Dryden didn't go home despite Roselyn's insistence. Who was she to tell him anything, that cheating little… No, he warned himself, he had to stop accusing her. She had a good point, no matter how much she acted like a bitch when delivering it. This jealousy wasn't doing him any good, especially since Roselyn made it clear in the hours since lunch that she wouldn't be taking him back to her apartment nor would she get into his pick-up truck. He escorted her through Red Hook, into antiques shops and bookstores. They chatted on a bench facing Main Street for nearly an hour, just watching the traffic going by and chatting. He even dodged traffic to buy a red rose for her from the gas station while she used the bathroom in one of the coffee houses. And still, she wouldn't invite him up.
"You are being ridiculous," he finally told her as she sniffed the flower and smiled to herself.
She looked up over the petals, a small smile still gracing her lips. "I'm being what?"
"Ridiculous. I bought you lunch and expensive lattes, I followed you through these boring-ass stores for hours, I even got you that flower."
Her mouth no longer held anything like a smile. "Yeah, and?"
He glared at her for acting like she was dense, for making him spell out what he meant when she knew exactly why she was being ridiculous. "And you are still not going to let me come up to your apartment? You know, relationships are a two way street, Roselyn. You've got to give a little."
Roselyn threw the flower at his face with as much force as she could muster in her fury, but roses simply aren't aerodynamic enough to suit anger. In hit, rebounded, and landed in a storm drain.
"Relationships are, but you've clearly confused me with a whore. So why don't you take that two way street home, because I have no interest in seeing you right now." Then she referred to him as a part of the excretory system under her breath, but too loud for him to miss.
He watched her run up the street in her black boots, making no effort to chase her. Then he picked the rose out of the drain and wiped the brown moisture from its petals, holding it limply in one hand.
At first he was angry with her, then himself. Finally, he was just angry. He walked to calm himself until he was miles from his truck, near the cemetery on the outskirts of Red Hook. He could think of no better place for a vampire with a broken heart, so he transcended its boundary. The waning moon glinted off the headstones, which usually did a passable job of cheering him up. Tonight, it only reminded him of Roselyn, of their trysts here together, of the thin scar he has on his elbows from the gravel on the cemetery paths, of the blood on the ground. It was all too romantic.
He sat next to a weeping stone angel, snarling to himself about his mistakes and Roselyn's prominent faults. He did not hear the voices of the two, yards away, watching him. He was even too caught up in silently cursing Roselyn out and imagining their reunion that he hardly noticed being punched in the temple and starting the long process of death. A man bit a small hole into Dryden's unconscious neck and moved to open the wound wider and kill was little of Dryden lingered within his dying body, but female fingers held him.
"I like that one," the girl in the light blue sweater and khaki cargo pants growled. "Don't ruin him."
The man came up with a bloody mouth, like a child who got into the Kool-Aid. "Are you kidding? He is the prince of the possum kingdom."
"Not for long, he isn't. Do him."
His eyes widened. "Why don't you, if you like him so much?"
"One," she gloated, "because I want to watch you cut yourself and feed him. It would amuse me and you want to keep me amused, don't you? Two, because I want a minion, not anyone who thinks they can grapple with me for power so my blood is out. Three, because he brought me a rose. And four, because I am telling you to and you'll take my orders like a good little bitch."
"I don't recall agreeing to that."
"You did when I drank up your little friend and killed her," she smirked, then leaned in close to his ear. "And, really, you want to do it, don't you?"
He rolled his eyes and, without looking, slashed open his wrist against a sharp stone. She held the horizontal wound until it healed closed, then removed a razor from her bracelet and gouged open his forearm front wrist to elbow.
"Now, now, remember that we cut down the road, not across the street. Do it right next time."
She looked down at Dryden's glassy eye gazing blindly at the waning moon. "See you soon."
Roselyn sat before the candle, her face flickering shadows. From the other room, she could hear the lovebirds resuming their affectionate chirping, but the feather she held was black as night.
"Great fire, my defender and protector, son of the celestial fire, equal of the sun that cleanses the earth of foulness, deliver Dryden from the evil thoughts that torment him night and day!" She cast Hugin's feather toward the candle. The tongue of the flame caught it and devoured it to sulphurous ash. The spell was a loose adaptation for an invocation to fire for cure, but she couldn't imagine the effect would be much different. It had done a good job of banishing her colds and the added oomph of a raven feather would help its repurposing.
Generally, she had moral qualms with doing any spell that might even loosely be construed as interfering with the free will of another sentient beings. She would and had made exceptions to this rule - more of a guideline, really - but only when she could, without a doubt, justify that it was in the best interests of the person involved. Since Dryden would otherwise definitely lose her if he kept acting like a jackass and since she knew this wasn't anything he could possibly actually want despite behavior to the contrary, it shouldn't reflect poorly upon her karma. It was more like a good deed she was performing and nothing that should worry her. It wasn't as though she was forcing him to love her. Love spells were definitely forbidden, most of the time. This was more of a prayer then a spell, when looked at in that light. She was just kindly suggesting to the fire that it scourge his mind of thoughts that did him no good. Who wouldn't want that?
She blew out the candle after a session of fitful meditation. At first, she started to blame Dryden for upsetting her so much earlier, of distracting her from the eternal divine. But her intuition just told her something was wrong somewhere close to her. She tiptoed through the apartment, noticing Hugin watching her from his perch in the kitchen.
"Shh," she told him. "I just want to check on Shane." She prodded Shane's bedroom door open and, while a lesser person might have mistaken the sounds within for someone in mild distress - possibly having a nightmare - she had made those same sounds too often to mistake them for anything but pleasure. So, for once, Shane was fine. She rang her parents' house and, after three rings, her mother answered. Roselyn contrived a reason for her call, something about jitters about the first day of classes, but hung up before it could turn into a fight. That was a relief, but only for a few moments. Then the process of elimination left her with only one other option.
She dialed Dryden's cell phone, though she knew he wouldn't be anticipating a call from her. She wrath tended to last a few days, during which she refused any contact with him. "C'mon, answer. Answer!"
She repeated this three times until someone did answer, but it wasn't her boyfriend.
"Where is he?"
"Who, exactly?" asked the man on the other line.
"Dryden! Where is he?"
"He is… inconvenienced at present. Could I take a message?"
"Who the hell is this?"
"'Who the hell is this?'" he repeated back. "Is their a callback number at which he could reach you?"
"Give him the phone!"
"I do not believe he is in any position to be taking calls, but I will see that he find you once he is in a more… social mood." And the man hung up with no further conversation. When she tried the phone again, it had been shut off. She didn't know the phone's true fate, because there is no dial tone for "We're sorry, the phone you have been calling has been crushed against a stone angel. Please try your call again to another number that is not now a mess of plastic and wires."
Red Hook is a serialized novel being written by Xen, also known as Thomm Quackenbush. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is published by Cave Drawing Ink and syndicated throughout the internet.
