These Streaks of Blood

18

Nelye exits her ridiculously large closet with a flourish, her typical, overly-extravagant gown swirling around her legs. Her obsidian bangle bracelets, ranging from her wrist nearly to her elbow, jingle loudly.

"I'm ready," she announces. Ryffin rolls his eyes. Nelye has always been this way; everything she does, every little movement, she performs as if she's in a play. There was a time, years ago, when Ryffin thought this flair for theatrics was cute, charming; now it just grates on his nerves.

"Good. Can we go now?" he asks impatiently. He hasn't been able to get the image of the smeared blood out of his mind. He keeps hearing Natalee scream out his name, cry out for help, even though he knows she never actually would.  

"So eager to find a silly little girl," Nelye chides, giving him her fake smile. She lifts up the small mirror attached to the top of her jewelry box - which, upon seeing for the first time, Ryffin would have guessed was a small wardrobe - and leans in, inspecting her earrings, which today are large black hoops lined with tiny rubies.

He feels his fingers flex, and he has to refrain himself from doing anything he'll regret. He knows that Nelye can help him find Natalee. She has connections with nearly everybody, and has sly ways of getting information that Ryffin now thinks he may have always underestimated. If she can't find Natalee, he's afraid nobody can.

"Yes, I am. Now, if you're ready," he presses her, through clenched teeth.

It's Nelye's turn to roll her eyes. "Oh, keep your hair on, Ryffin. You would be hopeless without it, after all." She winks at him and reaches out to ruffle his platinum locks, but he jerks away. She frowns.

"You know, Ryffin, I'm not sure that I'm willing to do this for you if you can't even be companionable. We'll be spending some time together, after all, and I want to enjoy myself, not throw myself into purgatory."

Ryffin glares at her for a moment, then sighs. "I haven't forgiven you, Nelye. You know that."

Nelye shrugs delicately. "Perhaps not, yet here you are, begging me for my help."

"I do not beg--" Ryffin starts to say, enraged that she's trying to portray him as weak, but she cuts him off.

"I beg to differ, my dear," she smirks at him. "See, I can do it, too. Nothing to be ashamed of."

Ryffin feels a growl building at the base of his throat. "Enough of these games, Nelye. I want to leave. Now."

Nelye sighs heavily, emphatically, as if he had just told her that it's time to embark on a lifelong journey to a land of death and misery rather than whatever she has planned. He fights the urge to roll his eyes this time, not wanting to lose her assistance, but at the same time really wishing he didn't need it at all.

"Okay, okay. Let's head out, soldier," she says, giving him a mocking salute. She sweeps her way out of her bedroom, pushing her little butler aside none too gently when he offers her a tray of cocktails, all red. The tray is knocked out of his hand, and all the blood leaves his face when the glasses shatter on the ground.

Ryffin stares at the spilled liquid in horror, a feeling of déjà vu callously stealing over him. After a moment, he forces himself to move, trailing behind Nelye reluctantly. The only thing spurring him on is the thought of Natalee, even closer to death than she was when she left him.

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Rave stands in the shadows of the neighboring house. He's been there the whole night, silently observing in case the two young vampires abscond their shelter; they could decide to do so at any moment.