I am a little embarrassed to say this but, after my little “departure” from Jeffery I bumped into Doctor Samuels who forced me to stay in my bed until she saw fit. So much for my dramatic departure. Anyways, I stayed there until I was able to breathe correctly and move at a reasonable pace. The doctors were amazed, according to them my Spiritual Energy is higher than that of an average soul which is why my recovery went by within only a few weeks when normal souls would takes months to recover. The doctors there tried to tell me about a abnormality within my Soul Track, but I figured I felt the same a usual  that I was fine enough to leave with out anymore care. They told me that the abnormality wasn’t threatening and that they just wanted to observe me a little longer. I told them no and left, I wasn’t in the mood to be someone’s little science experiment.
I had nearly been in Limbo for a year and I hadn’t had a glue as to what I need to do with the rest of my eternity. I was running around doing everything Jeffery told me, I was naïve. But I will not be that child any longer. I need  answers and The Twilight Mafia is where I need to go.
After I left the hospital I needed to find somewhere to live and a way to stay alive. In his spare time, Flare would come and find me somewhere in the city and he would help me find work outside of The Clown Mafia sectors. After many inquiries, I finally landed a job as a stock boy. Funny how I die a clerk and then get a job in the after life with a even more degrading title. With a few months pay, many nights spent on a park bench, I finally was able to rent an apartment in the Asion Sector of Limbo City. Flare spotted me for some time until I got on my feet, and in due time I will be able to pay him back.
I told Flare and Gaiden my plans to find Marcus Reynolds, and they told me that they are willing to help. They aren’t able to work with me officially, but they can in their spare time. Gaiden is a very busy person, but to my surprise he has been able to spend at least an hour a day with Flare and I searching for clues on The Twilight Mafia. With over a month gone by we haven’t got anything. One day, Trisha caught Gaiden hacking into The Clown Mafia’s enemy data base online to find out more about the Twilight Mafia. I didn’t see Gaiden again for a week, and when he came back he had a new long scar across his face. He never did tell me what they did to him.
Yesterday as Gaiden was cleaning up he computers he used earlier to search for any record of Marcus Reynolds, he told me that Samantha and Clay were engaged. I don’t know why I was hurt by it, after she left my room that day I didn’t hear a word from her at all. Anyways, last night while Gaiden was looking around on the internet he found something that may come in handy when searching for Marcus Reynolds. He learned of a narcotics salesmen that works for the Twilight Mafia or have some kind of connection to them. Being our first lead yet, I decided to jump on it and find out what I can.
Flare pushes Gaiden lightly as he looks through some cheap knock off t-shirts on a silver rack, “So why are we here again?”
Gaiden sighs and pulls an ugly purple plaid button up, “God, you’re slow,” he says as he looks in a mirror imagining himself in the shirt, “We are here looking for a man called Charles the Tripper, apparently this is the place he comes to shop for his food.”
I slip off a par a smelly sandals and place them back in their shoe box, “Why would a high class member of a rich criminal organization come here to shop for their food?”
Gaiden scoffs and puts the shirt back, “Because its low profile and not a place one would expect to find a high class criminal.” Gaiden takes out another shirt and then immediately places it back, “too small.”  Calmly, he trots over to the shoes beside me and checks out some worker boots, “From what I read online, Charles is vampire and prefers slumming it downtown like normal folk.”
“Great, a vampire,” I complain quietly, “And what if he gets violent when we confront him?”
Gaiden points to an obtuse Flare swinging his head around, trying to catch the bulbs that hang from the tongues of his toque, “We have Adam.”
Flare pauses, looking at the entrance of the store, “Guys,” he says quietly, “Is that him?”
Gaiden and I casually look up from the boxes and in walks a man: tall, well dressed in a red tie, black sweater vest and an off white button up tucked into grey slacks.  “Is that our guy, Gaiden?” I ask.
Gaiden doesn’t answer, but instead he takes out a box of a pair of shoes, casually ties them on, puts them back in the box and then heads to the counter to pay for them. Flare looks at me as Gaiden walks away and gives me a look like, ‘what’s he doing?’ I shrug in confusion as to what Gaiden is thinking. As he approaches the check out station, he bumps into the man softly and knocks the box of shoes out from his hands. The two casually play it off and continue what they were doing after Gaiden picks up his shoes. While Gaiden is waiting in line for his shoes, the man begins sniffing out tomatoes.
Flare and I watch in silence as the man finally plucks out a few tomatoes he likes, throws a few jarls at the clerk and waltzes off out of the store. When the man leaves the building, Flare and I immediately get up and run to Gaiden, “Well, is that the guy?” I repeat.
Gaiden shoves the box of shoes onto a shelf with bread on it and smirks at us, “I definitely could see slit pupils and a strong smell of cinnamon, which are positive signs of vampirism. If he isn’t Charles, he might be able to lead us to him.” Gaiden abandons the shoes and leads us out of the store.
“What does cinnamon have to do with vampires?” I ask trying to keep up with as we enter out to the busy street. 20 feet away from us is the man walking casually down the side walk. “Another question: Why is a vampire walking around here in a crowded street in the middle of the day? Isn’t he going to burst into flames or shine like a diamond?”
Gaiden laughs quietly to himself, “This isn’t a book, Rex. Now please keep quiet and follow in silence.”
“Geez, I just wanted to-” Gaiden interrupts me with an evil glare, and I shut my mouth.
The man who we are following makes a sudden turn into an alley, “Pick up the pace now, or we’ll loose him,” orders Gaiden as he picks up speed to try and catch up with the man. Flare and I blindly follow Gaiden into the back alley.
“Gaiden,” wines Flare, “it’s a damn dead end!”
Gaiden repeats his evil glare, “I see that Adam.”
“What the hell happened? He was right there! No more than like 20 feet away, how could we have lost him?” I complain, slamming my fist into the brick wall blocking our path.
The three of us freeze as we hear a squishing noise coming from behind us. “My my, what would three strapping young lads want with an innocent man like myself?” says a man with a regal accent quietly being pushed aside by the food in his mouth. We simultaneously turn around to see Charles standing behind us, arms crossed and eating a large ripe tomato with the sun at his back. With the light behind him, the only clear detail of his silhouette are his blood red eyes. Somehow, I have no idea how, he led us into this alley and was able to sneak up on us, the ones who were just following him.
Flare burps out, disrupting the silence, “How the crud did you get there?”
Charles lets out a small chuckle, “You were following me without knowing anything about me?” The  tall creature steps out from the light and begins to slowly circle us like prey. “Isn’t that a little bit irrational for the son of a great and powerful mafia leader?”
My heart skips a beat, I feel that fear again: the same fear I had back when I was almost eaten by Pankake. I thought I’d feel safer with Flare -a fire breathing demon- and Gaiden -a well trained infiltrator- but I don’t. No matter who I have around me, I will always be the guy who has no special abilities. I’m just a normal person, there isn’t a damn thing I can do to help Flare or Gaiden out if this man begins to attack us.
Charles stops pacing around us in front of me, “So you must be Travis Reynolds, eh?” The beast bites into the tomato slowly, and as his teeth penetrates the skin of the fruit, small spurts of red juice squirt and roll down his chin. Never have I ever been to petrified in my life. “My boss has been looking for you, Little Sparrow.”
I can hear Gaiden behind me quietly arguing with Flare, “do it now,” he says.
“ I can’t, something suppressing my flow of energy like back in South Africa,” Flare whispers franticly to Gaiden.
Charles puts down his tomato and steps closer to me, “Odd,” he says slightly confused, “I’m having an extremely hard time going into the Twilight State. Could this be your doing?” He asks while he grazes his finger against my chin.
I can’t answer, and even if I could I wouldn’t know what to say. “Maybe you just having performance problems, ever 1 and 5 men have them-” I accidentally burst out without thinking.
Gaiden and Flare simmer down as Charles looks at me with a very unamused face. “What did you just say to me?”
I quickly cover my mouth, “I didn’t mean it, it was only a joke I swear-” his tight hand interrupts my sentence as he grasps my throat. His nails are short but the edges are sharp, I can feel them lightly sliding into the back of my neck as he begins to lift off the ground.
“Put him down, Charles,” orders Gaiden who is holding a knife out in front of his face.
Charles looks at him, “Knives aren’t very useful in a situation like this, Junior,” he says smugly.
“Depending on who the wielder is.”
The grip on my neck loosens a bit as he get distracted by Gaiden, “Oh, and what? you’re some kind of special exception?”
“Damn right I am. I was trained by Spike himself of the Clown Mafia how to wield small objects like my hands were the guns and the knives are the bullets. With a little extracted spirit particles from my hand, I can push this knife through your eye socket at 107 miles per hour. And I am assuming you’d be gone by now if you could use your Twilight powers.”
“If you shot that knife you friends neck would burst open, tearing at his main stream- making it impossible for him to recover.”
“And if I throw this knife it would go right through your main stream as well.”
Charles and Gaiden stare off at one another until Charles releases his grip on me, dropping me to my knees and leaving me gasping for air. Charles smiles, “Well played. But if you killed him wouldn’t you efforts have been for nothing?”
Gaiden shrugs, “Not entirely, if I killed Rex then I would have basically killed the Twilight Mafia and I am sure my father would surely appreciate that,” he says without a hint of remorse.
“Oooh, that is truly terrifying. A man that can willingly throw his comrades under a moving train without looking back is even more beastly than I,” says Charles pulling out another tomato from a small bag.
Mean while, Flare is softly wrapping my neck with his toque over my wounds, through the pain I thank him and get up. “I need to ask you something…”
Charles looks over his shoulder and returns to us, “And what would that be?”
“Do you know where your Don is?” I ask, tightening the ripped hat around my neck.
Charles steps away, “Nope, never met the guy,” he waves as he begins to walk away.
“Wait!” I stop him. “You are a member of the Twilight Mafia, right?”
Charles sighs and returns to us, “What would you want with my Don anyways?”
“I need to talk to him, I need to talk to Marcus Reynolds.”
“Like I said, I’ve never heard of him, kid. As far as I’m involved Jarrek is our boss. Marcus is never around anyways.”
Flare stands up, “How haven’t you met your Don?”
Charles sighs, “From what I learned, a few years ago the old Don got sick and was forced into making Jarrek the temp. Ever since I joined in 2008, I haven’t even heard the leader’s voice, let alone meet him. The guy is like a ghost… or a ghost’s ghost- if that makes any sense?”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” says a flustered Gaiden.
“Look,” Charles finishes his tomato and with a full mouth of juice he says, “If you really want to know more I can bring you to who I consider ‘the boss,’ does that sound okay?”
My heart’s rhythm returns, “Seriously? Why would you do that?”
“I was originally supposed to bring you in to him dead or alive, and with you wanting to come in makes it a hell of a easier on me and my job.”
Flare quietly raises his hand, “I thought you were a drug dealer for The Twilight Mafia?”
Charles chuckles again, “No, I’m an info dealer for the Twilight Mafia. I get what I need out of people for a very high price. And I have two ways of doing it, and frankly, Rex here is picking the easier way.”
I push past Charles, “Well take me to Jarrek now.”
Charles snorts in derision, “What a naive little man. But okay, no friends. I’m not bringing a couple of Clowns to our base.
“Awe,” complains Flare, “all that work and we don’t even get to know what’s going on?”
Gaiden pulls at Flare’s sleeve, dragging Flare out of the alley, “Lets go Flare. We have no choice but to let Rex go alone.” Charles and I watch as the two drift away into the heavy crowd of nameless people, than Gaiden turns around and yells over the hustle and bustle of the people, “Oh and Rex! If you die, my sister will never forgive me! So you better come back in one piece!”
As Gaiden and Flare disappear, I turn around to see Charles staring down at me with a creepy smile on his face, “You ready to meet Jarrek?”