Confessions of a Fangirl

Sylas looks up from where he's been glowering at the windshield; he meets his wife's eyes, smiles. "Was my disappointment so obvious?"

"I find your bloodlust very charming, my love."

"As do I yours."

The light of the Trader Joe's sign casts off her face and turns her eyes starry-bright. She smiles back at him so sweetly, so fondly. As is usual, Sylas finds himself thinking: let's just stay here. Lock the doors. We can live off of each other. I'll eat you up bite by bite, and you'll eat me, and then we can finally die.

But Delilah has a fondness for Trader Joe's prepackaged salads, and he can deny her nothing. So when the Cybertruck snarls to a halt, parked crookedly across two handicapped spaces, Sylas leaps out so he can open the door for her.

"Oh, fuck me," someone says from near the Trader Joe's sliding doors. "Fuck. They're back." Louder: "They're back! The fucking vampires are back!"

"Rude," Delilah says, taking Sylas' offered hand gracefully as she lifts herself out of the Cybertruck.

"Abhorrently so," Sylas agrees. "Will you pardon me, my love?"

"Ah ah ah. Not yet."

So: he kisses her. Her mouth tastes like the Trader Joe's Green Tea Infused Mints that they keep in the cupholder of the Cybertruck. (Ah, they're almost out. He'll need to remember to fetch some for her.) I love you, he says with the kiss, and I'm so happy to be with you, and I'll miss you every second that I'm gone, and I'll come back to you soon.

"Mm," Delilah says, when he stops kissing her. "Oh, you really are quite good at that. Give me the keys?"

Sylas passes her the keys; he goes to politely explain to that loud shopper that his wife is not, in fact, a vampire. He's very thorough -- by the time he's done, Delilah has locked up the Cybertruck and is passing a wet wipe over the handle of a grocery cart with a finicky look of discontent.

"I would have done that for you," Sylas says as he approaches. "My love."

"You need to clean your hands. Take a wet wipe."

"So I do," Sylas says peaceably. He passes Delilah the shopper's army of reusable Trader Joe's grocery bags (they are only a little wet with gore) and carefully wipes the blood off his hands. He goes through a number of wet wipes.

"Much better," Delilah says when he's done. "Shall we?"

They do.

Sylas has plenty to thank that shopper for -- besides the bags, their panicked yelping did a quick and thorough job of cleaning out the Trader Joe's. There are maybe six stragglers remaining in the store, and none of them are in the produce section: perfect.

"Wine," Delilah says immediately, and beelines for the reds; Sylas steers the cart towards the produce, begins loading in bags of prewashed spinach. (He is always trying to get Delilah to eat more spinach.) Apples, they need apples -- pomegranates are in season, lovely -- orange juice, salads. Delilah arrives with her arms full of wine bottles, puts them in the cart.

"Sylas," she says.

"Yes," Sylas says, debating between two of the salads. Wasn't one of these recalled? If she gets poisoned from the lettuce, he'll have to--

"More spinach?" Delilah says.

"You need the iron," he says absently.

"Steak, then."

"For every meal, my love?" He puts back the Sesame Miso Salad with Salmon.

"Hm." Delilah stands behind him, rests her chin on his shoulder. "Are they out of the Greek?"

"I can check."

"Hm." This time the sound is amused, fond; Delilah presses a kiss to Sylas' cheek. "No, it's fine, the Green Goddess is fine. Don't make the joke."

"I don't know what you mean," Sylas lies. He steers the cart towards the next aisle; Delilah walks ahead of him, pivots on one heel to smile at him impishly.

"Don't you?" she says, and then affects a pout. "You couldn't think of--"

"Delilah, if you want me to call you my goddess, you need only--"

"'scuse me," says one of the other shoppers -- indeterminate gender, mid-twenties, face mask, headphones. They hip-check the cart as they go for the cereal; the wine bottles chatter like teeth.

"Sylas," says Delilah, as the shopper walks away.

"Hm?"

"We haven't gotten anything for you."

"I like the Cabernet Sauvignon. And the chocolate by the register." But he is already in motion -- going back to the entrance, wiping down a second cart, wheeling it over. By the time he's arrived, the compulsion has taken hold; the shopper stands there in the aisle, cereal dropped and dented on the ground, blinking confusedly at nothing.

"Get in the cart," Sylas says.

"Okay," they say, and climb into the cart. "What's going on?"

"Snacks," Delilah says, and so they go and get snacks. Then desserts, frozen precooked meals, several little tins of mints; Italian sparkling mineral water, shave cream, charcuterie. Their shopping companion bemusedly agrees to hold the more fragile items close to their chest.

"I usually go for the white wine," they say.

At the same time, from different parts of the aisle: "Red is better." Then Sylas meets Delilah's eyes, and they both laugh.

(In the background: "Um, okay. I guess you're right? Red is better?")

Back at the entrance, Sylas plucks a bouquet of flowers and hands them to Delilah.

"You're sweet," she says, a smile curling up the corner of her mouth. "Freshly-cut...I'm going to have fun with these."

"I hope you do." The sliding doors whoosh open; Sylas shoots a toothy grin towards the cashier as he bypasses them completely and walks the cart out the door. He notes with pleasure that he's seen the girl working at the front before -- this time she's huddled behind the register, wordless and shaking. He appreciates being shown all due respect. Teaching the cashiers is such a bore.

Outside, Delilah is crumpling up a parking ticket off their windshield and throwing it on the ground; she opens the bed of the Cybertruck, and the other shopper hops out of the cart and begins loading their bags in. Sylas gets into the driver's seat of the Cybertruck; Delilah gets into the passenger's seat, puts the bouquet in the cupholder.

"So beautiful," Sylas says. "Though they're nothing compared to you, my heart."

"I should hope not," Delilah says. "I like to believe I'm worth more than seven ninety-nine." Over her shoulder, voice slightly raised: "Get in the truckbed."

Outside: "What?"

"The bed," Delilah says. "With the other groceries." She turns around, sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. "Would you--"

"Get in the truckbed," Sylas says.

"There isn't room?" the shopper says.

"Then get in the frunk."

"The what?"

Sylas opens the frunk.

"Oh," the shopper says. "That's...okay. Yeah, for sure. I guess you're right. The frunk."

They climb in the frunk. It's a tight fit, but when they curl up into a tight enough ball the frunk is able to close again.

"Honestly," Sylas sighs, starting the Cybertruck.

"They'll asphyxiate in there," Delilah says idly.

"Well. I should drive quickly, then, if we're to be home before their expiration date."

"No self-driving?"

"Too slow," Sylas says.

Delilah throws back her head and laughs. "Oh, wonderful. I hope you beat your record."

The king speaks in weak rage, anger born of fear, the Cerberus Assembly conspicuously headless. And Archmage Astrid Becke, littlest of their number, can think only of her chair at this table and who held it before her.

(Divinity is shackled, it seems. Magic struggling to follow leylines.)

(He’s free. Of course he is. Has to be.)

(She’s dead, screams the itch in her scars, a map to her obituary. Dead, dead, dead.)

But Master Ikithon is nothing but a footnote to his most resplendent and revered Highness King Dwendal, most insignificant of his name. Where is Ludinus, he bellows. Where are my wards? Who is responsible? What Crick did this? 

I don’t know, is all they can say, more unsettling for the people who usually know too much.

The rest - Uludan, Hass, the rest of the snakes. They knew what Trent did to them, they know she knows, they still see her as useful, a tool, even at the table. They look to her, Archmage of Civil Influence, not expecting her to be the one to. Making her play the part anyways. No, her people use Sending. Sending is not working. 

(No response. Has he already -?)

Hours of meeting. Increased security. Insistence to take advantage of the opportunity to dispatch a few daggers in key places. Astrid strides out and away, not looking at the other heads of her order. Keeps her own high, on swivel, because - 

She’s expecting the arm that grabs her. Expects the lines - they match, fit together, continue from her wrist to his bicep. 

“Eadwulf,” says Astrid. “Wulf -” 

“Blumenthal,” he replies, in croaking gasps. His shirt is undone - the silver raven feather gleams like a dagger, or death. “Ikithon.”

They go.

--

Of course. Of course. Even after it all. Astrid Becke at his seat. Astrid Becke who locked the collar around his neck. Caleb Widogast (not Bren Ermendrud) was the one he chose. The most naive of their three, the one who let the bastard live.

She cries, in the cradle of her mothers’ graves, that she dare be relieved.