“Have I spoiled the mood, Salome?” Ritcher asked. “You were vigorous only moments ago, why are you so quiet?”

“I…”She settled into her seat, adjacent to him. “I didn’t expect you to come back. I thought you -”

“Ran?” He asked. “From what?”

She opened her mouth but closed it quickly. Every in the room was quiet, even Turnus who resolved an urge to speak by drinking cup after cup of wine until his throat was flooded and his eyes bloodshot in a drunken stupor. They a sheen to them, as he glossed over the guests.

“What would I run from?” He asked. “Certainly not the murderer who killed father, he’s the person I’ve been looking for most. Certainly not from you, for you are no threat. I ran from nothing. I went home, to pray for father’s soul. Lord knows he’ll need it. People like us…get harsh treatment from the lord. As you know.”

Apollo stared at her, Salome, who for once was silent and pursed. Richter dragged his arm across the table, looking for instruments. He found a fork and the edge of the plate and worked together a portion to fit in his meal.

“Is this beef?” He asked.

“No.”

“Good, my lent demands it.” He ate. Chewed. A large man with a large throat, with a charcoal-grey suit that could barely contain him. A suit, that as he sat, stretched itself at his shoulder and waist. He rested his cane against the table.

“We were discussing father,” Turnus said. Opposite from Richter, both seated at the ends of the long-width table. Apollo leaned back. He was sweating and dried it off with a napkin as his eyes skidded from corner to corner. And he was not alone, as he observed across all their faces.

“Oh? It’s good to reminisce.” He said. “Memories are loyal, aren’t they?”

“We were talking about where we would have him buried. Salome wants a backyard to stuff him in, Aenea wants him buried at the old home.”

“Burn him,” He said. “Spread his ashes into the desert. It would suit him fine, he never liked being in one place after all.”

“Well, you’ve just added another option. I don’t think either party would like that though, Richter.”

“What do I care what the second-rate mother and her family want? Or the bastard.” He said. “We’re his first born, we are the people with authority.”

The rumblings of a disgruntled people began on the other side from Apollo. Aenea was oddly cold, silent. She kept her eyes on Richter.

“You two like making demands in other people’s houses, don’t you?” She clenched her chest. Floyd came around with a bottle of pills and laid them out, two red round pills, in front of her. “You have no shame you peasant boy. No shame!”

“Mother…” Floyd kept trying to put the pills in her hand. She shook too wildly, they slipped between her fingers.

“What she screaming about, brother?” He asked. “Strangers?”

“Father didn’t leave much in his will for us. He didn’t leave a will, to be honest.” He said. “The presumption is that the boy, Junior, will be acquiring most of his assets. Which means we’re left with nothing.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Oh.” He said.

“Disappointed?” Apollo asked. He stretched out his legs and felt the pain throbbing in his legs.

“Who are you? I’ve never heard your voice.”

“I’m Apollo, here to investigate your father’s murder.”

“And what have you found?”

Apollo’s eyes narrowed. He leaned in closer to the blind man.

“Nothing substantial. Do you know anything?”

“That’s a pity, detective,” Richter said. “But no, sorry, I don’t know much.”

Richter turned, though he was blind, to face Turnus. As if he knew, by fifth instinct, where his brother was. He raised his head high, his ears twitching to every sound; every scoff, every nervous cough, every bitter laugh or subdued growl. But he was not concerned, not with anything but his brother.

“Junior will be receiving everything then?” He asked.

“Everything.” He said. “But the corpse. Like I said, we’re deciding where to bury him. I was thinking of a vote, maybe we can settle it democratically.”

“This is no democracy.” He stood. His food, half-finished on the plate. “You should know that. We had a king, and now he’s dead. Let Junior decide then, where father is buried.”

“He hasn’t risen yet. That’s next week,” Turnus said.

“Is it then? What’s there to argue then?” He asked. “We tradition. And what does tradition entail? That the word of the head is the word of law. No filial hierarchy matters before the feet of the throne of the king. So let the next king decide where the old one dies. Junior, where is he?”

“Here,” Junior said, rather slow and meek. He had raised his hand, which Jezebel had lowered. Richter turned his head left and right. Junior repeated it, louder this time. Richter locked onto his form, though his eyes (behind the black band covering them) saw past Junior. Eyes that stared off into an imaginary horizon, which felt eerie to Apollo, that kind of forward-looking.

“You will be able to decide, won’t you Junior?” He asked.

“Don’t answer him,” Salome mumbled.

“I trust you to do best by father, and father alone.”

“O-okay,” Junior said, daft and slow and loud.

“Then this dinner has been good for something at least. I’ll be coming around next week then, for the ascension.” He turned to go back through the door he had materialized from.

“Wait.” Apollo walked towards him. “Answer a question.”

“Crude invitations won’t do you any good, detective.”

“How about an accusation then?” He asked. “Where were you the day your father left, approximately twenty minutes before he died? There’s no feed on you or any knowledge to your whereabouts.”

There was a triumphant silence amongst Salome and her ilk, who for once, seemed to root for Apollo even if just by process of elimination.

“I had left early in the morning. I did not plan to go to the meeting, it seemed frivolous.”

“That sounds funny from someone who was so adamant about obeying the king,” Apollo said.

“Father and I had already exchanged words before the meeting for I had something, more important, to attend. An event father sanctioned for me and one we were going to discuss had he not been murdered. I’m sure you could figure that out, it must have been written by his secretary.”

It was. He had gone through every file in the past month.

“What was the meeting about?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” Richter said. “And I never will. Father is dead, after all.”

Apollo stepped forward with his hand out. A jolt of pain shot through his hips that carried itself up his chest and into his neck. His leg limped.

“Wa -”

“Sorry, detective. I’m busy. We can talk later though if you’d like.”

He tasted it again. Bitterness, ash. He felt dread, a profound sensation like the sudden freeze and expanse of his veins. And he heard it, in his head, that voice that said kill him now. But he could not move. Let alone act, or fight. He stood against the table and watched Richter leave, with his cane out before him, smacking the floor at even intervals.

“By the way detective,” Richter said, half-way through the door. “You should get your legs checked.”

And he was out. The massive behemoth, large as two men, whose shadow seemed to cover the horizon. Whose awful, tapping noise, preceded him.

[i]Richter Wolfe.

Salome ate two pills and finished them down with wine. Turnus kept drinking. Dion wrote notes. Aenea tapped against the floor and the other children, stared.

Apollo looked back. He limped to his seat and sat.

“I don’t want to see him ever again,” Apollo said. Dion nodded in agreement.