The Murder Of Willowstream

Ch.28. The Reliquery

 "We need to talk." For a second, Rhys was distracted from the nervous waiting for Marshal to reappear, by the thought that Alaric wanted to talk to him. About what had happened. He had to give it to him for the timing, but Rhys supposed that death being a very likely possibility had the tendency to make people air their regrets. Maybe forgive pointless arguments and clear the air of all bad will.

But when he turned his unwavering gaze from the darkened pool of water, the form of Marshal having shot off from view, he found that it was not him that Alaric was addressing. No, he was addressing Alice and Lily. There was a certain pang of pain that curdled in his stomach, as the intent for him to be left out was very clear by Alaric's body language. While his back was not turned to Rhys, it was rigid, uncompromising, and his gaze was fixed solely on the two girls, only looking to Rhys when he very awkwardly inserted himself beside Lily and into Alaric's field of vision.

"Shouldn't we wait for Marshal?" Lily asked, eyes darting briefly to the pool while she removed a salvaged package of bubblegum from her bag, and popped one into her mouth. She offered some to the others, but they refused.

"It's got something to do with Marshal, and I know he won't like it." Alaric continued, noting as Rhys crossed his arms nervously over his chest and shuffled his feet.

"You think the Hunter is Mark, don't you?" Alice said coolly, standing from where she had been prodding at the smooth sand in an attempt to distract herself from the enclosed space, and stretching her legs.

"Yes." Alaric replied, none surprised at all that Alice had deducted his reasoning for the conversation. Although a slight tinge of confidence did swell within him at the thought that he possibly wasn't alone in his thinking.

"Mark? That's crazy, he's so sweet! And It's quite clear that he is very... fond, of Marshal. He wouldn't do anything to hurt him." Lily countered, punctuating her sentence with a loud pop of bubblegum from her lips.

"I was attacked before. A few nights a go, by a hunter."

"A hunter? There's definitely more than one?" Alice questioned with the raising of one eyebrow.

"Yes. But we knew that was a possibility with Rhys' dream." Alaric mentioned, and Rhys hated how much it hurt to have Alaric have his name in his mouth in such a neutral tone. Plain and flat, devoid of any of the teasing friendliness that it had held throughout these years. "The one we fought the other night was a completely different one I had encountered previously encountered, both vastly in size and skill. The one that cornered Lily was trained, and the one that attacked me I am certain was Micah given the body type."

"Oh? You're so sure it was a man? Body armour hardly gives away gender. Unless you can smell ball sweat or testosterone or something, you don't know it was Mark at all. Or even if it was a dude under there." Lily argued, although gave a small protest of disgust when Alaric gave a look that suggested that he could indeed smell all of that stuff. Or at least something close to that approximation.

"The only thing we're missing is motive." Alice began, giving a quick glance to the water before continuing "He was gone all summer, coming back a heck of a lot stronger than before. His family are one of the oldest and richest in Willowstream, and yet despite how saturated the population is in 'inhuman's' there doesn't seem to be a single drop of that blood in the family from what I can tell looking at what I've met of them. And conveniently, the only place that would hold any further information about them, save for their own home of course, recently went up in flames. Seems to add all up to me."

"Exactly" Alaric responded, glad in the affirmation.

"Except, there isn't a motive that I can think of. From the very brief horror stories I got told as a kid, there haven't been Hunters in Willowstream for at least one to two hundred years. When societal ideals began to change and people began to have less credence in what the church says goes, the Hunters kinda became obsolete."