A Call to Arms (03/04)
-Mysterie, Sept 1999 (revised Mar 2000)

***La Croix POV***
    La Croix twisted his unlocked chains idly.  They made annoying clangs and he garnered a glare from Phoenix.  Usually he would do harm to one who dared glare at him but for some reason he stopped.  She let out a sigh and looked back at the door.  Now there was a mystery.  A Hunter who was also a Shadow.

    Hunters were a group of pestilent creatures.  Some were those who were half-breeds like that O'Neil person.  Those that were not brought fully across.  Others in the group were called Slayers. Young women who were born to fight and destroy the undead.  Then, the final and most populous members of those called Hunters were a group of people whose families developed abilities over generations much like the Slayers fighting those which they felt were evil.  Hunters believed all that was unnatural by way of the supernatural was evil and wrong.  They felt it was their duty to eliminate all the evil they saw.  In many ways La Croix was reminded of religious cults when thinking about the Hunters.

    Shadows, now they was a different story. They were like Hunters were themselves supernatural.  Some were known to be powerful sorcerers.  Some were very good shape changers and warriors.  And there were those who had many mysterious and not fully known abilities.  They were little known, almost a myth.  They, like the Hunters protected the human race from creatures like him. 

    But that was where the similarity ended.  Hunters believed all that were supernatural were evil whereas Shadows believed there was a balance.  They believed all in the supernatural was in a balance of good and evil.  Since they were supernatural too, most Hunters would try to go after them as well putting them in the category of what was unnatural.  La Croix had never heard word a Hunter succeeding against a Shadow.  They were such a force to be reckoned with that when they appeared even Enforcers stayed out of their way.

    La Croix wondered how this woman was one with both.  When she calmed Natalie and him, he felt the awesome power she held in check.  It was only because she directed it at him and allowed him to see that he was able to feel it.  It wasn't just that she was powerful, but that she was strong enough to hide it from everyone.  He was fascinated and respected such power and control.  The only time he saw any weakness was when he mentioned that she would have to kill her own cousin.  She had human weakness of love and guilt.  Perhaps once it may have disgusted him but... after recent events he found such things no longer weaknesses but strengths. 

    He had saw the love that Nicholas and the Doctor shared. It was strong enough to bring both her back and bring about a peace Nicholas had always sought. Perhaps when Natalie returned and brought Nicholas this peace some of it touched him. For the first time ever he understood love.

    Love... something he never understood before. When he had been a child he saw his mother deeply in love with his father. Something his powerful and cold father hated. He spent night's beating and abusing his mother all while she continued to love him.  La Croix could not understand how she could demean herself to his father that way.  Early on her learned to believe love was a weakness, one that did not belong to a person of character.  Yet because she was his mother he felt he needed to give her some filial respect. His father on the other hand never gave him a chance for respect.  He always felt La Croix was a failure due to his mother being someone so weak.  He soon neither respected his father enough to want to honor or make him proud.  The day that his father had finally beaten his mother to death was the day he believed he would never wish for the disease of love.  It was until he held Divia in his arms did he feel something change. The small child had awakened a corner of his heart he longed to bury.  But that too he thought was destroyed when she brought him across and he saw the perversion of evil within her.  When he finally killed her at the Raven with Nicholas he finally saw something else he never wanted to see.

    He was his father.

    He believed that bringing Nicholas over would provide him with the false sense of family he felt lacking in his early life.  A family of Janette, Nicholas and he was to be one of devotion and respect not one based on love.  But he misjudged.  Nicholas could not and never remain as dark as he and always sought to give love even if it had failed him.  He always fought to be what he was born to be a man of peace, a crusader.  La Croix had then turned angry.  How dare he!  His "son" whom he had given such a gift fought back against him.  *Like father like son* He became like his father viscously destroying his son and any hope of love or respect there might of been. 

    When Nicholas helped him destroy Divia he began to understand that all that he had done was wrong. Two thousand years and he was wrong.  *Age doesn't always bring wisdom* La Croix laughed inside silently.  The moment Nicholas put the staff in his hands and called him his best friend the wall around his heart broke.  All that he had done to him and still... there was friendship.  Looking back he understood why he brought across Nicholas, because he was capable of love something LaCroix always sought even if he wanted to deny it.  No matter what he knew his son had loved him in some way.

    Yes he would have done what Nicholas asked of him.  Not because Nicholas asked him to... no because inside he craved that friendship.  It was one of love between friends or a father and son.  With that there was trust, Nicholas trusted him to bring the peace he always sought.

    Of course, when the good doctor awoke as a vampire and brought that peace to Nicholas, he knew had failed again and the bond between them was broken.  It was not he who brought him peace but the one who took it away.  And not only that she had taken away the bond between them.  Like his father.  He destroyed all the love that was given to him.  Like his father he sought to destroy what he believed was a weakness when it was the strongest a strength.

    La Croix remembered all the love he had seen between Nicholas and the doctor and was destroyed by it's glory.  He could be there no longer.  He was alone and he was darkness.  Nicholas had reached out to him called him again a friend.  But he knew love was something he destroyed around him.  He left believing he would destroy the love within his son with his darkness.

    He then was alone.  Much like how he believed his father was when his mother died.  He remembered not long after his mother's death his father changed and became a shadow.  He now understood his father must of recognized to late the love given and lost.  Like his father he to had recognized too late. 

    When he felt the anguish that Nicholas felt when Natalie took the dagger in her side he was surprised and elated.  He did not want to lose his son and it was a chance to redeem himself.  He had gone there to help him and stopped Nicholas in time from touching the Kahre. 

    The Kahre he knew from legends were usually ones that only Shadows carried.  Only certain beings could touch the object.  It would kill anyone else that would touch it.  Luckily or not Natalie was filled with so much good it prevented her from dying instantly. 

    Beating back the remaining enemies he though they were succeeding until the others came. They brought him to this evil place.  A place that even he felt disgusted in because the evil reminded him of the evil he felt in Divia.  He could not believe the leader to these vampires was the young woman that offered him the choice.  Then and there he made his decision, he would protect his son and 'daughter' and join them on their path of light.  Believing he had a chance to make an escape he grabbed the woman.  Unfortunately she was not what she seemed.  She easily threw him into the wall and had him taken away and put into some strangely unbreakable chains.

    When Nicholas finally joined him and told him was had occurred after he was taken away he, who had been a fearless general in Rome, felt fear.  If they were dealing with a dark one by the name of Ares they were in trouble.  The group recently began to grow strong in the city of Toronto.  Vampires who floated into their groups either joined or were killed.  And every time he heard a name mentioned Ares.  He was supposed to be a high general in the Dark Ones.  And those older than even La Croix.  Once long ago he touched Divia's mind and saw a memory of them from her master.  It was of evil by the name of Ares, a vampire so old none knew of his beginnings.  He was one who not only killed to feed or play but for darker motives.  He was vampire used the Dark Arts and controlled what was rumored to be demons.

    He knew the war that would to begin would be devastating. The Raven once a populous spot for the community was now empty of patrons.  Many rumors had begun and vampires went into hiding.  His last communiqué with Janette in Paris was one filled with foreboding.  She was telling of strange things happening in Europe within the Community.  Later she had disappeared.  Not soon after his contacts within the Enforcers became unreachable.  Something was so wrong that even they were hiding.

    He understood his purpose was now.  He was a leader in this Community.  One who had to fight this dark enemy.  That was so evil that even those such as he knew should not walk this earth.  The Dark Ones reminded him of the evil within Divia.  An evil of such magnitude had to be stopped.  The light had to win.  And it was time he began to make amends.  It was time to walk a path..., looking at Nicholas's eyes carefully watching him, he knew that would lead to Nicholas.