February 4, 2054 - 11:48 pm

North of San Francisco, California

53°F, rainfall 47%, humidity 61%, wind 19 mph.

The wheel of the car passed through a puddle, throwing a wave of rainwater on the driveway. The man leaned slightly forward, his eyes fixed on the wide open front door of the house, blocked by two yellow holographic bands only pierced by four letters. SFPD. The little computer geniuses who had seen fit to replace the good old ribbons that the police had been using for decades must have found it less difficult to settle for initials rather than pierce their pretty golden light of ‘San Francisco Police Department, do not cross’. Less aesthetic too, probably.

"You have arrived at your destination," said a female voice through the car's speakers.

"Yeah, I could have guessed it," muttered the man as the door on his left slowly opened, the smell of rain and fresh air welcoming him outside.

The soles of his boots plunged into a large puddle as soon as he got out of the vehicle, tearing off him a smothered swear when the bottom of his soaked pants clung unpleasantly against his skin. Putting his hands in the pockets of his navy blue jacket with a steel star on the chest, he went around the car as he watched it close the door, turn off its dazzling headlights and lock itself as if, once its mission was accomplished, it fell asleep peacefully. The wonders of technology, he thought as he scanned the surroundings with a weary glance. There were two others cars, well parked around the front steps of the house, whose red and blue lights swirled in the darkness, illuminating the bricks of the facade and casting the shadows of the garden sculptures on the steps of the stairs. It was the first time he had set foot in one of the splendid houses nestled on one of the hills overlooking San Francisco. Generally, the missions he was given were more likely to take place in neighbourhoods where a non-uniformed person rarely wanted to spend the night.

"A cig, Inspector?"

The man took his eyes off the mullioned windows when he saw a young policeman cross the alleyway holding a pack of cigarettes between his fingers. He refused his offer with a shake of his head.

"I'm glad you came. I know you weren't on duty tonight, but…"

"It doesn't matter, Marty. Anyway, Sean's not home tonight, so it's not like anyone's gonna miss me."

Marty nodded slowly, pretending to be looking at a sculpture next to the steps of the porch. It was an angel, a woman, naked, curled up, whose empty eyes timidly glanced over her wide wings. The rich people really had strange tastes.

But it was Marty that Inspector Harrison was watching. He was a good guy, Marty, and even Howard knew how difficult it could be to be respected as a black cop, especially with that jerk Chief Johnson who seemed to take a wicked pleasure in sending his colored subordinates to do the dirty work. Despite everything, Marty never complained, and in six years he had never given Johnson a single reason to write a line in his disciplinary file. Integrity was all Howard Harrison expected from his colleagues. The colour of their skin or the neighbourhood in which they had grown up was the least of his worries.

"How is it coming along?" he asked, looking back at the front door.

"It's not pretty to see. Or to smell, for that matter. The coroner should be here soon, but by the smell, I bet that poor old man's been here for a month."

Howard shrugged while walking toward the door, Marty on his heels. He climbed the steps of the porch and the two men stopped for a moment, inhaling a good breath of fresh air before crossing the holographic bands that blocked the entrance. Marty hadn't exaggerated: the smell was just awful. If he had not had a good twenty years of unpleasant experiences, Howard would have have an uncontrollable retching, but he just let go of a growl of disgust while the other police officers in the living room greeted him with a nod.

The floor creaked under his weight as he walked through the room to the large fireplace in front of which was a large black leather armchair. It looked incredibly comfortable, much more than the cheap couch the inspector had in his own apartment. Apparently, the corpse that was sitted there shared his opinion.

"Well, would you look at you...," Harrison whispered as he pulled the little flashlight from his belt to inspect the gaping hole that adorned the exact middle of his forehead.

The old man stared at the ceiling of his glassy eyes, his mouth wide open and his neck against the leather of the chair. Traces of dry blood flowed from the wound, passing between his two eyebrows composed of a handful of white hairs and splitting on either side of his nose. A few drops had soiled his silk bathrobe. A crime in itself, given the price of it.

"The gun between his eyes was probably the last thing he saw," Marty said sadly.

Harrison looked at him briefly as he passed the light through the old man's bare feet, following the clots of blood that had dried on the carpet, straight towards the chimney filled with greyish ashes.

"No. He was shot from behind. The bullet went through his skull. I think someone lifted his head up afterwards."

"Why would someone do that?"

"I don't know… I don't know. Anyway, the old man died instantly. Did we find the gun?"

"No. And there's no sign of forced entry or theft. The neighbours saw nothing, heard nothing, but even before his death, no one had seen him leave his property for almost ten years. It was the nurse who came for his monthly check-up who found the body and immediately called us."

"What about his family?"

"He was a widower. Don't you remember? He had stated on television that he was withdrawing from public life after his wife's death and leaving his affairs to his last son, Desmond."

Howard made an annoyed face.

"The chronicles of the O’Sullivan family have never fascinated me."

"But still...," Marty tried.

"... it’s the most influential family on the West Coast, I know. Any news of his son?"

"We called him, he said that he’s on a business trip to Paris and that he can’t come home right now."

The inspector looked up at Marty and stared at him for long seconds, as if he expected his young colleague to read his mind, but finally straightened up silently, looking at the paintings on the walls. Biblical scenes, for the most part. He didn't know much about religion, but he still had some vague memories of the catechism classes that his parents had forced him to take throughout his childhood. The Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel. The flashlight then turned to the third and last panel.

"Inspector?"

Howard frowned, his eyes running through the canvas. All these scenes had a dark side, almost resigned to pain, anger, betrayal... But this one was something else. Something worse. It wasn't from Genesis this time. It was mythological. The features were more feverish, the colours saturated, the shapes more pronounced. It was… Cronos eating his own children.

"Inspector, are you okay?"

"What? Oh... Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking about…"

Marty raised an eyebrow, looking at him when he turned around.

"... about his son. He learned that his father has been found dead, but he prefers to stay in France. How nice of him."

Howard had a slight smile as he walked through the living room towards the stairs.

"Make kids," he muttered for himself, "Has anyone checked the first floor yet?"

Marty silently shook his head before turning back to old O'Sullivan's body. There was no point in insisting on O'Sullivan's son: no one knew anything about the private lives of these people. And if the police had trouble gathering information, or even daring to say their name, it was proof that they had raised so much money that it now allowed them to keep undesirables from getting too close to their little secrets. A little extra privilege.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Howard looked down and felt his foot slipping on the floor, as if the rains of the last week had been so heavy that puddles had even appeared in the living room. Puddles made of black, slightly oily rainwater. Two or three sole marks left the puddle and crossed the living room before fading away.

"It's my fault, Inspector," said another policeman, leaning against a wall in the room, "It was dark when we came in, I’m sorry I stepped in it."

Harrison glanced at him, but instead of answering, he dipped two fingers in the black liquid and rubbed them for a moment, observing the material against his skin before carrying it to his nostrils.

"Coolant," he whispered, wiping his fingers on his pants.

The inspector stood up slowly, stepping over the puddle, the flashlight illuminating the floor in search of other black traces. There was no reason for old O'Sullivan to have fun transporting such a product through his apartments. In fact, there was no reason why he should even have any at home, since he hadn't had a car for a good decade. What is the point of keeping a vehicle, and one of the oils necessary for its maintenance, when you no longer go out of your garden?

He climbed one by one the steps leading to the first floor, marking a short pause each time a black trace, however discreet it may have been, caught his attention. When he reached the first floor, he watched each end of the corridor with the white light, finding only the right door still closed. On the left was the bathroom. His attention then turned to the heavy varnished wooden door facing him. When he activated the handle, it opened in a sinister squeak, discovering a room plunged into darkness, eaten away by humidity, and occupied by a much more invasive dust than the ground floor rooms. Spiderwebs were nestled in every corner, connecting libraries together as their tiny owners ran away from the light on the cracked ceiling.

"Damn," said Howard, looking at the covers of the books on the shelves. "I haven't seen one like this since the late 2020s."

He slowly walked around the desk in the centre of the room. The drawers, ripped open, emptied, seemed frozen in time, also covered with a thick layer of grey dust. There was indeed a small frame turned against the surface of the furniture, but....

Inspector Harrison brought the light back on the frame as he approached it. Just a second. It was most likely a photograph of O'Sullivan's wife or son, so he had not felt intrigued by this unimportant object at first, but a detail had almost escaped him. A detail that suddenly made this frame even more interesting than the old paper books that were cluttering the shelves.

A very slight fingerprint, a black one, had dried on the edge of the frame.

Howard approached his hand. This mark... Did it belong to the old man who had been shot without even seeing his murderer point his gun at him, or...

Now used to the silent, his heart jumped when he heard a sudden noise, like a creaking floor, right behind him. His muscles tensed out of fear, Howard immediately turned around and pulled his gun from the belt of his uniform, both arms outstretched in front of him, pointing his flashlight over the barrel of his gun.

"Shit."

No one. Of course. Perhaps it was only one of his colleagues who had leaned against a slightly fragile piece of furniture in the living room. Nothing very alarming.

Or maybe it wasn't that.

There's no sign of forced entry or theft. Howard walked to the door and stopped in the hallway leading to the only door still closed. There were still these black marks, but this time there was no question of a simple fingerprint. It was as if someone had crawled on the ground.

He knew him, he thought. He let him inside his home. And he was obviously not motivated by money. It was personal. A murder in all conscience: it was old O'Sullivan who had to die, for one reason or another.

Howard walked though the hallway without making a sound, remaining as stoic as the statues in the garden as soon as the floor creaked under his weight. A few more steps, and he'd be right outside the door. The closer he was, the more the white glow of his flashlight highlighted the fingerprints clumsily left on the lower part of the wood, leading his gaze to the handle.

The inspector looked back at his gun, while taking a deep breath. Three. Two. One.

Concentrating all his strength into his leg, he violently kicked the door, breaking the lock by cracking the wood under the impact. It gave in, slamming against the wall and unveiling a large room cluttered with countless decorative knick-knacks and documents framed on the walls. Diplomas, press clippings about the affairs of good old Alistair O'Sullivan, his hold on the pharmaceutical industry, the dozens of private hospitals he opened on the West Coast in the 2030s, the influential personalities he had met…

Howard pointed his gun at the stuffed deer in a corner of the room, near the large mullioned window overlooking the garden through which the blue and red lights of the police cars slid to illuminate the room. A bent leg, upright neck, his large brown eyes seemed to escort the inspector as he cautiously advanced through the room. Without even taking the risk of blinking, Howard went around the bed, passing light over every inch of the perfectly tucked-in sheets in search of other black traces. Nothing. Nothing at all.

With a deep sigh, mixing both disappointment and relief, Howard lowered his gun while staring at the deer's big eyes as if he was looking for some form of support. It was incredibly beautiful. Its brown fur, smooth and shiny, underlined the graceful shape of its body. It had something... inexplicably bewitching. So, without really knowing the reason himself, Howard finished crossing the room to it, nestled behind the wide bed, as if frightened by the presence of this perfect stranger on his territory, by this unknown face that was slowly approaching him…

But he stopped.

Howard felt his heart suddenly rise up his throat, trapping the air in his lungs. He did not even have the presence of mind to straighten up the weapon he was holding in his hands, or even the simple idea of calling his colleagues. He simply stood there, his eyes wide opens, the furious beats of his heart resonating throughout his whole body.

"Oh fuck..."

The glow of his flashlight stubbornly remained on a young man's pale face, refusing to detach itself from his thin, slightly bluish, half-open lips, his deep brown, glassy eyes, framed by long black eyelashes, or his dark, slightly wavy hair resting against the cold floor.

"Oh fuck," he repeated, trying to look at his whole body, slowly squatting beside him.

The young man was lying on his stomach, his legs bent, one arm trapped under his belly and the other resting miserably against the floor, as if his eyes were still hanging on his hand. Shit, he couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. When he died at the age of seventy-eight, he doubted that Alistair O'Sullivan had such a young son, one that the press would never have talked about. Anyway, from the clothes he was wearing, he seemed closer to a servant than a rich heir. Then what? A collateral victim? Possible.

Howard putted his fingers on the boy's neck, pressing his soft, icy skin in search of the tiniest, weakest pulse. Of course, if his theory was correct and he had been killed at the same time as old O'Sullivan, that did not explain why, unlike the first victim, he was still in a wonderful state of preservation. It didn't even give off that infamous smell of putrefaction.

The inspector shook his head, resigned to the fact that no heartbeat would grab his fingers. It was not the first time he had faced such a young victim, but he never managed to examine these bodies with the same detachment he felt towards the forties, fifties or anyone who had had the chance to experience life before falling into the final chasm.

"Poor boy...," he sighed before removing his fingers from his throat.

Harrison stood up and turned away, backing up to the door to warn his colleagues of the presence of a second body, when a squeak sounds behind him. A rubbing on the floor, the wood boards cracking. Howard turned around, his flashlight raised, his arm pressed against his chest. The light went through the sheets of the bed, the stare of the stuffed deer, then rushed to the ground.

Howard felt a scream get stuck in his throat, unable to get out of it as if a knot was preventing his voice and breath from leaving his body. A wave of terror whipped his nerves and raised the pores of his skin while drops of cold sweat ran across his forehead and down his spine. He could not see his reflection anywhere, but he was certain that the colors had fled his face, making him as pale as the young man he had just found.

Now, his cheek no longer rested against the floor, his glassy eyes no longer stared forever at his open fist. As soon as the blinding glow of the flashlight stuck to his face again, the young man's muscles seemed to have suddenly contracted, trying to straighten up with a sudden movement, but his weak limbs had not been able to support his weight.

"Goddamn it," Howard finally shouted as a wave of burning blood invaded his arms and legs, screaming at him to grab his gun.

The boy's back clumsily hit the bedside table, knocking over the little lamp that was there and falling into the deer's legs. One of his hands grabbed the bed sheets while the other scratched the floor in search of a support point, or perhaps the slightest object that could serve as a weapon or shield.

"Don't move! Don't fucking move!" The inspector shouted, the barrel of his gun pointed on the boy's forehead.

What the hell was that? What the hell just happened? A ghost? He was absolutely certain that he had not felt any heartbeat! It was impossible, purely and simply impossible.

"Inspector!"

Marty rushed into the room, three cops on his heels, their guns in hand. The policeman stopped, his black eyes wide open, passing from Howard to the young man curled up on the floor, against the bedside table.

"Who the hell is..."

"He was dead! He was fucking dead!"

"Wha..."

Harrison took his eyes off his stunned colleagues, turning his attention back to the boy's face. His head moved from one point to another in the room, following the voices he heard around him, his eyes half-closed, wrinkled, his bluish lips pinched. With his legs bent against his chest, Howard could not help but look up at the deer beside him. His body was as inert as his, with the exception of this feverish head movement.

"Inspect..."

Marty's voice died in his throat when the boy suddenly collapsed to the ground like a disjointed doll, his head falling on his shoulder.

A heavy silence fell on the room. Howard kept his gun on him, still shaking. What was that? That strange phenomenon of chickens whose heads would have been cut off and whose bodies kept moving? Some kind of electrical impulse, a last breath of life?

To his left, he heard Marty's whispers, asking a thousand and one questions without Howard even being able to formulate a single answer. He was dead. This boy was dead.

"Take him away," he whispered, carrying his shaking hand to his sweaty forehead.

"But..."

"I said, take him away!"

He was dead. But he had looked at him.