RITS: Forever Knight: A Stirring of Dust, Chapter 3

Okay, guys, unlike this week's TV recap, I actually was able to make sense of everything that happened in this chapter. Thank goodness. I couldn't have taken two days of this:

So, we start with Screed. He's puttering around the sewers, looking for rats to eat, which apparently makes him a carouche, which, as I learned from next week's episode synopsis, is a lower form of vampire who eats animals. But not, apparently, just their blood in bottles that he filled from a barrel with a gravy boat.

Anyway. Screed's bopping around when he runs into what is basically a zombie - or it's described as such, pretty much just a shambling corpse that's "far more dead than [Screed] was". Screed thinks it's against the laws of nature - dead things should be dead, not wandering around. He tells the thing to get inside, because the sun's coming up soon - so he's not totally heartless about zombie-vampires - and then he flies a short distance, to see if it'll follow. He's relieved when it doesn't, because even worse than walking zombie-vamps would be flying zombie-vamps, right? Right.

Screed's off to Vachon's place at the church. He likes Vachon, considers him a New World vampire, as opposed to the bigoted European types who hung around "Princess Janette" at the Raven and didn't want a carouche like him around. Vachon's a cool dude, in other words.

I liked this scene from a writing standpoint because it was quick and packed a lot of information into a short space without info-dumping. We get a look at how Screed sees himself and his place in the world, all without self-pity or narrator-pity or too much explanation. Well-done, Sizemore.

In the next scene, Lacroix is standing outside the club just before dawn. Some girl has been following him, stalking him, and he wants to put an end to it now. He was going to use his wee hours after the club closed and he went off-air to find the kid who stole his numen, but there isn't time for it now, so he'll content himself with the girl.

She steps out of the shadows and is described as "fragile-looking" and "gamin-featured", but I think Sizemore really wanted the word "gamine". They're both words, and they have the same roots, but "gamin" means this:

Where "gamine" means this:

Not to mention that even though they've the same root, a woman would always be "gamine", with the e, because French, yo.

Anyway. Spelling aside, the girl is fragile and small, and Lacroix threatens her by almost chomping her, but she isn't afraid at all. Turns out she's Tammy, his radio-caller/stalker, and she's wanted to meet him. He doesn't dissuade her; in fact, he has her follow him into the club, pleased by her obedience.

Tracy goes to see Constantine Drezerdic, the only suspect in last night's beheading. He's in his apartment, and it appears he hasn't slept at all. He asks if Tracy is there about his missing daughter. Tracy read that in his file: He has an adult daughter that he hasn't seen since the night he beheaded her mother, and he tried to file a missing-persons report on her so he could find her and reconnect.

Well. No. "Reconnect" is what normal people do. Drezerdic keeps insisting that his daughter is "his" and he just "wants her back". He keeps talking about her even as Tracy questions him about the antique dealer and the murder. He says that there were always young men going in and out of the shop at odd hours, and he questioned some of them about his daughter's whereabouts, but they never knew. Drezerdic is convinced his daughter is hanging around with unsavory characters.

Oh, and what's this daughter's name, you ask? Tamara.

Because of course it is.

Drezerdic says he was on the phone all night, looking for Tamara. He also says that he never misses work or an appointment with his parole officer, and he wonders aloud why he would ever kill a stranger. His wife, sure, she was cheating, and that was his "right". But he barely knew Adre Matescu, and so he'd like to go to work so he's not late.

Oh, and BTW, for the bagrillionth time, can Tracy get his daughter back?

Tracy lets him go to work - there's really no reason to suspect him at this point - and is thoroughly creeped out by his sense of ownership over Tamara. She heads home to shower and sleep.

Back in whenever-the-hell it is, Nicholas defends himself against Radu's accusations of thievery by throwing the silver box back on the table, scratching it in the process. Radu is dressed like a barbarian, covered in knives. He makes eyes at Janette, who removes herself from the conversation - presumably not to encourage him. There's some back-and-forth about his dress, his castle, and how the villagers know to protect themselves with garlic. Radu says he doesn't hunt peasants - "Their blood tastes like dirt" - and Nick's all, well, then why are they all up on the anti-vampire weaponry?

Radu blames it on a plague, and Nick says it wasn't a plague he saw in the forest. Radu's all, "Oh, I know what it was," and brings out his "pet" - which, from what little description there is, is another zombie.

Nick jerks awake in bed. He's been remember-dreaming about Radu and the zombie, and now he remembers why the box looked so familiar - it's the very one he scratched all those years ago. But what does it have to do with last night's murder?

He'll have to go to the Raven to find out.

Next week: Chapter Four! Although if it's as short as this week, I'll throw in Chapter Five for good measure. Not much to jaw about this time around, except spelling errors. See you next Friday!