Rituals, Regrets, and Really Dumb People

Chapter 9: Family Matters, Part 1

I looked away from the Darkness and watched Reinhardt dragging himself out of his grave. He smacked the old, stale soil from his ragged robing, more so to check if he had his old smoker's pipe. He didn't—I, uh, burned his stuff after I'd killed him, to rid the cultists of posthumous worship. Thinking back on it, maybe I should have been more understanding of the cultists' willingness to betray me at Brutality since they'd done it before after Reinhardt fell.

"Where is that pipe—"

"I burned it," I told Reinhardt. "I burned most of your stuff after you passed."

"After you killed me."

"I mean, yeah."

He 'looked' over at me—I use that term loosely, as his eyes had long decayed out of his head and he was looking with hollowed, dried out sockets—and he sighed. "I don't mind that you killed me, boy, but my pipe? Really? You knew I loved that thing."

"I know but—"

He smacked my shoulder and a puff of grave dust hit my face. I began a coughing fit from it.

"It's okay, boy," he said to me.

"You're—not wanting to kill me for what I did?"

"Well, I did tell you that one day you'd have to take over. I was getting too old, after all."

"Are you serious?" Geraldine asked, looking on in disgust at us. "You're okay with that scoundrel"—she meant me, as she was pointing at me—"killing you?"

"We're villains, we know the game," Reinhardt replied. "Sanguine—or should I say Mathias—knows how we play. We kill one another to climb up the ranks. Proud of my boy, he did me in fast, and he didn't even hesitate to do it."

Geraldine's lip curled up in disgust.

I stared at him after Geraldine's little scene. "About that, Reinhardt—wait, why are you buried beside the king of Sanctuary? And—uh—hello, Leo."

"Hello, Sanguine." Leo raised his giant hand and gave one of his friendly waves. His luminescent beard bristled as he smiled and closed his eyes. Always the jovial fellow, his motions subtle and small. He'd been a big fish in a small pond who didn't like to make waves. "How are you?"

"Pa," Geraldine started, "He murdered you."

"Yeah, I know. Took my head." Leo raised his hand and waved the zombified limb through his ghostly head. "You know, I'd kind of like that back."

"I will if I can ever reach Typhous. And I'm well, all things considered. Anyways, Reinhardt, why are you buried here in this chamber with Leo?"

"Oh," the old zombified sorcerer grunted. "That was Dimitri and Corbin's doing."

"Corbin?" Lil asked.

Ugh, I'd forgotten about Corbin. "Corbin was Reinhardt's right-hand man. Us sorcerers, we tend to have a retinue of bodyguards and warriors around us. Dimitri is mine, and Corbin was Reinhardt's. Funny thing hearing Dimitri helped bury you down here. Why so?"

"Last wish. I didn't want to be raised up as a zombie by you. Safest place, I thought, would be beside Leo. Marked me as one of his dead advisors and threw me in the hole. Then again, with all the grave robbing—"

"That was not my doing," I told Reinhardt.

"We play checkers sometimes," Leo said to Geraldine. "Ol' Reinhardt tries to cheat but I catch him every time."

"He's damn good about it too," Reinhardt said. "Can't really pull one over on him."

"Wait," Geraldine said, throwing her hands out in exasperation. "You all play games in the afterlife? Dad, did you go to Hel?"