One day, i received word from the Theatre that someone I'd known may be visiting the theatre, and i left Nicolette there in New Orleans while i returned to TdV. I'd only be gone a short while, I'd told her, and said for her to stay where she was.
While New Orleans is a city of wonder and many exquisite things, i didn't want her to run the risk of getting harmed while i wasn't around to help
her stay safe.
I returned to the theatre to find Laine, my childhood best friend, whom I thought Zillah, Twig, Molochai and I had killed in our thirst for blood, returned from the dead.
I never found out how that came to be, that Laine was still alive.
When i first found out, i feared him.
I had helped to take his life, and i thought he, too, like Zillah, would blame me and be out for revenge.
But he wasn't. And so after uttering my tearful apologies to him, and reconciling, I decided after a few days to bring him back with me to New Orleans, and we set out together for the bus ride there.
Along the way, we stopped overnight at a hotel, and when i woke, i found a note from Zillah lying on my chest.
At least, it was addressed from Zillah.
I do not know if it really was he who was in our room that night, and left such a cryptic message, but i do know that it wasn't Laine making some
sick joke at my expense.
When I finally returned to New Orleans, Laine in a tow behind me, I came across my love's battered and drained body in the room of Christian's apartment.
If Zillah truely is alive once more, out there somewhere, i suspect him of doing it, of killing the love i managed to find after stealing his life away.
Zillah always was the jealous type, and i can see him taking his revenge
on me in such a way.
But I still do not know who killed my beloved Nicolette in such a cruel way.
I vowed that day to find out and get my revenge, but my search thus far has been unsuccessful.
I searched for Zillah, following any tips and hints that came my way, but never found him.
That day i found Nicolette's body, i sunk it into the Mississippi river.
She would have wanted it that way. She loved the water and spent many days watching the river drift by.
I like to think of her sinking down through the water, and into my mother's waiting arms, since her body rests in that same river, too.
It may be a silly notion, but it is somehow comforting to think of them being able to keep eachother company down there.
The day after putting Nicolette to rest in the Mississippi, Laine left New Orleans, saying there was something important he needed to do back home in Maryland, and that he'd contact me soon, and return to me again in New Orleans.
I haven't heard from him since.
