CHAPTER 25: The Drug Kingpin

Agustin and I had just left the classroom and were walking down the hall after Monsters and Beasts 101.

"Alex, I need to talk to you."

I turned around and saw Alistair had come up behind me. "What's up?"

"I got a message, our meeting with the man from Saton City has been moved up, we're doing it tonight." 

"Seriously," I said in surprise. "What brought this on?" 

"Who knows," Alistair shrugged his shoulders. "In the end it doesn't matter, we'll still have to go." He then turned to Agustin "We'll need you to come with us today, there is a chance things will get violent."

Agustin nodded his head and cracked his knuckles. "You did have to ask, I was going to come anyway. I know just how important this meeting is."

"Let's meet at the warehouse by nine this night then head out from there." Said Alistair, he then looked away with a grim look in his face. "No one is allowed to be late."

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"This is where my life has brought me. What a disappointment."

In a dim, almost lightless room, a masked man could be seen crouching down with his head in his hands, it was obvious the man was distraught for ever so often he would let out a groan or sigh. 

"I thought I was on my way up in the world when I got admitted to Freestone Academy." The man picked up a bottle next to him and took a swing of it. "But this is where I ended up?"

He turned his bleary looking eyes to the right and squinted at a sign on the wall through his mask. "Working at a restaurant called Fayls spot, and as a receptionist no less?"

He let out a bark of a laugh and slapped his knee. "If someone told me that this is where I would end up I would have called the person a liar."

He then sighed and shakily got to his feet. "Well, it's too late to start regretting. I just have to accept that I now work in the Underworld."

*RING*

The bell above the entrance to the restaurant rang.

'Time to get to work,' he thought with a sigh. 

"Welcome, would you like a table or do you require more privacy." He had said the same line so many times that at this point it had become instinctive. He then raised his eyes, and suddenly, he froze.

In front of him stood three hooded individuals. All of them were of different sizes with one of them towering over the other two. But the one thing they had in common was that they were all wearing masks, but even that wasn't the same as while the first one wore a lion mask, one of the other two had a demon mask, and the last individual had a mask of a griffin on his face.

'What's this feeling?' He thought in shock as he felt his hand that was holding the bottle tremble. 'Is this fear?'

"A normal table." Said the one with the demon mask.

The man was suddenly much more sober and quickly dropped the bottle on the ground. "Right away," he bowed his head respectfully and held his hand out. "Please follow me."

'What's going on?' He thought as he led them to a table. 'I've always been sensitive but what about them is making me respond this way?'

He sat them at a table for four and after bowing again he turned and headed back to the entrance of the restaurant. 

'Ahh, I remember now....' The memory of a pair of chilling blue eyes that he had been suppressing for years came back to him. 'It's the fear that a being feels for another that's far superior to it.'

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"Hey," said Alex, as he looked at Alistair through the eye slits on his lion mask. "Did that person seem nervous to you?"

"Yes," replied Alistair from behind the demon mask. "He seemed jumpy."

"Maybe he was intimidated by my beautiful muscles." Said Agustin with a laugh.

I rolled my eyes and looked at the griffin mask on his face. "More likely that he was horrified by that abomination on your face." Then ignoring Agustin's hurt gasp he turned back to Alistair. "What time is he supposed to get here?"

Alistair looked at his XOC and shrugged his shoulders. "It's already the time he said the meeting will start," he then looked around the restaurant. "But I don't see him anywhere."

I crossed my arms and clicked my tongue. "He's probably taking his time getting here. I cannot just understand why powerful people seem to make a point of coming late."

"They probably do it to make a point." Said Alistair as he folded his hands and put them on the table. "I can make you wait and there is nothing you can do about it."

A masked waiter walked up and began pouring water into the glasses on the table.

"Jackasses." I muttered as I looked around at the other customers in the room. "First Jason and now him. I don't see a need for all this dick measuring."

"That's quite rude don't you think?" Suddenly rang out a voice.

I looked up in surprise and saw the waiter looking at me through the slit in his mask. "I'm not that insensitive," the waiter then sat on the last available chair and pulled off his mask.

*GASP*

I heard a sharp intake of air come from Agustin before he was able to control himself.

'Reasonable reaction.' I turned to Agustin and looked at him in pity. 'I don't blame you, when I saw his face for the first time I reacted in much the same way.'

The man had a lumpy face that had one eye higher up on his head than the other, with many horrible looking hypertrophic scars crisscrossing all over his face. One had to wonder when they saw his face what had happened to him since his horrendous face couldn't be natural. All in all, the man's face was a nightmare to look at.

The man turned his scarred face and frowned at Agustin. "Do you have something to say?"

The way the man's face scrunched up as he looked at Agustin made his already traumatizing face look ten times worse.

Agustin swallowed back the puke that had entered his mouth and laughed shakily.

"Haha, no sir, I was just surprised by how you were already here."

The man stared at Agustin for a few more seconds before he turned back to me. "I'm glad to see you showed up promptly, I was afraid that you would ignore my summons."

"We wouldn't dare Don Enzo. We value our lives too much to do something so stupid." Replied Alistair smoothly. He then looked at his waiter attire. "Pardon my asking, but why are you dressed like that?"

Don Enzo glanced at his clothes. "Oh this? I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn't pull any funny business, so I watched from a distance while my guys secured the area."

"Which reminds me," I said, placing my hand under my chin. "I would have thought that you would come with a squad of guards, or at least one trusted subordinate."

Don Enzo suddenly began to chuckle before soon breaking out into a full-blown hearty laugh.

'This must be the most ugly thing that I've ever seen in my life.' I looked at Don Enzo's laughing face and had to force down the bile that rose up my throat.

Suddenly, he stopped laughing, and an expression appeared on his face that distinctly reminded me of a smile. But calling that abomination a smile would have been a crime against the world that I was not willing to make.

"Who said I came alone? I'm sure I said earlier that my guys secured the area, and..." He snapped his finger.

*SNAP*

The quiet conversation in the room suddenly stopped.

"I left Saton City for the first time in a long time so I have to make a statement." Finished Don Enzo with his imitation of a smile.

I turned my head and felt a shiver run down my spine as I saw that every 'customer' in the restaurant was looking at our table.

'Wait,' I turned my head left and right, but no matter where I looked, all I saw were the masked faces of the people in the restaurant looking at me. 'Are they all his people?'

"I'm impressed," said Alistair. He then picked up the glass of water on the table in front of him and took a sip. "Is the receptionist also one of your men? I thought he seemed a little too jumpy."

Don Enzo shook his head. "No, he isn't, I made sure to keep the receptionist the same so you wouldn't notice that anything was amiss before you sat down." He then frowned slightly, which seemed to stretch out his scars even more. "Seems he noticed that something was wrong."

Don Enzo sighed then shrugged his shoulders. "Might have to get rid of him, I'll think about it later."

I quietly swallowed. 'I know that I'm responsible for the death of many people, both directly, with my own hands, and indirectly because of the diom. But I've never seriously talked about killing someone so casually.'

I looked at Don Enzo with slight awe in my eyes. 'Will I start to say the same kind of thing if I stay in the Underworld long enough?'

"Anyway," continued Don Enzo, "Let's really get this meeting started." He then snapped his fingers for the second time.

*SNAP*

The quiet conversation between the patrons of the restaurant started once again.