Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XVI.
The police were there, and they were asking questions about what had happened. They wanted to know why the stove hadn’t been repaired. They wanted to know why Thomas hadn’t been at the office when they called. They wanted to know why his wife and infant child were still sound asleep in their beds when the fire took hold at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. They wanted to know why the neighbors had said that his deranged sister was always screaming in the night. They wanted to know if she’d started the fire, or if it had been he, who had been fired from work that day for stealing. They wanted to know why one of the items he’d been accused of at work stealing had been recovered at the scene. In fact, it was the only thing that had survived the entire blaze: a gold lighter that seemed untouched by the flames.
He vociferously denied everything when they carried him away to the police station and booked him.
He sat in the cell that night. There was a great part of him that didn’t feel as if it had been real. It had been too much to happen in one day. Too much loss. He couldn’t process it. It was simply unbelievable that everyone he loved and everything he had was gone.
He returned to the thought that he had felt truly ruined at 24, but he was more than ruined. He was irreparably fractured. There would be no healing. He’d had so much, and it was gone. All of it was gone. He collapsed underneath the weight of his grief and wept in his cell all night.
The next morning, he met with his court appointed lawyer. The police believed that he’d murdered his sister, his wife and his child, and burnt down his home, and all on the day that he’d been caught stealing from work. There was no evidence to prove that he hadn’t been there. As far as the State of California was concerned, he was guilty. He was a dead man walking. The lawyer said it was inevitable.
And when he lay on the cot in his cell that night, one thought was set to repeat in his mind. “It’s hopeless. It’s completely hopeless.”
* * *
“You weren’t supposed to win this one, Astaroth. I’m not ceding my Estate,” Sitri said.
“You will cede your Estate to me. I killed an angel, a Nephil and six primates in this wager. I won. Thomas Carver is a broken man, and Michael isn’t darkening your doorstep to seek revenge for his fallen brother. And if you don’t, remember that I am now Queen of Greece and Anatolia. I will bring down upon you the fury of Asia Minor if you don’t relinquish your lands.” Astaroth said.
“Svipul?” Sitri asked in desperation.
“You offered her your Estate for your mistakes. You never should have offered it up if you weren’t willing to part with it. Take what she gives you,” Svipul said.
Sitri couldn’t afford to wage a war against Astaroth when his own Estate claims were in question, so he relinquished his claims. Astaroth had become Queen of Britannia, too.
Astaroth was relatively benevolent, and she bestowed upon Sitri the Estate of President of London and the Home Counties. She made Svipul the Princess of Athens, and Caius became an honorary Knight.
* * *
Up until day the State of California executed him for the murders of his wife, his child and his sister, Thomas never knew another shred of hope. But as he prepared to inhale the noxious vapors that would kill him, he discovered a shimmering, lost thing. Because he believed in his innocence, he hoped that after his heart had stopped and his soul had left his body, that he would see Adelaide and Hank and all his other loved ones again.
Estelle will be taking the reins next week. I need a break after this one. Dominus vobiscum.