Stock Options 1: Vampires Are Useful...

Vampires Are Useful For More Than Just Hickeys

Hours after Nick had stumbled out of her apartment into the late afternoon sunlight, grinning like a fool, headed off to work and a souvlaki dinner with Schanke, LaCroix came to pay Natalie a visit.

"Doctor Lambert," he said, courteously enough, though the venom in his voice couldn't be masked by so transparent a thing as politeness. "I see you've finally discovered the cure Nicholas has sought for so long."

Nat leaned back in her chair and smiled at him. "Nope," she replied casually.

His eyebrows raised at that -- disbelief at her statement, and honest startlement, for his keen vampire senses would have surely detected a lie, if she'd told one.

"Nicholas," he stated, "has spent the last three hours on the phone with me, smugly describing the glories of sunsets and garlic sauce; and you deny that you've given him back his mortality?"

"I do," said Nat promptly, "because I haven't." She watched his bemusement with glee; it was nice to have caught the formidable LaCroix wholly off guard.

"In that case," he asked her, "pray tell, what have you found?"

Her smile widened into a fierce grin that would have looked quite at home on her adversary's face: it was feral, and full of teeth.

"I think," she said, "I've found my fortune."

Now, he was intrigued; the last traces of his anger disappeared, replaced by consuming curiosity. "Tell me more," LaCroix said.

She waved him to a chair, and he sat down, and listened as she related the tale.

Afterwards, he studied the vial she'd handed him with interest. "A derivative of lidovuterine," he commented.

"I was thinking of calling it the Natalie serum," Nat said, with a note of triumph in her voice.

"How terribly immodest. By all means, the Natalie serum it is." LaCroix chuckled faintly. "Does Nicholas know?"

"What, that it's not permanent? He knows. He doesn't care." She fixed the other with her gaze. "He doesn't feel the vampire inside him," she said, "and that's what matters, as far as he's concerned. He can see the sun again, he can eat, he can," and a light blush colored her cheeks, "do other human things... the symptoms are suppressed; never mind that the disease is still there."

"And you're quite certain that the drug's effects will wear off?"

"Oh, yes. Eighteen hours, like clockwork." Nat frowned slightly. "So far, it seems as if regular doses will work as a maintenance regimen, but I'm not certain if those results will hold... It's definitely temporary, though. And it won't get you high, and it's not addictive. That much, I'm sure of." She eyed him consideringly. "Want to try it?"

His eyes darkened to stormy steel. "If anything untoward happens to me," he mentioned, "I'll kill you."

"I know," said Natalie steadily. "I wouldn't offer it to you if I wasn't sure. Not after what nearly happened to Nick, last time..."

"Mmm." LaCroix thought it over. "All right," he said finally, almost defiantly.

He held very still as she administered the injection; his attention seemed to be turned inward, focused on the changes happening within him. No violent reactions this time: this drug was far more gentle in its effects.

"I don't feel any different," he advanced tentatively, after a few moments.

Natalie got up from the couch and headed to her kitchen, pulled out a liter bottle of cranberry juice and poured two glasses, brought them into the living room and handed one to him.

Dubiously, he sipped it, seemed startled by the taste. "I see," was all he said.

She went to the window and opened the curtains -- hours had flown by, and dawn was lightening the sky. "Come here," she said, and he moved to stand beside her, gazing into the unaccustomed glow unflinchingly. She couldn't help but admire his courage, for he had no evidence but her word that the sun's rays wouldn't cause him harm, and yet he chose to face the danger...

"Ah," said LaCroix, and was silent, staring into the distant sunrise.

"I'll never understand Nicholas," he said at last; there was no malice in his tone, only calm statement of fact. "Why does this matter so much to him?"

"I think," said Natalie carefully, not wishing to offend him, "that he's tired of feeling like a monster."

LaCroix considered that. "I have never felt like a monster," he said conversationally.

She stole a sideways glance at him. "Never?"

"Perhaps once or twice," he conceded, without apparent dismay. "But never with the passion with which Nicholas convicts himself."

"You're better at dealing with your pain than he is," she offered, as an explanation. "Which is a good thing... I think."

"What, no sweeping indictments, no accusations of my evil?" he wondered aloud.

"Well, I've only ever heard Nick's side of the story, right?" she countered. "And there are two sides to every story."

Sudden comprehension lit his face. "As you discovered during the meteorite incident," he probed.

"Mmm-hmmm." She met his piercing stare with her own best defense: absolute, unflagging honesty. "I'm beginning to learn that Nick has a... unique perspective," Nat said. "I love him, but I don't always share his viewpoints... and sometimes he's such an idiot that I just want to slap him..."

LaCroix's eyes widened, and he laughed -- a merry, 'I-know- exactly-what-you're-saying' sort of laugh that Natalie rather liked; it made him seem less remote and formidable, more... well, human.

She stood beside him at the window, thinking that it was remarkable how comfortable she was beginning to feel with him, now that his presence was no longer an imminent threat.

"So this is how humanity is supposed to feel," he said, after a while.

"I guess so," she answered.

"I don't like it," he pronounced.

"You've hardly tried it," she pointed out reasonably.

"I don't need to. Unlike Nicholas, I enjoy my nature." He favored her with a small smile that was anything but innocent. "I have no wish to be anything else."

"Your choice," she replied, undisturbed by his affirmation of the beast within; she hadn't actually expected him to sample her serum in the first place.

"But your potion will certainly revolutionize our society. The ability to deflect suspicion so simply..." She could see him considering and weighing the possibilities inherent in her discovery -- could see him simultaneously figuring the potential profit; from the gleam in his eye, it was significant.

"Tell me," he said, and his utter casualness was in itself a tip-off, "have you considered the possibility of a... business partner?"

Natalie laughed. "Nick said you'd want a piece of the action," she told him.

"Really. And I suppose he advised you to decline..."

"Actually, he said that you'd probably make me my first million within the year," Nat said. "That of all the people he knew, no one was as good at making money as you are. And that, as long as you were getting a fair share of the profits, you probably wouldn't cheat me out of mine."

"Really..." Clearly, LaCroix had not expected such praise from his wayward child.

"Nick's not good with money matters," she said idly, "but of course, you know that."

"I do indeed. He has absolutely no head for business."

"Neither do I, really. When it comes to high finance, I'd just as soon let someone else deal with it." She studied him closely, to see how he'd react. "Someone, you know, really talented with these things. Someone who's been doing it for a long time."

He just looked at her, head tilted slightly sideways, evaluating her offer, evaluating her.

"A long time," Natalie added, just to be certain he'd understood.

"And you believe Nicholas wouldn't object?"

"He's the one who suggested it," Nat said, and watched LaCroix do a double-take. "That's why he's not here; we knew you'd come to see me, and we both knew that if he was here, you two would get to fighting, and nothing would ever be resolved. It seemed a much better idea for you and I to talk privately... don't you think?"

It took him awhile to assimilate all that he'd been told; she let him have the time to think. "You really are serious about this," he said at one point, and she nodded; he fell silent again, and she waited patiently for him to decide.

"Six weeks," he said finally.

Nat roused herself from the reverie she'd fallen into: thinking about some of those 'human things' she and Nick had so enjoyed doing together. "Excuse me?"

"Your first million," LaCroix said. "Six weeks."

She grinned up at him. "I'll hold you to that."

He extended his hand to her, and she took it; his grip was human-firm, under the influence of her drug. "You and I, going into business together..."

"And Nick," said Nat. "You and me and Nick."

"Why?" LaCroix asked. "Your discovery, my financial acumen and marketing strategies -- what will Nicholas add? Why should we share our profits with him?"

There was a gleam in his eye, but it was impossible to tell whether he was joking; Nat opted to play it safe and assume that he was serious, and donned her best fierce glare. "I love him," she said strongly.

"What has that to do with anything?"

"Because I say so," she snapped. Then reconsidered, as a random thought crossed her mind. "Besides, he's our guinea pig," she added, because that was an argument LaCroix would surely understand."

He burst into laughter. "Oh, I like your style!" he said approvingly, and Nat just had to laugh with him.

She gazed out at the sunrise, the beginning of a whole new day -- of a whole new life, actually. A mortal life, and an immortal one; she'd managed to wrest that promise out of Nick, shamelessly preying on his love for her in a weak moment in order to procure that vow. After all, now she could live forever without becoming a killer; what reason was left for him to deny her wish to share eternity with him? He hadn't been hard to persuade...

"This is going to be an interesting decade, I think," said LaCroix from her side.

"An interesting century," said Natalie, "and a profitable one," and she smiled, thinking of the times to come.

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