Midnight's Kiss
emeralddarkness

Summery: [Companions of the Night by VVV) The vampires are coming, the vampires are coming![NEED BETA.)
Rating: PG-13/T
Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize, that being the property of the lovely Vivian Vande Velde. Anything that you do not recognize, however, is MINE so don't steal it or I will HUNT YOU DOWN.

So, before I start this, let's say something. I'M SORRY. I am not dead, nor have I been locked up for the past… ah, almost 2 years (wince, wince; cringe, cringe) which really makes my leaving this story hanging so long unforgivable. I haven't even forgotten the story. I can't decide if that is good or bad (good – I didn't forget it; bad – so what excuse can I give) but at least I didn't forget it. That's a bonus. Right?

Once again, I'm sorry. This canon has a small but loyal fanbase, and I'm sorry that those of you who were reading this before and are still reading it (or stumble across it again, either one) that you had to wait so long for an update. So now that that's over with, would you like to hear the excuses? Ok, here are the excuses.

I was finishing up High School first, and my schedule was quite literally nothing but AP and Early College classes, which I had to pass. Once I graduated I got not just one but two jobs, which meant my free time was still nil. And then my computer (which had had nothing but a floppy drive to transfer files with – no CD burner, no internet, etc etc – and I ran out of floppies and couldn't make it to the comp store for more) died (yes, this is the second comp this has happened to), taking all of my stories with it – including the future chapters of this one. That meant I had to start re-writing from scratch, and when I tried that I couldn't get back into the writing style I had when I started writing this, as it's changed (hopefully for the better) quite a bit since then. So then I tried rereading (online – lost the ones I had on the comp, remember) to try and pick up where I left off and no, I decided that I had to rewrite it. So here we are. Hopefully this version is better – it's longer, certainly.

A few more things before I actually let you read the chapter – 1. I. NEED. A. BETA. READER. Look at it this way – a beta'er can hound me for the next chapter in a more interactive way then just with reviews. Sound good? Drop a review, I'll send you an email. And 2., I'm not going to put a disclaimer at the beginning of every chapter – up at the top there applies to the whole story. Ok? Ok. Thanks.

Chapter One

Tic. Tic.

Kerry Nowicki lay on her bed and watched her alarm clock count down seconds, watched as the red hand moved again and again and again. Watched time pass, and wondered at it all.

Tic. Tic. Tic.

It had been a year since she'd seen him. A year of counting seconds, a year of this odd feeling that nothing was ever going to change as things changed at an almost vicious pace, the clock and the passage of time reaching inside her chest and squeezing her heart in a motion that felt like pain as, paradoxically, absolutely nothing changed. Oh it was stupid, of course – stupid of her and pathetically hopeful (or maybe hopeless… jeez, why wasn't she resigned yet?) – but she couldn't. She'd tried, but she couldn't forget about him. She'd tell herself that she was going to, order herself to forget about him-

-it was only just a silly little crush anyway, he'd probably forgotten all about her, it was really pathetic to keep on thinking about him, to be hung up after all this time, she needed to move on, she was living in the past, this wasn't healthy-

-and then she'd go out, newly resolved, and she'd see a blue car drive by that she'd think for just a moment might be his or when she was working, checking out person after person after person, she'd see someone move with a familiar grace or she'd think she'd catch the glint of impossibly blue eyes in an almost familiar face and she'd loose it again. Possibly this was the reason she'd become what Ian liked to call a hermit. And fine, it was true, she didn't go out a lot and she didn't do much of anything but that was because it seemed like whenever she tried she saw him in the face of some random stranger or someone would walk by and she'd think that they looked familiar or this or that….

I really need to stop living in the past, she thought again. It didn't have any more affect then the last time she'd told herself that, about two minutes ago, but hey, at least it was something. At least she could tell herself 'I tried' when she got fed up with how pathetic she was being. Again.

Stupid thing. Kerry closed her eyes and once again he was there – teeth flashing in a smile and black hair hanging into his eyes and blue eyes glinting in that wicked, dangerous, impossibly alluring way that she remembered way better then she should. He. Him. He-him, her vampire who she was trying not to name because she was trying to let go, to move on. It wasn't working particularly well. The girl sighed then shook her head, as though she thought she could physically shake the image away (not that it worked, of course – it never did) and opened her eyes again. She held Corny out at arms length and regarded the bedraggled unicorn.

"So what am I supposed to do, huh?" she asked the toy. Corny, predictably, said nothing. Kerry rolled her eyes - half at herself and half at the unicorn - then pulled her back and hugged her. "Don't understand why I bother asking you anything," she muttered good naturedly to Corny. Oh well. At least she wasn't so far gone that her toys started talking back. She was crazy enough as it was. Because really, what else could you call this continuing obsession over someone who'd probably not thought of her since she'd last seen him, just over a year ago? Honestly? Especially as that she'd only known him for all of three days. Not even just that, actually – how many times had he threatened to kill her in the space of those three days? How many times had he lied to her?

Nuts, that's what it was. Crazy.

"I've lost it," she told the unicorn in a conversational way. She sighed again. "I should just forget him. Forget everything."

Only….

"… stupid vampire."

She couldn't seem to help it; that was the real problem here. He was trapped in her thoughts like a fly in amber – or not trapped, trapped made it sound like she had some kind of control here and she didn't. He'd seized her thoughts, taken them over, spread throughout her mind until it was really hard for her to find something that she could do without being reminded of him. And when she did nothing at all….

She'd long since lost count of the number of times he'd changed her in her dreams. He'd be there and he'd ask her if he could change her and half the time she'd say no and half the time she'd say yes – when she said yes he'd gently tilt her head to the side and lower his mouth to her neck and there would be a brief prick, a moment of pain, then she'd be lost in a sweet, seductive, heady rush that felt like nothing she'd ever experienced before and when she said no then either he'd accept that or he wouldn't and when he didn't she'd run but it was never far enough or fast enough and there were lips and then teeth at her neck and a pain so fierce that it was joy as he drank her blood and it felt so good that the world might end and she would neither know nor care-

Kerry wondered yet again if she'd do things differently if given the chance to do so. Yet again she was left without an answer. Possibly the problem was that despite the fact that she was reminded at him of every turn she still had no idea what to make of him. Then again, what was one supposed to make of a vampire who one began one's acquaintance with by supposedly saving his life and then who drove you home and then who pinned you to a wall and threatened to kill you too and then who teased you and then who used you and who you fell in love with without noticing…?

Not that it mattered, since he'd probably forgotten all about her in the time since she'd last seen him. Briefly the thought left her annoyed – you'd think that someone who was immortal, who knows practically everything, who was teaching himself JAPANESE of all things in his spare time, would have a better memory then that – and then the feeling faded and she was left feeling mildly depressed yet again.

Stupid vampire.

"What am I supposed to do, Corny?" she asked, and her voice was soft and quietly despairing. What could she do, after all?

Nothing.

He'd forgotten her, she just needed to move on. Unrequited love – as good as it sounded in the stories – in reality really sucked. It was bad for her, she needed to move on – she needed to be human, lead a relatively normal life. Or as normal a life as she could have anyway, given that she knew about a slightly darker side of the world, one that was supposed to only exist in storybooks but somehow didn't, had stepped from the pages of a horror novel and into reality and somehow lost some of the horror along the way because vampires were real people-

It would probably be easier if she could at least contact him to tell him that she was forgetting him and so he could just bug off and please-move-out-of-her-head-thank-you-very-much but she couldn't even do that. It wasn't like she had phone number or even a mailing address. Oh sure she knew where the house that she so admired, the one with the piano where he'd played for her after her own utterly pathetic attempt to play something was and it had belonged to Ethan – or at least his fictitious uncle. But 'Ethan' was dead now, killed by Gilbert Marsala, so the house was empty. He was elsewhere. This hadn't stopped Kerry leaving notes in the slim little mailbox that was nailed next to the front door once or twice when she was feeling particularly desperate. One time she'd even left a photograph.

It had been months ago now – their dad had decided to splurge and take them all to California over the summer. They'd gone to Disneyland and Ian had nearly blown a gasket over being able to actually meet Buzz Lightyear (that picture was SO cute), but the photo in question had been taken at the beach. It had been nearly one o'clock on a cloudless day and the waves were sparkling in the light, the sky was so perfectly, heart-rendingly blue that it had made Kerry think of his eyes. She and Ian were playing with an inflatable beach ball in the surf as the waves curled behind them and swimmers splashed and people sunbathed. And… and even though Kerry had sand all over her and her hair was wet and tangled and she'd never loved the bathing suit she'd been wearing, Kerry liked the photo. She was laughing in it and (despite the bathing suit) she thought she looked good. For a person who'd never been very photogenic, it was a triumph.

When they got home and the film was developed they'd looked through the photos, and that one had made Kerry pause. She remembered what he'd said at the end there, about wanting to see her in the sunlight, and for some reason….

It was probably stupid and sentimental and all sorts of other things that she didn't want to encourage in herself but… she wanted him to see it. Luckily her Dad always got double prints so she'd taken one of them. Later that day she snuck out to the house and dropped it in his mailbox, feeling like a spy as she did so, along with a note saying what it was. And it was gone. She knew this for a fact because the next day when she'd lost her nerve again and gone back to collect the photograph it had been.

She'd been unsure as to if she should feel hopeful or nervous when she found that, but in the end it hadn't mattered anyway. If he had gotten it then it didn't seem like he cared. Which might, actually, be for the best. He didn't care; now she just had to work on her own feelings.

She'd only spent three lousy days in his company, and it wasn't even full days – could people honestly fall in love that fast? Fine, judging by the fact that it was a year later and she was still obsessing probably, but…. He probably thought she'd just been a silly little girl with a crush and that she'd gotten over it by now. Hah. She wished. It made no sense, given all that he'd put her through, but she couldn't forget him when she tried. Not that he knew that. As far as he knew she might not have given him a second thought in months. He probably thought that when she'd said she loved him she was only a silly little girl with a crush on him. Or maybe he knew and just didn't care. He'd doubtless seen it all before in his long, long life. Maybe that was the reason he hadn't called, hadn't written, hadn't visited….

Her heart hurt, and Kerry bit her lip to keep from crying as she hugged Corny hard.

Her family couldn't understand why she didn't get out more, her dad had asked her more then once if she wanted to talk about it. Like she could talk to them, to any of them. But that didn't stop all the conversations.

"You're an attractive girl, Kerry," her father said, with that half worried, half confused look that he had, one that he usually wore while trying to figure out the cooking instructions for a microwave pizza. "I just can't see why you don't have a boyfriend yet."

"Daaaaaaad," she'd moaned. "Listen, I don't want one."

"Is that really all that it is?"

"Yes! Dad, please stop trying to psychoanalyze me. Really. You pay someone for that, remember?"

"Well…."

"Daaaaaaaaaaaaad…."

Not quite true, that, but what was she supposed to have said? 'Yea dad, I'd like a boyfriend but am unfortunate enough to have the boy that I like not only not at all interested in me in that way but also to be a member of the undead'? Nuh-uh. They were STILL making her do the whole psychology thing (given the guilt she must be suffering over killing a man, however much he might deserve it and however much of an accident it might have been) – she wasn't about to come right out and convince them she was nuts now. That would mean more therapy and possibly medication that she didn't need and didn't want and all sorts of other inconveniences. Going to the shrink was bad enough.

Oh, Dr. Thomkins was certainly nice enough but Kerry thought that, for psychology to do much good, you had to be honest. That was something that she had problems with, because if she'd told the entire story then they've had her committed. So she endured the sessions, making up as best she could all of the little things she was supposed to and the guilt she was feeling over killing someone and just wishing that they'd stop making her go. The sessions, and lying to someone who probably cost more then they could really afford, gave Kerry headaches. And it wasn't as if she could really talk about what was bothering her, despite the fact that it would be a relief.

'Oh no, Doctor, I'm not still a social pariah because I'm still feeling guilty about killing someone who was gonna kill me anyway. Nope, it's not because other kids are scared of me for killing him either.

'Nah, see, the real reason I've taken to hiding indoors and being so strange outdoors is that it turns out that vampires are real and they exist with us and that sort of revelation kind of blows your mind, you know? What? Oh no, it's true. My wanna-be boyfriend is one.

'By the way, I've been meaning to tell you – Professor Marsala actually didn't kidnap me, it was this vampire hottie who I thought I saved only I didn't. Oh yea. And then he dragged me around for a few days and I helped him steal a car and hide a corpse and set fire to- wait a second, where are you going with that straightjacket?'

Yea, that would be good.

It was true that Kerry didn't exactly feel guilty about killing Professor Marsala. Sometimes she was worried that she wasn't more worried about that, but he'd been going to kill her and it was an accident anyway and after a few nights waking up screaming and some throwing up early on she'd gotten used to it. Maybe the thing that bothered her most wasn't that she'd killed a man but that she'd killed him in the defense of a creature already dead. One who'd seemed to have forgotten her. And it was hard, knowing that she was a murderess on account of a creature who couldn't be bothered to drop a note saying that he was still alive, let alone come visit. Harder knowing that she loved him. Still loved him, despite all rational protestations. And then, of course, there was the small fact that fiction was no longer simply fiction for her. There were vampires, and they were real. And now every time Kerry saw a news report of someone murdered or someone who had died in gang wars or from drug overdose or anything of the kind, she wasn't sure if she could trust it. It was sort of horrible, but it was the way things were.

'Why haven't I started interacting with people again?' she asked Dr. Thomkins in her head – this was one of the major themes, and she was sick of it. Over and over and over again – sometimes, when bored, she'd imagine scenarios in which she told the truth. They always ended up the same way and there was a limit to how many times that could be funny, but she tried to be creative with it. 'No, I'm over the guilt. It's still sort of strange, but I'm ok with it, you know? I'm more worried about the fact that the people I'm talking to might be vampires and I'd never know. Unless, you know, I threw some Holy Water at them. Only that doesn't work, you know? So I'd have to meet them in the middle of the day and- no, I don't want to try on the nice straightjacket-' Methodically, with an ease that came of practice, she shoved the slightly sick feeling back once again. Then again, there was always the chance that she really was crazy and had invented Michel/Ethan thing to protect her from guilt. Or something. As usual (she'd thought of the idea for the first time a few months ago and, like so many such, it just refused to go away no matter how stupid it was) she shoved it away again. No way. Fine, she might not have physical evidence either way but she couldn't have imagined all that. It was way too real.

Maybe Dr. Thomkins been talking to Dad too about the whole needing-to-go-out-more thing – it would explain why he was suddenly so concerned about the fact that she'd gone on a grand total of two dates, and not with the same boy. One of them, she thought, might have asked her out on a dare – which was a real confidence builder. Yes, fine, she wore a lot of black nowadays. That didn't mean she'd bite someone. Yea, ok, so she was more quiet then she'd been previously and had the infamous honor of having killed someone by shoving him down a flight of stairs and-

Ug. Well, this wasn't helping.

Funny that they should call her the 'Queen of the Dead' though. Ha ha, if only they knew….

Vampires.

The fact that there were real life vampires out and breathing, that We Are Not Alone, hadn't much phased her during the crazy three day sleep deprived, terrified stint she'd spent running around and committing more crimes then she'd ever even dreamed of next to someone who was a vampire himself. She'd since become convinced that she'd been so calm about it then for a few reasons. The main one was that there were more important things to focus on.

Vampires? Cool. It was the vampire hunters (who were still loonies, even if their prey apparently did exist) that she had to worry about. It wasn't the vampires who'd made off with her family. Of course, it probably also didn't help that she was running on almost no sleep and her one ally (kind of) was a vampire himself. It made everything seem almost surreal. By the time she'd come to grips with that, really had, by the time her brain had snapped out of the mildly hyperaware, focused state it had gone into at how close she was to dying, she'd already started to fall. And then he seemed almost normal – it was a dizzy, dreamlike few days. He was her only company; he was normal. Funny how different everything seemed when you had more contact with the outside world then a newspaper and a few people you said hello to over breakfast.

Later, after everything was done and over and they were staying in a small room in the Comfort Inn that the police had procured them while their house was still being picked through – and, after that, repaired – it had hit her. She hadn't stopped shaking for two days. It was hard, after all, finding out that the things you'd grown up being taught were true weren't true after all, that the universe was a darker and scarier place then you'd been led to believe. The questionings hadn't helped matters. How shaken she really had been feeling had helped with it, at least, so something came out of it. Something.

It had scared her, in a way, how easy it had been to lie. Kerry had never been good at lying – it just didn't come naturally – but her time with the vampire seemed to have awakened acting skills that she'd never known she had. She'd told the story he'd given her to tell; told it not just faithfully but well. She'd glided through the lies like a snake, filling in details and acting in a manner that, in her opinion, she should get an Oscar for. It had been so easy though, frighteningly easy, as her voice trembled and broke when she told them how scared she'd been. When she told them she heard strange sounds and loud music and something like a scream, only she couldn't tell because of the music. When she'd told them how he'd grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out to the living room, of the smoking blood covering walls and floor and the burned rug. She'd told them how Gilbert Marsala had said she was a vampire, how he'd told her the devil had whispered it to him in the night, how he had to burn out all the vampire blood to cleanse the earth-

And then the questions would start. "What else did you see?" they would ask – they'd asked about the gun, about the vampire case. She'd told them she didn't know what the case was but that he'd said he was going to cut her head off so that she couldn't come back, that the gun wasn't for that, the gun was just to make sure that she couldn't run- It had been when he'd started raising it that she'd screamed and pushed and run for the stairs.

Michel had calculated correctly, of course – the police believed her story. She'd rehearsed it enough in her head that she didn't slip up during questioning, and as for the rest… well, he was a good liar. He knew the lies people would believe. He knew how to mix fact with fiction – the real with the unreal – just enough to deceive nearly perfectly. Kerry didn't have his acting skills, but she could tell this lie.

Kerry hadn't seen the house again, but she had seen a few photos and had been impressed with them. Michel had been through, of course – he always was. He'd spattered the walls and floor with his blood and scorched it with sunlight, scattered some more cloves of garlic in a way suggestive of movement and what kind, wiped the prints off of everything that had them. Regina's car keys had been found, of course – Professor Marsala was now the suspected arsonist in that case as well. Given what he'd done to his own home, after all, and that he'd talked of 'burning' the vampire blood out he'd apparently had an affinity with fire…. Regina still hadn't turned up (of course she hadn't) so there were now two murders that the police had connected to his name.

The whole affair made Kerry feel somewhat sick.

Ironically, perhaps, the biggest mystery remaining was what had happened to the bodies of Ethan Bryne and Regina Jacobson. No one could find them – or would find them, if Kerry guessed right. One, after all, was still 'alive' and the other was only just recognizable as anything human. It had looked ancient; on the off chance that the police or detectives or… well, anyone ever managed to find Regina's body they might well think it was one of the peat bog mummies, or whatever they were called. She doubted they'd be able to identify it. If nothing else, there was the fact that Regina had been a vampire; she'd have been careful about DNA and dental records and Kerry couldn't honestly think of another way that they'd be able to find out who she was. So it would remain a mystery. Forever. Great, one more thing to weigh down on her conscience.

Kerry closed her eyes for a moment and twisted her mouth in an unhappy way. It doesn't matter. But it did. The conversation she'd had with Michel when they found her came floating back to the front of her mind – funny how well she remembered it.

"She's been dead for a long time, and I doubt very much that any living soul is sorry."

How horrible would that be? To know that if you died no one would really care about you and the fact you were gone – quite the opposite, that any who knew of you (really knew) would rejoice at your downfall….

Right, she thought, enough with all the macabre thoughts. TV. Let us go see what is on TV. She pulled herself up and shuffled off for the living room, leaving Corny sitting on the comforter and staring forlornly after her.

Kerry curled up on the overstuffed couch and started flipping through channels. Nothing… nothing… nothing… noth- wait. She flipped back the channel. All right! Buffy was on! The girl settled further down with a contented sigh and decided that she wasn't going to move until her brain started oozing out her ears. This seemed like a good plan to her – no brain, no annoying vampire living in her brain and not letting her do ANYTHING without being reminded. No guilt. No worries, see? Loose the brain and the problems were gone.

The doorbell rang.

Oh no.

There was a long pause, then it rang again.

No, crap, can't someone else get that? As though answering her question she heard little feet almost falling over themselves tripping down the stairs. "I got it!" cried Ian triumphantly in his squeaky little voice. Adorable. Convenient too – he was, for reasons unknown, currently going through a doorbell answering phase.

Whatever, Kerry wasn't complaining. Now she didn't have to get up, and she could get back to liquefying her brain.

There was the sound of the door opening and of voices which Kerry covered by turning the volume up a little. It was probably just one of dad's friends again – not that weird lady, please – and so none of her concern.

"Kerry! It's for you!"

It seemed to take a few seconds for the words to travel from her ears to her brain. Wait, what?

"Kerrrrrrry!!"

"Yea, yea, I'm coming!" She slid off the couch, torn between curiosity as to who this visitor could be and annoyance that she was being dragged away from Buffy and friends; a state that lasted until she got to the entrance hall. As soon as she got there, however, all of her thoughts seemed to band together with her body heat and suddenly migrate somewhere tropical – Tahiti, maybe – leaving her frozen as surely as if her blood had been turned to ice, staring at her younger brother and her visitor.

Cobalt blue, impossibly blue, eyes looked up and caught hers in the same old hypnotic spell that she'd been so used to over the three, crazy, terrifying days last year. Michel. Not Ethan anymore. She'd automatically called him Ethan for the first few months and had always carefully corrected herself – he'd given her his name, the least she could do was use it, even if it was only in thought. He was Michel. Michel Michel Michel Michel. Michel-who-had-been-Ethan. She'd thought she'd mastered calling him by his name, his real (or she thought was real) name, but now that he was there….

Michel. MichelMichelMichelnotEthanMichel-

"What, no hello?" the vampire asked with an almost sardonic air, smirking slightly in what seemed satisfaction at so obviously catching her off guard.

Kerry simply stared, two different names weaving through her thoughts.

- - -

:O

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