"I can resist anything except temptation." -Oscar Wilde
~
Attractive women. Attractive, formidable women. Women who
were attractive because they were formidable and liked to smoke more than he did.
Proustite watched Taiki's mother on her front porch from an upstairs window of the house opposite, jacket pockets heavy with the starseeds of the family he'd just murdered. There were only four of them. A father, a mother, and twin sons about eight years old. He had
rules when it came to selecting targets. Smaller families with young children were easier prey than large broads with teenagers strong enough to wield bats with force. And he never, ever went after a clan with a large dog unless he had a youma in tow-- that was the whole of why Proustite had started fighting with youma in the first place. Some b***h St. Bernard took a chunk of meat out of his thigh one night in the middle of what he'd thought would be a standard B & E. The wound had healed well enough, but his skin was gnarled where she'd sunk in her teeth.
He retrieved a cigarette from the breast pocket of his jacket. Almost lit it, and then reconsidered.
He had been too busy with his family to see Taiki leave her.
She looks like she could use some company, Proustite thought.
And then he went to join Noriko on her porch, exiting by way of the Miller's front door.
"Hello!" he called to her, lips clamped around the end of his cigarette, waving as though they'd been friends for as many winters as she'd been alive. "You don't happen to have a lighter on you, do you?"
