Page 7 (1/2)

When Tohr had hit the billiards room bar, he hadn&039;t bothered to check which bottles he took Up on the second-floor landing, however, he learned that the one in his right hand was Qhuinn&039;s Herradurra, and the one in his left was Draht be desperate, but he still had taste buds, and that shit was nasty

Striding down to the sitting rooood old-fashioned rum - maybe he&039;d pretend the tequila was Coke and put the two together

In his room, he shut the door, cracked the seal on the Bacardi, and opened his gullet, sucking the hooch down Pause for s and breath Repeat Annnnd repeat and one ut was kind of nice, like he&039;d deep-throated a lightning strike, and he kept the rhyth the freestyle in a pool

Half the bottle was gone in about tenjust inside his rooetting drunk, which was pretty necessary

He put all the booze down and fucked around with his shitkickers until he got them off Leathers, socks, muscle shirt followed the trend When he was naked, he walked into the bathrooot in with both bottles in his hands

The ruh the shampoo and soap-up routine When he started the rinse cycle, he opened the Herradurra and had at it

It wasn&039;t until he got out that he began to feel the effects, the sharp edges of histhe peach fuzz of oblivion Even as the tide ca as he went dripping wet into his rooo down to the clinic and see about Xhex and John, but he knew that she was going toto have to sort stuff out on their own Besides, his oing around between the pair of them back in the alley

No need to share the wealth

He let the duvet dry his body Well, that and the heat seeping gently through the vents in the ceiling The Herradurra lasted a little longer than the ruone SRO between all the booze and the big dinner When the tequila was done for, he put the bottle on the bedside stand and arranged his lih At this point, he could have been packed into a FedEx box and felt okay about it

Closing his eyes, the rooht over a drain and everything was slowly funneling out

You know considering hoell this was rolling along, he was going to have to re but a dier was quelled; his emotions were placid as a et this kind of respite -

The knock on his door was so soft, he thought it was just the beat of his heart But then it repeated And repeated again

"Godda hell" He jacked his head off the pillow and hollered, "What"

When there was no answer, he shot up to his feet - "Whoa Yeah, okay hello"

Catching himself on the bed stand, he knocked the eravity was now split between the pinkie toe of his left foot and the outer piece of his right ear Which o in two directions at once

Getting to the door was like ice-skating On a Tilt-A-Whirl With a helicopter as headgear

And the knob was afro was awide, he barked, "What!"

There was nobody there But what he saw sobered hi from one of the brass sconces, was his Wellsie&039;s red waterfall of adress

He looked to the left and saw no one Then he looked to the right and saw No&039;One

Down at the far end of the hall, the robed fe as fast as her li aardly under those folds of rough cloth

He probably could have caught her But, shit, he&039;d obviously scared the crap out of the female, and if he&039;d been unfit for conversation at the dinner table, he was now unfitter-er

See? He was evenup words now

Plus he was buck-ass naked

Weaving his way out into the corridor, he stood in front of the gown The thing had obviously been cleaned with care and prepared for storage, its sleeves stuffed with tissue paper, its hanger one of those jobs that had a padded insert for the bodice

As he looked at the dress, the effects of the alcohol ht in a breeze, the bloodred fabric waving to and fro, the weight catching the light and reflecting it back at hi, wasn&039;t he

Reaching up, he lifted the hanger froown inside his roo his door behind them both Over at the bed, he laid the dress out on the side that Wellsie had always preferred - the one farthest froed the sleeves and the skirting,minute adjustments until it was in perfect position

Then he willed the lights off

Lying down, he curled on his side, putting his head on the pillow opposite the one that would have supported his Wellsie&039;s head

With a shaking hand, he touched the satin of the filled-out bodice, feeling the whalebones set within the fabric, the structure of the dress built to enhance a feood as her rib cage Just as the satin was not as good as her body And the sleeves weren&039;t as good as her arms

"I ohere her waist would have been - should have been "I miss you so much"

To think she had once filled this dress out Had lived inside of it for a brief ti in both their lives

Why couldn&039;t his h, powerful enough, a su the gown

Except she was alive only in his mind Ever with him, always out of reach

That&039;s what death was, he realized The great fictionalizer

And just as he would have reread a passage in a book, he re day, the way he had stood so nervously to one side of his brothers, fidgeting with his satin robe and his jeweled belt His blooded sire, Hharm, had yet to come around, the reconciliation that had arrived at the end of his life still a century in theover at him every second or two, no doubt because he&039;d been worried Tohr was going to pass the fuck out