Should have known that more vultures would show up to feed on his father's carcass.

These ones were young, but like the older crowd that had made up most of his father's social circle, they were not entirely unfamiliar. Not the taller one, in any case.

No, Malachi could distinctly remember – despite the “niceties” he was blessed with now – that one being just as bad as the rest. Worse, even, if one were going only off of things that one could plausibly say in polite society.

Slender fingers tugged idly at the warm collar of his coat. Had this young, vicious thing ever seen him with the holy collar he’d neglected to wear? It’d have been quite the contrast to the one he’d worn before.

Malachi watched without comment as the shorter one went inside. His… rather blatant distaste for the smoke he exhaled went ignored. It was far from a habit of his, but his father had always hated it.

Congratulations, greeted the parasite. What was his name... Hurley?

Yeah. Right. What the fuck was there to celebrate but the added stress this whole situation unloaded onto him? Malachi considered him with a narrowed gaze as he took out a cigar. The money? The estate?

Well he could fantasize about getting a part of it all he wanted.

He leaned forward on his next inhale, and lit the parasite’s cigar with his cigarette.

Not bound by the obvious outward appearance of a priest, and knocked more than a little off-kilter by the dead man in the church, he’d felt rather… impulsive, since his return to London days before.

“Ever lost anyone?” he asked, before shaking his head. “No. Don’t answer that, I don’t care.”

Malachi revised, “have you seen many corpses?”