- He was brought across in 1228. Preyed on humans for their blood. Now he wants to be mortal again. To repay society for his sins. To emerge from his world of darkness. From his endless, forever night.
Birth Name: Nicolas de Brabant
Occupation: Police detective
Species: Vampire
Place of Birth: Duchy of Brabant
Relatives: Jacques de Brabant (father, deceased), Eleanor de Brabant (mother, deceased), Fleur de Brabant (sister, deceased)
Marital Status: Single
Current legal status: Canadian citizen
Base of Operations: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Biography: There are countless other universes existing congruent to our own. In these realms, physical laws as we know them do not pertain. Since time immemorial there have been intrusions between our universe and these others. From these intrusions have emerged countless energies and lifeforms. In fact, the phenomenon known as "magic" involves controlling and using these extra-dimensional forces to perform a variety of acts and displays that defy the universal laws of physics. An extra-dimensional energy is responsible for the somatically resurrected and anatomically modified former human creatures known as "vampires."
Nick Knight is one of these vampires. He was born as Nicolas de Brabant in 1190 A.D. into a noble family in the Duchy of Brabant in the Holy Roman Empire. He was given the usual training of a knight. Nicolas became aide to Sir Raymond DeLabarre; and he followed his lord when he was sent to take over a castle in Wales with the mandate of investigating local resistance to Norman rule. This centered on a Welsh noblewoman named Gwyneth, with whom Nicolas fell in love. Therefore, when DeLabarre killed her in order to quell pending revolt, it was his aide who was blamed instead for her murder. There was no trial: insisting that conviction would be certain, his lord offered him the alternative of going to the Holy Land to fight in the ongoing Fifth Crusade. Instead of facing a trial he could not win, Nicolas accepted the offer. While in the Holy Land, he was captured by Ayyubid soldiers and spent several years being tortured in a prison. Nicolas eventually was able to return to Europe. Disillusioned and embittered, he became a drunkard.
In the year 1228 A.D., Nicolas stopped in Paris, where he met and was seduced by the elegant Janette DuCharme, unaware that she was a vampire. However, once she had him suitably fascinated, she introduced him to her master, Lucien LaCroix, who offered him immortality. The knight promptly accepted, without understanding the implications of the offer. LaCroix drained him of blood and Nicolas awoke as a vampire.
After being trained by his master in the ways of the vampire, Nicolas insisted on returning home to see his family— or at least his mother and younger sister, his father having died in his absence. The visit was a disturbing one. He was already sufficiently ambivalent about vampirism to feel compelled to persuade his master not also to bring across his sister Fleur. Remaining home was clearly impossible; and he left with LaCroix and Janette, his new vampire family. Nevertheless, Nicolas remained in touch with his mortal family; and, some years later, his sister made him guardian of her son, André. For a while, he took charge of the boy, raising him in the life of a nobleman of the time. However, urged by LaCroix, the boy found out his uncle's secret. Repulsed at the sight of a vampire feeding, he ran away.
Over the next few centuries, Nicolas travelled around Europe with LaCroix and Janette in a family group, never remaining for long in any one place lest the human populace become suspicious of their predations. Initially, he had few qualms about their lifestyle. In 1429, Nicolas met Joan of Arc, whose faith challenged his own lack of conviction. He met her more than once before her execution, and offered to save her life by bringing her across; but she refused, preferring to die rather than become a vampire. Her courage shook him badly. Nevertheless, although Nicolas may briefly have travelled apart from LaCroix's family, he soon returned to join his master. Thereafter, his reservations were principally roused only when he was attracted to a mortal woman and then, invariably, bit and killed her.
In the Renaissance, Nicolas and Janette became lovers and lived together as husband and wife for about a century. The relationship was broken by her at some point in the 16th century, over his objections; and, for a time, she left the family group, apparently without negative repercussions from LaCroix. Thereafter, Nicolas travelled primarily with his master, though Janette also sometimes returned to join them. In 1528, Nicolas fell in love with Alyssa von Linz, whom he married in the cathedral in Linz with the intention of turning her into a vampire so that they might be companions for eternity. However, up to that time, he had not attempted to bring someone across. When Nicolas tried on their wedding night, he drained too much of her blood; and she died without making the transition to the vampire state.
By the seventeenth century, LaCroix's family—with or without Janette—started ranging more widely, often to the British Isles, and later across the Atlantic to the colonies of the New World. It was at this time that Nicolas acquired the foundation of his large fortune, when he and a mortal criminal kidnapped the Dauphin of France, and Nicolas then killed his accomplice after they had received a chest of gold coins as ransom.
More innocent mortal friends began to loom large in his life: a Puritan farmer and an idealistic young doctor in London. Although his association with them frequently ended badly, it indicated a growing regard for humans, and a recognition of them as people worthy of his consideration. Indeed, in 1755, Nicolas was repulsed when another of LaCroix's "children", Francesca, the Comtesse du Montagne, drained a talented young violinist simply in order to imbibe his abilities temporarily. Around this time, Nicolas adopted a vague policy of killing only "the guilty", though never with a clear definition of what this entailed, nor the willpower to completely limit his predation to the criminal classes.
His interest in mortals became of increasing concern to LaCroix, who saw it as morbid. Not without reason: by the 1830s, Nicolas was starting to search for ways to reverse his vampire condition and become human again. In Geneva, in 1830, Nicolas sought the assistance of a radical young researcher, Hans Victor, to whom he revealed his vampire nature in the hope that cutting-edge science might afford him a cure. Victor abandoned the treatments in disappointment at failing to save his injured fiancé from death; but the search continued. Medical treatments were sought again in 1857 and 1916 (as well as in the present day). When science failed him, Nicolas turned to the hope of some magical cure.
In 1852, at a battle in the Crimean War, LaCroix was staked by a dying soldier on whom he tried to feed. The injury was not a direct blow, and hence not immediately fatal; and Nicolas was able to save him. Taking advantage of the obligation, he finally decided to leave LaCroix for good. His master did not accept this, however, and pursued him for over a century, trying to persuade him to return to a "normal" vampire lifestyle, eschew the friendship of mortals, and abandon his search for a cure. At times, indeed, Nicolas did return to LaCroix's company; but sooner or later his master's incessant persuasion would inevitably drive him away again.
It was in 1890, in Paris, that Nicolas decided to forswear killing altogether. He had been persuaded by LaCroix into the belief that a dancer with whom he was infatuated was prostituting herself with a number of patrons. Convinced of her guilt, Nicolas fed on and killed her, only realizing when he tasted her blood that she was, in fact, an innocent and virtuous woman. He declared that he would no longer murder human victims, and thereafter largely subsisted on animal blood. This vow did not, however, prevent him from agreeing to bring people across, nor from draining and killing people he considered guilty of serious crimes.
Although through most of his life Nicolas had simply played the role of a gentleman of the period, once he left LaCroix's company and lived increasingly among humans, he sometimes adopted a professional identity, usually under a pseudonymous surname. At different times, his interests led him to the practice of medicine, archaeology and the police force. Each time, however, he was eventually forced to move on—either by some particular force of circumstance (often precipitated by LaCroix), or simply because he had remained in one place long enough for people to wonder that he didn't age normally.
With false documents in the name of "Nicholas Knight", at some point he moved to Toronto and acquired a property at 101 Gateway Lane and turned the top floor loft into a large apartment for himself, with automated metal shutters that could be lowered over the windows to keep out sunlight during the day. A couple of years later, "Nick" attempted to stop the explosion of a pipe bomb during a robbery. His injuries were sufficiently severe that he appeared to be dead and his supposed corpse was taken to the morgue. His vampire vigour started to heal him inside the body bag; and, when it was opened by the pathologist, Dr. Natalie Lambert, Nick regained consciousness. After quickly feeding from a bag of blood, he tried to hypnotize her into forgetting the incident. However, a day or two later, when Nick tested her memory by walking past her on the street, he discovered that she recognized him. Indeed, she was fascinated by his extraordinary ability to regenerate. But she was also sympathetic to his desire to find a cure, and offered to research his condition.
Shortly thereafter, Nick decided to join the Toronto Police Service. He used falsified document to appear to be transferring from a small town police department, allowing him join the Toronto police without attending the police academy. Soon after, Nick was assigned to the Homicide Division, working out of the 27th Precinct police station under the command of Captain Joe Stonetree. Feigning a recently-developed skin condition that made it impossible for him to work during daylight hours, he persuaded Stonetree to let him work the night shift, and—at least at first—to work without a partner. About a year later, LaCroix followed Nick to Toronto, having read about an exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in which was a Mayan jade cup which he erroneously feared Nick might be planning to use in a magical ceremony reputed to offer a cure. LaCroix stole the cup and, when Nick became involved in the investigation of his murder of the guard at the museum, took the opportunity to teach Nick another lesson. This time it backfired: Nick staked him with a flaming spar of wood and, for a time, believed his master to have been killed.
Although he had initially succeeded in gaining permission to work without a partner, Nick was informed by Captain Stonetree that the series of murders that culminated in the death of the guard at the Royal Ontario Museum was too high profile to be investigated only on the night shift. For this reason, Nick was assigned a partner, Don Schanke. Until this time, Nick had been repelled by the other man's brash personality. However, he quickly found that he and Schanke worked well together. Their partnership survived a transfer from the 27th Precinct to the 96th, where they met a very different style of commanding officer, Captain Cohen. After a year, though, both Cohen and Schanke died in a plane crash while extraditing a prisoner to Alberta. The new commanding officer of the 96th Precinct, Joe Reese, assigned Nick to work with a rookie detective, Tracy Vetter—a potentially difficult association since she was the daughter of a member of the Police Commission. Nevertheless, although Tracy felt compelled to take risks to prove that her promotion was earned on merit, Nick and she settled into an effective team.
Although Janette had actually been living in Toronto for some time (perhaps as much as twenty years), it was not until he suspected that LaCroix had come searching for him that Nick got in touch with her at The Raven, the nightclub that she owned. After LaCroix's apparent death, Nick continued to drop in at the club—though never as frequently as Janette would have liked. She provided a sounding board for his problems and a loose connection to the vampire community. Janette also sometimes visited Nick at his loft; and, some months after the two resumed their old friendship, she met Natalie Lambert there. Nick made no secret of the fact that Dr. Lambert was helping him find a cure. Though Janette disapproved, she made no attempt to stop them. Indeed, on one occasion when Natalie put herself in danger at the club, Janette sought to protect her; and she similarly protected Nick's partner, Schanke. In this way, unlike LaCroix, Janette carefully avoided alienating Nick. Yet her advice to him was essentially the same: that he should accept that he was a vampire, and return to a more typical vampire lifestyle.
After staking and burning his master, Nick assumed that LaCroix was dead; and, indeed, for about a year, he had no contact with him. When LaCroix finally returned, it was with a convoluted plot to force Nick to move on by framing him for murder. When this failed, LaCroix decided to remain in Toronto. Some short while later, he became the host of a night time radio talk show at station CERK, under the professional name, "the Nightcrawler". He used the show to maintain contact with Nick. His monologues were often clearly aimed directly at him, with subjects chosen to fit some current event in Nick's life, such as the case he was working on, or a turn in his relationship with his partner. Though frequently irritated by what he heard, Nick nevertheless felt compelled to tune into the show on a regular basis. He also increasingly consulted his master. Indeed, after a few months, there seemed to be developing a rapprochement in their relationship—or at least some uneasy truce.
And so Nick Knight continues as a police detective in Toronto, seeking redemption for the lives he has taken over the centuries and struggling for a way to become human again.
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Powers: As a vampire, Nick has a unique type of extra-dimensional energy bonded to his entire physiological structure. This energy serves as his "life force" and because of its extra-dimensional nature, he possesses abilities and characteristics that defy conventional physical laws. Such abilities include agelessness, super-strength, super-speed, super-sensory capabilities, super-accelerated healing, super-endurance and durability, flight, and even the capacity to form mental connections with humans by perceiving and manipulating quantum scale transdimensional wavelength signals emitted by the human brain to perform a powerful form of hypnosis that very few people are unsusceptible to.
Weaknesses: A physical weakness of Nick is the fact that ultraviolet radiation is inimical to the frequencies of his imbued extra-dimensional energy, causing him to be lethally burnt by UV rays such as sunlight.
Nick's most characteristic physical weakness is that he requires a regular ingestion of certain types of bio-quantum energies to maintain the vitality of his extra-dimensional energy. Due to a molecular-level synergistic effect of its specific organic composition, mammalian blood just happens to be infused with the specific bio-quantum energies that Nick and all other vampires require. Although these energies are undetectable to human perceptions and technology, they are completely perceptible to vampire sensory systems; especially the olfactory system. As a consequence of being able to especially smell these bio-quantum energies in the blood of humans, Nick instinctively hungers for human blood; however, he can survive on the blood of any mammal.
He is also negatively affected by ambient transdimensional signals originating from the human brain. Specifically, certain quantum scale ambient signals cause Nick to be physically harmed by religious objects and symbols (e.g. crucifixes and holy water) because the signals were emitted by the brains of the multitudes of humans that view those religious objects and symbols as protective forces.
Note[]
- This character appeared on the 1992-1996 Canadian television series Forever Knight and the 1989 American television movie Nick Knight.