RiTS: Forever Knight, Intimations of Mortality, Chapter 3: Legalization Edition

RitS post 20 of 22

OK, you guys, here’s the thing: I have read ahead in this book. I’ve been through about 5 chapters now.

It is so. boring.

Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe I study too much story structure. Maybe this plot just feels stale because this book is 20 years old already. I don’t know.

What I DO know, though, is that I have a beautiful bong and a whole bunch of high-quality flower in my garage, and that shit makes everything interesting. So here, thanks to the good voters of Colorado and the awesome folks at my local dispensary, is Chapter 3, enhanced.

We open on Nick in his car, driving to the domestic dispute Tracy called him for as he was waking up in the last chapter. He’s all vampy again, and as he drives we’re treated to, like, a page about how good mortals have it and how awful it is to be a vampire and you know how this one goes! Seventy-millionth verse, same as the first!

He resolves again to send the dream doll back to NYC, and rolls up to the crime scene. Which…it was a domestic disturbance two pages ago, but now it’s a murder? Wasn’t Tracy already there, though? Did she just…not stop a murder?

Oh, no, wait, my bad. It’s a “domestic dispute gone bad”.

Anyway. He’s looking around for Tracy, and finally hears her talking half a mile away. He can see her, too, chatting with Vachon about concert tickets, and this is all just a setup to tell us that we are STILL playing the “don’t tell Tracy that Nick’s a vampire” game.

So Nick finds Nat with the body, and has some sort of weird freakout about the sight of blood. Nat starts filling him in on the crime – murder-suicide, pretty cut-and-dried, and why isn’t Tracy telling him this? Tracy ambles up and says she was meeting with an informant, and Nick starts telling her how to do her job.

“I’ve got a right to meet my informants where and when I feel I have to meet them.”

“Not when you’re the primary at a crime scene. … We’ve got to get here and get people to talk as soon as we can….”

Emphasis mine, because buddy, pal, ol’ Nick-a-rooney: YOU WERE ASLEEP WHEN SHE CALLED YOU. You dicked around getting ready and enjoying the drive and are literally THE LAST PERSON TO SHOW UP.

She says she brought the dude along because she couldn’t get rid of him, and yeah, that’s not smart. But Nick knows it’s not an informant, and also, SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN LECTURING HER IN THE FIRST PLACE, but apparently he just wants to warn her away from Vachon? Because…vampires?

Because if Nick can’t be happy, no one can be happy.

Tracy says she’ll take it under advisement, as long as Nick agrees not to treat her like his baby sister. Then she probes about him having a sister, and I legit forgot Fleur, y’all.

Anyway. They finish up at the crime scene and Nick’s driving home when Vachon jumps out in front of his car at a stop sign. And here we learn that Nick is fucking TALL, you guys, because he leans across his 60-something Cadillac and opens the door for Vachon. Guys. GUYS. I had a 1962 Ford Galaxie convertible. I couldn’t reach the glovebox from the driver’s side. I don’t think I could reach the far side of the center console, even, so…yeah. TALL.

He lectures Vachon about guarding Tracy, and Vachon says that the Enforcers don’t even know she exists yet. Probably because they don’t exist anymore, either, given that they showed up in that one episode and then never again.

Nick lectures Vachon about breaking up with Tracy, insisting that their relationship is nothing like his and Nat’s. And he’s probably right: Vachon hints that he and Tracy actually fuck, which we know Nick would never do!

Vachon won’t dump her, of course, and Nick’s just frustrated as he pulls up to the station. Reese tells him he looks like crap, and then gives him back a report that he has to re-do because it was the wrong form. Tracy comes back from the snack bar and they have a long discussion about Nick not looking good and how they’ve been dealing with all the bloodshed they see in their jobs. Nick is also thinking about it as they’re talking, about how he’s seen some shit, but he’s all fucked up about these recent deaths because they’re so pointless, but all death is pointless, and

Yeah.

Tracy says again that he was wrong to lecture her at the crime scene, and he apologizes to her. Guess he’s a real Canadian now! But she does confess that Vachon isn’t really just a snitch, and Nick warns her off him.

Sure, Nick. Being all up in everyone else’s business is a great idea. You should definitely fixate on Tracy’s relationships instead of your own. Good plan.

Tracy goes for more coffee, and Nick tries to work on his file, but he can’t make sense of it. He closes his eyes for just a minute, just a quick little nap. At work. Where everyone can see him.

Professionalism Everywhere!