Author's webpage: http://parodigm.virtualave.net/karra/GrissomJourn.html

Author's disclaimer: Due South belongs to Alliance

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Title: "Scenes From A Vampire Age"
Author: EA Karras
Rating: R
Series: The Mountie Slayer
Pairings: Kowalski/Fraser
email: ekarras@woodstock.com
Disclaimers: Due South belongs to Alliance Notes: This is basically an AU of Season 3/4 from post house fire on. DS in BTVS universe. Ray will start out as a Doyle-type, and end up as a vampire. Unless you like it better this way. My first actual DS fic. This particular story is to introduce the series, then there will be full blown stories to follow. -------

"Burning At The Stakes"

Ray was driving, his head pounding like someone had taken a steel drum and just started whaling away on it. He became increasingly aware of the fact that Fraser was talking, apparently to himself. Or the werewolf. He gave him a look at the sudden thank you. "You're /thanking/ me?" He suddenly glanced in the back, sure he'd seen a flash of red and an older mountie in the back. But then it was gone. "..what the hell?"
"Ray?" Was that actual concern in the mountie's voice? He stared straight ahead at the road. He was beginning to wish he hadn't taken Vecchio's car. He rubbed at his eyes, then fumbled for his glasses. He had to act like Vecchio, because obviously no one had told Fraser about the switch. There had to be a reason for that.
"We need to uh..." He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "We need to go through our..." He stopped the car, right in the middle of the road, cradling his skull in his hands. He felt like one good tap would shatter him.
"He's confused," the older voice said again. Ray bit back a sob. Not again, he didn't need to be hearing voices again. He had enough trouble with living people, he didn't need to deal with the dead too. That's why he'd taken this job, to get away from the whole 'Detective Kowalski, can you talk to my missing/dead daughter?' gig. "Ray, are you ill?" He stared at the man who claimed to be Vecchio, familiar tinglings of concern in his chest. He hated to see someone in pain, and this man was definetly in pain. And if he was as unhinged as he was starting to believe, then Ray Vecchio was in pain. And he couldn't have that.

But he still knew it wasn't Ray.

"I'm ok...gimme a minute," or a year. Or a millenium. His head felt like it was splitting open. "Ah, geez..." Fraser stared, looking behind them to make sure they weren't going to be rammed. The detective had managed to stop on one of the least used roads, thankfully. "What is it? You're in pain. Are you hurt? What's wrong?" He's more than just in pain. His body is shaking fast and hard.

"Muh...muh...mother..." He's stuttering, his eyes squeezed shut. His whole body was twitching as if being electrocuted with a thousand tiny volts.
"Mother? Do you need your mother?"

"Garbo...Gret..Garbo!" He shouts, unnecessarily loudly and falls back looking exhausted. "Oh...God. I really hate that..." He feels a cool hand touch his face, and pry open his eyelids. "M'ok..." His voice is slurred, as it always is when he's hit with a barrage. Like he'd had a stroke or something, which Welsh had been convinced had happened the first time he'd seen it.
"You're sure?" Fraser was unsure. He could see the detective was still trembling. "You don't look all right." "I see things, sometimes. When I need to." He felt Fraser making him lie down, his head on the mountie's knee. "Little flashes." "Since when?"

"What?" He still felt disoriented. His head was spinning and he was getting sick to his stomach.
Fraser looked down at Ray, concerned. "Since when do you have 'little flashes'? If you're Ray Vecchio..." Fraser trailed off at the look in Ray's eyes. No. This wasn't his Ray. But right now that didn't matter.

"Just...talk to Welsh, ok?" He closed his eyes. "Just talk to Welsh. I can't. I can't right now, sorry..." He squeezed his eyes tight as he was shifted a bit so Fraser could drive. "Ok?" "All right, Ray..."

The detective smiled as everything went dark. The mountie had called him Ray.
***

"I'm sorry, constable, I meant to tell you this earlier but I got a bit...sidetracked." Welsh had just finished his story on Vecchio, the real one's, undercover assignment. Kowalski, as the watcher had said he was called usually, lay on the couch with a cloth over his forehead. Fraser nodded, not saying a word. He stared at Kowalski, worried. He knew his former partner could take care of himself. He had for many years. "Is /he/ ok?"
"I'm fine, Fraser." Ray sat up, slowly. "Just a little funny around the seams." He blinked the cobwebs out of his head. "I'm not driving today, though."
"All right." He didn't press for any details on what had happened in the Riv. It was obviously not something any of them wanted to discuss openly.

Welsh cleared his throat as Elaine entered. "Ok. So, what do we know about this Greta Garbo?"
"Vampire. Lover of Zoltan Motherwell, the arsonist. Visits him weekly." Elaine handed Ray a copy of the files. "She's quite the busy breeder with the vampire making. Except she screws with them. Curses them so they have souls. Claims it makes them better artists." Ray swore under his breath. "So basically, we're looking for a performance arsonist with a love of gypsy curses, right? Great. Ok...Grab your stakes, Frayze. We're going after her..."
"I'm afraid that's impossible."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm not licensed to carry a stake in the United States."

Ray hung his head, disbelief etched in his face. "What?"

"Too many legalities." He watched Ray stand up, shaking his head. "Ray?"

***

They'd gotten Garbo rather easily, followed one of her 'children' back to her apartment and arrested her. Ray had gotten shot in the vest, and had thought that Fraser should stake her, but the mountie wouldn't. Couldn't. Not legally.

The new Ray sat on the hood of the Riv, something Ray Vecchio would never do. He looked different in the dark of the moonlight, calmer. Almost serene, actually. He was petting Dief, something Fraser hadn't expected considering the detective's reaction earlier to the licking and sniffing. He'd been convinced the werewolf was going to eat him alive. He seemed fine about him now.

"Fraser?"

Fraser looked up from checking the Riv out for scratches. "Yes, Ray?"

"You're a Mountie, the Slayer mounties or whatever. Right?" At Fraser's nod, he continued. "So you'd know. How did...how'd all this happen? The vampires and all that?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

Ray shook his head, "Where'd they come from?"

"I'm not sure, exactly." Fraser sat, gingerly, beside Ray. "The Inuit believe that theyre a divided soul. That they are us, and we are them. That they're our dark side. I'm inclined to believe that."

Ray nodded, "But the ones 20, 30 years back. They weren't like this. They didn't try to kill everyone."

"I don't know, Ray." He paused, glancing at Ray with some confusion. "You stepped in front of a bullet for me."

Ray nodded again, "Yep."

"Why? I thought you didn't risk your neck for anybody."

A small smile went on Ray's face. "Well. Not just anybody."

"Blood Moon"

Fraser watched Ray pace around the tomb, eyes closed. The glasses slipped down a little, and he pushed them back up. Ray didn't seem to notice. A small smile came to his face as he remembered what he'd needed to remember, muttering under his breaths the exact steps he'd taken to get to the local blood bank.

He could see it all in his inner mind, feel it all even with Fraser touching his face. He could feel all their eyes on him as they waited. "I was thirteen, and she was a vengence demon. Full blood, not one of those rose up the ranks humans. She was untouchable, but I was workin' it. Lyin like a maniac, which is really dumb to do with a vengence demon."

He could still hear her harsh, throaty whisper. "I think that man has a stake..." They'd been on line to give blood, back when blood banks to feed the vampires had been all the rage. Back when the vampires weren't stalking everyone and everything. Back when the only way to kill one was a well placed stake.

He could remember feeling scared, a sort of uncontrolled fear he hadn't felt since. Remembering Ellery making all of them, except Stella of course, get on the floor. Shoving a bag over to him. He'd wanted Ray to fill it with donor bags.

He remembered standing up, and Ellery laughing. He'd had an...accident, and Ellery was laughing it up. The humiliation he'd felt from Ellery and the vampire patrons of the bank, from Stella running off. It haunted him to this day.

She'd married him though. Not right away of course, but she had. It hadn't worked out. She'd elevated to a higher form of Vengence Demon, and had left him. He'd wanted kids, she didn't. She wanted power, he could care less about it.

It was after that that he'd seen his first vision. The station's parapsychologist had said the trauma of the nightmares and Stella's sudden leaving had triggered some pent up, bogged down power in his head. THrown his whole mental system out of whack.

His first vision had been of a litle boy who'd been kidnapped by his father. He'd had it enroute to talk to the mother, and had crashed his GTO. He'd met Vecchio then, but not Fraser. They'd been working on him at the hospital, and Vecchio had had to come to take over the case. He guessed Fraser had been with the Ice Queen.

It was a few months after that that he'd gotten this gig. With the freak mountie who seemed to always know when something was up.

And he liked him, he liked him a lot. Maybe even loved him, which was ridiculous considering he had only known the guy what? A month? It was crazy. Right?

But maybe it wasn't. He'd felt like this with Stella, and he'd ended up marrying her. 'No. No. Don't compare the two. They're nothin' alike.'

They weren't. Fraser was polite and liked him. Didn't treat him like a stupid kid. He was...nice.

Oh yeah. He loved him.

***

"What is that?" Ellery demanded, looking over at the kid who claimed to know him.

Ray stared up at the reddening moon, and shivered. He'd known it was coming, but he hadn't expected it to be so...red. "The blood moon." He felt Ellery's eyes on him. "You really don't remember me?" He shifted uncomfortably under the bank robber's gaze. "What?"

Suddenly there was a pain at his neck, and he remembered Fraser's warning. Stay away from vampires on the blood moon. But he hadn't told Fraser Ellery was one.

As the pain escalated to a full burning, he had to bite down to keep from screaming. He'd expected an apology, or maybe even to stake the guy. He hadn't expected to be attacked in a freshly dug grave. "Fraser!" He shouted, futily trying to shove the heavy vampire off of him. "Fray-zer!!"

Fraser was stumbling through the graves, trying to find his partner when he heard Ray screaming for him. "Ray?!" He ran towards the sound of the voice, Dief following close behind. He saw Ellery climbing out of the grave, blood staining his lips. "Ray..."

An almost uncontrolled rage spread through his body, one he hadn't felt in a long time. And he didn't even try to stop his werewolf when it pounced on the vampire. He knelt at the grave, ignoring the sounds of the vampire shrieking in terror and agony. "Ray! Are you all right?"

"I'm...I'm good," Ray sounded dazed. He wiped at something on his mouth, and sat up slowly. "Yeah, I'm good."

---

"Vampire Rising"

Something, as Ray would often say, wasn't right. Fraser watched his partner, worried. Ray been in and out of odd dazes ever since he'd been attacked by that vampire in the grave and then had been left to drown on the Henry Allen. He'd managed to save Ray, and in the process they had grown closer than ever before.

And then their current case, the voudon priest with the missing child. It'd taken a lot out of his partner, the visions of dead people following him, of the girl. And Fraser was sure that Ray had seen the constable's father, at least out of the corner of his eye.

They were lying on Ray's bed now, half dozing. Or at least Ray was. Dief was stalking around the apartment, attempting to find some sort of junk food in the mess.

He was very worried, Ray was very pale. He was very thin as of late. He was starting to sleep more, eat less. He was getting prone to attacks of paranoia and became exhausted easily.

Touching Ray's face gently as the detective began to toss in his sleep, he found the skin cold and clammy. "Ray." He whispered harshly, trying to wake him up. "Ray. Ray. Ray!"

"I can hear, Frayze. I'm not your wolf." Ray sounded irritatated. He wouldn't open his eyes. That alone had Fraser concerned.

"Open your eyes, Ray."

"Fraser, I'm tired. You're tired. Go to sleep. You can stare at my eyes in the morning."

"Ray. Open your eyes." When Ray didn't comply, Fraser got his fingers over the eyelids, prying them open. His pupils were dilated, his eyes moving frantically. He bit his lower lip, grabbing a penlight from his pocket. "Your eyes are tracking the light."

"Go to sleep. It's ok."

"Were you injured, Ray? Bitten again?"

"No." Ray sighed, seeing he wasn't going to be able to fend off the mountie's concern. "It's ok. It's been like this for a coupla weeks. It's just...I'm goin' over."

"Going ov...No. You can't, Ray. You didn't drink his..." A look of utter horror came over Fraser's face, it was the first time Ray had ever seen anything of the sort cross over his mountie. "You drank his blood?"

"I didn't want to."

"But you did."

"Yeah." He closes his eyes again, not wanting to recall that little incident. "But, it's ok. Ok? 'cause he's one of the older ones, from back when the vampire weren't all bad."

"Ray..." Fraser shook his head, not believing.

"Look!" Ray sat up, taking Fraser with him. "It won't happen right away, and it'll be ok! If anything bad happens, you can just." He made a staking motion.

Fraser stared at him, 'No, Ray...' he thought to himself. 'I don't think I could...'

TO BE CONTINUED
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