Return Drive from Jaragura, Virginia

     The black Dodge Ram purred down the interstate, windows thumping with the heavy base of Metallica’s Black album. Behind the wheel was one very, very silent Lasombra. Slate McCormick, driving back from his Sabbat meeting in Brandenburg’s sister Camarilla city, was at what was possibly the lowest point of his existance. He drove with a silent intensity, dark brown eyes fastened only on the road as he followed the interstate back towards Brandenburg. Every time he took his eyes, or mind, off of his driving, an overwhelming crimson rage filled his thoughts. Therefore…driving. Yes…it was all about the driving.

     It wasn’t that Slate was a particularly vicious vampire, or that he had an uncontrollable temper. To the contrary, he was remarkably mellow for a vampire, and often found himself in the position of playing ‘daddy’ to those who were weaker than he, be they vampire, Garou or changeling. Slate was a man of strong loyalties and powerful emotions, and it was that tugging of loyalty which was tearing his undead heart in pieces. As he listened to the music, he found his eyes welling with blood-tinged tears, and abruptly yanked the wheel to the right, taking an off-ramp down to the Virginia beach. One thing Slate did not want to do was come back to his undoubtably frantic pack looking as if he’d wept. The tires of the heavy truck sank somewhat into the sand, but Slate didn’t get four wheel drive for nothing. He put the truck into gear and headed down the deserted beach until he was certain that he could be alone.

     Switching the engine off, the Lasombra emerged from the truck and stood motionless on the sand. Waves crashed against the nearby rocks, spraying the vampire with cold salt water. He did not blink at the spray in his eyes, but only stood still, watching the ocean heave. With slow, weary steps he moved away from the truck, only to sink to his knees ten yards away, carelessly letting the icy Atlantic water soak his clothing. With shaking hands, he pushed his wet hair away from his eyes. Slate looked at the broad gold ring on his left hand. This ring had not left his finger in over sixty years. He still remembered the look in his wife’s eyes when she had slid it onto his hand, and Slate could still hear himself swearing to wear it and love her until death do us part. He was dead…and now…as it turned out…so was she. Bloody tears welled in the Lasombra’s eyes again, and the tough guy-cowboy-Sabbat ductus bowed his head and wept on the isolated stretch of Virginia beach. Slate sobbed like a broken-hearted child, remembering the cold expression on Marguerite Thatch’s face when she had beheld her husband for the first time since that long-ago, bloody night. His heart wrenched as he recalled how she had stepped away from him, an expression of distain on her face when he had reached for her. Joy had burned briefly, faded and then died when his former wife had turned away from him with a wave of her hand. That is past, Mr. McCormick, and I would thank you to call me Bishop Thatch, if you would.

     His gaze fell on the wedding band again as her voice echoed in his mind, and with a wrench of his right hand, Slate pulled the ring off. Balling his fist around the small piece of precious metal, he stood, roughly wiping the tears from his face. He growled under his breath, and squeezed. The preternatural strength granted by undeath tensed his muscles, and blood ran from his clenched fist as the Lasombra squeezed the ring into a small ball of gold. Blood congealed in the sand as he flung the gleaming metal far down the beach, and turned, licking the crimson fluid from his palm. His jaw clenched as Slate paused to look back at the water, then climbed into the truck. Sand flew as he gunned the engine, the heavy truck leaping over packed dunes as he drove back to the highway.

     The slender form peeled away from the rocks and paced down the beach, following the arc of the flung object until she came to a small pit in the sand. Sighing with annoyance, Honoria Wingate knelt and sifted her long fingers through the cold, wet sand until she came up with the small ball of gold. Violet eyes flickered back over the sand, noting the erasing work of the incoming tide, and she turned away. With loping strides, the changeling headed up the beach, following the trail of her own making back to Brandenburg, Virginia. Her feet left no imprint in the sand, and as she jogged, she faded from sight, taking with her the air of impotent rage which had trailed her since watching the Rough Rider’s ductus weep in the tide over a woman whose heart had long grown cold.