Chapter 22
The light was so bright he almost couldn't bear to look into it, a hand shielding his eyes as he searched the blinding brilliance. He was at the doorway--once again hovering on the threshold between life and judgement. He'd made it back, back to the light. He didn't know how. He didn't care how. He only knew he was here, and he wasn't going to waste the opportunity. He would walk through the door and take whatever judgement awaited him. The mortals around him were now safe. His suffering had come to an end.
Taking a deep breath, Nick started to walk toward the light. As he moved to take the first step, his body refused to respond. He was frozen in place. Looking down at his feet, he tried to get his legs to move, but something was holding him back. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his muscles to obey.
As he fought the unseen force that restrained him, the vampire gazed back into the light. His struggles suddenly ceased as he saw something move--a shadow. The guide? It had to be the guide. But.... No. There was more than one. Raising his hand again, Nick squinted. One, two.... There were two shadows.
The silhouettes stopped in the doorway, silent, awash in the dazzling brightness that poured from behind them. Nick studied the forms, a startling recognition nearly sending him to his knees. "Schank? Amanda?" The uncertain whisper almost caught in his dry throat.
"Nick?" A small voice said his name.
The painfully familiar sound hit him like a blow from a sledgehammer trained at his gut. "Elliot?" The question came in the form of a tortured sob.
"Nick?" The tiny voice spoke again as Nick watched a third shadow move to stand in front of the others. It stopped just on the other side of the doorway.
Through tear-blurred eyes, the immortal looked down at the silhouette of a child. "Elliot?"
"Nick, aren't you coming with me? Please, Nick." The boy held out his arms. "Please come with me."
"I'm trying, Elliot." Nick struggled to move his still uncooperative body. "I'm trying."
It was then that the vampire felt hands on his upper arms, like bands of steel holding him in place. Turning his head, he looked behind him and came face to face with his captor. Staring back at him was his own likeness, an evil grin forming along the cruel mouth. A thick revulsion rose in his throat as the double sneered, "Naughty boy. You don't belong there, Nicholas de Brabant. You know that."
The twin started to laugh, a sinister sound that sent a sickened shudder shooting through Nick. As he stared in horror at the snickering mirror image, he shrank from the blood-stained fangs that were revealed. His eyes dropped from the hideous sight, only to be confronted by the creeping, slimy soul of the being who held him, his jailer's chest alive with the movement of the hundreds of maggots that infested it.
"No!" Nick closed his eyes against the damning truth. "No!"
"Nick?" The young voice spoke again.
"Elliot?" The tormented immortal looked back into the light. "I'm sorry, Elliot. I'm so sorry."
"Please, Nick." The shadow lifted its small arms higher in invitation. "Please?"
"Elliot!"
The guttural scream broke from Nick as his eyes sprang open, his breath coming short and fast over dry, parted lips. Running a soothing tongue over those lips, he blinked. The graying sky stared down on him from the skylight, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was in the loft. It had only been a dream, a terrifying, frustrating dream. But.... A foreboding awareness seized his thoughts. The dream had been more than a dream. It had been a nightmare. And more than that, it had been an unforgiving glimpse at his reality.
Sitting up, he swung his feet to the floor, and rested his arms on his knees. He recalled the awful dream very clearly. Elliot, Schank and Amanda Cohen stood on the other side of judgement, while his polluted soul held him from the release he so desperately wanted.
Nick's eyes settled on the half-empty bottle of blood sitting on the coffee table as he tried to push the abhorrent vision from his head. After he'd run from the funeral home last night, he'd come back to the loft, the tortuous image of the tiny casket burned in his mind. He had tried to lose himself in the blood, but after two bottles, he still hadn't lost sight of the picture. Sometime around dawn, before he'd had a chance to finish the third bottle, he'd found refuge in sleep. But the reprieve had been short-lived when the dreaming started.
The sight of Elliot standing at the threshold, small arms beckoning, reappeared in the vampire's head. A painful groan shattered the room's eerie stillness as he grabbed the bottle off the table. The blood was warm and rich as it bathed his mouth and flowed down his throat. So, why did he still feel so empty?
Its contents gone, Nick returned the bottle to the table. Leaning back on the couch, he glanced up at the skylight again. The sun was going down. The day was ending. Elliot's funeral was over, his small body laid to rest in the cold darkness of the ground.
Closing his eyes, his head moved slowly from side to side. With the realization came a fresh wave of pain and guilt. "Elliot, please forgive me. Please." The murmur came as a red tear rolled down his cheek.
"Nick?"
The quiet voice from his nightmare sounded so real, so close. Nick's eyes popped open as his body froze, every muscle jolting to a hard stillness. The utterance didn't seem to come from one direction, but from everywhere, from all around him. From inside him? He was imagining it, of course. It was only in his head, an unkind figment of his troubled fancy. He listened, breathless, for another call, but it never came. A few more seconds of silence, and he felt the tension leave him. The grief and guilt were having their way with him, combining to perpetuate this brutal trick of the mind. Or perhaps he was simply going crazy? No. He wasn't quite there yet.
Shaking off the illusion, Nick plucked the bottle from the table and turned toward the kitchen. But before he could take one step, he found himself rooted to the floor, his eyes confronting a sight that drew a startled gasp of disbelief from him. A few feet from the elevator door stood Elliot. Or...what appeared to be Elliot.
No, Nick silently insisted as he shook his head. This isn't real. He isn't here. He can't be here.
His eyes were playing a trick on him, just as his ears had done only moments ago. He was conjuring this ghostly image, his wish for Elliot's life giving his mind the power to generate this heart-breaking delusion. There were no such things as ghosts. Ah...but he knew better, didn't he? He'd seen ghosts in the past. Talked to them, in fact. Erica had come to him after her death. So too his beautiful Alyssa when he had entered Kessle House. Yes, he'd had encounters with spirits before, but he had hoped for more for Elliot. He had hoped for peace.
Mortal souls found peace after death. Nick clung fiercely to that notion no matter what his previous experience. Believing that Elliot was at peace was the only thing that offered him any kind of solace, any modicum of relief. Elliot was in a better place, at rest, at peace--safe. He had to be. Please, God.
Nick closed his eyes. This was simply another way for his conscience to put him through more hell.
"Nick?"
Slowly, he opened his eyes to the hesitant voice. The vision had moved closer, now standing a few feet away at the back of the couch. The small, freckled face beamed a familiar smile, and the enchanting picture made the lump in Nick's throat that much harder to swallow.
"You aren't real." Nick finally spoke, the numbness permeating his mind mirrored in his bewildered tone.
The smile on the young face faded as the visitor vigorously nodded. "Yes, I am, Nick. It's me...Elliot."
"But...how?" Even after he encounters with Erica and Alyssa, Nick still found it difficult to easily accept what was happening. Maybe he just didn't want to accept it. "How can you be here?"
The ghost's brilliant grin returned as he began to move. Nick watched with wonder as the presence walked around the couch to face him. The action was fluid, very fluid. The child appeared to be walking, his legs making the necessary motion, but as he stopped and stood next to the coffee table, Nick realized his visitor wasn't touching the ground, his small, sneaker-clad feet hovering an inch or so off the floor.
"How?" Nick repeated as he continued to stare in perplexed disbelief.
"Because--" The vision stepped forward. Stopping a foot or so from his host, his body levitated farther off the ground, and he placed a hand over the vampire's heart. "Because I'm here, Nick. That's how. You've always kept me here, and I'll always be here. I'll always be with you. I love you."
Nick drew a sharp breath as the hand settled on his chest, his eyes widening as he looked down into the angelic face of his visitor. He should have felt the weight of the small hand, but he didn't. There was no physical sensation of contact at all. It looked as though the boy was touching him, the tiny hand appearing opaque, solid, as it rested over Nick's heart. But there was no feeling of being touched, no weight or pressure characterizing the contact. Instead, a rich warmth poured from the vision's touch, a soothing heat that radiated from the point of connection to spread throughout Nick's entire body. The comforting glow wrapped him in a rare contentment that calmed his tormented thoughts. The peace he wished for Elliot enveloped his heart like a gentle embrace, the love a forceful rush as it pushed its way past the barriers of suffering and self-hatred. Nick's eyes fluttered shut as he basked in the precious feeling of tranquility. It was beyond anything he'd felt in almost 800 years. And with the tender warmth came an understanding acceptance, a true belief that this wasn't a hallucination, that this was indeed his young friend. Looking back into the beautiful, happy face before him, Nick smiled. "Elliot." The serenity that cradled his heart finding its way into that one, simple word.
The child nodded. "Yes, Nick. It's me."
"Why? Why are you here?"
"You're sad." Elliot's brown eyes clouded with unhappy concern. "I don't want you to be sad. I want to help you."
"How...how can you help me?" Nick wondered out loud.
The boy removed his hand from the immortal's chest, a reassuring smile returning to his face. "I can give you what you think you need."
Quietly, Nick mourned the loss of the child's ethereal touch, the calming warmth dissipating quickly in the absence of the contact. But a trace of the reassuring love still lingered over his heart and in his mind, and he clung to it fiercely as he contemplated what the boy had said. As before, on that fateful night of the concert, Elliot seemed to possess an insight and maturity far beyond his years. And as he looked into the compassionate eyes of his little friend, he tried to understand that maturity. "What I think I need?" he repeated with more than a small amount of confusion.
"Yeah." Elliot lowered himself to the floor and walked to the other side of the coffee table, his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans. Nick hadn't noticed until now that the boy was dressed in the same thing he wore on the night of his death. The recognition bit sharply into the vampire's newfound veil of well-being as the child continued. "Forgiveness. You think you need forgiveness."
"I don't need forgiveness?" The answer only served to confuse the immortal further.
"Oh, we all need forgiveness, Nick. You especially. But not for something you haven't done."
Nick's amazement at the deeper insight was overshadowed by an angry stubbornness as he understood, and quickly dismissed, Elliot's meaning. Stepping around the coffee table, he stopped in front of the fireplace before turning back to face the spirit, the annoyed impatience entering his tone. "I know what I've done. I know what I am responsible for." Painful regret thickened his voice as the anger disappeared. "I'm so sorry, Elliot. So very sorry."
"But my death wasn't your fault, Nick." The boy joined the vampire at the fireplace, a youthful determination in his step. A slight frown tainted his expression as he shook his head. "That's what I'm here to tell you. You aren't responsible for what happened to me."
As Elliot moved his head from side to side, Nick spied the mark on his neck. It was just as he remembered it, a deep cut over two puncture wounds. Only the few droplets of blood were missing. With the glimpse came a flood of unwanted memory. Tony leaning over Elliot's lifeless body. The numb disbelief. The violent anger. The excruciating pain. The free-flowing tears as he ran sharp glass over his friend's skin. Nick seemed unable to pull his gaze from the grotesque injury as the sorrow of that night engulfed him anew. Slowly, he raised a hand, unconsciously reaching out to touch the fatal mark. But his fingers encountered nothing but air as they moved freely through the presence standing before him. As before, what appeared solid, was not.
Nick's hand fell to his side. He watched Elliot reach up and touch the wound, the boy's frowning expression becoming colored with a splash of panic. The fear vanished quickly, but not before a realization struck the vampire. Through the reawakened anguish of that terrible night, he became aware of an abhorrent truth. "You know what killed you, don't you? You know what I am."
"Yes." Elliot stuffed his hand back into his pocket. "I know." Moving a step closer, his voice took on a heavy note of conviction. And once again, he sounded much older than the six-year-old boy who had stolen Nick's heart. "But it doesn't make any difference, Nick. You're my friend. I want you to be happy."
"Happy?" The incredulous word shot from Nick as the absurdity of the idea of happiness brought his skepticism to the surface. "I'm the reason you were killed, Elliot. How can you want me to be happy? Why don't you hate me?" The immortal angrily pointed to himself, bitter tears of self-condemnation welling up in his eyes. "Why don't you hate this unnatural monster who let you die?"
"Hate you?" The child shook his head, his eyes widening in shock. "Gosh, Nick, I could never hate you. I'm here because I love you. Nothing's changed that. You're a vampire. But you're a vampire who was my friend and loved me. You're not the terrible thing that hurt me. You've never hurt me, Nick. My death wasn't your fault. You've got to believe that. You've got to forgive...forgive yourself."
A red tear spilled down Nick's cheek as he listened to the love in the young voice that pleaded for his happiness. That he should command such kindness and affection baffled him. He knew he was undeserving. Who less deserving than a vampire, a murderer? But as he continued to gaze into the beloved face of his spectral visitor, Nick also came to realize that, in some strangely compelling way, he was also blessed. Cursed, and made undeserving, by the choice he'd made 800 years ago, yet blessed by the choices he'd made in this most recent incarnation of life, his mortal companions offering him a wealth of devotion he'd never dreamed possible.
'You've got to forgive...forgive yourself.' The statement replayed in his head, and Nick pondered the wisdom of the words. It seemed that with death, came awareness. And with awareness, innocence was compromised. What extraordinary things had Elliot learned when he'd crossed the threshold into judgement and beyond? This image that stood before Nick was, and was not, the same child he had known. The young, innocent boy was still here, but a perceptive maturity hovered in his eyes and in his words.
'...forgive yourself.' How could he absolve himself of what he'd done? But more importantly, how could Elliot? And...did Elliot? Could the boy really forgive him?
Another tear escaped Nick's eye as he finally found his voice. "Can you forgive me, Elliot?"
An easy smile curved the child's lips as he moved closer. As before, he stopped less than a foot from his host and raised himself farther off the ground. "There's nothing to forgive, Nick." His hand reached out and, once again, rested over the vampire's heart. "But if you need to hear it from me, yes. Yes, I forgive you. I love you."
Another wave of warmth and commitment flowed from the spirit's touch, and Nick allowed himself to get lost in it, silently rejoicing in the knowledge that Elliot could forgive him. As he blinked away a new surge of tears, the immortal saw the boy look toward the ceiling as if listening to some unheard sound. With a subtle nod of his head, Elliot's attention returned to Nick, the broad smile still lighting his expression. "I love you, Nick. Never forget. I love you."
"I love you too, little man." The vampire watched with dazed sadness as the vision of his small friend slowly faded from sight. Taking a step forward, he glanced around the soundless loft. "Elliot?" But there was no answer. He was alone.
Closing his eyes, Nick took a deep breath. Did that really just happen? The lingering sensation of peaceful tenderness that warmed his cold body told him yes. It had really happened. As remarkable as it seemed, Elliot had been here. Elliot had forgiven him.
But.... Nick looked up at the skylight, the exquisite feeling of freedom soothing his mind suddenly deserting him. Could he do as Elliot asked? Could he forgive himself? He wasn't sure. The boy's appearance didn't change what had happened. It didn't change the fact that Elliot had been endangered by Nick's presence in his life. It didn't change the fact that leaving was the only way to protect Natalie and the rest of the humans around him. Would the forgiveness, if he could find it for himself, alter what he had to do? Would it change his need to leave this life? He shook his head. No. It changed nothing. He still had to leave. It was the only way.
End Chapter 22