Derrick
Character is simply habit long continued.
Plutarch
Derrick couldn’t remember being so hungover.
Falling asleep on the couch in his brother’s hotel suite hadn’t contributed much to his night’s rest, either. Now not only was his head pounding, but his neck was stiff.
He knew he shouldn’t have drunk as much as he had. But his brother had kept pouring, and Derrick had felt so miserable, remembering the wounded look in Jessica’s eyes as she’d asked him to stay away, it had seemed only right to keep drinking.
He regretted it now. Especially since his brother had ordered nearly everything on the room service menu for breakfast, and was still in the room, eating it.
“What I find most appalling about Americans,” Bart was saying, “is their portion sizes. Look at this. Just look at these fried potatoes. A family of four in any other country could make an entire meal of these alone.”
Derrick staggered into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes, and stepped under the shower. He ran it as hot as he could stand it for two minutes, then as cold. Then he toweled off and got dressed again.
He used one of the spare toothbrushes provided by the hotel to clean his teeth, then came out of the bathroom to find his brother complaining about the ketchup.
“Is it true they count this as a vegetable in American school lunches?” Bart asked, holding up one of the mini bottles from the room service cart. “I don’t understand how you can stand living in this country. What was Mother thinking when she begat you with that uncultured yeoman?”
Derrick knocked the ketchup bottle from his brother’s hand and seized him by the collar of the hotel robe he was wearing.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Bart demanded, shocked. “Have you lost your mind?”
“What are you doing?” Derrick shot back. “You know Rosalie Hopkins isn’t the Chosen One.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Bart’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Because I’d go to all this trouble for someone I didn’t think was going to be able to save this village.”
“You would,” Derrick said. “You would if you thought it might result in a spectacular enough bloodbath. That would get Mom’s attention, wouldn’t it? Because that’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
“Don’t try playing amateur psychologist on me, little brother. It won’t work, any more than your healing hands or that ridiculous theory of yours that demons are the spirits of those who died unjust deaths. Bloody New Age nonsense. Demons are demons, and deserve to be sent right back where they came from—hell. And that’s what Rosalie and I intend to do here tonight.”
Derrick blanched. “An exorcism? That’s what you’re planning to do with the restless spirits that are causing this rift?”
“Please call them what they are, brother: demons.”
“They’ve only become demonic because they’ve gone so long without—”
“So we should waste time coddling them? Allow them to heal and all of your other New Age piddle when we could simply banish them? I know it might be hard for you to understand—a man who thinks the best way to honor his mother is to get a tattoo of her favorite symbol on his body—but when you’re in possession of a hammer, the best way to deal with a nail is to flatten it.”
“That’s not how that saying goes,” Derrick growled, tightening his grip. “And I think there’s a simpler explanation for why you’re doing this: not only do you want Mother’s attention, you want to get into Rosalie Hopkins’s pants.”
“No, that would be you, little brother. At least I’ve never been foolish enough to fall for my Chosen One. I always thought you were smarter than that.”
Derrick released Brewster in disgust and went to the window. Of course Rosalie had arranged for the Grand Sorcerer of the WCW to have the penthouse suite, so the view looked out across all of downtown West Harbor, including the village square—now tented in preparation for tonight’s ball—and stretching all the way to the sea.
“So did I,” Derrick murmured, as he gazed down at the front entrance to Enchantments, which he could just make out through the red-and-gold treetops that lined the main road. “So did I.”