On to the Next

Vance straightened his tie and did his best to quell the nausea churning in his gut as he stood outside the office door. Mouth dry, he reached for the door handle again and was ashamed to see that his hand was trembling. After a few seconds he let it fall back to his side.

"Oh, for the love of God, just get in there!" Miranda exclaimed in exasperation from her desk. "He already knows you're here, so you are just wasting time now!"

He flinched. With the intensity of his anxiety about this meeting, he'd completely forgotten that the woman was watching him. Motivated by a mixture of embarrassment and irritation, he momentarily pushed aside his fears and walked into the office.

"A little bit later than I would have liked, but I suppose I can't blame you for feeling a bit of the jitters. I can only assure you that I have no intention of shooting the messenger, regardless of the news that you are carrying." Adrian commented dryly from somewhere in the darkened room as soon as the door closed behind him.

Despite his reassurances, Vance had a hard time coming up with a response. Thankfully, his answer wasn't required, apparently.

"What have you found out?" Adrian asked from near the window, where the harsh glow emanating from the streetlights outside had made him into a shadowy silhouette.

Vance cleared his throat nervously and answered, "Ahem, um it looks like your guess was right. Someone has been interfering with our business in the West Hills district."

There was a few seconds of silence, and then the silhouette turned, revealing a hint of Adrian's face in profile. "Did you figure out who it is?"

[Of course he would ask…]

"Um...no...we have not. Whoever is doing this is trying to keep a low profile. So far they've only hit a few low level dealers and a handful of middle men. We've lost a little bit of money, but nothing crippling. Quite frankly, the district manager is a little confused as to why-"

"I have my reasons. There is more going on than meets the eye. We'll need to identify the source of these issues soon, or else we'll be buried in a mountain of troubles before we know it. Put whoever you have to on the case. I want this resolved as soon as possible."

There was another pause before Adrian spoke again. "Make sure it is people you can trust. We can't rule out the possibility that this is an inside job."

Vance found the idea of anyone in the Ortegas having enough courage to betray the horrifying man in front of him laughable in the extreme. While the official story amongst the rank and file was that Adrian was just a distant cousin of Ortega herself, and that he'd been given a small role in the command structure of the organization, it was something of an open secret that he was now in charge and had come to power through force.

The intercom beeped and Miranda's voice came over it. "Your eight o' clock is here."

The silhouette moved over to the desk and pressed a button on the console. "Send him in. We're just finishing up."

A wave of relief filled Vance and he hurriedly started backing up. "Right, well, I'll get to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible. It will be my first priority."

Right before he closed the office door behind him, he heard. "See that you do. I would hate to have reason to question your performance. Or your loyalty."

For a moment he was in another place, one far darker. He once again saw the creeping carpet of darkness that slowly enveloped a screaming Caleb, turning his loyal subordinate into a twitching body bag before dragging him off into the shadows. A hand was on his shoulder and he heard a voice whispering in his ear.

"Don't fail me."

Vance closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm himself, willing the panic to subside and pushing the memories back into the depths of his mind where he'd been burying them. After several heartbeats he felt well enough to move off, and started walking briskly in the direction of the garage.

---------------------------------------------------

Once Vance had left, Adrian switched the lights on, wincing slightly as the brightness stung his eyes. Ever since his duel with Gavin Maldris, he'd been able to see in complete darkness without any difficulty, but he'd also become sensitive to light. According to Pavuk, this meant that his connection with the Hall was deepening, but he honestly found it a bit inconvenient.

[Perhaps I just need to embrace my criminal side and start wearing sunglasses all the time.] He thought absently before taking a seat behind his desk to wait for his next appointment.

After a few minutes, a nervous looking man peeked into the room. All Adrian could see was the top portion of a bald head and a pair of bespectacled eyes.

Sensing that this would be yet another tiresome meeting, he put on his best warm smile and motioned for the man to enter. "Come in, come in. Please have a seat."

The visitor cleared his throat and muttered a quiet thank you before sliding into the room without opening the door much further, as if he wanted to avoid doing anything to disturb the environment.

At first glance, he wasn't much to look at. Dressed in khakis and a simple polo, this skinny man who appeared to be in his late forties had all the charisma and presence of the part time assistant manager of a discount grocery store.

Once again indicating the chair in front of him, Adrian repeated. "Please have a seat."

The man eventually nodded and then walked forward to sit gingerly in the leather chair, barely doing more than resting on the edge of the cushion.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Adrian asked. "So what brings you in…," he stopped to quickly check his notes, "Mr. Jeffery Allen?"

"Well, I have a problem, and my cousin, Darlene, told me that this place does a certain kind of business." He leaned in and whispered. "You know, less than legal kinds of business."

Keeping his professional smile in place, Adrian waited for him to continue.

"So...well, I need to have someone...taken care of. If you get my drift."

"You want to have someone killed, is that it?"

Jeff looked around in a panic, as if trying to see if anyone was listening. "No! No!...Well, I mean yes, I guess. Look, there's just this guy I want removed from the picture. If you have to...kill him...then I suppose it would be fine, but if you can just get him to leave and never come back, that would be fine too."

"Tell me about this person, and why you want him...taken care of."

"Alright, so about a month ago, my daughter, Mary came home crying. She's a teenager, so this isn't exactly unusual, but I found out from her mother later that she was upset about some guy. Once again nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, a couple of weeks go by and suddenly she's a ray of sunshine, happiest I've ever seen her, only she's started staying out later and disappearing on the weekends. If that wasn't bad enough, she began wearing skimpier clothes, more makeup, you know the kind. Clearly something was up."

"Mhmm." Adrian muttered non-committedly, regretting asking in the first place.

"I confront her about it, and she eventually lets out that she's been hanging around with this Lawence guy. Before I can get anything else from her she storms out of the house, threatening to never come back. Now, I'm not the most attentive parent, but I remembered that name. That's the same guy that made her cry a couple weeks back, but I don't know anything else about him. So, I go to my wife to get the details. The two of them are thick as thieves, by the way. Honestly, it's so hard to raise my daughter right when her mother is on her side. Anyway, Barbara, my wife that is, Barbara didn't want to tell me at first, but I gradually got the truth-"

"Perhaps you can cut to the chase, Mr. Allen." Adrian broke in, allowing a small sliver of the Hall's power to creep into his voice.

The man shriveled again. "Right, right. Sorry! Long story short, this Lawrence guy has been a bad influence on Mary. He's been taking her to parties, having her meet his dirtbag friends. They've even talked about something called Rapture, which I'm sure is just a code word for a drug. And even though I've warned her about him and forbidden her to see him, Mary continues to fall for his lies."

"Alright. So what I'm getting from this is that you want this Lawrence removed from your daughter's life and you don't really care how it is done. Is that about right?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess so?"

Adrian nodded. "Then I think we can help you, Mr. Allen. But before we go any further, it is important to discuss the fee."

"I've got some money saved up. It's not a whole lot, but if you need more I can take out a loan-"

"That won't be necessary. We deal with a different kind of currency."

--------------------------------------------

Adrian waited until his customer had departed before sighing. They'd eventually settled on ten years of life, but it had been a surprisingly difficult sell. Despite all indications to the contrary, Mr. Allen was more than willing to haggle.

"Pavuk." He intoned.

After a few seconds a shadow separated from the wall, resolving into the familiar form of his most trusted follower. "Yes, my lord?"

"Track down this Lawrence person and collect any information you have on him."

"It will be done."

"On another note, how is our newest member adjusting?"

The masked figure hesitated for a few seconds before answering. "...She is...adapting. However, Akula is not the most flexible of individuals. I think it would be best for her to remain in the Hall until I've had time to fully acclimate her to the modern era."

Adrian chuckled. "Is she giving you that hard of a time?"

Suspecting that more troubles were ahead, he'd used the power the Hall had accumulated to awaken one of the other guardians besides Pavuk. Based on his implanted knowledge, he'd chosen the individual known to have the highest combat power from among the many options, but evidently there were some drawbacks to this choice.

"Quite so, my lord. I would like to request that you formally command her to remain in the Hall. She has become increasingly determined to explore the outside world, and she won't listen to anyone besides the Ruler."

"Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to be an option. There are things I would like for her to take care of in the near future, so she will need to have a fundamental baseline of knowledge sooner rather than later. The way I see it, it would probably be best to rip this bandage off quickly. We can deal with the fallout after the fact."

Pavuk bowed submissively. Whatever his true feelings on the subject, he evidently had no intention of going against Adrian's wishes.

"If that is what you desire, my lord, I shall see it done. Do you want me to prioritize escorting her over my other duties?"

"No. I have someone else in mind for that particular task." He said with a grin before pushing the intercom button. "Miranda, come in here for a minute. I have a job for you."