The very first episode I wrote.  Or, at least, the first one I wrote after doing my own version of a series finale in response to “Last Knight”.  This was an idea that had been buzzing in my mind while the show was still on—the sort of thing you play with while walking along the street or driving somewhere.  My version of the finale practically wrote itself.  Naturally, I decided to go on and write down one or two of the other ideas I had.  (Little did I know!)

Judging by other people’s FK fan fiction, I’m not exactly alone in seeing this as a very obvious plot for a story.  So obvious, in fact, that I’m surprised that it was never done on the actual series.

Virelle and Marchetti were born here.  Once I’d decided to add continuity to the series, I realized that Virelle needed to be introduced earlier in Season IV so that “viewers” would simply assume that she was intended to flesh out the cast at the Raven.  This is an important piece of misdirection, since otherwise her sudden appearance might seem suspicious.  In particular, the scenes with her and Urs, especially those in “Death Shall Be No More”, were contrived to show their friendship.

Much later, I went back to “Requiescat in Pace” and made Marchetti the vampire who comes to the Raven asking about Janette.  Originally, the vampire in that episode didn’t have a name.  Then, when I wrote “Death Shall Be No More”, I made sure to include the scene that describes how Virelle came to suspect that he was a vampire.

As I originally wrote this episode, it was the first time Tracy had ever met Urs.  Later, I decided to add a scene in an earlier episode (specifically, as it turned out, in “The Kiss of Death”) in which they first meet, and it is made clear that Tracy does not realize—and is not told at that time by Vachon—that Urs is a vampire.  That meant that the lines here needed a minor adjustment.

When I decided to organize the episodes I had written into a season, it was obvious that this one would have to be put somewhere after “Walk Out No More Beneath the Sun”, because, in that episode, Natalie laments not having a vampire corpse to dissect, and here she gets one.

So many things happen in this episode after Nick goes off-shift in Act Three that, as soon as I thought about the timing, I realized that there was only one way that it could be remotely plausible for him to get through them all before dawn.  The story has to take place at the darkest time of the year—early to mid December.

I assumed that eleven of the twenty-two episodes happen in the fall season, as in Season III.  Given that there is a Christmas episode, that is then Episode Eleven.  That means that this episode has to be put just before it, as Episode Ten.  And “Walk Out Once More Beneath the Sun”, with its scene with the fallen leaves, has to go right before this, as Episode Nine.

So the first episodes to be fixed in position in Season IV were Nine, Ten, and Eleven.

Anyone who thinks that, in Forever Knight, vampire bodies automatically turn to dust is misreading series canon.  Yes, if burned by the sun or by fire, they combust.  And Nick did, in the first season episode “If Looks Could Kill”, tell Natalie that the corpses of vampires simply disappear.  But, at that time, the show had shown vampires killed only by fire or sunlight; and Natalie had already dealt with two such deaths.  One may assume, therefore, that Nick was just oversimplifying.  Certainly, the most common threat to the life of any vampire has to be sunlight; and that does, indeed, destroy the vampire’s body to a degree that can be described as “disappearing”.

Forever Knight did, however, later make it quite clear that, if vampires die by other means, their bodies do not vanish.  The young vampire, Spark, who attacks Natalie in “A More Permanent Hell”, is staked by Nick; and his body remains on the floor for the rest of the scene.  In “Fever”,Screed dies of disease; and he clearly expects his body to remain, for he asks Vachon to bury it near water; and Screed’s expectations prove correct, for we are shown the burial.  Finally, in the original “Ashes to Ashes”, both Vachon and Urs die at Divia’s hands, and Divia at Nick’s; and all three bodies remain.  Tracy says that she will bury Vachon; Natalie disposes of Urs’s body; and LaCroix burns Divia and scatters her ashes.

There is, therefore, no reason why the corpse of a slain vampire should not be discovered, as long as it happens before dawn (for at that time the body would combust in the sunlight).  Naturally, since the body will be assumed to be human, the murder will be investigated by the police.  Natalie, of course, would want to keep the corpse to aid her in her investigation of Nick's “medical condition”.  And she knows quite well how to preserve it from destruction.  Besides the usual precautions against decay, she will have to keep it indoors, away from windows.  Not that her office has any windows.

I’m assuming that the problem vampires have with being staked through the heart lies with the wood.  That is, that any injury made with wood fails to heal in that instant way that wounds made with metal do.  After all, a vampire struck through the heart with metal is sustained by the vampire healing process; and, not weakened, can just yank the metal object out, or yank themselves off it.  Thus, in the second part of the series premiere, “Dark Knight: The Second Chapter“, when Nick impales LaCroix on a metal spike, LaCroix is able to get himself off the spike, at which point his body heals almost instantly.  But injuries made by wood clearly have quite different characteristics.

Consider LaCroix’s plight in the historical scenes in “A Night in Question” when he is stabbed with a jagged piece of wood by a dying soldier on whom he tries to feed.  The makeshift stake does not kill him outright.  But he does tell Nick that, if it isn’t removed, he will die.

Unlike the previous situation with the metal spike, LaCroix cannot remove the wooden stake himself.  He is therefore dependent on someone else to save his life.  Furthermore, as long as the splinter of wood stays driven through LaCroix’s chest (before Nick finally relents and pulls it out), he seems weak as a kitten.  Wounds made by wooden objects therefore weaken vampires at least to the degree that similar wounds would weaken a human victim.  They counter vampires’ usual swift healing powers.  This would be a sort of allergy to wood, similar to the allergy to garlic.

It would seem, therefore, that vampires do indeed die from heart injuries made by wooden objects; but that this happens in much the same way as humans die from such injuries.

In other words, a slight injury to the heart—a grazing hit—is not instantly fatal.  Not to LaCroix, and not to Vachon.  But, like humans with similarly damaged hearts, they will die eventually from the injury.  Unless, of course, the wooden object is removed and its allergen with it, in which case the vampire healing factor kicks in, though probably more slowly than with wounds inflicted by objects made of other substances.

That a transfer of blood to an injured vampire can speed healing was also demonstrated in “A Night in Question”.  In the present-day part of the story, Nick has been shot in the head and taken to hospital, where LaCroix visits him as he lies unconscious, cuts his first own wrist and then Nick’s, and lays the wounds together.

It was not established, however, whether a sufficient quantity of blood is transferred by merely the touch of the two wounds together, or whether the injured vampire’s body draws blood from the donor through the wound.

I assume that the body of Anita Vanderbeck’s victim was removed by Virelle, since it certainly was not found in the alley.  Presumably, she did not want a bite-marked corpse to be found beside the body of the vampire she had killed.  Why is another matter.

Originally, I had Tracy exclaim that one finds vampire hunters in movies.  But I think that nowadays one would probably think first of the eponymous heroine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.   So I changed the line.  (Ten years from now, it’ll probably need changing back.  That’s the problem with topical references.)

At no point in the original series does Nick proffer medical evidence for the skin allergy that requires him to work the night shift.  But I assume that he has contrived to get some document in his file.

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