RiTS: Forever Knight: A Stirring of Dust, Chapter 10

OK, Snowflakes, here's the deal: There was no TV recap this week because I got a little lazy and a lot tired. I just finished writing a novel on Tuesday, and started another one, and then Wednesday (which is the only day I have to do the recap) I had to work at one of my day jobs, and it was a long, long day. So I came home and watched TV. :(

But! I have the book recap, so forgive me? And let's get started!

Nick and Nat are at the latest crime scene: a playground. The body's headless, and there's no blood, but Nat tells the too-inquisitive cop hovering over her that the blood just soaked into the sand under the body. The cop keeps asking her questions, and she wonders if he's from out of town, because

Ha, no, not really. She fobs him off with "not my job" answers (see above), and then goes to talk to Nick about what is clearly his problem as  a vampire, not hers as a police-adjacent officer of the law.

Nick agrees that it has to stop, but then he complains about the press being all up in their Kool-Aid. Some news station has offered money for footage of the "zombies", so, in the quaintest late-90s way possible, he says that "…there are people wandering the streets with video recorders." It's actually a good thing he's trying to solve this case in 1997. Can you imagine all the video there'd be now? (And we all know how cops hate people recording them.)

There's a lot of Nat thinking about Nick whining, and wanting to be "civilized", and

And then she watches the techs bag up the body and thinks about how useless the autopsy will be, even if she doesn't want to be away from the CFS building for long. Which I think stands for County Forensic Services? Maybe? But I just picture this:

Mmmm. Now I'm hungry.

She starts to head out, but Nick tells her to wait, and all of a sudden the whole atmosphere changes. The park seems darker, the noise from the crime scene muffled. Nat thinks she's just exhausted, but Nick points to a place above the trees, where a man hovers. He laughs, and Nat realizes it's only in her head. It's Radu, and Nick takes off to follow him.

Radu leads him to the roof of a building, where they have a boring conversation wherein Radu blames Nick for bringing him here, and Nick's all "I didn't do it", and Radu complains about life in the 90s and calls Nick weak and boring.

Radu draws his sword, hoping for a fight, but when he sees Nick doesn't wear one, he just throws it at him. Nick dodges, of course, so Radu goes in for a "low" blow:

Radu flung words next. "Janette loved me!"Nicholas was on him instantly. "Liar!"

My note in the margin here is "FFS, Nick", and, yeah. Janette gets to love whomever she chooses. Did you expect her to be monogamous for, what, a thousand years? Two thousand? Seriously? I bet you didn't have the same expectations for yourself, did you? No, of course not, it's unrealistic, right?

In a flashback, Radu's listening to a conversation Nick and Janette are having, wherein Nick tries to convince Janette that Radu's just no good. She quickly throws back in his face that neither is he, and if he's trying to win all the "good vampire" points, he's not going to, because he's endlessly whining about wanting to be human again. She's not leaving Radu. END OF REPLIES. (1)

Back on the rooftop, Radu is having a shit-fit about Janette not actually staying with him, and he blames Nicholas. Why does no one in her life give Janette any fucking agency? I hope all these idiot men die, at this point. Just fight over her and kill each other and she won't have to fucking put up with you anymore.

Radu demands that Nick produce Janette, and Nick says she's absent, which I thought was a feint, until Nick thinks this:

He'd been hurt when she'd sold the Raven and left town without warning a few months before….Now he was delighted to have her away from the reborn Radu's insidious influence. Glad he had no idea where she'd gone.

But – um – guys, isn't Janette dead? Human and dead? Like, I'm not imagining that from the TV series, am I? I mean, I know I'm not imagining the human part, but my memory might be fuzzy about the dead part. Point is, Nick knows where she's gone. He knows she's not one of them anymore, and why doesn't he just tell Radu she's dead, whether or not she is? Why is he thinking that she's just off galivanting somewhere?

Nick tells Radu that he has to stop killing, has to live by the rules if he's going to live in this century. Radu, in response, threatens Nat's life, and flies away.

1: I belong to a pretty happening message board. Let's say it's about the care of guinea pigs (it's not, but it's specific). The women there and I have already had all our guinea pig questions answered, but every so often, someone comes along asking for advice. Sometimes they're fine, they take our opinions and thank us and go. And sometimes, they have crazy-awesome meltdowns because they think we're "mean".

One such person literally tried to shut down a thread by typing END OF REPLIES. It's still our favorite way to shut some shit down, yo.