The Black Taxi Part 2
by Olivia Jean Ecklund
She slipped out and kept her face averted from him as she pulled the collar up around her.

The driver thought, 'maybe she has injuries she doesn't want me to see.' He rejected that thought the minute it formed. She had been at a convention. She was probably just cold. It was a cold night. Her short blonde hair caught a few distant lights and flashed gold. The thick coat was expensive.

She passed in front of him to get on his right side. He caught a whiff of a familiar perfume that brought a lump to his throat. He stuffed the feelings down inside. The scent was common enough.

They started forward and she walked with a slight limp. He offered her his arm, she hesitated for a second, then took it.

The driver felt an almost electric charge when her bare fingers touched bare skin. His coat sleeve had ridden up and it made him jump as he realized no one had touched him in years. Since he had lost her.

They were nearly at the end of the dock. A moon, huge and white, rose out of the water, behind the Statue of Liberty. It seemed to happen so quick as it lit the whole dock.

The woman's voice, a low whisper, broke his thoughts. "Do you remember the first moon we watched together?" She gripped his hand and held it tight.

A knot of panic rose in him. He tried to control it as he gently tried to extricate his fingers from her hand. "Who are you?" he asked. 'Is she crazy?' he thought. He did not want to hurt this woman no matter what her problems were.

She now turned to him, his hand still firmly held in her grip. She drew it to her chest. "Nick." His hand bumped a device on her coat. He felt a button push in.

He froze. He could hear her heartbeat, so familiar. She turned her face up at him.

"Natalie!" He tore his fingers away and turned. "No, you're dead!" He recoiled and nearly fell in his fear. "No," he cried again, "You're dead!" He wanted to run, take flight, but his feet felt glued to the dock beneath him.

"No, Nick, I'm not dead. You didn't kill me." Her voice was a little louder, but still terribly hoarse. But it was Natalie's voice. Nick turned back, nearly blinded with tears. His legs became rubbery and his face was filled with agony and hope. He fell to his knees on the hard wood of the dock.

Natalie slowly dropped to her knees beside him and ignored the splinters that stabbed through her nylons and into her skin. "Nick, you touched me. I'm alive." She gently held his face in her hands and sighed in relief when he didn't recoil again. "Look at me! You didn't kill me."

"Natalie!" he crushed her frail body to him. "Oh my, God, Nat!" She sobbed, harder than when she woke in the hospital alone. "I thought I'd never see you again." His lips crushed hers in a kiss that left them both breathless. He rained kisses all over her face.

She laughed and returned them.

Nick drew her to her feet so that he could feel the full length of her body against his. She had changed. She was painfully thin under the heavy coat. He knew her voice was damaged and she limped. "How could you have survived? How?"

"Please Nick, take me to your place. We need to talk, and I want to see you in the light."

He swung her up into his arms, ran back to the car and put her in the front seat with him. He drove the car with one hand, the other interlaced with her fingers, afraid she might disappear. He felt her eyes on his face. She was full of questions, but she only asked one. "Is he really dead?"

"Yes," Nick confirmed.

They were silent for the rest of the drive.

Natalie scooted closer and raised his gloved hand. His fingertips were exposed through cut off gloves. She pressed his hand to her cheek.

Nick could feel the dampness of her tears against his skin. She kissed his finger tips and never said a word as they pulled into the tiny garage and went up the dark stairs to the dim, sparsely decorated apartment.

"Why do you live like this?" she asked him.

"I thought I'd killed you. I figured Joe Reese had a warrant out for my arrest. It's best for my kind to stay in the shadows, anyway."

"What?" she asked. "There's no warrant. Actually Joe is the one who told me you were here."

It was Nick turn to be surprised. "No warrant? Joe saw me here?"

"A month ago. He was in New York and thought he saw you driving a black cab."

"Why didn't he come after me? I am easy to find if one knows what to look for."

"I told him we had already said goodbye that night. That you had left town. I told him I was devastated and had gone back to the loft, but I was attacked outside. That's where they found me."

"You were outside? LaCroix must have put you there."

"LaCroix came to the loft that night?" she asked, that could explain a lot.

"Natalie, let me take your coat. Get comfortable, then we can talk." When she shrugged out of the coat, Nick could see she was even thinner than he thought. He noticed a small device attached to the pocket. "What's this?" he asked, curious.

She grinned at him. "Modern space age invention. It masks the heartbeat."

"What for?" he curiously, fingered it.

"Not sure. An old inventor friend loaned it to me. I knew if you could hear my heartbeat when I got into the cab, I wouldn't have a chance to talk to you alone."

He hung the coat up and sat her down with her on the couch. He sat and faced her and their knees touched. He reached up and caressed her face and her hair.

"Why did you change your hair?"

She smiled and reached up. Her fingers slid into the hair and she pulled it back to reveal her own hair pinned to her head. "I couldn't have you recognize me too soon."

He grinned at her and as he pulled the pins from her hair. It fell in a cascade of rich dark waves. He ran his fingers through it to spread the dark mass over her shoulders. He leaned closer to bury his nose in her hair, and inhaled the scent that was truly her. "Forgive me, Nat," he cried, overcome with her presence.

"I already have," she said, seriously. "If I hadn't, I would have staked you on the dock."

That got his attention and he pulled back only to find her grin meet his shocked expression. He looked at her curiously.

She explained. "When you spoke of your murdered friend and your reaction when you recognized me, I realized why you hadn't come to see me. You believed there was no one to see. I want to know why you left, but first let me look at you."

She pulled the knit cap from his head and unwound the scarf from his neck. She ran her fingers though the soft, golden, curls and smiled at his mustache and beard. It had felt strange against her face, earlier on the dock. For an ageless vampire, his face did have new lines on it and it surprised her to see them.


The End of Part2.
By Jeannie Ecklund Gersknightlady@cs.com




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