| Tracy could feel
her own heart hammering against her chest as she
stared at the indent the square point made in the thick
black material
of Vachon's sweater. The crazy thought struck her �
what the hell
was a vampire doing with a stake anyway? She
realised belatedly
that is wasn't so crazy.
"Tracy!" She barely heard Vachon's plea above the drumbeat in her ears but she saw him bare his fangs and backed away, terrified he would bite her, equally terrified he wouldn't. Then he flew at her, covering the very short distance in the space between two, blood-pumping thuds... ...and impossibly didn't impale himself. She blinked once. The stake was still in her hand, held upwards and outwards in innate defence, but Vachon wasn't skewered on the end of it. He was lying on the floor, screaming for that final release he'd been so tantalisingly close to. But what she didn't understand, what couldn't believe, was the presence of her highly-strung, straight-laced, uninteresting partner. Her mouth was a long way behind her brain and opened to shout a warning but it was too late. Vachon's teeth had already sunk into his arm... "Nick!" ...biting as she had watched Screed bite when he'd had the fever, watched him drink from Vachon much like Vachon was drinking from Nick now. And far from swooning from shock and blood loss, Nick was speaking softly to Vachon, pushing his thick black hair back from the deep scarring wounds in his face and neck. Nick turned to her and she saw the red/gold of his eyes, realising consciously what a part of her had already worked out. "Pass me those bottles." The voice was so unlike his that she complied without question, handing him the three closest bottles of what she presumed was human blood and watching in dull amazement as he yanked the cork from one with his teeth and drank the entire contents in four or five swallows. Then he turned his attention back to Vachon and Tracy dared a step closer, tuning into the low hum of his words like caresses. "I know who she is, Javi. I can beat her. Just listen to me, listen to what my blood is telling you. Read what's there and believe it. You have to believe it." Nick fingered the black locks and Tracy saw the terrible injuries start to heal, so slowly, as if at first she was merely imagining it. She glanced up, saw Nick down the second bottle seemingly in one long gulp. Her eyes skittered across her partners mutated features, down to his arm where Vachon's iron grip looked to have snapped the bones. The area of flesh around his suckling mouth was red, the blood being urged to the surface. The slices to his cheek and jaw were closing � she was sure now. The third and final bottle was emptied. Nick's words turned to a spoken lullaby. Vachon's eyes started to close, his grip slipping, his teeth losing their ferocious hold on Nick's arm. As he was released completely, Nick eased Vachon�s unconscious form to the roughly carpeted floor, kissing his blood soaked lips, tasting himself there before raising his head. Tracy stared at him, the spell broken, and a thousand questions ripped through her mind on the back of an adrenaline-fuelled scream. But outwardly she remained silent. Nick regarded her with fire in his eyes until the flames cleared to reveal the blue of a summer sky. "LaCroix is my father," he told her. Somehow she heard more, she didn't have to be told. "Will he be all right?" She passed her hand over the thick mass of hair fallen around Vachon's healing face. "Yes. I have to go but I'll come back at sunset... if I can." She wanted to ask who was doing this, and where Nick was going. But she thought she knew the answer, at least to the second part. "When he wakes, tell him�." Nick couldn't finish but Tracy nodded anyway. "I�ll tell him," her throat was blocked with tears and she couldn't speak as she watched her partner disappear from sight around the threadbare drapes and out of the church basement. |