy," he says, keeping his eyes on the knife. He pulls one glove off and starts unzipping a pocket in his vest when the attacker brandishes the knife again, this time close to his face. The threat is more than I can stand.

I fly down, grab the man by the neck, and rip his throat out with my teeth, his blood flooding in a torrent into my mouth and down my front. Nicholas startles and stumbles, falling backwards hard onto the cold ground. The man dies quicker than he deserved. I drop the body and turn to Nicholas. I hold out a hand to help him up, but he just stares at me and then at my hand. Blood drips from my fingers.

He shakes his head, ungrateful as ever. I snatch up the corpse and disappear.

I don't like the way he looked at me.

— — —

He wins an award one night. It's announced on the local news and in the paper. High school teacher of the year. So that's what he's been doing with his days.

— — —

It seems like a normal weeknight for him. Dinner. Music on the stereo. I've seen this routine a thousand times. But tonight, I see a tremor in his hand. Though he prepared a meal, he takes only a few bites before pushing his plate away. He brings a hand to his forehead for a moment. And then his body starts shaking. He collapses from the chair to the floor, throws up, and then shakes again, violently.

In a second, I'm sitting next to him, pulling his head onto my lap, wiping his mouth, sweeping my fingers through to make sure he doesn't choke, not caring that his teeth clench and bite. I wipe his sweating brow as the fit continues. His eyes are darting and glassy. He doesn't see me.

I feel my own eyes shift and fangs lengthen. This may be the moment even though I know I'll lose him forever if I bring him over without his consent.

But then the seizure subsides. Nicholas's eyes come into a hazy kind of focus.

"LaCroix," he whispers, and when I hear my name on his lips, that hollow place in me where I once felt our bond feels less empty.

I brush the hair from his clammy forehead. The hair is gray. When did that happen?

"Mortality, my dear Nicholas," I say with a faint smile, "does not seem to agree with you."

"Hospital," is all he says in reply. I frown. I don't understand his choice to suffer. But I suppose I don't have to understand it. I gather him in my arms and deliver him to the nearest emergency room.

— — —

There are tests and more tests. At the hospital, I look through his medical files until I reach definitive words. Glioblastoma. Brain tumor. Inoperable. Treatable with radiation and chemotherapy. Prognosis: poor.

— — —

The treatments are killing him. Or they are saving his life. Human medicine is full of contradictions. My way would be simple. It's only a matter of time. I can wait.

— — —

A close circle of his human friends support him. Some of them, at least. There are some that don't come around at all.

He says goodbye one night to a friend that made a meal he barely touched. As the elevator door closes, I alight into the loft in front of him.

He doesn't appear surprised as he says, "I wondered when I'd see you again."

"You're not eating," I say, nodding to his plate.

He smiles wanly. "No appetite these days."

"And is it still worth it? This mortality?" I ask.

He looks thoughtful and picks up the plate and takes it to the kitchen. He empties it into the trash and then fills a glass with water and takes a drink.

"It's hard… harder than I imagined. But it is still worth it."

"Why?"

He's circumspect for a moment before replying, "The morning sun. Nights filled with life , not death. Friends who grow with you and don't just outgrow you. Lovers who don't die in your arms because of what you are."

He's becoming more animated as he continues, "The taste of salt from the tears of heartbreak and joy." Then he becomes more muted. "And a thousand other things I could tell you, but you wouldn't understand."

He takes another drink of water and then the glass slips from his hand, shattering on the counter. He grabs a paper towel to clean up, but cuts a finger on a piece of glass. It's a small cut, but the scent of his blood fills my nostrils and I have to fight back my natural impulses. He glances up at me, aware of the issue.

"Mortal life is a death sentence," I say to him as he finishes cleaning up the broken shards. "Your warrant has been signed and the executioner draws near."

He takes down another glass and holds his sliced finger over it, allowing several drops to fall in before he wraps a paper towel tight over the cut. He picks up the glass with his uninjured hand and approaches me, offering it. I take it from him.

"That's not what mortal life is," he says. "But as I said, I can't just tell you."

He nods to the glass. The scent from it is intoxicating. I tip it into my mouth, those precious few drops giving me a moment of his life. In that moment, he's warm in the sun and I can taste the sunlight on his skin. He's laughing and the sound is effervescent on my palate. I close my eyes and savor the moment on my tongue for several seconds before swallowing.

"Do you understand?" He asks and there's a hushed eagerness in his voice.

"No," I respond and it's mostly true.

— — —

He talks to me often these days even though I have not been into the loft again. Each night, he recounts his thoughts and observations of the world and hopes I'm listening. I'm reminded of when I did the same decades ago.

— — —

One night, he's sitting on the couch in front of the burning fireplace reading a book when he sets the book down and announces to the empty room, "I'm stopping treatment."

Finally, this farce is going to come to an end.

— — —

He can't take the stairs anymore and a hospital bed is delivered and placed in the living room facing out the windows. Nurses and aids come to examine and help him, administering medication, helping him move, cleaning up after him.

It's so undignified. It has to stop.

— — —

He sketches from his hospital bed from time-to-time. He makes a quick sketch of one of the nurses, tears it from his notebook, and hands it to him. They smile and converse as if his life isn't slipping away. How can Nicholas stand it?

— — —

He still talks to me when he is alone. One night he says, "Maybe you've moved on." There is sadness and disappointment underpinning his words like an unfulfilled wish.

"I hope you haven't," he adds.

He has come around, at long last.

— — —

Nicholas is sleeping when the nurse arrives and I intercept him. I make the nurse believe that tonight was like the night before. Readings are the same. Medication has been administered. Nicholas was tired but in good spirits. "You can go home."

I set about performing the tasks I can. I've seen the night routine enough to know he usually sleeps through, but will occasionally take water and some kind of nutritional supplement through a straw. I prepare both and approach his bedside where he sleeps. I set them on the side table and pull a chair next to him.

He sleeps at an angle, front half raised. Tubes carry oxygen into his nostrils. I take his hand and his eyes flutter open. I rise and offer him the water and then the nutrition drink, but he shakes his head to both.

"LaCroix," he says. "I'm glad you're here."

"It's over," Nicholas," I say, leaning in over him.

"I know," he responds.

"Then you're ready," I say, relieved this is ending. I let my eyes shift.

He shakes his head. "No, not that."

I feel the old frustration arise. "Nicholas, time is short. Too short."

"I know," he says nodding to the seat next to the bed. I sit and take his hand again. He squeezes it and his grip is weak, but warm.

"Do you expect me to do nothing?" I ask.

"You're not doing nothing." Another squeeze. "But I do have a request, if you won't think it too hypocritical."

"Anything," I say, who cares what I think.

"Look into my eyes and take the pain away."

I fix my gaze on his, his frail heartbeat amplifying in my ears. "You're in no pain," I say and see his body relax, a relieved sigh escaping his lips.

"Thank you," he says and starts drifting back to sleep. I don't let him.

"Nicolas, écoute-moi." Listen to me. I stand and pat him on the cheek several times to revive him.

His eyes re-open and he takes a deep breath, a slight smile on his lips. "I'm sorry," he says. "It's harder and harder to stay awake."

"You won't make it through the night. Unless…"

He shakes his head again. "Then I won't make it through the night."

I thread my fingers through this thin gray hair. It would be so easy to take him, to turn him. So easy. Instead, I simply comb my fingers through. Strange how he looks so different and yet still the same in my eyes.

"What will you do next?" He asks. "After…"

As if I had ever thought there'd be an after . Walking onto the sun was certainly an option, or perhaps drinking holy water laced with garlic. I could find that old vampire hunter, O'Neal, if he's still alive, and give him the kill of a lifetime. But I'm not serious and there is no need to distress Nicholas with such black inklings.

"I have not thought about it," I answer.

"If this is the end, I want to give you something." He holds out a wrist, underside exposed, his meaning plain.

I stare at him and then dismiss the suggestion. "It would kill you. And you may yet have another day."

"I've had enough days, wonderful days" he says softly. "I want to give them to you."

I sit back down in the chair and hold the proffered wrist in one hand. "No," I say and set it down.

He asks, "If I make it into tomorrow, then what?"

He reaches with his fingers and brushes my cheek. I turn my lips into the palm of his hand, still so warm and alive. He says, "I'd rather die with you knowing I gave you something than die alone."

I take his wrist in my hand again, but do not turn it over. I'd rather he not die at all. This is not how this night was supposed to go.

"I'm not afraid, you know," he tells me and I can see in his eyes that it is true.

"And if I am?" I query and that is true too.

He smiles, the light of it reaching his eyes. "I never thought I'd hear such a thing from you." He's silent for a moment and then he says, "Do you remember what I said that night all those years ago about having faith in something beyond?"

"I remember."

"I still have that faith."

I consider this for several moments before turning his wrist over, studying it. I feel my fangs in my mouth. What he asks of me now is like that night. I find myself again hovering in indecision just like then. I could give him my wrist instead and we could start anew.

But he does not want it. If I force him, that will be the end of us. I've known it since he regained his mortality.

This moment, I realize, is not exactly like that fateful night. His request now is not grounded in despair, but something else. Can I really deny him? No matter which course I take, I lose him.

I recall words I spoke to him once: They say if you love someone, let them go…

"Perhaps we'll see each other again," I say, my lips brushing against his skin.

"I know we will," he says, our eyes meeting, and I believe him. I bite down into his wrist, fangs sinking into a vein. He sucks in a deep breath of air, body stiffening for a moment before relaxing again.

I let his heartbeat carry the blood to me. In the blood, he shares the tiny sliver of his mortal life that I saw and then everything else that I didn't see, everything I couldn't see of his lifetime in the light. It overwhelms my senses, but I don't stop. His eyes are closing again as I keep drinking in his days, his gift to me. Given in love, filling that aching place inside me that hollowed out all those years ago.

His heartbeat slows and slows and slows. Then he is gone. I release his wrist, close my eyes, and press his cooling hand to my forehead. Perhaps I've seen enough of death.

I stay that way for hours. Dawn approaches and I don't want to move. I can feel the sun's rays inch into the room until the morning light is touching the back of my head and neck. It is warm, but does not burn.

My chest heaves and there is a choking rattle in my lungs as I start to breathe the loss again and again. My eyes are hot and I can feel tears on my face, tickling as they slide down. One slips into my mouth. And on my tongue is a strange taste that I haven't known for two thousand years. Salt.