What Once Was

Chapter 46- Fourth of July

-New Orleans
-October 13th, 1920
-10:47 pm

-Alastor POV

I had led Charlie into my bedroom so she could get some deserved rest, while I, on the other hand felt restless, as if something were to occur.  Truth be told I felt at unease as I knew that though I hadn't done the crime, somehow it would be linked to me.

I sat in one of my porch chairs, rocking back and forth while I looked off into the other that led to my house, and then to Vagatha's mansion, watching all of the lights go off one by one, until eventually there would be none. And if you stood still, and quiet, you could hear the guests blabbering about who knows who. Screaming by expressing the utter disgust and fear they just went through.

Funny how it had been an hour ago that me and Charlie had been there and witnesses of tonight's tragic events.

Though rather than looking at them as tragic I was trying to dissect what led to it. I was more curious since after all it hadn't been me. So who was the other sick and twisted one? All sorts of guests had attended the party so there wasn't exactly a way to pin it down.

Members of Old or New Money? Maybe, though why only leave one of the members alive and not get the job done by doing all of them. Or perhaps someone who thinks of themselves as a Robin Hood, by giving the riches to the poor? Though I doubted they would've stolen anything. Vagatha? Perhaps, maybe for the family fortune?

"Do you have any idea on who it could've been?" I asked him. He had been real quiet since the announcement, and hid in the shadows. As if it were a mouse scurrying around and hiding in crevices.

"No."

"Your quietness disturbs me, and rather makes me think you played a part in this."

"I have better things to do than kill three rich weaklings." He scoffed as if I had wounded his pride.

"Well you entertain yourself with the idea of killing those who are powerless for your own amusement." I reminded him as I looked around us. Not like anyone could hear us but it was force of habit.

"Fair point. But sorry to disappoint, I played no part." He said and he absorbed himself into the shadows of the house.

I saw a figure starting to approach the house, and I slowly reached out for my rifle that leaned against my chair. My house was distant from any other nearby house; My Mother chose it like this after all, and I hadn't ever complained about it as I always found this solitude fitting for us, and that's also why I chose that cabin that hopefully I could soon restore.

"Thought you would be asleep by now..." I heard Husker spoke out from the darkness as he approached.

"I could say the same about you old sport." He stepped up to the porch, and took a seat next to me in the other chair, collapsing from the tiring trip.

"It isn't time yet..." He simply replied. I was quite taken off guard by his presence. I figured he would have stayed over at Vagatha's place or go back to his own but never here.

"Is Charlie here?" He asked quietly.

"She's inside sleeping." I replied shortly.

"Tired from all of y'all's activities?" He asked with a chuckle while I rolled my eyes at his insinuations.

The crickets chirped on and on, such small noises that were so nostalgic and soothing at this time of night, though people rarely took them into account by the lateness of it.