When the news broke, most people thought it was another media scheme to promote the political career of Jullus Gollen. But when the phones began to ring, the small lie became a gruesome truth.

“Detective Tamon,” yelled Harres coming from the house. “This way.”

Myra slammed the door of her car and for a brief moment observed the one place in the city she never thought she’d get to see up close. It was known as the Unalin, or as most people called it, the Blue Palace. It was a mansion built for a long-lost dynasty that had since become a private ownership of many powerful families. It stood over the city like a watchful eye, out of touch for the common mortals.

She waved back at Harres and hurried along the stairs and into the open courtyard that split the house into three wings, the northern, the eastern and the western. Only one of those doors stood wide open.

“It’s worse than I imagined,” Harres said as he led the way through scattered groups of police officers and terrified service workers. They stood in the corners, with their shaking hands over their mouths, waiting for their turn to be interrogated. “Who could have thought such a thing was even possible?”

The checkerboard hallway opened up to a lavish staircase and a fountain in the middle. A chandelier of blue glass hung just above it, mirroring the water. It looked and felt more like a museum, rather than a home.

To the left, there was an open door, almost as tall as the ceiling. Lights were flashing out of it, like some grand show was happening inside.

The closer she got to it the more she felt like she was not really awake but wandering inside some nothingness far away. Her muscles began to dance as small pulsating cramps appeared and disappeared, leaving her unsure whether she was able to stand at all.

Faces flashed before her eyes, places she’d never seen before, rooms and curtains, landscapes of unimaginable beauty, the smell of old paper and the sound of silver threads creeping against one another. The vision circled her like a swarm of unfamiliar memories and she faltered, grabbing the statue of some dead poet that stood at her side. It fell to the ground alongside her, but through some stubborn luck refused to break, merely bruising her fingers.

“Detective Tamon,” Harres waved his hand over her eyes trying to wake her up from the oncoming haze, but she did not react. The sounds began to fade into the distance and the lights continued to dance inside her eyes. He tried to lift her back up but the strength inside her wavered and she slid even further into the abyss.

It was the awful smell of a car freshener that pulled her back into reality. She frowned and sneezed, unable to get it out of her nostrils. The sudden realization she was on the floor surrounded by the whole forensics team and the marble face of a dead poet made her wonder whether it was yet another of those terrible days. Soon enough she became certain of it, having spotted Ori above her head.

“Didn’t think you’d develop a weak stomach after all this time, Detective. It’s not a good look on you,” said Ori pulling the small green tree away from her face. Without another word, he disappeared back through the door and left her to gather herself.

“Are you alright?” Harres said once she was back on her feet. The lights have stopped flashing and the hallway echoed with the sound of footsteps on the marble.

“Yes,” she returned lounging herself at the door. “It’s all good.”

Words she’d heard in the doctor’s office echoed in the back of her mind like a swarm of croaking birds. Time was running out, but instead of letting herself linger on such dark thoughts, she decided to find the perfect distraction in a case of murder.

The dining table was set in the middle, with ten sets of dinnerware laid out. There were seven types of dishes and five types of salads served. Most remained untouched, dried out after several hours of being in the open. The candles had burned out and the fireplace retained mere embers, leaving not a single sign of life in the room.

There was a bottle of vine on the floor, half spilt onto the carpet, leaving a large red stain under the feet of Jullus Gollen.

He was seated closest to the door, where on the opposite side of the table was his wife, Kaia Gullen. His head was bent forward, with his arms relaxed on his side. Her head hung backwards over the chair, leaving her mouth open wide.

On both sides of the table sat three people, all members of the inner family circle, with the oldest being Jullus’s mother Fraila. She lay face down on the table with her hand still grasping the glass, waiting for it to be filled. Their faces were incredibly pale, almost like all the blood in their bodies was drained and turned into the red crystals that grew from their bodies.

Myra approached the table with great caution. The room was well lit and the crystals reflected the light to the walls, the ceiling and the horrified eyes of the victims. The red gleam was the most brutally beautiful thing she’d ever seen and this thought chilled her to the bone.

She walked around the room, observing each and every one of the bodies, as their grotesque poses reminded her of some elaborate film stage, where all of the characters that died had sinned against the killer. The crystals were long and sharp and she dared not touch them. Some were so thin and strong that they fused them to the chairs they were sitting on. Others made it all the way to the floor, making the bodies look as if they were the ones being impaled and not the source of the oddity.

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Ori stood near the middle of the table, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the bear that stuck its head above the fireplace. Every now and again he’d move a little and observe it from a different angle as if it was the most intriguing thing in the room.

“Do you know how rare these are?” he asked turning back. “There’s a genetic mutation that is seen once in almost five thousand bears. It turns their fur red, or at the most peculiar of cases, golden red.”

“Pretty rare I suppose.” Myra returned from across the room. Why does that matter?”

“By the last count, there are less than five hundred Harrow bears left in the wild, but it’s more likely to be less than that. How lucky does one have to be to come across one of the mutated ones?” he said in a low tone and stepped towards the first of the bodies.

“How unlucky the bear, you mean. It is its rareness that got it killed.”

He smiled, somewhat surprised by how personal those words could have been. “What do you think, Detective?” he quickly changed the topic. “What happened here?”

Myra took a deep breath before taking a moment to collect her thoughts. She made several steps back, going as far as she could, focused on the picture as a whole. Somehow, it took longer than she thought to really see the terrifying image before her eyes.

“They all died at the same time, that much is obvious. It started all at once before any of them had the time to call for help. This was supposed to be a happy occasion, judging by that bottle of Forinaal on the floor. I’m not an expert but I’d say that not even people of their standing would open that kind of wine without a good enough reason.”

“I agree,” Ori said crossing his arms. “They were celebrating Jullus’s ascension to parliament. The dinner was served. The expensive wine was being poured. What went wrong?”

“They are all members of the same family, are they not? There’s the wife, the mother, the younger brother and his wife,” she said pointing a finger at each of the people seated at the long table. “The younger sister and husband and their son. But, there’s two missing.” She continued to observe the scene as she crouched lower to the level of the table. Two plates and two wine glasses still stood next to the empty seats. “Who might that be?”

“The twins, Leida and Masu. The youngest of the family,” Ori returned, hovering his hand over one of the empty chairs. There were no crystals there, no broken bones or horrified faces, just the half-eaten beef and dried-up bread.

“Where are they?”

“They’ve been taken to the hospital a couple of hours ago. Somehow, they survived all of this, but we don’t yet know what condition they’re in. The servants said there were screams coming from the room.”

“Gods.” Myra gasped. “And?”

“They said the crystals were still growing when they came in. It was quick and very painful as they described.”

“The whole family,” Myra whispered to herself, as she took a photo of the scene. “What a horrible way to go.”

“Indeed,” Ori returned, breaking off a tip from one of the crystals and sliding the evidence inside his pocket. “What else do you see?”

“To be honest, I don’t know how to look at this. These spikes all come from within like they grew from something inside them and went through the skin. Their bones are broken but on the outside, there are no open wounds. Could it be from something they ate? Some poison of sorts?”

“Could be. It could also be the thing that made you sick a moment ago.”

Myra’s hand trembled and she clenched it into a fist. She did not believe that was the case.

“What are you saying? Is there something in the air? Is it unsafe?” she sniffed the room and covered her nose with her sleeve. The only thing she could smell was the wine and the lamb. Everything else now remained in traces.

“Whatever it was that killed them was only meant for them, or all of us would share their fate.”

“I think I’ve seen enough here. I’ll go ask what the staff knows about this gathering,” she added, following the line of the wall, not daring to come any closer to the horrid blood crystals.

***

“It’s a nightmare,” said the housekeeper. Her perfectly blue uniform was ruined with the splatter of blood and torn across from trying to move the prickly bodies. She still held the dinner schedule clenched inside her bleeding hand as she sat on the small bench in the courtyard, unable to bring herself to look towards the north wing.

“Mrs. Plyth, I am sorry to bother you at such a time, but I must ask you some questions,” Myra said as she sat on the bench beside her.

The woman nodded slowly and lowered her face into her palms so that even the lights of the police cars could not reach her.

“Can you tell me if anyone else was supposed to come here tonight? Were there any other guests we’re not aware of?”

“No, no one else. They all came for dinner at seven. It was always at seven.” Her voice was thin, almost unbalanced, sometimes deep sometimes high.

“How many staff members were there tonight?”

“There’s nine of us on the grounds at all times. This is a big house to care for.”

“Any new faces lately? New workers, strange visitors, anything out of order?” Myra insisted.

“What are you asking? Why would any of us do such a horrible thing?” she sighed, crumpling the paper beyond repair. “How would we? You’ve seen what was done to them. That’s magic.” She raised her voice so much she was almost yelling. Myra put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and kept it there until she calmed down.

“What about the twins?”

“They only came for the dinner. They haven’t lived in this house since they went off to university. Mrs. Gollen insisted they be here tonight. I wish it weren’t so.”

“Did they not want to come?”

She did not answer.

“Can you think of any reason someone would do this? Did the family have any enemies?”

“I don’t know about such things, I’m just a housekeeper.” The housekeeper took her first glance back at the house and straightened her back just a little. “There’s envy, yes,” she whispered. “There are people who want to see Mr. Gollen fall. It’s always been so, and all of Helden knows that, but I cannot point to anyone.”

“All right, Mrs. Plyth, if you think of anything, please contact me,” Myra said placing a card in her hand, but the housekeeper grabbed Myra’s hand instead and held it tightly until it hurt.

“You must find who did this. I beseech you. The twins are so fragile. They are not made for this world,” Her eyes flickered like glass marbles about to be shattered into pieces.

Myra stood before her, frozen in that momentary gaze the woman put on her. As it melted away she shifted to the side and took another look at the magnificent walls of an almost empty house. Footsteps followed from behind her, and soon Ori came out the door. He seemed to be in a hurry, buttoning his black coat and watching the people outside like a hawk watches for prey.

“Come on,” he said coldly. “We need to go.”

“I’m not done here. I still have to interrogate the service.”

“The twins have woken up,” Ori returned, with a hint of excitement in his voice. “I need you to drive.”