When the news broke, most people thought it was just 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 running from the house. “Come this way.”

  Myra could not help but admire the perfect balance between luxury and practicality the Gollen house possessed. It was fascinating how something as big and complex as a museum could be someone’s home. She could not imagine they used all the rooms or even knew where to find something they needed. The lives of such people were a mystery to her.

  She hurried along the stairs and into the courtyard that split the house into three wings, the northern, the eastern, and the western. Only one of those doors was open.

  “This is quite a gruesome one,” Harres said as she led the way through small groups of police officers and terrified servants. They stood in the corners, with their shaking hands over their mouths, waiting for their turn to be interrogated.

  The checkerboard hallway opened up to a lavish staircase and a fountain in the middle. To the left, there was a door, almost as tall as the ceiling. Lights were flashing out of it, like a fashion show was happening inside. The closer she got to it the more she felt like she was not truly awake but wandering inside a nothingness far away. Her muscles began to dance with small pulsating cramps that appeared and disappeared, leaving her unsure whether she was able to stand at all.

  Faces flashed before her eyes, rooms and curtains, landscapes of unimaginable beauty, the smell of old paper, and the sound of silver threads creeping against one another. Once again the strange visions circled her like a swarm of unfamiliar memories and she faltered, grabbing the statue of some dead poet that stood at her side.

  “Detective Tamon,” Harres waved her hand over Myra’s eyes trying to wake her up from the oncoming haze. The sounds began to fade into the distance and the lights continued to dance inside her eyes. She tried to lift herself back up but the strength inside her wavered and she slid even further towards the floor.

  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 statue of a dead poet made her wonder whether it was yet another of those terrible days.

  Soon enough she was certain of that, seeing Ori towering above her head like a priest hanging over a corpse.

  “Didn’t think you had such a weak stomach. It’s not a good look on you,” he said pulling the small green tree away from her face and disappearing out of view.

  “Are you alright?” Harres asked with a lot more worry in her voice. "Can you stand up? Do I need to call someone?"

  "No," Myra growled sitting up, and rubbing her eyes. The lights have stopped flashing and the hallway echoed with the sounds of quick footsteps on the marble. "I'm not dead yet."

  "You sure? I can still-"

  “Yes, yes I'm fine. Just got a little dizzy,” she returned springing herself off the floor and rushing to the mysterious door. “You can go back to work now. The show's over.”

  The dining table was set in the middle, with twelve sets of dinnerware, carefully 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.

  There was a bottle of vine on the floor, half spilled 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. His head was bent forward, with his arm relaxed on his side. Her head hung backward over her chair, leaving her mouth open wide. On either of the longer sides of the table sat four 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 someone to fill it. 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 took careful steps towards the table. She was a little heavy on her feet from the fall but did her best not to give anyone a hint of how she truly felt. The room was moderately lit and the crystals of the massive pink chandelier reflected the light to the walls, the ceiling, and the horrified faces of the victims. The red gleam was the most morbidly beautiful thing she’d ever seen and this thought chilled her to the bone.

  She walked around the room, observing each and every victim, 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 looked sharp and she dared not touch them. Some were so thin and strong they pierced the chairs and fused the bodes in place. Some were so long that they reached to the floor, making the people look as if they were the ones being impaled and not the source of the oddity.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ori stood near the middle of the table, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the head of a bear that hung above the fireplace. He’d tilt his head every now and again as if the bear 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 ten thousand bears. It turns their fur red, or in the most rare of cases, golden.”

  “Pretty rare I suppose. Why does that matter right now?” Myra returned, with little enthusiasm.

  "Less than nine hundred Harrow bears are left in the wild, but quite likely even less. 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, seeing she was nothing but a fish on dry land when it came to understanding the logic of the magical killings, decided it was best to take a moment and collect her thoughts. There was too much she did not know, but if there was one thing she was certain of, was that all people, gifted or not, kill for the same few reasons, revenge, envy, power, and pride.

  She took several steps back, going as far as she could, focused on the grotesque picture before her.

  “They all died at the same time, that much is obvious. It started all at once before anyone had the time to call for help. This was supposed to be a happy occasion, judging by that bottle of Forinaal. Not even people of their standing would open that bottle without a good reason.”

  “I agree,” Ori began. “They gathered to celebrate Jullus’s ascension to parliament. The dinner was served. The best wine was 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 finger at the people seated at the long table. “The younger sister, husband, and their son. There’s two missing,” she held her fingers in the air and continued to observe the scene as she crouched lower. Two plates and half-empty wine glasses stood at the table next to the empty seats. “But who’s missing here?”

  “The twins, Leida and Masu. The heirs of the family,” Ori returned, hovering his hand over one of the 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. They were discovered by a servant who reported hearing terrible sounds coming out of the room. She is still in shock but what I gathered is that she came in while the crystals were growing.”

  “Gods.” Myra gasped. “And?”

  “Then another servant heard her scream and came in after her. She saw that the twins were still alive but unconscious and called an ambulance. It is still a matter of chance whether they’ll live.”

  “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. “There are no signs of forced entry and no uninvited guests. No one besides the servant staff and the family had access to this room. Tell me, what else do you see?”

  She wiggled, neither turning left or right. It was hard to look at, not just because of the lingering pain on their faces, but the absolute horror the spikes instilled. She feared coming near then, in case they were not done killing.

  “I don’t know how to look at this," she finally said. "These... things all come from within like they grew from something inside them and went through the skin. Could it be from something they ate? Some poison of sorts? Does that work?”

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

  Myra’s hand trembled as she closed it into a fist. The words he heard from the doctor resonated in here head, leaving the last one to linger the longest. Hallucinations.

  “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 it is long gone now, or all of us would look like them.”

  "Well, could this really be some kind of poison? Not a spell or whatever it is that causes mutations like this?” She paused again, reevaluating her own choice of words. She caught herself speaking his language and it was defeating at the least.

  “I did not say that,” Ori returned. He was sniffing the plates one by one like a hunting dog. “But it would explain a lot of things.”

  “Like what? Is there something we’re missing here? Wait… why are you eating the evidence?”

  “It’s alright,” said Ori, after plucking a piece of meat from the biggest tray, and chewing on it like a tasting chef. “They all ate it. You may not know this but meat is a great conductor of magical poisons. Most alchemists would use it.”

  “Are you kidding me? Do you want to end up like them?” she growled, yet kept her voice down so as to not alert the innocent people outside. “Oh, wait, I don’t really care, do I?”

  He finished off the bite, and cleaned the edges of his mouth with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket. “I have immunity to most poisons. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Most?”

  “Yes. Some can give me an upset stomach.”

  "What the hell have I done to deserve this?” she mumbled under her breath. “So? Is it then?”

  “No. The meat is clean, if a little unsalted.”

  Circling the table once again, Ori stepped over the vine stain and picked up the bottle from the floor. “It’s seventy years old,” he said, sniffing inside.

  “And worth more than my apartment. Could it be our poison?”

  “Unlike meat, wine is a little trickier. I'll need to do more research I'm afraid."

  "Fine," Myra exclaimed, before letting out all the air from her lungs. She craved to be in the open for a change. The red was never her favorite color. "I think I’ve seen enough here. I’ll go see what the staff knows about this gathering.”