Published at 2nd of January 2021 3:51 am

Chapter 2 Joint Burial

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The Grande Funeral Home was full of noises. The reporters holding the cameras were complaining to each other about how “difficult” Mrs. Quinn was, but the one who heard them complain was Old Hank, and this strange old man was finally angered by the reporters’ questioning. “Jim! Eat them!”

The Great Dane came out from the living room, glanced at the noisy “bones”, and walked away with its head down.

Alice pulled Lola and hid in the back porch listening to Old Hank’s roar. The two girls looked at each other and decided to hide in Benjamin’s warehouse.

Lola was wearing a black dress today. She should have been with Mrs. Barton to attend the joint burial ceremony held by Mrs. Quinn. But she stayed here, reluctant to leave after she arrived at Grande. As a result, she miscalculated. Originally, after Louise and Matthew took over the task of handling the joint burial, the two Grande brothers had nothing to do. But when they saw a large number of reporters flocking to the funeral home, they decided to carry out the duty of the owner of the funeral home and go to the cemetery.

In the cemetery to the west of the Grande Funeral Home, Father Constantine presided over the ceremony. In front of the grave belonging to the Quinn family, young caretakers and strong bodyguards stood behind several old people. These people bowed their heads and waited quietly for the end of the prayer.

Zach and Benjamin stood in the distance, not as absent-minded as usual, but silently observing the old people, when all the faces matched the faces that had appeared in the reception room more than two months ago, Zach shook his head and chuckled, “Fortunately, it is indeed not a big circle.”

This was the small circle at the very top of Barton City. Grande’s little secret only existed in this small and old circle. The vampire felt that it wasn’t too bad.

“Huh!” Benjamin unintentionally scratched the brown beard on his chin, “You forgot Hermann’s circle, and you have to add Quest’s circle.”

The most special class in Barton City – The Upper, Middle, and Lower class in the Western District.

The vampire opened his mouth and shook his head again. The west district was the root of Barton. In the northern and southern districts where the root extended, the Grande Family still needed to rely on the backbone and branches composed of Anthony and James. The Grande family was simply a negative encyclopedia of nonhumans; their social relations were like this, and the composition of members was also like this.

After the prayers, Constantine looked at the silent Mrs. Quinn. Amanda patted Mrs. Quinn on the back to remind her. Mrs. Quinn raised her drooping eyelids and stared at the delicate coffin set aside with a pair of eyes that didn’t reveal many emotions.

There shouldn’t be any corpses in it, there should only be some decaying old things that was used to be buried inside the Cenotaph. Mrs. Quinn turned her head to look at Zach in the distance. Zach nodded slightly, and Mrs. Quinn retracted her eyes and waved.

Father Constantine started the next process.

The grave for the joint burial this time was different from other graves. On the ground, the grave was like a standing stone fort. At the top of the stone fort was a statue of Gabriel. The coffin was pushed in from the side entrance, and several strong farmers carefully pulled the rope to lower the coffin. A faint click came from the hollow stone fort. The farmers confirmed that the position was correct and began the next step – sealing the grave.

If someone wanted to lift the coffin again, they must destroy the chamber first.

The farmers began to get busy, so Father Constantine stepped aside. Zach looked at Constantine from a distance. The priest’s usual straight and decent posture seemed a little relaxed, his fingers pulling on the tightly buttoned collar. This was just a small movement. Soon, the priest’s back became straight, and he straightened out the somewhat crumpled robe. He folded his hands again, pressing the old holy scriptures against the abdomen, and looked at the farmers’ action intently.

Constantine seemed to perceive the gaze coming from the other direction, he turned his head, nodded, and smiled towards Zach. Zach also smiled back. He looked at Benjamin and decided to ask about the situation.

Aware of the Grande two brothers’ intention, the priest slightly gestured to Mrs. Quinn and walked out of the crowd to meet with Grande.

“Mr. Grande.” As usual, Constantine performed a simple greeting ritual first, and the way he addressed the two Grande brothers was also as formal as usual. This was a meticulous priest, “How may I help?”

“Father.” The two returned with a simple greeting ritual, and Zach shook his head with a smile, “nothing. We just notice that Father looks a little tired. Have you had any trouble with the safety investigation at the church recently?”

The clergy of St Mary’s Church had all fallen, which meant that the backbone of the church in Barton had all fallen in Crowlies’ hands. But there was no need to worry about what the demon would do to harm the church. After all, hell and heaven were in the same belief system, which was indispensable to The Church of Holy Lord in the Federation. Crowlie wouldn’t do anything to undermine the religion.

However, Constantine was originally a marginal man in the church, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been assigned to the Church of God the Son. In the current church, he was even more marginal! Zach didn’t want his neighbor to be picked on, but actually, he was just looking for reasons to dislike Crowlie!

“Thank you for your concern.” Constantine smiled and drew a cross on his chest, “There is no problem. Although the church was seldom used before, we and the nuns are familiar with the daily maintenance, so there is no problem in this investigation.”

Constantine once again showed a look of gratitude, “We want to thank the generosity of Mrs. Barton again; because of her, most of the facilities had been renewed. So we also didn’t have major accidents during the frequent use of the church some time ago.”

Zach smiled and looked at Mrs. Barton who was holding Mrs. Quinn in the crowd.

“It’s just that the last time the candle stand collapsed did give us a warning. This time, we paid more attention to this aspect of the inspection.” Constantine felt a little guilty about this.

Zach understood his feelings. As the head of the church, when he received the donation, the first thing he thought of was to update the ‘facade’ of the church, which was very normal. The essential things that truly belonged to the church were not neglected, but it was clear that there was already a shadow in the mind of this priest.

Zach consoled the priest with his eyes, “If Father needs any help, Old Hank can help to take a look. Although Hank is not a believer, he is very good at carpentry. He could give some advice to the nuns.”

The priest was grateful for Zach’s suggestion, “There is no need to trouble Grande. There is still plenty of time, and we are only doing self-examination. After the members of the church arrive, we will conduct a comprehensive inspection.”

Zach nodded, but the concern in his eyes was still there. After facing each other, he could really feel that the other party’s breath was not very stable. “Then Father, please also don’t push yourself too hard.”

Constantine smiled, there was a faint of hesitance on his face. Zach did not say goodbye, but waited patiently.

“Actually, since this morning, those reporters…” Constantine’s face revealed a faint of distress.

Zach suddenly realized with a wry smile. In addition to “attacking” the Grande Funeral Home, the reporters even thought of “attacking” the priest who presided over the ceremony.

Mrs. Quinn did a very good job of keeping this ceremony a secret. Since the decision to join the grave, the news had not been leaked. But the joint burial this time was also a grave relocation; Zach, Benjamin, and Jim could no longer surreptitiously dig out the grave of the former Cenotaph in the moonlight. So the news was still leaked out, so the reporters suddenly gathered like ants discovering a sugar jar accidentally.

“To be honest, Father, the reason why we came here was also because of this.” Zach smiled.

Constantine smiled helplessly. It was Matthew and Louise that were handling the grave removal recently, and it was rare to see these two people present.

After chatting for a while, Constantine looked at the crowd. The tomb was about to be sealed, so he left Zach and returned to continue to preside over the end of the ceremony.

After a short prayer, the ceremony was complete. Zach and Benjamin walked to Matthew and Louise, and then they instructed them to go back first, and disperse the reporters. The two remained in the cemetery, waiting for Mrs. Quinn’s summons.

The old people walked past the two of Grande under the escort of bodyguards. They nodded deeply, and then returned to their car. Mrs. Barton asked them to tell Lola to return before dinner, and then also left. Only Mrs. Quinn stayed, standing silently in front of the tomb, supported by the nurse Amanda.

Seeing the two approaching, Amanda smiled at them, not hiding the gratitude in her eyes. Obviously, she didn’t remember that she was nearly paralyzed, and Mrs. Quinn didn’t need to tell her.

“Thank you.” After Amanda retreated far, Mrs. Quinn said without looking up.

“This is what we should do.” Zach bowed slightly and then handed over a tattered book that seemed to be a note.

Mrs. Quinn took a look and asked with slight confusion, “What is this?”

This was the diary of Pooky Quinn that was brought back when the Great Dane Jim was sent back. The cover and the pages of the book were covered with tooth marks, so it had been treated as the ‘toy’ of this very strange dog that liked to eat a lot and was sent back with it together.

“This is Pooky’s diary for the most recent year.” Zach answered.

Mrs. Quinn raised her eyelids, looked at Zach, and then at the diary full of tooth marks. She seemed to remember something, her eyes dimmed, “burn it.”

Zach shook his head, the hand that he handed out was still in the air, “No, even if it needed to be burned, it shouldn’t be done by Grande.” Zach seemed to be waiting stubbornly for Mrs. Quinn to take over the thing that no one wanted to touch not only because of its appearance but also because of its content.

Zach sighed, “madam would even let the people buried under the nameless tombstone return to the family. Pooky…”

Before Zach could finish speaking, Mrs. Quinn, who looked very thin compared with Zach and Benjamin, took the tattered diary and clasped her hands tightly on the cover!

Zach bowed slightly again, gestured to Amanda who was standing in the distance, looking confused, and left Mrs. Quinn. Then the two walked to their exclusive truck. Mrs. Quinn, who was left alone, trembled in front of the tomb.

Mrs. Barton’s evaluation of Mrs. Quinn was “ambiguous”.

Zach didn’t completely agree. The ambiguity of Mrs. Quinn was not because she pretended to be sophisticated, but because she was unable to make up her mind on certain people. For example, Mrs. Barton would directly treat Kyle as the disgrace of the Barton family and throw him to the correctional school; Mrs. Quinn, however, was about to die when she grabbed the owner of a strange funeral home and said that she didn’t want to give the person any satisfaction at her last moment.

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