Early November Evening at the New York City Morgue

by LJ

 

 

Janette DuCharme, having reached the mature, adult age of one thousand years, had become accustomed to certain universal constants:

 

If Lucien LaCroix was upset, it was seven times out of ten Nicolas’s fault;

Nicolas would always think himself in love with some stray mortal woman, put her in danger, and then run off to find comfort in Janette’s eternal embrace;

Mortal fashions may come and go in the blink of an eye, but black is always in style;

All men, mortal and immortal alike, are idiots;

And waking up in dark, cramped spaces is never A Good Thing.

 

Waking up in a dark, cramped space and missing all of her clothing was even less of A Good Thing.

Normally, dark cramped spaces meant a coffin or similar vessel, but the missing clothing – she could feel a lightweight cloth on her bare skin – must mean she had been somehow delivered to a morgue. She catalogued the other clues: the cold air and the electric hum of refrigeration units, the smell of death that permeated even the steel walls of her little prison, the smell of formaldehyde. She sniffed snobbishly at that final item; how could Nicolas spend so much time around Dr. Lambert with that scent clinging to her skin and hair? Perhaps it really was love. Janette gave the idea a decidedly Gallic shrug and moved on. There would be time to consider the romantic machinations of Nicky Knight later. First things first: escaping and feeding.

She tested the small, square walls at her head and feet. The one at her feet was solid, but the one at her head gave ever so slightly; it was the more likely of the two to be the hinged opening she was looking for. She sighed at the travesty of a vampire she had become; no one with style or common sense was caught looking dead by mortals and deposited in a sterile morgue. No wonder Nicolas had been caught. She tried to bring her arms up and back, to push awkwardly at the little metal door, but it was no use: the space was too cramped, the angles all wrong. Someone would have to open it from the outside.

Sighing again, she trained her ears to catch any sound that might mean a mortal was nearby. The steel walls were thick, and the electric hum was annoying and distracting, but finally she heard a mortal heartbeat – a healthy, strong one that was beating just a little fast. With greater concentration, she realized the mortal was crying – a woman. This could be problematic, she told herself; she had always found men easier to hypnotize than women. Perhaps she simply had greater motivation to do it to men. She could still taste the sour flavor of her pimp’s blood all those years ago.

Janette shrugged again and trained her concentration on the woman; the mortal was speaking. Perhaps she was saying her last goodbye to one of the corpses; mortal lives were so short. She strained to hear the mortal woman’s words –

"Nick," said the woman, "please. Ask me. I won’t leave until you ask me. Please, Nick."

Janette frowned in the darkness. She couldn’t feel Nicolas, or smell him – his delicious scent could have been masked by the formaldehyde – but what other possibility was there? She shook her head; her mind felt a little foggy (a somewhat new experience after a thousand years), but she didn’t think the woman was Nicolas’s Dr. Lambert. The heartbeat wasn’t quite right.

The woman continued to barrage Nick with her odd request – what on Earth did she want him to ask her? Janette pursed her lips and made a decision. She was a vampire, after all; if worse came to worst, she could always hypnotize her.

 

Tru Davies had finished crying. She wouldn’t give up hope – Nick would open his eyes and say those two special words to her – "Help me!" – and she would suddenly find herself hurtling back through the previous few hours or days and she would fix things. She had done it before; hell, last time, he had been the one to ask. He’d done it before and he’d do it again. "Please, Nick. I won’t leave until you ask me," she whispered.

"Help?"

Tru looked up and stared at Nick. Something wasn’t right. Something really wasn’t right. The voice came again as she kept her eyes on Nick: "Help?"

It wasn’t Nick.

Actually, it had sounded like a woman. "Hello?" came the voice a third time. "Could you assist me, please?"

Tru pulled herself away from Nick and looked around, listening for the voice. Eventually it came again, just as she was about to give up, thinking she was really and truly going crazy this time. She followed the feminine sound to one of the neighboring refrigeration units and after a moment’s consideration – hearing voices was a bad sign, especially on top of everything else that had been happening to her in the last couple of days – she opened it and pulled out the slab.

It was the slightly exotic-looking Caucasian/female/thirty/black/blue/no-ID that she’d put in there herself, just that morning. Tru stepped back; the woman had definitely been dead – her skin had been beyond icy to the touch.

The woman’s eyes fluttered open, as if adjusting to the light of the morgue, and then Tru gasped. The woman’s eyes were an unearthly yellow. She turned her head and looked at Tru, staring at her for a moment as if she were having difficulty focussing. Not surprising, considering she was supposed to be dead.

"You’re not Dr. Lambert," said the woman. She had a very faint accent. She sat up, pulling the sheet with her as if protecting her modesty, and glanced over at Nick, frowning in disapproval. "And that certainly isn’t Nicolas."

Tru shook her head. This wasn’t exactly her usual game – not that she could really call it "usual" because this whole talking-to-the-dead-and-going-back-in-time-to-save-them thing had only happened twice so far, that she knew of. The last two times, the dead person had just opened their eyes, looked at her, and said, "Help me." That was it. This corpse was practically engaging her in conversation.

"Where am I?" inquired the dead woman. "I do not recognize this place."

Tru found her voice. "The morgue." At the woman’s look, she added, "In New York. The city, I mean. I-I work here."

The woman arched a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. "I see. It seems my family is developing a habit of making the acquaintance of morgue...technicians." She sighed in annoyance. "Do you by any chance know how I came to be here? And where my clothing has disappeared to?"

"Severe head injury," Tru told her. "But..." She looked at the woman. "But you’re fine now. Your skull had been practically smashed in, just last night. And you were dead!"

The woman smirked. "You needn’t worry about that, ma petite."

 

Janette was beginning to find this mortal...intriguing. The girl had fortitude; she hadn’t yet fainted at the idea of the dead reviving. There was something special about her. "And my clothing?" she continued.

"Um...I’m not sure...the police might have it," said the girl. "Um, is there someone you can, I don’t know, call?" The girl’s heartbeat was speeding up a little; she was finally becoming frightened, if only slightly so.

"There is no need of that, Miss Davies."

Janette looked up and saw a familiar figure as it entered the chilled room.

LaCroix.

"Who are you?" demanded the girl. "How did you get past the guard?"

Janette held back the urge to laugh. As if LaCroix would have trouble doing something as simple as that! He ignored the girl as he spoke. "Come, Janette, it is time to remove ourselves from this charnel house."

With grace that had been perfected over the course of a millennia, Janette climbed down from the slab, ignoring the discomfort the rude floor was causing her feet. "I suppose the girl will be easier to convince than Dr. Lambert was," Janette said to LaCroix, "or perhaps it was Nicolas’s technique that was in error."

LaCroix stiffened. "I asked you not to speak those names to me, Janette. Do not try my patience this evening. I guarantee you would regret it."

"Father? I don’t understand. And what are we doing in New York? The last thing I remember, I was in the Raven in Toronto..." Janette was puzzled by LaCroix’s words.

He frowned, glancing between Janette and the young mortal who continued to watch them somewhat slack-jawed. "Janette, what year is it?"

She shrugged the sheet around her shoulder. LaCroix had asked her odd questions in the past, but, as mortals sometimes said, this really took the cake. "Oh, I don’t know. 1992, 1993 perhaps? You know I don’t bother keeping track of such things."

LaCroix looked at the mortal girl. "Miss Davies, please tell her what year this is." It was not a request.

"2003. Almost 2004, ‘cause it’s November," said Tru automatically.

The ancient vampire smiled. Yes, she would be easier to deal with than certain mortals he had encountered in Toronto.

"Ten years?" said Janette in surprise. "What on Earth has happened to me?"

LaCroix hugged her to him. This was not the first time that one of his children had been in this sort of situation. At least Janette knew who, and what, she was. "Miss Davies, did she suffer a severe injury to her brain?"

"Yes."

There. Just as Nicho- it was just as the previous situation. This he could handle. "Janette, I have a car waiting for us just outside. The driver is expecting you. I will handle Miss Davies on my own."

She did not argue; the shock had rendered her momentarily unable to speak. She turned and walked away, the edge of the sheet trailing behind her like a bride’s train.

LaCroix turned back to the young mortal girl and began walking towards her. "Tell me, Miss Davies," he said, "why you were not frightened by Janette’s...resurrection?"

Tru blinked. "It’s not the first time it’s happened."

The answer surprised him. "You have encountered others of our...kind?" This was becoming eerily familiar, and he was in no mood to have a repeat performance of the incidents in Toronto.

"No." The answer was quick. "Something else. It’s happened twice. The dead person opens his eyes, looks and me and asks me to help. And then suddenly, it’s the morning before and I relive the entire day, trying to prevent their death."

"Ah." This explained much, LaCroix mused to himself. True seers were rare, but he had encountered a few in his day. It was a powerful gift, and one not often recognized for what it was; he had seen several brought into mental institutions over the last century or so, because medical science had refused to believe in the existence of this power. In centuries past, mankind had been kinder: either believing whole-heartedly in the seer, or declaring her a witch and killing her outright. Even the tortures that inquisitors had used on them had been kinder and sooner finished than the drugs and treatments and humiliations that modern seers had suffered in western and supposedly civilized countries while being humanely "hospitalized".

"Miss Davies, look at me," LaCroix intoned, catching the mortal’s heartbeat. The expected glazed look fell over her countenance. "You will not remember me. You will not remember Janette’s resurrection and departure. You will not remember our conversation tonight. You do not know what happened to Janette’s body."

"I won’t remember..."

"You will only remember coming into the morgue as you did and visiting this young man before you. You cried yourself to sleep."

"I came to see Nick...I cried...fell asleep..."

Nick? Ah, the dead young man. No wonder Janette had become confused. "You do not believe that the dead can rise again, or in vampires or in any other natural or supernatural cause of such events. However, you will continue to believe, as you already do, that the dead can speak to you."

"The dead speak to me..."

"You will come to appreciate your special gift, your visions, and trust it, regardless of what other people may say about it." He thought about it a moment and then added, "And if ever your gift becomes harmful or dangerous, or you lose control of it, you will seek me out. You will seek out the vampire LaCroix and you will trust that he will do not harm. He will only aid you in your moment of need."

"LaCroix...he can help me...visions..."

"Sleep. Sleep."

 

Dinner with her brother. It was getting to be a regular event. Tru sighed, rolling her head from side to side. Her neck had been stiff all day; she had fallen asleep on the floor at the morgue. Nick was gone. She had barely known him, but she knew that he had lived they could have made something out of their brief partnership.

She glanced out the window and gasped. Across the street, trying to hide in the shadows, was a tall man in a long, dark coat, his head uncovered. He was staring at her with great intensity. She didn’t know why, but he almost seemed...familiar –

"Hey, sis," her brother said, interrupting her concentration. He sat down across from her at the table.

"Hey," she said distractedly. She sighed and looked at him. "Look, I have something to tell you and I know it’s gonna sound crazy, but you have to believe me. Your life depends on it." She glanced out the window but the man was gone.

He frowned and laughed. "Come on, Tru. I didn’t think you went in for senseless melodrama."

Tru sighed again. "What would you say if I told you I was psychic?" she asked hesitantly.

"Is this something about Mom again? ‘Cause, Tru, you gotta let go sometime. It’s been ten years. More than that, even."

Why did everyone think her life revolved around her dead mother? "Look, I’m not joking, and it has nothing to do with Mom, okay? I’m having visions. You want to know why I knew the scores yesterday? I had a vision, all right? And today I had one of you..."

[END]