Future Mortality

Part 24/?

By Christine Hantzopulos

(Sorry for the cliffhanger, and the short installment, but I just had to do this tonight to thank all the nice people who have been giving me encouragement with almost every part… You guys are the greatest!)

Throughout the ride home, Nick retried their numbers over and over to no avail. With each unanswered ring, his alarm grew. He tried to convince himself that there was no need to worry; it was daylight, as Janette had said. They had most probably gone shopping after lunch, just as he had suggested to Richie in an attempt to keep up a normal façade. But as the car service dropped them in front of the house, and he saw no sign of Natalie’s car, his half-hearted attempts at calm began to fail him. It had been more than two hours. Where could they be?

He called their names in vain as he stepped into the house, looking around quickly for any sign that they had been there. As Richie ran up to the bathroom, Janette came down the stairs, concern on her own face. She obviously hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. She stood in the shadows of the staircase, though Natalie had made a habit of shutting all the blinds tightly for the sake of their visitors.

“Have you heard from them, Nicolas?” she asked.

“No. I was hoping they’d come home. They don’t answer their cell phones. I even called the restaurant where I last saw them. They left two hours ago.” Nick felt as if he would jump out of his skin. Never in his long life had he felt so utterly helpless.

“It’s daytime,” Janette reminded him, putting a comforting hand on his arm. “No vampire could possibly get to them out in the open, unless…”

Her voice trailed off.

“Unless what?!” he nearly cried out.

“Unless there was a human helping them. Luring them somewhere. Were they alone when you last saw them? Was there anyone suspicious around?”

Nick thought he would be sick, as the image of the affable young man who had captured his daughter’s heart swam before him. Janette must have seen his face go pale for she asked, “Nicolas, is there something you’re not telling us?”

Suddenly LaCroix was with them, having heard too much in his slumber to ignore. “By the look on your face, Nicholas, I would guess there is.”

“Oh my God,” he murmured, bringing his hand up to his temple. “This can’t be happening.”

“Calm down, Nicolas, and tell us,” Janette urged him.

He looked up at them, knowing at that moment that he should never have kept this secret from them. It was a mistake that might prove catastrophic. “Dimitri. A dhampir.”

“Dhampir?” LaCroix’s eyes began to glow. “You knew of this and didn’t think it significant enough to mention?”

“Who is Dimitri?” Janette was asking.

Richie had come back down the stairs, stumbling into the conversation. “Dimitri is Niki’s boyfriend. He’s really nice,” he supplied.

“Richie, I need you to think hard,” Nick said, bending down to his son. “Did Dimitri ever tell Niki where he lives?”

“No. Daddy, are Mommy and Niki okay?” he asked, suddenly sensing there was something to be worried about.

“They’re fine. I’m just going to have to go out and see what’s taking them so long. I need you to stay with Aunt Janette, okay?” He looked up at Janette, his eyes begging her to help him in this charade for the little boy’s sake.

“Come on, Richie, didn’t you say you were going to show me that game you and your daddy play?” she asked, smiling at him warmly as she picked him up into her arms.

Distracted, the boy pointed her in the direction of the living room, and she took him there to occupy him while Nick faced his former master.

“You should have told me this, Nicholas,” LaCroix said as soon as the boy was out of earshot. “How foolish of you to let her spend time with another dhampir. He could have anything in mind—even turning her against you and into a Hunter. She’s just a child!”

LaCroix’s seeming fatherly concern for Nick’s daughter only made him feel that much more inadequate. What a fool he had been! For all he knew, his office could have been broken into as a distraction, so that Dimitri would be left alone with Natalie and Niki. “He’s…just a kid himself…” he stammered, still finding it hard to believe that his judgement of character could be so totally wrong. “I didn’t tell you because he was afraid…”

“As he well should be. Do you think that my protection of your daughter extends to others of her kind?”

“LaCroix, he says that Stavros is his father.”

LaCroix’s eyes opened in surprise, but his expression betrayed the satisfaction of a puzzle resolved. “That would explain a great deal. Stavros’ sympathy towards you and your family. His overlooking the fact that you fathered a dhampir, because he himself had done the same. Interesting.”

“But that’s what doesn’t fit, LaCroix,” Nick responded, shaking his head. “I don’t think Stavros would do anything to hurt Natalie or Niki. The boy said he had come here on his own, without his father’s knowledge or permission—“

“Without his permission, but possibly not on his own,” LaCroix said with meaning.

Just then the front bell rang. Nick nearly tripped down the stairs rushing to the door, as LaCroix slipped discreetly into the shadows. He pulled the door open, praying with all his might to see his wife and daughter.

“Andrew?” he said in disappointment and surprise.

“Nick, listen to me. There’s very little time,” he said, walking into the house without being invited. He was clearly agitated. “This is going to sound crazy, but my brother Steven is alive. He’s a—“

LaCroix stepped out of the darkness, and Andy stared at him in shock and realization. “A vampire.”

LaCroix raised an eyebrow.

Nick felt the panic in his stomach explode into an all-out horror. It all made sense now. So much sense.

In rage he grabbed Andy by the shirt collar, no longer able to lift his full weight into the air but propelled by enough adrenaline to knock him off balance. “Where are they?! Is that why you came here?! To help him!?”

“Hey, calm the fuck down,” Andy told him, regaining his balance and grabbing Nick’s wrist to knock it away from him. “I came here to help you! He sent me to get Richie because he’s planning on going off somewhere with them by nightfall. But Nat’s gone into labor and he won’t let her go to a hospital. He’s out of his mind, and Natalie and Niki are terrified!”

“Let’s go,” Nick told him, trying not to let the fear that had gripped him paralyze him. He turned to the drawer by the door where he kept guns with woolen bullets hidden in case of emergency, and began digging them out.

“Nicholas, wait,” LaCroix interrupted as he found the weapons. “If this is the vampire we sensed, he is strong. The two of you as mortals will have no chance against him.”

“Then what do you suggest?” he asked, tossing one of the guns to Andy and sticking the other in the waistband of his pants.

“Wait until sunset, and Janette and I will take him,” LaCroix told him.

“It’s two hours to sunset, LaCroix,” Nick reminded him. “I’m not going to sit around and wait while my wife is about to give birth and she and my daughter are being held by a madman.”

LaCroix stepped towards him, his face resolute and calm as he made the suggestion that somewhere, in the back of Nick’s mind, he had already considered—and rejected—himself.

“Then let me give you the power to face him.”

End part 24