Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

By

E. S. Young

Chapter Six: Another One Bites the Dust

Well, now I have not one but two people that smoke to add to my head (thank you, Zebbidy and Sands .O;). Actually, three, cuz Lynné smokes from time to time; she's just secretive about it for some reason. But, anyway, back to the point, sorry if I offended any one by doing that. Like I said, I came up with the character of Zebbidy about two years before I even heard of OUaTiM. Sorry if I sound dumb apologizing. I'm just making sure I don't antagonize anyone. After all, I DID just receive fustigation on one of my Invader Zim stories for a, uh, "skweaky swivel chair" (when there wasn't even one IN the story; person didn't even bother to spell my name right 9.9). I'm just being cautious.

Sands: You just wanted to say the word 'fustigation.'

Sidney: (it's true, so she is slightly ashamed) Yeah . . . you're right . . . (brightly) Fustigate: 'To beat with a club; cudgel.'

Sands: 9.9

Sidney: Or . . . Fustigate: 'To criticize harshly.'

Sands: (darkly) Goddamn word-a-day calendar . . .

The blaring sound of trumpets and guitars was driving Sands to the edge. As were the crowds of people drinking and laughing and having a grand old time while he sat in some filthy booth (crumb covered table, gum under the seats, the works) sweating his ass off.

Gosh, Sheldon, I gotta admit, when you go to pick a meeting place you don't piss around.

'Fuck off. I was told that this was "THE place" to go.'

Well, I think it's a little obvious that you were misinformed . . .

As he rolled his eyes towards the dark ceiling, Sands raised his glass to take a sip of tequila. He leaned back, glancing around the bar in annoyance. The Mexican fanfare he had been enduring for so long was beginning to grate on his nerves. The air around him was thick with heat emanating from the horde around him. In an attempt to relieve himself of his ever growing tension, Sands took one of his hand-rolled cigarettes out, intending to add to the thick clouds of smoke that had all but covered the ceiling of the bar, only to find he had nothing to ignite it with.

"I think this is what you're looking for," said a velvety voice laced with Spanish.

Sands looked up at the sound. His dark eyes met a small silver lighter in the hand of an extended arm, which led to a shoulder that was connected to a graceful neck with the beautiful face of a woman topping it all off.

'Her file didn't give a description,' Sands thought, impressed.

And YOU wanted to send somebody else to meet Miss Gomez.

He didn't make a reply, being too caught up with the lustrous woman who stood before him. Long, reddish-brown curls hung loose, clinging to her, falling over her tan shoulders, and onto the cream colored shirt she wore. Accepting the lighter, Sands grinned.

"Señor Sands I presume?" she inquired confidently.

"Agent Sands, actually," he corrected, setting his cigarette aflame. "But you shouldn't go making presumptions unless you are sure that what you are presuming isn't, in fact, very dangerous."

She let out a light laugh that Sands didn't think suited her. Gomez seemed like the type who would have something of a lower, harsher laugh, but he could be wrong.

'Or SHE could be putting me on.'

Paranoid are we?

'I'd be dead if I weren't,' Sands answered spiritedly.

"Are you giving me a warning?" his female visitor asked, a smile playing on her lips.

"It all depends on how you look at it," Sands told her evenly. "Are you Agent Gomez of the AFN?"

The woman's smile widened.

"I am."

She slid into the booth until she was only a few inches away from him, still beaming. It took several seconds before Sands realized that he too was still grinning like an idiot. His smile fell quickly when he cleared his throat and straightened in his seat. Sands took a drag on his cigarette, avoiding Agent Gomez's rusty colored eyes.

Simmer down, there, boy.

'Like you didn't steal any glances at her rack.'

Hey, did you actually SEE those things – oh. I guess you did.

'Yeah.'

"You may call me Ajedrez, if you like."

"I just might take you up on that offer," Sands said wryly. "That is, of course, if you're willing to risk your life to -- " he waved his hand in a mock-dramatic gesture – "save your beloved, soon-to-be completely overpopulated Mexico." He looked at her pointedly, breathing jets of smoke out his nose. "So I guess what I'm asking is . . . are you?"

"Of course," Ajedrez murmured, leaning closer to him.

Take her. TAKE her, goddamn you, the voice urged, a note of plea in its tone.

'Later,' he told the voice, brushing its suggestions aside. 'Business first.'

Then . . . ?

'THEN . . . we'll see.'

How can you say that!?! You being the sex-crazed bastard we all know and love.

'Since when am I sex-crazed?'

The voice snorted in disbelief, but Sands continued.

'I like to make them wait a little. That way, by the time they DO get what they want, it'll seen exceptionally good because they've been anticipating the moment for so long.'

Oh, I see. Very crafty, you know. You're such a ladies' man.

'I try,' he responded inactively.

Just then, Ajedrez interrupted Sands' thoughts by reaching across and snatching his cigarette away from him and placing it in her own mouth. She inhaled deeply before flicking a few ashes off away. Sands stared at her with a mixture of sensuality and interest. This woman was intriguing, although he couldn't help but find her antics slightly annoying.

"If you don't mind," Sands began, a hint of irritation in his voice, "I'd like that back. That's the only one I had on me and I'm already running low."

She only smiled, but eventually realized that the CIA agent wasn't kidding. Looking somewhat put off that Sands wasn't playing into her flirtatious act as she had hoped, Ajedrez removed the cigarette from her mouth, letting a few of its ashes fall to the floor.

Sands smiled with tranquillity as he reached out an arm to take his cigarette back only to have Ajedrez pull it away from him again. She smiled secretively when he narrowed his eyes.

"These can kill you, you know," she informed him knowingly. "You could already have contracted lung cancer for all you know."

"I'll take the risk, mi querida, if it's all the same to you," Sands said irritably, reaching forward once again.

"But it's not," Ajedrez told him faintly, acting stunned.

In one quick movement that Sands was powerless to stop, she had lunged forward and grabbed him by the shirt, her dark eyes suddenly lit with a fire that had been dampened before. Her nails sinking into his collar, Ajedrez raised the arm that held Sands' cigarette. He looked up at her in alarm as she looked casually from the cigarette in her hand to the sheer panic in his eyes.

Knowing what she was about to do, Sands shut his eyes in a feeble attempt to protect them from certain destruction. His effort was wasted. Ajedrez brought the smoldering roll of tobacco hurtling towards him, driving it into his left eye.

The fiery embers ate away at his eyelid and soon began their attack on what was hidden beneath. Once the cigarette had burnt through, it began dissolving his eye like acid until there was nothing left but a charred black hole.

As soon as she had finished her job, Ajedrez began her assault on Sands remaining eye. He cried out in pain as the cigarette was plunged into his right optic. Ajedrez ignored him the entire time, too lost in the excitement of seeing another in agony to feel any regret.

Sands gripped the edge of the table, letting out a strained yell through clenched teeth. Throughout the entire torture he heard laughter. Ajedrez's laughter, he now knew. It fit her now: High, cold, cruel, mirthless. It was the kind of thrill one only got from watching someone else suffer.

When he was finally released, Sands fell back against the seat of the booth, gasping for breath and seeing nothing. Tears now rolled down his face instead of blood, but it made no difference.

All around him, the intoxicated bar patrons continued to laugh and drink and talk, completely unaware of what had just happened.

His eyes snapped open, wide in Sands' state of distress. He let out a small gasp when a dull stinging sensation shot through his eyes. Reaching a hand up, Sands rubbed them, wincing. When he took his hand away, his fingers were dappled with cold sweat.

Sands shook his head in frustration, wiping his hand on the cool bed sheets the hotel had provided. This was stupid. HE was being stupid and overreacting. It was now the middle of July and the Dead of the Dead was long past. His bullet wounds had healed and he had gotten his eyes back. Barillo and Guevera were dead, or so he had heard from Lynné. And as for Ajedrez?

He had killed her. He had shot her right through her gorgeous chassis when she had thought he was done for. He had been blind at the time with crimson waves of blood draining down his face and onto his neck and he couldn't see her. Yet she had fallen; he was sure of it.

Ajedrez had deceived him again, only it had happened sooner this time. This time it was their first encounter and she had flat out ruined him with hardly any fooling around. Oh well. At least this wasn't like the last time when she had made him believe she loved him. This time around she had been decent enough to come right out and blind him. That was nice of her.

Bitch.

There was an odd pressure against her mouth. She didn't know what it was, but something was covering her lips. Zebbidy's eyes flew open and widened in horror instantly. A dark figure loomed over her. One gloved hand was clamped down over her mouth, enabling her to speak.

Through the darkness that filled her room, Zebbidy saw the figure's perverse sneer down at her.

'There were more of them in the hotel,' she thought suddenly, 'Goddamn it, they probably rented a room and stayed the night just in case something happened to the other guy.'

Her thoughts stopped abruptly when she realized her breathing had been cut short. Whoever had pressed a hand over her mouth had now shifted his fingers so that his thumb was covering her nose. This process, while slow, would soon suffocate her.

'Not today . . .'

With one swift kick, Zebbidy had sent her new attacker crashing to the floor and jumped out of bed. Not waiting for the thug to get up, Zebbidy raced through her hotel suite, wrenched open the door, and darted out into the hallway.

At first Sands thought it had simply been a hazy after effects of one of his nightmares. However, he could have been mistaken, so he forced himself to stay awake for a few more seconds in case he hadn't been imagining things.

There it was again. Knocking.

No . . . not knocking . . . pounding . . . banging at his door.

Lifting his head from his pillow, Sands began a bleary search for the sound. Even with his new eyes his hearing was still exceptional. It was like using echolocation to find his way through the dark. Now if he could only find what he was looking for . . .

Goddamn knocking, where the fuck was it coming from???

Oh, right . . . the DOOR. That made sense.

Reaching underneath his mattress, Sands pulled a gun out and, checking by its weight, made sure that it was loaded. After pushing himself off of the bed, he staggered towards the sound of the banging, his bare feet dragging on the rough carpet. He finally reached the door and, placing his hand on the knob, opened it.

Sands stared, perplexed. There was a woman standing at his door, gasping for breath and looking scared out of her wits. Her face was even a little flushed as though she had just run a great distance, although her room was only a few doors away from his.

Zebbidy gave no explanation for why she was standing outside his door at three o'clock in the morning. She simply pushed Sands aside as soon as she saw him and ran into the bathroom. A distinct 'CLICK' told him that she had locked the door behind her.

'What's gotten her all hot and bothered?'

And he's using the term 'hot' lightly, folks, the voice said, as if speaking to an invisible audience.

'Shut up.'

Looking out into the hallway, Sands eyes widened when he saw what had made his charge so distressed. A man, one of Poisson's thugs by the look of it, was thundering down the hall undoubtedly in search of Zebbidy Samhain.

It was too late if he simply backed up and closed the door; the man must have seen him by now. And even if he hadn't . . . Sands smirked maliciously.

'He's still a danger to Miss Samhain.'

When the thug finally spotted Sands, his face twisted into a mirthless grin. The lean man in the doorway was no threat; he'd be easy to take down. Reaching inside his coat and pulling a gun from his holster, the assassin charged towards Sands who saw him as nothing more than a raging bull and he himself as the matador.

Remembering his speech about 'creative sportsmanship,' Sands had to shake his head. This wasn't creative, not when it was this easy. But nonetheless, his life had been so boring lately. It felt as though it had been wrung dry of all excitement and was just waiting to soak up some mayhem. At this thought, Sands grinned and took aim.

The powder blue, satin fabric twisted in her fingers, threatening to tear the hem of her pajama shirt, but Zebbidy didn't notice it. She kept her eyes to the bathroom floor, only taking in the white tile glowing faintly in the dim light, and the fuzzy pink material of the bathmat beneath her feet.

She kept herself alert, on the watch for any sort of noise that might give her a hint as to what was going on outside. Even the smallest noise would be rewarding in her hour of tension.

Zebbidy jumped at the sound of a bullet being fired. She had only just begun to recover when a second shot nearly caused her to fall off of the edge of the bathtub.

'Oh my gods, is he dead? Oh my gods . . . if Sands was killed it'll be my fault for coming to his room in the first place. If he gets shot . . . oh dear gods . . . I might be sounding pathetic, but it would really help if I had a goddamn sign, here!'

As if by chance, a rapping at the door echoed throughout the bathroom. Zebbidy's head snapped up, her green eyes fixed on the brass doorknob, as if afraid to tear them away.

"You can come out now, sugar, the big bad Mafia man is long gone."

It may sounds strange, by it was a relief to hear Sands' voice taunting her from the other side of the bathroom door. Zebbidy sighed and slid off of the tub rim, her eyes large and confused. Slowly, she made her way towards the door of the bathroom.

Poor Zeb. Everybody wants to kill her. And now she wants to kill me for putting her in such a situation. But it's her own fault cuz she volunteered for the 'prime' role of the helpless damsel in distress, so to speak. (glares at Zebbidy) Fermez le bouche!

Author's Thanks and Review Responses:

DragonHunter200: If I got somebody to wanna punch my character's lights out, then I have achieved my goal. u.u o.o That's the fist time a story of mine has ever been called educational (especially when dealing with another language) so I'm glad I could help! D And, yes, Ichabod is da bomb, no question. u.u Heh, ebonics . . . o.o

Dawnie-7: Yes, I know what you mean about Liam. He's a bit of a sissy (okay, he's a very big sissy) but it's good to know that I've portrayed him as funny instead of annoying. Why is he in the CIA? Honestly, I don't know. I'm actually hoping to figure that out in this story but so far nothing has struck me. Oh well. Hopefully something will. .

vanillafluffy: lol! It's true! I never thought of that, but it's true! He tried one of Zeb's cigarettes in the RPG I'm in and (little did he know) it had marijuana in it (cuz Zebbidy ran out of tobacco, or so she claims). Sands wouldn't shut up after he'd smoked it, and he kept going on about pixi stix and saying that everybody else was against him. Then he flirted with every girl in the RP at least once and Draco Malfoy flying around on his broomstick only added to the confusion inside Sands' warped head. -.9

Invader Nicole: (resisting urge to sing the can-can song because it is so annoying) Seems like everybody caught the Moulin Rouge refs! D That's surprising but I have to remember that it's unlikely that anyone who's read this comes from my town (where they, being the hicks that they are, are clueless as to things suck as Moulin Rouge or even OUaTiM for that matter). The déjà vu dream thing is creepy, definitely.

Sands: Don't tell me you've been roped into that bullshit, too. Sidney, I thought you were smarter than that.

Sidney: I'm very open-minded. (sticks tongue out)

Sands: -.o And very immature, it seems.

Sidney: Scoff now, but you'll soon see. (sashays away to work on the next chapter)

Sands: Fine. u.u . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o.u o.o (hurries after her) Wait, what d'you mean 'I'll soon see?' What the fuck was that all about?? (searches for her, muttering) Stupid writers dropping hints and then disappearing – how the hell do they DO that??

Lyn: (simply) Magick.

Sands: (narrows eyes) Don't tell me they've gotten you hooked.

Lyn: (shrug) If that's the way you want it. u.u

o