Weeping Willows (NaNoWriMo 2018)

|| PROLOGUE ||

There was a blanket of tranquility over the city tonight.

He watched as the smoke from his cigarette stretched lazily towards the sky, the trails becoming long wispy fingers that drew through the air with the breeze. The amber light on the other end of the stick flared when he inhaled deeply, then wilted to a soft flame when he released his caged breath.

He watched the quiet street below him and thought about how eerie the quiet could be. People visited the country or the woods for peace and quiet; nobody entered a city and expected to enjoy a quiet night. Especially not this city, the one he had lovingly groomed into submission and, ultimately, a permanent territory war.

He took another drag of his cigarette and flickered the remaining ashes at his feet. It was too early to go back downstairs, but he could taste the sweet nicotine lingering in his mouth as it begged him to pull out another to replace the one that had dwindled away between his fingers. Smoking always was a nice distraction from his hunger, after all.

Pulling out his pack of cigarettes was a familiar movement, and within moments he had a newly lit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He sucked in a long breath, settled on the edge of the roof, and waited.

Below him, the deadly shroud of silence hanging in the night air shattered as police sirens screamed in the distance.

From much closer, he could hear the faint end of a dying argument, and he instinctively sucked a deep inhale of his half-finished cigarette before he flickered it over the side of the roof. It wasn't a moment too soon, either, as the fire escape below rattled with the weight of a visitor's presence.

He gently kicked his feet as they hung over the edge, the distance of the drop below making his head feel heavy with the idea of falling. If such a fall was lethal to his kind, he would have died long ago.

"I don't understand how you can sit up here all night, Bodhi."

Bodhi only smiled. The urge to inhale a lungful of smoke slowly faded into a distant memory, as it always did around his oldest friend. Ronan had that unfortunate effect to make Bodhi feel a little less like a human. He was the constant deterrent to any mortal habits, especially negative ones such as an addiction.

Ronan stepped closer to where Bodhi was sitting on the ledge, but he avoided looking towards the ground. Instead, Ronan studied the clear sky above them, despite the city's light pollution that tainted the view of the constellations.

"Stop looking for something that's never there," Bodhi finally said. He didn't have to look at Ronan to know that he was being glared at.

"It's better than staring at a body in the street," Ronan countered, his voice low.

Bodhi didn't respond, but he didn't have to. The sirens would say enough for him. The shadows on the street were being chased away by approaching red and blue lights of a single police cruiser. If it wasn't for the distinct blue license plate and flashing lights, however, the car could have easily been mistaken as a normal civilian's car.

"When are you going to tell that detective to stay out of our business?"

"Our business doesn't involve killing people." Ronan stepped up onto the ledge to cast a critical gaze at the scene below.

"Who will tell him that?" Bodhi gestured down at the car, where two figures stepped out into the open. The flashing emergency lights cast savage shadows across the pavement, and Bodhi felt the faintest urge to pull his pack of cigarettes from his pocket once more.

The feeling died when Ronan sighed. As if his breath alone swept the mere thought from Bodhi's brain, his fingers grew limp in his lap. For a moment, Bodhi damned him and his ability to turn the world into a gray and vastly empty space that only Ronan could occupy. He suffocated under that single sigh.

"I will," Ronan said. "Wolfe and his friend will be amicable, I'm sure."

"Like all humans are," Bodhi drawled bitterly. This time, he did reach into his pocket, and grabbing the pack of cigarettes made him feel like a child grasping for a teddy bear. Even the smallest comfort in the face of certain cruelties was worth the admittedly pathetic comparison.

"When it comes to common enemies, they are," Ronan insisted. His firm tone made Bodhi scowl around the stick of his cigarette, still unlit.

"We are the enemy, Ronan," Bodhi muttered. "Or did you forget about your dead heart and fangs?"

"If anything, you remember yours far too much." Ronan turned to begin his descent down the fire escape, then paused to add, "You were never this cruel a century ago."

Bodhi pulled the cigarette from his mouth, firey anger catching on the gasoline of his memories, but Ronan was gone before he even had the chance to open his mouth. Thoroughly seething with hellfire, he turned away from the ledge, and away from the call of the void that begged to sing his swan song.

Down below, the flashing police lights suddenly switched off, and Bodhi was once again cast in near darkness.