Lucien LaCroix

They say if you love someone, let them go. If they're really yours, they'll learn their lessons and return. You will come back, Nicholas. I can wait. I have all the time in the world.

Life is a game...chess, I believe. We move across it, vying for position, for control, for that is where power is... in controlling the world around us. Yet sometime fate plays the game and makes a mockery of all ones hard fought power. Fate played with my life many lifetimes ago. She gave me a daughter that I loved, more than I would ever admit. Divia would have made a great and cruel general if she'd been born a man, but she was not. Her nature was calculating, cruel and cold, yet she loved me. And because of that love, she brought me into the night.

It was that or die. And I would so much rather live. One cannot play the game if one is dead, you know.

It is ironic that the daughter became the master and I the master became the child. But that was not the only twist in my reality. I went from powerful general, controlling the fate of thousands to someone who must live in shadow. That was a most unsatisfying turn of events - now when I had real power - power over life and death, I could no longer stand in the light and vie for supremacy in the courts of man.

But I have enjoyed so very much, controlling the strings of those men of power. Many rulers throughout the ages have actually been ruled by...me! The game has become so much more interesting.

I left Divia behind in Egypt twenty years after she brought me across. Just as she could not abide her Master's hand ruling her, I could not abide what Divia desired of me, and I killed her. Killed her and sealed her against any possibility of rising and revenge. The Sun-God sealed her stolen tomb. I never looked back. I never acknowledged her again--not even in my darkest thoughts - perhaps because despite it all, I loved her still. I could have done as Divia asked. I could not!

I explored the universe and became a master at the game. Eventually I grew bored and began decided to add more complexity to my amusements. I began a new family, one born in blood and fire. Some of my children's lives were short, either through their own stupidity or because I deigned it. Some I let go out into the world and find their own way, but two, two I kept close. Two I loved, as I thought never to love a child again. Janette I treasured. I found her, a jewel in a dung-heap of a brothel, and brought her into the night. Her lust for blood was wonderful, and I honed her like a weapon. She was my constant companion for almost two-hundred years. I needed no other, nor did she, until we found Nicholas.

I've pondered in the long hours of sleepless days what to do with Nicholas. He is both fire and ice, hot to my cold. I should have destroyed him. But I could not. I loved him and I was determined to bring him to his senses. He is my heir, my greatest accomplishment, my greatest failure.

Why? Because I cannot extinguish the spark of good in him, the light. It burns in him even now, and he spurns me and the gift I have given him. He is pure emotion, and I pure logic. We do not mix well, but in those moments when we do, there is a joy in my heart I cannot deny. For Nicholas I would wait an eternity.

So we have struggled for 800 years, our fight has spanned continents, wars and echoed through history. He has become my obsession and I his. He is the fox, I am the hunter. Foolish boy, he should have learned by now that the fox never wins. The hunter is more wily and cunning than any fox. The hunter controls the game. He moves his pawns across the board and controls the pattern. Some plays have taken but moments, others decades or centuries, but in the end, I will have him. I will have him.

I admit to one error. In 800 years that is not bad, but it nevertheless is a stain on my record I will eradicate. I thought to bring Nicholas to his senses. He was making a fool of himself over a dancer. A foolish mortal dancer. I pushed him, and his marvelous nature blossomed forth - try as he might to bury it - and he killed her. I was sure he would return to the fold, but he did not. Instead he sought to find a way to be mortal... mortal! It is a galling thought that he should desire mortality and death rather than me. And that search has brought him to a woman who has proven a most worthy adversary. I enjoy crossing swords with her. She would make an excellent vampire, but she is too strong-willed, and I will not brook her interference much longer in Nicholas life - so she will remain a mortal - and knowing Nicholas, she will die at his hand. He is so good at not thinking these things through.

Because of her, Nicholas tried to kill me... me! And so now I bide my time, I play a softer hand, I hide behind pleasant facades. Time will come when this mortal stew will boil over, and then I will be there to take back what belongs to me.

He is mine...

Give your life to me and I'll give you ten thousand lifetimes in return. Your existence will be transformed in ways that mere mortals cannot even imagine. Come to me...

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