For the past few weeks my new best friend has become my bed. It seems to be routine for me to find out something about someone and then get extremely shocked about said person. But I am taking it better than when I watched Jeffery rip that mask off his face. This morning I made myself breakfast for Gaiden and I; yes Gaiden and I. Somehow, even though he seemed to not be in favor of my company, Gaiden has been hanging around me since that mission with Flare and the Twilight Mafia. Flare has tried to visit but I would play ghost whenever he came around. I’m having a little difficulty getting used to the idea of Flare being some kind of “fire demon.” The ride home from South Africa was an awkward one (for me at least) and I didn’t know how to react to Flare. Every time he spoke I would reply with just a nod or a simple, “Uh-huh,” never making eye contact. I don’t know why though, he’s practically the same- no he is the same person as before just can stand explosions and walk out of fire like it’s no big deal.
The skyline of Limbo City forces my mind to wonder. I have been dead for a couple months now, and already I have experienced more in death than I did in my entire life alive. I can’t get over how real everything seems to be, yet, at the same time, how surreal everything is. In the night sky of the city is what look like the Northern Lights, colors of green and purple dancing within a sea darkness and stars. And the moon is bright and large, shining over everything and creating a feeling of peace. But I know what’s out there, I read Basic Information the Formally Alive, Limbo is full of monsters and demons.
Soup falls from my spoon to my chin as three loud knocks on my door startle me.
I look at the clock on the wall above my television; it reads 11:36pm. “Who could it be this late at night?” I ask myself, wipe my chin and head to the door.
As I approached the door it opened and Jeffery barged in, “Hey’a kid!” He said and strolled into my kitchen.
“Jeffery,” I say with distain, “What are you-?”
“Mm, Soup!” He picks up my spoon and takes a mouth full of my simply made chicken noodle soup.
“What the hell Jeffery? You can’t just barge into my room and eat my food!”
With a mouth full of spoon and noodles, Jeffery looks at me, “Actually, it’s my room and food, so I think its fine. Besides,” he sits down and takes another bite of soup, “I knocked.”
I take the bowl away from him, “Still, I need to answer the door before you come in,” I say with an odd touch of comfort and anger.
Jeffery swallows and puts the spoon down onto the table.
I stand in front of him with the cold bowl of noodles in my hands for a couple seconds staring at him getting comfortable and smiling. I clear my throat, “Is there something you needed?”
“We have reached a check point, Rex my boy.”
“A check point?” I ask while putting my bowl of ruined noodles in the sink.
“Yes, a checkpoint!” His charismatic voice draws in my attention and I sit down on a stool a few feet away from him. “Next we should be able to flush out the Vice Don of the Twilights.”
“Vice Don?”
“Yes. See, I’m a Don, or president, of the CLM (or Clown Mafia if you’re not familiar with the lingo). A Vice Don is like the second in command of a mafia or organization, the second highest ranking within our organization.”
“Like Trisha?”
Jeffery laughs and fixes his weight in his chair, “She might as well actually be the Don, but don’t tell her I said that. No, actually, Steve is the Vice around here. Usually the Vice Don handles the money and negotiations for the matters the Don doesn’t have time to deal with. But in Steve’s case, he…uh…” Jeffery pauses, “Actually, I don’t know what Steve does around here. Anyways, the base you, Knife and Flare took out a couple weeks ago was once property of the CLM that the Twilight Mafia took a few months prior. The fact that we wanted this base back was actually a front for what we actually want. We are looking for their Vice Don Jarrek Ledger. But recently he has gone quiet and has stopped coming to the weekly peace meetings. We are looking for their leader so we can make a deal, but I have no idea who their Don is; which is why we need Jarrek Ledger.”
“Wait, you’ve been doing business with a man you haven’t even ever met?”
“We have been working through their Vice Don this whole time. Only he knows who their true Don is. Jarrek has always held this information from us and we have recently decided to ‘get’ him to tell us who they are working for. The only trouble is that he has gone off the map. He probably did this with the help of the Twilight Extortionists who are recruited within the Twilight Mafia.”
“Uh,” I stare confused at Jeffery as he speaks, “What is a ‘Twilight Extortionist?’ Like, they threaten sparkly vampires?”
Jeffery laughs at my remark, “No,” he gets off of the chair and stands up, staring out the window. “I’m assuming you witnessed Adam’s ‘special’ capabilities?”
Flashes of the explosions and bodies falling from the sky, burn into the back of my mind, “Yes. He walked out of a burning pile of cement and wood completely unscathed.”
“Flare is a Fire Extortionist; a human soul who –in the Make-Up Room- was fused with a C-class demon and developed special abilities that grants him the ability to create and manipulate the elements of fire using his spirit energy. His physical body on the outside seems normal, but magma and lava literally flows through that young man’s veins. “
“Whoa,” I guess that explains that.
“Now, the Twilight Mafia is composed of Extortionists of space and time,” Jeffery looks down back at me, “and I assume that is pretty self-explanatory?”
“So…they can stop time?” I hesitantly ask.
Jeffery looks a little surprised, “Well, kind of,” he says and looks back out to the night sky.
“Well, then it doesn’t explain itself, does it?”
Jeffery gives me a dirty look, “Okay, fine…well-”
“Go on,” I push.
“Someone’s getting comfortable around a crime lord, is he?” he smiles and again returns to the city sight. Before speaking he licks his lips, “In their point of view time stops for a few seconds. But to us on the outside, it only looks like jump cuts or super speed. When in their time freeze state, they are able to manipulate space, like move cups with their mind or move their bodies to different locations. Some even can reverse time back, but that’s a rare trait.”
“Wouldn’t those kinds of people, I mean Extortionists, be able to theoretically take over with ease?”
“Not exactly, Twilight Extortionists do have their time limit for how long they can control time and space. The longest anyone has ever been able to state in the twilight is 15 seconds, but that’s an extremely rare case, the average is 2 or 3 seconds tops. It is said that the Don of the Twilight Mafia is that one odd one out that can exceed that 3 second limit to 15.” Jeffery looks at me with a soft hint of concern. Something in his eyes is trying to tell me something that his words cannot.
This uncomfortable stare is broken as Skull bursts into my room, “Jay, we have word from Jarrek.”
“And?” asks Jeffery.
“It isn’t good.”
Jeffery walks to the door and looks back at me, “I’ll be back to continue this later.”
The room returns to its silence as Skull and Jeffery leave my apartment. What was Jeffery thinking when he gave me that uncomfortable stare? I seem to have come upon more questions and less answers every time Jeffery and I speak.
--
This morning Flare came by to see how I was doing and instead of doing what I usually did and ignore him, I invited him in. Last night Jeffry told me what Flare is, and after visiting with him for a half hour I have come to the conclusion that he may be made of fire, but he is still the sweet little nerd he was when I bumped into him when we met. I tried to get some answers out of him while he was here but he kept his mouth shut whenever I brought up the question of “Why did they recruit me into the mafia?” It has since been an hour or so since he left, and I still have no idea why they recruited me into the Clown Mafia. I don’t have any defining talents that they could make use of with the mafia, I can’t handle violence, and it’s not like I have one of those fancy-smancey Extortionist powers. I’ve got to say, from everything I have heard in the last 24 hours, it’s like my life has become some kind of super hero comic. Everything has become so unrealistic.
As I stare at my white hair through the reflection of my television, I push my hands into the cushions of my couch and cringe at the discoloration. I have tried to make my hair black, but since then my hair has turned back to white with a little bit of black peeking through. By next week, my hair will have returned to completely white again.
Knocks on my door interrupt my trance with myself and I sigh, “Come in,” I say without a care of who is at the door and I bury my head into the cushion of my couch.
“Hello?” asks a female from the entrance of my room.
“I’m on the couch,” I raise my hand and wave so the person can find me.
“Rex?” the female’s voice gets closer.
“The slackers probably sleeping,” says another familiar voice.
“Gaiden, Samantha? Is that you guys?” I ask while pulling myself out of the couch cushions. Samantha and Gaiden sit around me on my couch, “What do you guys want?”
“Rude,” Samantha flirtatiously smacks my arm, “We wanted to tell you something that you may find important.”
Gaiden pushes my feet off the coffee table and sits in their spot, “But first we want to finish Uncle Skull’s story first.”