[Author’s note: Around nine months have passed since the events of episodes 45-48.]
Daryl was astonished how quickly things went back to normal with Rin. He wasn’t sure which was more appalling: that he allowed this to happen or that ‘normal’ was every bit as dysfunctional as their tempestuous moment of reunion.
In the months which followed they hadn’t managed to bag a single immortal, though not for want of trying. Two had escaped, but Daryl couldn’t tell whether or not that was his fault. Their earlier missions together had been resounding successes, and he wasn’t doing anything differently now. If anything, he was more experienced.
It certainly was possible that Rin ordinarily saw her own share of solo failures as well, but this seemed unlikely. She had been surprisingly fixated on Vivvett, which smacked more of chagrin at “the one who got away” than a more casual “win some, lose some” attitude. Daryl suspected something else was going on.
Maybe Rin still was distraught about killing Sree. If so, she never showed it. True to Rin’s edict, they had not spoken of her after that first day. This was particularly awkward since they remained in the same apartment for several weeks afterward. Daryl constantly felt Sree’s eyes on him, rebuking him for failing to save her. Rin refused to move the body into a closet or rotate it to face a wall. In fact, she seemed to take perverse glee in Daryl’s discomfiture.
Whatever Rin’s feelings about Sree’s death, his were unambiguous. Nonetheless — and despite his initial violent reaction — Daryl hadn’t fully registered the loss until they finally parted ways with her. Leaving Sree was inevitable, but it happened both sooner and later than Daryl had expected.
At first, Rin had planned to take her with them until such time as they found a suitable resting place for her. For some reason, the thought of this horrified Daryl more than having her corpse in their apartment. The beautiful and vivacious Sree would be turned into a rather inconvenient piece of luggage.
This, more than anything, led Daryl to wonder whether Rin was lying about her own grief. Given the cavalier way she talked about such things, he was surprised she wasn’t already using Sree as a footrest. Was she just pretending to be distraught to make him more pliable? It was inconceivable she could be so callous toward someone she actually cared about. On the other hand, she had killed the woman. Was lugging her corpse around really any worse?
Daryl realized he didn’t know what was was normal in this regard. What had Rin done with all her other victims? Vrit was the only immortal whose body he actually helped dispose of, and he just assumed she got rid of the rest in a similar manner. In retrospect, it did strike him as odd that she hadn’t asked for his help with them. On the laundry list of tasks associated with her mission, moving a body was one of the few things Daryl unequivocally could help with.
In the end, the plan to lug Sree around was torpedoed by practical considerations rather than sentimental ones. As far as Rin was concerned, there was no reason to move at all until they had a reason to be somewhere else. When she finally found an immortal to hunt, he was far from Bulgaria. Daryl was unsure how she accomplished this while just sitting around an apartment in the middle of nowhere, but he had long since ceased letting such things trouble him. If she wanted to tell him, she would.
Now that they planned to travel halfway around the world, bringing Sree was out of the question. It simply would be too difficult to avoid prying eyes, even on a cargo ship.
A week before they were scheduled to leave, a small white Mercedes truck pulled up outside. Two burly men and a young woman bustled into the apartment and quickly packed Sree into a wooden crate before hauling her off. Daryl couldn’t understand their language, which sounded as guttural as his own but had nothing else in common. Rin clearly had no trouble with it.
“Well, that’s a load off,” she announced in a cheerful voice once the workers were gone.
“Where did they take her?” Daryl asked, trying his best not to sound upset.
Rin began picking up leftover bits of packing material from the floor, apparently annoyed he had ignored her joke.
“Will she be okay?” he persisted.
Rin stood and looked at him. “Apart from being encumbered?”
“I mean her body.”
“It’s indestructible. Otherwise, life would have been a lot easier.”
The way she said this galled Daryl, but he refused to get distracted. “If she sees and hears, will she …”
Seeing that Daryl wasn’t going to be put off, Rin sat down with a resigned look. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a permanent home in an impermanent world? Even graveyards last only a few centuries at best.”
Daryl gasped. “You’re not going to bury her, are you!?” The thought of poor Sree hearing and seeing nothing forever was more than he could bear.
“Don’t be an idiot. She’ll be in a nice place. At least for a while.”
“And then?”
Rin shrugged. “Who knows. I’ll try to do what I can for as long as I can. But one day, she’ll be floating alone in the emptiness of space.” She smiled at Daryl. “Just like the rest of us. Well, those of us who matter. Not you. You’ll be a bunch of scattered atoms. But don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be particularly annoying scattered atoms. They’ll probably stop a galaxy from forming by bombarding it with inane questions.”
Daryl stared at the ceiling.
“What’s the mansion like?”
“You want me to tell you about the rabbits?”
“There are rabbits?”
Rin rolled her eyes. “It’s called Deadend Spa and Resort. Every day, she’ll be bathed in a variety of hot springs, then receive a massage from their award-winning masseuse before being feted with a twelve-course meal by Michelin chef Jacques Le Cul.”
Daryl perked up. “Seriously?”
“No. It’s just a mansion. I own it. Some of my servants will attend to her per my instructions.”
“How do you know?”
She gave him a bemused look. “Because … I told them to?”
“No, I mean how do you know they’ll do what you asked when you’re not there. Do they even know what she is?”
“You seem oddly obsessed with this.”
“I want to make sure she gets the best care.”
Rin pursed her lips. “Well, then feel free to pay for her care. I’m sure you’ll find a place which meets your exacting standards.”
Daryl looked down at the table. “You know what I mean.”
Rin’s eyes softened. “I get it. You cared about her. Yes you’re mourning another woman in my presence, and yes that is incredibly thoughtless. But I’ll try not to be hurt.” She gave a light sniffle.
“You fucking killed her. You at least owe her that much.”
Rin’s hand was on Daryl’s neck before he could move. “It is not your place to tell me what I do or do not owe her.” She released him and he slumped back in his chair.
“However, since you are so concerned, I’ll enlighten you. She will be well-treated. Why will she be well-treated? Because I told them to treat her well. For your edification, I do not ask my servants to do things. I tell them to. That’s what makes them servants. In all your pathetic self-pity did you notice something odd about the folks who just collected her?”
Daryl stared at her in bewilderment, and she groaned. “You’re becoming too used to all this. There was a time when none of it would seem normal to you.”
“It still doesn’t.”
“It’s normal enough that you assume everyone knows what you do.”
Daryl suddenly understood. “They know about you?”
“No. To answer your earlier question — yes, they know what she is. They know a little about Proteges. They think they know about me. Just like you think you know about me. From what little you do know about me, what would I do if they fail to meticulously follow my orders?”
“Nothing good.”
“There we go. I hire people smart enough to understand that. You’re the exception. But I don’t pay you, so you’re technically not a hire. You’re more like an intern.”
Daryl suddenly had a thought. “Are the other immortals at this mansion too?”
“Yeah, Daryl, it’s a big old party house. Drugs, hookers, noise-complaints, and some senators. I spend all my time hunting Proteges elsewhere because I don’t want to mess up the rugs.”
“I mean the ones you killed.”
Rin smiled. “Ah. I have a different place where I deposit those. It’s older and more convenient for this sort of thing. Sree is getting special treatment. See, am I not incredibly caring and generous?”
Daryl gave her a sharp look but returned the smile. He did feel a certain sense of relief. Rin easily could be lying, but the level of detail made it implausible. She had no need to concoct such an elaborate fiction. She just could tell him to fuck off instead.
Yet for all Rin’s assurances, Daryl had the sinking feeling that Sree’s slumber was far from pleasant. How could she even know what Sree felt?
“It would have been more caring and generous not to kill her in the first place,” Daryl pointed out. “How can you be so sure she isn’t suffering?”
Rin’s countenance darkened, but she seemed more tired than angry.
“If she is, it’s her fault not mine. I told you this was what she wanted.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well now I have, so you finally can shut up about it. Otherwise, you may find yourself the very unwilling recipient of similar largess. And you’d get the cave, not the mansion.”
Daryl stared at her for a moment. “How do you know she actually wanted that?”
Sree’s enigmatic comments now began to make more sense to him. He had thought they were nothing more than the fruit of an occasional melancholy, one completely at odds with her usually ebullient personality. Maybe such things were endemic to immortals. A long life surely accumulated various regrets, even for one such as Sree.
Now he felt the stirrings of a terrible guilt. How could he have been so blind? She was the one he needed to persuade, not Rin. Worse, he had missed five years of opportunities to do so. In all that time with Sree, he hadn’t even noticed.
Daryl wasn’t sure whether he could have convinced her, but he at least would have tried. He just thought she was being obstinately naive about Rin’s intentions, when it really was her own he should have been worried about. Was she silently pleading with him the whole time for an excuse not to die?
Rin groaned and put her hand on her head as if warding off a headache. “You really don’t know how to take a hint do you?” After nearly a minute of tense silence, she looked at Daryl again.
“Since you must know, I was under a certain obligation to her. Don’t bother asking why she wanted this or why I promised it to her. I would lie to you, just as she probably lied to me. Whatever her reason, I chose to honor the request.”
Daryl was about to ask a question, but a stern look from Rin stopped him. Instead, he mumbled an apology. Rin’s jaw dropped, but she then smiled.
“Well, this is uncharacteristic of you.” Her smile vanished. “But it’s also unbecoming and ruins the mood. How can I retain what little respect I have for your manhood if you start getting soft on me. If you are sorry, leave off asking about Sree. I have forever to harbor regrets, you do not. What happened happened. It had to happen and it did. There is nothing more to say.”
Rin's being surprisingly patient (for her). I wonder how long that'll last...