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The Vampire's Apprentice	By : Evilida44 Category: G through L > House Views: 1787 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House or its fandom nor do I make any money from it.

Chapter List
- 17
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- 19
A New Friend
Prologue - Las Vegas
The SUV swerved around his battered body and drove away. The sound of approaching sirens became louder and more insistent. The vampire opened his eyes and looked up into the night sky. It took every bit of will he possessed to force himself to move. He crawled across the road to the sidewalk, and then used the chain link face to pull himself to his feet. Stumbling, shambling, step by painful step, he headed away from the lights and noise.
By the time the first police car arrived, the Professor was a block away. His movements were clumsy and mechanical, but the line he walked was perfectly straight. Once set in motion, the vampire was like a clockwork toy, performing the same actions over and over again.
The Professor walked to the very edge of the city, where the road ended and the desert began. A billboard blocked his progress and brought him to a stop. The sign told the vampire, who was incapable of reading it, that he was at Rancho Fortuna Estates, luxurious homes at affordable prices.
The luxurious homes were mini-mansions, products of a construction boom that was never supposed to end. Abandoned when their developer ran into legal and money problems, they were in various stages of completion. One of two of them were almost finished except for doors, windows and fixtures, most were only frames and squares of poured concrete. The vampire took refuge from the sun in one of the almost finished homes. He found a blocked-off space, probably meant to hold a water heater. Safe from the sun's deadly rays, he rested and healed.
A few days later, the Professor found his first victim. He was a graffiti artist, drawn to Rancho Fortuna by its blank white walls and enticing lack of security. Instead of killing him quickly with a venomous vampire's bite, the Professor took him captive. He broke the young man's ankles with a piece of paving stone so he could not escape, and bled him slowly, cutting him with his sharp nails and lapping up the blood. In his weakened state, unable to hunt, the Professor needed his food supply to last.
The young man survived almost a week until he succumbed to blood loss, thirst, and heat. By then, the Professor had regained enough strength to drag his victim's body out into the desert and dig him a shallow grave.
The Professor had been living in Rancho Fortuna for more than a month when his former apprentice found him. The younger vampire cornered him in his lair. Backed against the wall, the Professor growled, snarled and spat his defiance. There was nothing left in this filthy, malformed thing to remind the apprentice of the forceful teacher she had once admired.
The former apprentice took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the stake she held in her right hand. It was her duty to kill this pitiful creature, out of respect for the vampire he used to be.
"Mia," the creature said. His voice was whisper thin and cracked from disuse.
The apprentice lowered her weapon. By the light of the moon, she peered deep into the creature's murky eyes, looking for the faint glimmer of intelligence.

After an evening among humans, pretending to be one of them, House wanted nothing more than to come home and be pure, unadulterated vampire. He needed to express his true nature, which was commanding, ruthless and powerful.
The Professor told him that in the old days, vampires had been kings and warlords. They had lived in castles, surrounded by a retinue of fiercely loyal soldiers ready to follow him to Hell and back without question. In these decadent days, however, House had to make do with a shoebox-sized furnished apartment and Wilson, who only obeyed orders he agreed with.
House expected to find Wilson sitting on the couch, watching Meerkat Manor on television or reading one of his vampire novels. Instead the apartment was empty. Wilson wasn't home and he hadn't left a note. It was hard to be commanding when there was no one to command.
Wilson didn't return until a few minutes before dawn.
"Where were you?"
"At an all night showing of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Ceci had only ever seen the Lord of the Rings on dvd, and I told her she had to see the whole thing on the big screen with Dolby sound."
"So you were on a date with Ceci."
"Not a date, House," said Wilson.
"She's exactly your type. Needy. Lacking in self-confidence. You love a fixer-upper."
"We're friends. Ceci thinks I'm gay and unemployed, hardly good husband and boyfriend material. She's just lonely, and she needs someone to listen to her."
"That's how it started with Bonnie and Julie. You listen to them, look after them, tell them how wonderful they are, and then – surprise, surprise – they fall in love with you. Six weeks later, you're married."
"House, she's human. I only like vampires."
"Amber's not a vampire and you're in love with her."
"Now you're being ridiculous. You can't possibly be jealous of my dead girlfriend," Wilson said tiredly, rubbing the back of his neck. "You just want to argue, and I'm not in the mood."
"If you're not in love with Amber, then you won't mind if I do this," House said, pulling out a familiar manila envelope.
It was the envelope where Wilson kept all the photographs he had salvaged from his old life. House removed Amber's photograph, letting the envelope and the other photographs fall to the floor. Wilson tried to snatch Amber's photograph from House's hands, but House stepped back and held the photograph up high, where Wilson couldn't reach it. He ripped Amber's photo in half, then ripped the halves into quarters. He didn't stop until all that remained was a handful of confetti. Then he threw the confetti into Wilson's shocked face.
Wilson fell to his knees, gathering bits of paper, but it was obvious that the photograph could not be repaired. His only photograph of Amber was gone. He had nothing left to remember her by.
"It's your own fault," House said, "I told you not to bring anything that could identify you."
Wilson wasn't listening. He was still gathering confetti. When he had all the pieces of paper, he stood up, unsure of what to do next. House handed him the manila envelope and he took it, dropping the pieces inside.
Wilson picked up the other photographs.
"Are you going to tear up these ones too?"
House shook his head.
"You don't think this photo of my family is a security risk. How about this one? Me and Bonnie, you and Stacy. Somebody could recognize us from that. If you looked at it with a magnifying glass, you might be able to make out the words "Happy Birthday Greg" on the cake."
With one decisive movement, Wilson sliced the photograph with a vampire's long sharp fingernail, neatly decapitating the smiling Gregory House in the photo. He handed the handful of photographs to House and strode past him, heading for the bathroom. House heard him turn on the tap for the bath tub.
After a bit of searching, House found a roll of Scotch tape in a drawer in their tiny, never-used kitchen. He carefully taped the birthday photograph back together and put it with the others in the envelope.
When Wilson finally emerged from his sanctuary, with wrinkled fingers and toes and smelling strongly of French lavender soap, House was already in bed and apparently asleep. Wilson dithered, weighing the comfort of House's 400-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets against the moral satisfaction of sleeping alone on cold linoleum or dusty carpet. After a few seconds of internal debate, the luxury-loving part of him won out.

Okay, House admitted, ripping up Amber's photograph had been childish and spiteful. However, House was a vampire, and vampires are naturally malicious and vindictive. It was totally unreasonable for Wilson to hold him up to a higher standard of behaviour.
It had been three days and nights and Wilson was still upset with him. He scarcely looked at House, spoke to him only when necessary, and never touched him at all. It was amazing how Wilson could retreat into himself until he was scarcely present. Sharing an apartment with Wilson was like living with a particularly sulky ghost.
House knew that Wilson would forgive him sooner or later, but he couldn't wait. He needed to do something to speed up the process. Replacing the photograph of Amber would be a good start. Amber had once worked for PPTH, so there had to be a photograph of her in the hospital's personnel files. Cuddy had access to her file.
Wilson was out of the apartment taking a walk, so it was a good time to call. House punched in Cuddy's number.
"Hello," said a man's voice. He sounded vaguely familiar.
"Hello, is Cuddy there?"
"Do you know that it's two thirty in the morning? Is this some kind of emergency?"
"Give Cuddy the phone."
"House? Is that you? Where are you calling from?"
House terminated the call. He remembered where he had heard that voice before. It was Lucas, a private detective he had once hired to spy on Wilson. House frowned. It was bad enough that Cuddy had found another man, worse that it was someone House had once liked and trusted.
House heard the sound of Wilson's key in the lock.
"Wilson, how would you like to take a trip back to Princeton? You could visit the cemetery where Amber's buried. Put a pebble on her headstone."
"Really? You'd let me go?"
"Of course. You can drive my SUV. I'll even come with you if you like. Not to the cemetery though. You probably want to commune with Amber alone."
Wilson nodded. "Next Thursday would have been her thirty-fourth birthday. We could leave Wednesday evening. I don't think you have a gig that night, but I'll check your schedule to make sure."
"While you're with Amber, I could drop in on Cuddy. See how she and the baby are doing. Maybe she's changed her mind about becoming a vampire."
"It's possible, I guess," Wilson conceded, absorbed in working out the details of their upcoming trip.
House smiled, making his own plans.

Remy Hadley's life was in ruins. She had been diagnosed with an incurable genetic disorder that would eventually kill her. She had been suspended from the hospital where she had once had a promising career. Her medical license was currently under review, and she was facing charges for possessing ecstasy, crystal meth and various other illegal substances.
"Before we go to trial, I'd like you to attend some kind of support group or therapy program for the terminally ill. It will show the judge that you're trying to deal with your issues constructively," her attorney had said.
Hadley had been reluctant. Her mother had also suffered from Huntington's Disease, and she knew exactly what awaited her. The last thing she needed was to socialize with people who were further down the road than she was, reminding her of what she had to expect.
"When it comes to sentencing, the judge will want to be easy on you but he can't afford to be seen as soft on crime. He has to think of his re-election. You've got to give him a reason to be lenient with you if you want to avoid jail time."
"Dying of Huntington's isn't going to be enough?"
"Probably," the lawyer said, "but I'd still suggest that you do anything you can to tip the scales a little more in your favour. You don't have all that many years left. I'd hate to see you wasting any of them in prison."
Hadley took her lawyer's advice. She joined a support group for the terminally ill which met every Thursday evening in a senior high classroom. The group leader arranged the classroom desks into a talking circle. Remy always sat on the far left side of the circle, because that meant that she would be among the last to speak. Sometimes she was lucky, and time ran out before it's her turn to talk.
Other than her impending death, Hadley had nothing in common with the people in her therapy group. They had such ordinary little lives, working as school teachers, cashiers and construction workers. They had already done as much in life as they were capable of doing, but she still had so much potential and so much she wanted to achieve. Her loss was so much greater than theirs.
The group leader stood up, making his usual opening speech, but Hadley wasn't listening. She had noticed a newcomer among the group. Usually Hadley amused herself by diagnosing newcomers' illnesses, but she couldn't figure this one out. She was very young, perhaps still in her teens, with fair, creamy skin, close-cropped red hair like a fox's brush, and a sharp upturned nose. Despite her pale complexion, the girl appeared to be perfectly healthy. She wasn't pretty, but she had a kind of bright-eyed energy that made her attractive. As if she could sense Hadley's interest, the girl turned her head and looked directly at her. Hadley, who seldom lost her composure, blushed and turned away. When she looked up again, the redheaded girl was gone.
After the meeting, most of the group lingered for a while over coffee and doughnuts, but Hadley headed for the door. The redheaded girl was waiting for her in the hallway. Hadley followed her out of the building. She led her down the street to a coffee shop, where they took a seat near the window.
The redheaded girl leaned across the table and clasped Hadley's hand. She smiled, a sharp little grin suggestive of mischief and shared secrets.
"Hello, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Mia Winter."
"I'm Remy Hadley."
"Also known as Thirteen."
"How do you know that name? Nobody calls me that anymore."
"We're connected, you and I. Gregory House gave you that nickname, didn't he?"
"You knew House?"
"I've never had the pleasure of meeting him, but we have a friend in common. We'll get to House later. Right now, I want to talk about what I can do for you. You're going to be very glad we met."
- 17
- 18
- 19
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The Vampire's Apprentice