"How deep have you crawled, worm?" The man held Turnus by the neck.

"I don't know what you're getting at,"

"You ain't got no fangs. You ain't got no bite, no claws, no grit. Yet you manage. You survive and persevere and you've fucked us all. How? Why?"

"If you're going to make an accusation," the hand clenched harder. "You shouldn't dance around it. It's not good to hold on to things, get what I mean?"

The man's beady eye twitched. Turnus felt his cold grip, watched his arm and that tattoo etched upon his flesh, the mark of the witch, glow.

"How did you do it? Who told you?"

"Did what?" Turnus asked. He was lifted by the throat. His skin stretched and pulled, his feet dangled as they searched for stable ground. He shook, hoping to free himself. Then, realizing the futility of it, let it happen. Let himself be dragged up, without protest, with the accessibility of calm composure.

"You killed dad the only way you knew how to, with words." He squeezed. Turnus coughed. "You always hated him and you finally did it. I knew I should have taken you out a long time ago, I knew your coming back was an omen. I knew it since I seen that wide grin on you, you fucking worm."

He slammed his back against a pillar. The whole room seemed to quake and like a quake, grew in capacity. The tile below the offender shook, rattled, grew. Like an abnormal plan, a crystallized stem from marble tile, that wrapped and moved up Turnus's leg, past his shoe, past his waistline.

Turnus watched the tattoo on his brother's arm. It glowed more intensely as the large vine of marble increased in speed. A green glow. A dark verdant hue, almost black. Turnus felt the light, he felt tingles on his back too as the marble block base column he was held against, grew out. Both now, from the solid wall behind him and the floor below, the marble stone grew out. They were little spikes, tickling him. Then, ripping into his clothes. He smiled.

"I told him never to let you in, I told him to throw you out with your brother. The both of you." A tear in the corner of his eyes. "But he had to, you were his first two sons. He had to take you in, he had to tolerate the contempt in your eyes. Everyone knew! Everyone saw it. How much you hated him. The way you gave you snide remarks at him at dinner, taunted him at the office. At least your younger brother was well mannered, but you? You'd stab him if he had his back turned."

"We both know stabbing him wouldn't be enough, right?" He laughed.

The man slapped him. The marble statue, too, as if in synchronization with the movement of his hand, slanted left. Such that, it seemed like clay, molded into a wave of water.

"It wouldn't be that bad killing you now," he said. "It'd only be half the sin. Lord knows you deserved it."

"If death came fast to those who sinned, then you and Jezebel ought to have been killed years ago." He snorted. "It's not good to hold onto things, Floyd. Hate will kill ya. Just ask dad."

Floyd's eyes widened. Turnus felt a cold on his shoulders and neck, though the hand still holding him was anything but that. It was hot and weak, and Floyd's hips wobbled and his stance weakened. Marble rose from the ground to stabilize his stand.

Don't you wish you were as hard as that stone, aye Floyd?

Floyd looked down at the floor. Turnus's attention wandered, looking behind him, to the elevator coming down slowly and the little red number changing like a countdown to doomsday. His eyes came back to Floyd, who now looked up. And who now, with a stomp of his armored foot, conjured a bit of a stand. A round belly-shaped stone, from which a marble sword erected itself like a flower sprout. His head was sweating, his eyes focused on Turnus's neck (or at least that's what Turnus gathered from the intensity of his glare). Floyd reached for the sword and chucked it out. Rubble flew every-which-way, the rough-ended blade was raised high. It had no luster to it, no grace, no detail shape. It seemed more a stick at times, a pole. And Floyd stared at Turnus again, looking across his body for the place to cut. And from what angle. And to what depth.

He didn't think too hard. He chose the neck. No, rather, the choice was already made, a long time ago, hapless imaginings of a young man in a forbidden love in the fear and anxiety of having been caught.

"I never thought you were the nervous kind, Floyd," Turnus said. The words shocked Floyd into awareness.

"If you don't have it in ya, fat cat, I wouldn't bother." he made his eyes into thin slits. "And if you're gonna go, do it fast. Like a quick fuck, ain't that right, Floyd?"

Floyd's lips quivered. No one was here, as was ordered. No maid, no family, no anything. Nothing but a few curious whispers and happen-stance on what they believed was happening: gossip. That's all there was to the meeting, gossip and no evidence. He was free to do it, he could do it, he was poised to do it, then what was left to fear? What sprained his courage?

He breathed through his mouth, he blinked like an epileptic. His tongue could not find a place to rest.

Turnus rolled his eyes.

Don't wait too long, or you'll miss your chance.

Floyd extended his arm out with the blade. He pointed it up, then aimed it down. Moved in, close. Muscles, terse.

He could feel the saliva dripping down his mouth. His nose trickled mucus as if his body was exhausting weakness from him. He felt the adrenaline coursing through the wide vein on his throat. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing all up his neck.

The blade approached flesh. He clipped clothes. He searched for blood.

The elevator opened.

They both looked back, Floyd with rabid eyes. Turnus, calmer.

Ah, there goes the train, kiddo. It left the station. It left us all behind.

Turnus smiled at the sight, the two Vicar's coming down from the elevator shaft.

"How'd they get clearance to come down here?" Floyd asked himself. Turnus shrugged and smiled.

"A malfunction? Chance? Must be my lucky day. Maybe you shoulda done it a bit quicker?" He said. "But you do tend to take your time with these kinds of things, don't you? Real slow to put it in. Ain't that right, little brother?"

The sword fell down. Floyd loosened his grip, Turnus bent his fingers off his neck.

He looked at both Vicars, both with their arms extended out (well, one arm for the angry, shorter one) and their eyes focused on Floyd.

"There's no problem here, officers," Turnus said.

"Who are you?" Apollo shouted at Floyd, across the plaza. Floyd looked around, to the closed doors, to stray eyes peeking from behind the slits of the cracked open doors. The people were beginning to enter freely, as if, with the coming of the Vicars, the signal had been cleared for their return.

And none of them could understand what was happening.

The ruined column, the marble growing out of it like wild roots, the green mark of the witch on Floyd glowing underneath his blazer jacket. Turnus observed his brother, the nervous twitches he made, the way he hid the glowing side of his body behind. There were bits of his arcana left behind on the floor, namely the cancerous growths of marble and a little foot that had been made created as a kind of armor for Floyd.

"He's Floyd, my brother. Say hello." Turnus said.

Floyd faced him. His eyes trembled. He felt his left one twitch.

"Yeah." He said. Not much of a hello.

"We had a bit of a fight, didn't we?" Turnus brushed the marble dust off him.

"Yeah."

"And we're good now, aren't we?"

"Yeah.

"Why don't you ask the Detectives about their investigation?"

Floyd's neck stretched out. He looked annoyed, his teeth gnashed and his eyes hesitant to face the Vicars.

"Have you found the killer?" He asked, looking at the floor as he asked.

"No," Dion's voice was deeper. Deeper than Turnus remembered at least. His arms, too, were still out like a crab. Apollo, however, had calmed. He had his hand hidden behind his back.

"We're still gathering more information. No accusation has been made yet." He said. "But Turnus seems innocent if you were worried."

"Of course," The words were squeezed out of Floyd, coerced out of him. There was a strain, a breakage in his voice. It seemed like he was, in outrage, both screaming and laughing. "Of course Turnus didn't kill him. Of course not, you're absolutely right, Detectives."

"Is that what the argument was about?" Apollo pointed to the ruined building. The morphed floor and column, the marble crystalline-like permutation coming off the side of the statue.

"Yes, and I'm glad you've settled it for us, Detectives."

Dion eased at last. It was a curious observation, one Turnus made as he climbed up the stairs.

"I'm glad then, it's all settled. None of us did anything wrong, right Floyd? It was just a misunderstanding. Right? Sometimes words and ideas and...passions get lost in translation." Turnus said. "Empathy is a very important tool to avoid these misunderstandings. Don't you agree, Floyd? We should try and understand each other more, right?"

Floyd looked up. His shaky head twitching as it turned to Turnus.

"Yes," He said, in a breath so short it might have gone unheard and minute it might have gone unheard, were they all not high on that natural Adderall, adrenaline.

Turnus walked up the steps. He felt Apollo's glare, who was less exciting than Floyd. Whose glare seemed more analytic, and thus, dangerous. Suddenly, he felt the hot zone of a searchlight. Though it was only a feeling, and only one he got when he looked back at Apollo.

He hated that kind of scrutiny, always, at school, at the family house, at the daily dealings of the casino floor. For the scrutiny he felt from Apollo was not one of understanding, empathy, but one of hostile hounding.

"So should I blame for you a botched interview?" Apollo asked. "I don't think your brother is equipped for it now, after all.

"Are you sure? Why don't you ask him?"

"He can barely talk, so I'm asking you."

Turnus laughed.

"I thought you were smart." He smiled. "I mean, if you're asking if he's fit for an interview, and if you're telling me he can't talk. Well, god damn, didn't you answer your own question then?"

Apollo closed his mouth. His eyes focused on Turnus who stared back from above.

Floyd paced away. No one bothered to stop him, he seemed to desperate and injured, the kind of combination that would make him dangerous. No one wanted to stop him, no one did.

"You let him go," Turnus said. "He might have done it. Go catch up with him."

Apollo kept his mouth shut. Dion tapped his foot along the floor.

"What?" Turnus asked. "Have I said something wrong? I don't think so."