Brick pulled his metal monster into the drive-way of Godrich Felstrom's ancestral home. It was located a few miles from Nuttergut Hill. A sleek, spartan looking house with drab grey walls and black glass and a high garden of conifers and pine. The architectural simplicity of the house was almost clinical. On their way from Yatexa Plaza, Bliss had filled him in.

Godrich Felstrom was a child of House. Millions of years ago when the first pioneers delved into the enigmatic dark of the universe ships were equipped with biomechanical families. The sheer multitude of provisions needed for deep long haul flights into space needed to be limited. Humans and equipment needed to be compacted. After many years of research and trials, scientists came up with interchangeable households, or children of House: Flat-pack families.

For every married couple came with one singular artificial intelligence. A small computer chip the size of a human nail. When a suitable planet was found that couple would plant the seed of their DNA within the chip and programme it with all the variables of the landscape. Over a matter of weeks a house would grow from new alien earth. An intelligent house with the need to combat any threat.

The children from House had been the first Sub-Humans. A combination of homosapiens and artificial intelligence. The house would tend the need of parent and child. Nourish, shelter and in some instances, protect and kill. Godrich Felstrom was a product of House. But who would want to kill a product of ancient engineering?

Bliss leaned over in her seat and looked at the house, almost invading the Krazzi's personal space.

'Do you have to get so close?'

'Why are you so touchy?'

'Why? You said his parents are dead. Yet, you bring me to this house to talk to them. Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds, lady?'

She looked at the detective sternly. 'Only for the narrow minded.'

The stone man looked at her with raised moss brows. 'Narrow minded?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Well, you are. It's quite simple. Godrich was born from ancient technology. Him and his parents and his grandparents before them have basically grown up in a massive computer chip. Chapter after chapter, pedigree after pedigree . . . Generation after generation. The house will remember. The parents are the House. All part of the same intelligence. If we are going to find Godrich's killer, the house may know who killed him.'

'We?'

She nodded. 'I'm a part of this too.'

'How exactly?'

She swallowed and rocked in her chair. 'House knows me. I used to come here when Godrich and I would fight. It would let me in and I would talk.'

'Talk to the house?'

'Yes. The first time I came here it just let me in.'

Brick lit a cigarillo.

'Do you think it is going to let you in?'

He looked at Bliss with his cold blue eyes and blew a stream of bramble smoke into the car and reached for the door. 'I'll ask it nicely.'

'It won't let you in. Not without me.'

The detective opened the door and looked back. 'Well, come on then smart-ass.'

Bliss smiled and got out of the hulking car. Pushing open the door with all her strength. She shoved it back with her entire upper body and ran to catch up with the Inspector.

The smoke from the Krazzi's cigarillo drifted over his massive shoulder like a phantom snake, dispersing into the cool night. The trees wavered in the chilly breeze, flowers in unkempt beds jostled and wilted.

The house was a blank canvas, minimal. Brick approached the door and knocked out of force of habit. Bliss joked. 'Are you expecting his parents to come to the door?'

He looked at her again with those moss brows. 'You can still wait in the car?'

'Perhaps I will, and laugh my arse off to boot.'

She just approached the door and swiped her finger along the doorframe in an almost sensual gesture and the front door fell open. She looked at the detective and smiled. Brick didn't. Bliss entered first and the Krazzi followed her, the door clicked shut behind them.

They both walked into a hallway of fabulous fresh daytime light. Brick looked out the window and saw a summers day in the garden, freshly cut grass and dingle-bees gathering honey in the flowerbed he had just passed. Perplexed, Brick tried the door to no avail and when it wasn't forthcoming tried to force it with his giant hands. The House did not give. Bliss tugged at his trench coat and then pulled at his arm.

'It's just a memory, Inspector. House is just thinking aloud. What else does she have to do now?'

Brick stopped. 'What?'

'She's . . . she's just looking through memories. She's all alone. Godrich moved out long ago and his parents died soon after.'

'Why doesn't the House just die . . . If there isn't anyone-?'

'Maybe she's expecting someone to come home.'

Brick gave her a shrewd look before moving off through the House, Bliss just stroked the wall with her palm and the lights flickered in acknowledgment.

Brick stood in the clinically white kitchen with its black slate tiles and sifted through the cupboards just with sheer curiosity. He called out. 'So, where are the parents? Do I just speak to the House or will they just appear? Oh, marmite.' The detective closed the cupboard door and an old man in his early seventies stood in front of him, brandishing a mug of honey-wood tea.

'Think I've found dad.'

Bliss walked into the kitchen. 'Yes, you have.'

'Godrich?'

The old man was calling through the detective. 'Godrich? Godrich have you seen your mother?' The Krazzi looked behind him and the young boy darted through the Inspector's legs.

'No father.'

'Well where is the blessed woman?' The old man scratched his head and sipped at his tea.

Brick leaned in close to the old man and passed his hand through him. 'So what is this like a hologram?'

Bliss came forward. 'In a way I suppose. That's what memories are.'

The old man headed out of the kitchen and through the House. 'Beatrice? Beatrice?'

Brick looked at Bliss and saw the pale shade in her face. 'You okay, lady?'

'I've seen this one before . . . The House is sobbing.'

They heard something hit the floor above and then the tears of despair as the old man came crashing to his knees and filled the House with cries of torment.

Brick ran through the House up the clean marble staircase and came to the first bedroom where he saw the old man crying into the still chest of his wife, Beatrice. Bliss moments later approached him from behind.

'He's never going to talk now, look at him. He's a wreck.'

Bliss tugged at his trench coat. 'It is talking to you, Inspector!'

'What?'

Bliss smiled. 'It's speaking to you now. It's telling you a story.'

Brick looked at the still body of Beatrice and noticed the strangulation marks around her neck.

The Inspector blinked and then realised they were back in the kitchen. Both of them seemed rather confused.

'What now? You've seen that one before? What's next?'

Bliss shrugged her shoulders. 'I don't know . . . It could be something I've never seen before.'

'Crying out loud,' the Krazzi muttered under his breath.

The harsh voice of the old man suddenly filled the air. Upstairs again. Brick and Bliss ran up the marble steps once more and ran down the massive hallway, trying to pinpoint the raised voice of Felstrom senior. They stopped for a minute to listen.

'We gave you everything. A home. Food in your belly. An education. But you were never right were you. This poor House. What she must think of you. Her memories tainted, OUR hearts broken. We gave you everything and this is how you repay us.'

The gunshot made Brick and Bliss both jump. The Krazzi kicked the door open to reveal an empty room of bed linen and sky blue walls.

'Nothing. What the hell?'

Bliss heard the muffled footsteps down the hallway and peered back around the doorframe to see the old man clutching his bloodied chest only to fall down the white marble steps. She ran to his aid and Brick followed, looking keenly for the perpetrator. There wasn't one. None that he could see. They saw the old man at the bottom of the steps and sighed, moments later they were standing in the kitchen, much to Brick's annoyance.

'This is starting to make me a bit dizzy.'

'Don't think we are done yet.'

'Not by a long shot . . . I have a feeling this House needs to air its laundry.'

Bliss leaned closer. 'What do you mean?'

'This House - in sense, like you said - is alive. It's haunted by these travesties which happened here . . . Maybe that is what a haunted house is. It needs to show you what happened so it to can move on. Its helping us isn't it?'

Bliss smiled. 'Yes, yes I think so. Poor House, even after they have left the atrocities still haunt it.'

Brick walked over to the bay doors and pushed, bathing the kitchen in a brilliant light. Mere moments later they were standing on a wet shoreline watching a grown-up Godrich holding back a venomous young woman. She shouted and pleaded and kicked at thin air, screaming poisonous vitriol at the inhabitant of the old Rolls Royce Phantom. Brick noticed the pale complexions of both Kiko and Mensch, as did Bliss.

Brick scratched his head. 'How can we be here? It's not from the House?'

Bliss suddenly realised. 'A child of House is at one with it. Godrich would have shared his memories.'

'That girl is pissed.' remarked the Inspector.

'Who is she?'

'She looks familiar. Where the hell have I seen . . . More worrying though, is, who is in the car? Too many questions, Bliss.'

'And not enough answers.'

As soon as the pair blinked they were back in House, sitting casually upon the white leather couch in the darkly lit living room. Candles and incense burned and soft gentle music played in the background. The woman from the beach rested on the couch as Godrich entered with a couple of glasses of red wine.

'Ah, thank you darling,' she said affectionately, taking the wine and placing it on the table. 'Thank you but, eh . . .'

Brick noticed the woman stroking her belly with a loving fondness.

' . . . I have a surprise!'

Godrich egged her on, smiling.

'WE, my dear,' she said grabbing his hand, 'are having a baby.'

The woman smiled and shook Godrich's hands with passionate abandon. Brick and Bliss noticed Godrich's face turning a shade of fury. He stood up and knocked the table, making her wine fall to the floor upon the white carpet. He swore, muttering under his breath like a deranged infant; babbling incoherent spiel. The woman tried to soothe him, understandably aware that it could be a shock and then Godrich smashed the wine glass upon the table and shoved the remaining shard into the woman's stomach.

'Godrich NO,' Bliss shouted and launched herself at the woman, Brick following suit to knock seven shades of shit into the boy. They both fell through thin air into Grox Day morning and Godrich's birth.

Beatrice laid on the floor under a heap of towels gathered from the cupboards, her legs open, a doctor ready to deliver Godrich into the world. The dim light of the room made all the presents in the room glitter and sheen. Even though a memory from House, Brick felt a certain awkwardness as Beatrice pushed and yelled and swore at her beloved. Bliss looked at him and was sure that even in the faint light of the room the Krazzi had turned a faint shade of mauve.

Beatrice pushed once more and Godrich was delivered into the world among a deluge of blood and water. The doctor washed him and cut his cord and wrapped him in a blanket of red Kissledaw cotton and handed the baby to mother. The Felstrom parents cooed and wept for their newborn. As the doctor began to gather the towels Beatrice felt a pang of pain within her stomach and handed Godrich to Mikhale.

The doctor probed her abdomen with his fingers and pulled back in amazement. He laid some fresh towels down and Brick and Bliss watched eagerly as Beatrice pushed Godrich's twin sibling from her loins. Once he was delivered the doctor checked his eyes. Bliss and Brick looked at each other as Godrich's twin opened his eyes for the first time and showed the world the obsidian sheen of his retinas.

Godrich's brother blinked and so did they and half a second later they were back in the living room as Godrich leaned over the woman and launched the bloody shard back into her stomach a second time . . . The door gave and someone entered through the front door. Godrich dropped his bag and shouted at himself.

'Gustaf.'

Godrich ploughed into his brother with bare fists as his lover held her bloody stomach. Sights and sounds gave way to a blurry haze of bewilderment as Brick and Bliss stood in the kitchen once more.

'Rich had a twin . . . A fucking twin. I didn't even realise.'

Brick nodded. 'Yeah, and as far as I'm concerned that makes Gustaf Felstrom prime suspect number one.' The Krazzi headed for the front door lighting a cigarillo. 'Who needs a fucking Mapper?'

Bliss ran after him. 'Wait, where are you going to look?

Brick stopped near the front door.

Bliss continued. 'Where the hell would he be? He could be the other side of the world for all we know. Where would you start?'

'I'll find him, it's my job.'

'It doesn't necessarily mean Gustaf killed his brother.'

'I don't know. The things I've seen in this, House, I think it makes him a prime contender. You could see there was rivalry. It was blatant.'

'How is it blatant? I don't get that.'

Brick blew a massive plume of smoke from his lungs and tilted his head slightly. 'Are you totally blind?'

She crossed her arms in defiance.

Brick continued. 'Gustaf killed his mother, his father. Tried to kill Godrich's lady. How much proof do you need?'

'It doesn't mean he killed Godrich.'

Brick nodded in compliance. 'No . . . no it doesn't. But I think it's a good place to start.'

Bliss moved forward slightly. 'Where do we start?'

Brick smiled. Probably for the first time since she had met him. She liked it. It was a cheery sort of smile which made the crystalline molars of his mouth shine blue.

'I'm going back to the precinct to look up Rolls Royce Phantoms . . . There can't be many in Testament, if any at all. You on the other hand, are going home.'

Bliss's face dropped. 'What? That's insane. I've come too far now. I can't-'

'I can't take you back to HQ, the old man would have a fit. Go home, Bliss. You'll be safer.'

'You said I was a loose end . . . Yeah, conveniently forgotten that have you?'

Brick tensed his jaw in frustration. 'Yeah . . . yeah that's what I said. Alright, shit. Look, I can't take you back to HQ. There may be a breach there . . .' the old Krazzi detective looked at her with a certain fascination. 'I know a place . . . You'll be safe there. But you'll have to lay low. Don't answer the door or peek out the curtains. If I'm right, I'll wrap this case up in a day. And when I do you go get your ticket to Frica, Bliss. Leave this city behind.'

She nodded emphatically. 'Where we going?'

He smiled his brilliant blue smile. 'My house . . .' He opened the door and made his way back to the car '. . . and stay away from my whiskey.'