Chương 68: Interlude: Murder Hobo

The church door was closed. It was always closed, unless his father was holding services, and his father was never holding services again. Luke could see the thin line of candlelight under the door from across the yard, which meant his mother had lit the altar candles. She must be in there with the body. The headless body. He hoped she'd kept it covered. Her reaction to the news, to the sight, hadn't been what he would've expected. Not that he knew exactly what he would've expected, but she hadn't cried.

She picked up his father's hand, the one that wore the wedding ring, and traced the line of his fingers, and then she'd set the hand back down again, and asked Matthew about a casket. He could go in now. Talk to her. Maybe pray with her. But praying over the body didn't sit right with him. He'd rather deal with the casket. They'd have to make it. That would probably be his job. But he'd never crafted a casket before and wasn't even sure how to start. Well, with wood.

That was how any carpentry project began, really. Still looking at the door to the church, he whistled for the dogs. Didn't seem like anyone walked them when he wasn't home, but they were always grateful to get out. Dogs by his side, he went inside. Matthew had taken their father's chair. The dogs went to their beds, but Luke didn't sit down himself. He leaned against the frame of the door, crossing his legs at the ankle, staying casual. There was nothing special about the chair.

It was just like every other chair around the table; plain wood, a hard seat, a back that dug uncomfortably into your spine if you sat too long. But it was at the head of the table, of course, and it had always belonged to their father. Even if he wasn't home for one reason or another, no one sat in it. Matthew had pulled it out and settled into it like he'd earned it. Maybe he thought he had. He was thirty years old, the oldest, and he'd been waiting a long time for something to be his.

Mark was at the table, too, face bruised and swollen, arm tucked into a sling, held against his side as if every motion hurt. He was eating left-handed, slowly, each bite looking like its own moment of pain. John was in his chair, working through a plate of food as if it were an ordinary evening. Robbie was alone on their usual side of the table, his shoulders drawn up, staring at his food without touching it. He wasn't injured, but of all of them, he looked the worst. The most unlike himself.

Luke couldn't say he was exactly fond of any of his brothers, but of them all, Robbie had been the brightest. Not the smartest, but the most cheerful, the least dour. He'd been their mother's favorite, the only one she would occasionally shelter from their father's wrath, and maybe that had let him keep some of his natural optimism. Not now, though. Whatever had happened to him had shattered him.

"We go back tomorrow," Matthew said, as if continuing a conversation they'd been having before Luke arrived.

"In daylight. We ask politely. We let her know that our sister's needed at home. She didn't seem unreasonable." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Luke's lips quirked the tiniest bit. Unreasonable, huh. He'd never met their neighbor before today, although he'd seen her passing by in her car a time or two. Dark hair, long-ish, probably in her mid-thirties or so. He couldn't have said a thing more about her.

But the way she'd said, "I'll just leave you to it, shall I?" in that breathless voice and backed away? Honestly, he'd wanted to bust out laughing. If it weren't for all the blood, he might have.

"I need Pen now," Mark ground out the words, then winced with pain. His eyes were hot with fury.

"I'm not waiting until morning. Not like I could sleep like this. I can't believe that asshole Jonas did this to me. Fucker." Luke had a harder time believing that his brothers had killed the man. Heat of the moment, under attack, their father dead, but still. John had smashed his head into the ground with a level of glee that left Luke feeling nauseous. The other guy's death had been pretty awful, too. Luke had never seen an allergic reaction like that.

You'd think the guy would have been carrying an Epi-pen if his allergies were so severe, but Luke hadn't been able to find one in his pockets.

"Soon as I get some food in me, I'm going down there," Mark continued.

"I'll burn the bitch out if I have to, but I'm finding Pen. She needs to heal me tonight." Luke straightened.

"If Pen's in that house, how is burning it down gonna help you?"

"She's not an idiot. She'll come out when she smells the smoke." Pen might not be an idiot, but Mark damn sure was, Luke thought. Maybe all of his brothers were.

"How much more do you need?" he asked, considering places. He'd cleared out a lot of the forest right around the house, but he avoided the swampy areas. A mana-crazed alligator sounded like bad news, even to him. But he was tougher now, and his brothers should be, too. If they went together… But Mark wasn't answering the question. He was staring at Matthew, an ugly look on his face. Matthew dropped his gaze, staring at his plate.

John shoveled a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth like he'd never heard of table manners. And Robbie… Robbie's lips quivered, like maybe he'd like to cry if he were in some other room, with some other people.

"We can't," Robbie said, his voice hoarse.

"Can't what?" Luke asked. He kept his voice gentle, because Robbie was his favorite brother, although that wasn't saying much. Best of a bad lot, that was all. Pen was the true best. But then she was everyone's favorite. Beautiful, gentle, the perfect daughter and sister. Except Luke suspected she had a little subversive streak of her own. When she started cleaning his apartment, he took to leaving the internet open on his desktop computer for her. At first, just on simple stuff, things that might make her smile.

But then, as the weeks went by, on pages that taught her things she ought to know. That women had jobs in the world, that freedom of speech was a human right, that other religions existed and had value. He'd waited for her to report on him to their father—any of his brothers would've in a heartbeat. But she never had.

"Can't level up," Robbie said. Luke gave a disbelieving laugh.

"What do you mean, you can't level up? You just gotta find one of those monsters, the mana-crazed ones. They ain't hard to find, not really. Take a few hours, maybe, but if we all go together, we can get a gator. Plenty of XP in one of them." Robbie swallowed hard, bent his head, closed his eyes. Was he praying? Luke wondered incredulously. Of course their father had always wanted them to pray. All of them could recite the words on command, rattle off the lines as if they were written on the back of their hands.

But he'd never thought Robbie might actually believe. John swallowed, too, finishing his bite of mashed potatoes. He pointed his spoon at Robbie, and then at Mark, and then at himself.

"We don't get to level up anymore. We're all stuck where we are. The System gave us all titles. Murder Hobo. We can collect all the XP we like. It doesn't go anywhere."

"Unless we redeem ourselves," Robbie's voice was barely a whisper.

"But it doesn't say how." He raised his head, and his eyes, as he gazed at Luke, were anguished. John laughed, short and ugly.

"Prayer ain't gonna do it, idiot."

"Don't—" Matthew started.

"Don't you." Mark aimed his fork at Matthew like a dagger.

"Don't you start. Fucking coward. The only one of us who didn't get the title, because you were too damn weak to do the killing." Luke looked at Matthew. Matthew looked back at him from their father's chair. Neither of them said anything at all. From across the yard, the candlelight held steady under the church door.