Bab 61: Murder Mystery

AS IF THE PRESENCE of the Fallen, marked by the fiery apparition of the [Eternal Flame] hadn't been enough for one moon, yet another eerie finding struck the kingdom of Eldoria. This one rocked the whole Empire from the ports filled with mighty ships to the inner sanctums of the Highfather. It was on the next snowing morning that tragedy met the house of Penderghast.

The Count of the lordly villa, Sir Lucius was found dead as a doornail, eyes open and bluer than frost, lips sealed ajar in a cry he couldn't voice, skin pale as sheet, and arms stiff up in the air—by his own daughter.

The girl's scream pierced the morning so loudly it woke the entire District of Lords. Her mother did rush to the scene as crows scattered on the pale fall trees around the white mansion. In great fright, both women had stared upon the stricken figure of father and husband. The dumbfounded Countess reached a shaking hand for the nearest handmaid who rushed into the room. She gathered her sobbing daughter into her arms, and gave order to call for her bestfriend.

"Summon the Queen," Cordelia rasped.

Death had come to House Penderghast.

Rafel was locked that very morning in furious sit-ups on the Manor's extending promenade when Cora jogged out to him with an open letter. She told of its contents to Rafel.

"The Count of Penderghast was found dead this morning, just few hours ago. News of it had spread like spiritflame in a Mage's grasp. Queen Giselle is already now in the villa. The perpetrator is at large. In this missive, Her Majesty humbly asks that you come along. She writes that she already has her best investigator coming in from the shores of Corynthia. She says to hasten."

Rafel sat up suddenly, his abs bunching and solid as concrete.

"Lord Lucius is dead? I was just with him before the battle of Skyfall...a good man. A knight in Her Majesty's Court, this case wouldn't be taken lightly. Only a killer confident in his secrecy would make an attack so brazen, especially in a realm of magic where he can easily be found out."

Rafel was still speaking when Ravenna rushed out with a light brown parchment of the daily Eldorian gossip. She stammered out her questions. "Is it true? The Count of Penderghast, m-murdered? Is Brunhilda okay? I should go check on her—"

"NO. You will remain here, INDOORS, all of you! I take care of mine. Like a said earlier, only a killer pretty convinced in his abilities if evasion would strike thus. Corazón, ascend the wards around the estate. And release the hounds! Tell Mia to alert the stewards: housekeepers, dressers, cooking staff, EVERYBODY... they'll be sleeping tonight here with us. I wouldn't have them risk a journey to their private homes, not with a murderer on the loose. If this person had the guts to strike down a Rank B [Silver Knight], who knows who'll be next?"

Rafel growled, and then pacified Ravenna with these words. "I will check on Brunhilda for you when I get to the villa. Now I must get going before the murder site is wiped. The Queen expects me. Close every exit. No one in. No one out. I'll be back before nightfall."

Cora bowed out Rafel and folded back the royal summon letter. She and Ravenna watched him grab a black shirt, alligator boots and a military trenchcoat before heading out into the nearest clave of shadows. Pulling on his red demonic mana core, Rafel melded into darkness. He vanished like wisps of black thread before their eyes.

[Ding!]

[Hail, Apollyon!]

Rafel didn't much concentrate at his system's chiming in his head.

[You have equipped, and used ABILITY: SHADOW WALKER.

Point of re-entry: HOUSE OF PENDERGHAST.

Deity: Erebus.]

Rafel appeared as a dazzling dark mist on the porch steps of the villa. The fog of recent death had wrapped itself around the majestic home and somehow, the white in the long walls seemed more like gray. It wasn't snowing but the grounds were thick in dew and a pervading, chilly mist. It was nearly impossible to see ten steps ahead.

Rafel rang the house bell.

It was the crying daughter who answered. She opened the door cautiously. Her foxy eyes were tearful and more like a roe's. She blinked in the rapid sheen. Her cheeks were smudged. Rafel could tell she had sobbed a river. Seeing the towering, dark shadow of the beautiful man in the trenchcoat, Brunhilda took a moment to pore over his face. It lasted just a second before she opened her arms and jumped onto him.

"Your Grace," the girl hiccuped. She clung tightly to him. "Thank fuck you're here. My father might get his measure of justice. I know it."

Rafel didn't like impromptu hugs from ladies—not when he wasn't the one initiating it, but he had not the heard to pull the sobbing little lass away. She was wee against his solid bulk. Besides, he couldn't complain at her soft body. Her breasts were unnaturally fuller against his chest, and he wondered if it was just the cold or her mess of tumbling emotions. Either way, he held her close and counted for sixty seconds.

"Lord BlüdThïrste! Praise the Martyr!"

The Countess arrived by the ajar door in her silk nightie, blessing the gods for Rafel's appearance in her own way. Cordelia's eyes were misty but the tears didn't fall, and Rafel could not imagine a time she was more beautiful. Every shade of emotion looked fucking ripe on this woman.

Cordelia bent a courteous lady dip to Rafel and offered a small smile. He returned it with a comforting light in his eerie yellow pupils, something the aggrieved Countess hadn't expected at all to see from a princely demon.

Cordelia had to actually pull off her daughter from Rafel's arms. The poor girl was besotted to him like a horny bunny.

"Please come in, Your Grace."

Rafel was ushered in with polite grace. Cordelia kept her manners and etiquette despite the great tragedy fallen on her esteemed noblehouse. She could do nothing however about her daughter who fastened her entire teenage body to Rafel's left arm. The company moved together across the villa's iridescent lobby to the adjoining spacious living room.

There was only one more person in this chamber.

The Queen.

Giselle had a look as sober as the face of a hippie weed addict six months along. She was still attractive as hell but her demeanor was demure and coquettish. Even the innards of the villa had a wan glow like someone had turned down at the lights and opened up a cooler in the cellar. It was several degrees below room temperature.

Rafel instinctively sniffed at the air.

"I smell a Reaper." He intuited.

Giselle walked by and took his other free arm.

"Come to take a soul?"

Rafel nodded. "The cold fucker probably lurks in just the next room."

Brunhilda brushed Rafel's fingers with her own to draw his gaze down to her.

"So you're telling me my father is still present, here, in this room with us now?"

"No, love. Not your father... his essence. His soul might've been but by now his sanity all but belongs to the underworld. Newborn ghosts fresh off a body tend to lose memories of their lifespan after death. It is only recovered once they are gone beyond the veil of the mortal realm and safely into the nether world where they can bear them to face their judgement. This is necessary as ghosts with memories are never good—for anyone," Rafel explained.

Giselle continued where he left off. "The only peace we have in these dark times is to bring fairness to the Count's death. SIR LUCIUS will be greatly missed. In his prime, he was one of the greatest [Silver Knight] of my father's reign. We will send him off with the brightest gold coins upon his eyes."

It was the mourning wife, Cordelia who finally alluded to the elephant in the room.

"The body's this way."

She shifted from the corner where she stood at and Rafel peered down to see a great white blanket thrown over a corpse with poking limbs. For a bit, it looked like a felled stag underneath the pale coverlet. Rafel pulled his arms out of both the grasp of Giselle and Brunhilda. He maneuvered his way around a blood pool sneaking out the body sheet to the side of the corpse. Quietly, he went down into a crouch.

Carefully, he pulled back the sheet.

"Fuck."

Rafel almost let it fall back shut.

Behind, near the sliding doors of a garden, Brunhilda broke into a fresh bout of crying and truffled to the nearest hope for comfort: Giselle. The Queen was most unsure with the girl but hugged her anyways. Unlike her, at least Brunhilda shed actual tears in her father's passing.

Giselle knew what Rafel saw under the pristine coverlet.

It was a horror.

An act of extreme violence. A desecration of a great man.

"His eyes were open, but we closed them to place the coins. My husband rests even now as he was when we found him," Cordelia offered mutely.

"Who did?" Rafel asked.

"B–Bruna," the Countess finally broke.

She wobbled to her bestfriend, embracing the blond together with her daughter. The three woman hobbled at a corner and watched Rafel peer at the corpse in solemn quietude. Rafel was locked in his own thoughts for a while. He had come across many bodies now—many fucking bodies. Their states of injury would make even a Rocasian Colonel puke his ration.

But this...this was...

"Fuck." He cussed again.

This was an act of passion. The stiff body he looked down at was the stuff of a cop's nightmares. The lips were blue, fleshed out, wrinkled. The mangled hands were rigid in the air, starkly white, fingers reaching up with an open mouth for a rescue than never came. And then, further south was the cause of death: Sir Lucius Penderghast's lower half had been completely ripped apart.

The only joining between his waist and upper body was a string of his vertebrae.

The blood pool was black crimson and dull against the white floors.

Rafel gently eased down the immaculate coverlet and rose silently to his feet. You could hear the air purring in through the bloomy curtains. He lifted his eyes to the room and stepped away from the body. For the first time, the redhaired demon Lord actually said a word of comfort—and meant it.

"I'm sorry."

Rafel directed it to all three women.

Just then, a chubby brunette in a maid outfit entered the luxury chamber in company of another.

Everyone turned to this new addition: a woman with catchy gray eyes and a charcoal pantsuit, crisp and a long red doublet over the jacket. She had on crossing belts and her gaze moved swiftly, picking up everything in sight like a falcon. She had her hands in her pockets. Rafel noticed the cane in her right hand she leaned on and the silvery skull topping it which her fingers stroked.

For all her formal masculine appearance, this woman's virility stopped at her clothes. She had a body meant for hands. Her titties practically popping out the buttons of her white shirt, followed down by hips no trousers could ever hide. Rafel couldn't see around to her behind but the butt her shadow on the adjacent wall revealed was quite large. Abba-esque in fact.

This voluptuous suited babe pulled off her gray top hat and adjusted her elegant bowtie as the maid bowed and introduced her.

"My Graces, Your Majesty! This is DETECTIVE ROSAMUNDE SPEARS. She's just in from Corynthia."

Giselle moved in to shake hands with the woman. She met Rafel's infernal eyes once and looked away. He wasn't offended. He thought she looked rather fetching in her prim fashion. She was classy. Perhaps, too classy for one who dabbled with dead bodies and cold cases.

Huh, Rosamunde? Rafel rolled her name around on his tongue.