Ebon Velvet
:2:
So, things were getting a little fishy and/or a little interesting. Exhibit A: Dante (moi)—good looking, broke, and pissed. Exhibit B: Lady—hot, apparently responsible, keen bullshit meter, and on my ass 24/7. Exhibit C: Benjamin Gehenna—lame, has a cat, rich as shit, and somehow is willing to pay me. Honestly, I don't know how all that fits together or how it makes things sound fishy, but I thought it'd be cool to talk about exhibits.
Well, it was about 8 o'clock at night before we made any effort to leave HQ. Finding the guy's house was harder than I ever thought, considering it was a mansion with about thirty-eight bathrooms in it and enough queen beds to make him Henry VIII. We got there at about 10:30PM—at least, that's what I remember—mad as hornets, because we hadn't had food since 2. The full moon was out, just like Lady advertised, and the damn cat was in the tree, just like ol' Ben Kenobi did.
Knock knock.
I heard what sounded like a really clumsy paranoid fart tripping over his entire damn entertainment system. Apparently, Ben was rushing to get to the door. I took the time to step back and absorb enough of this rich air to either disgust myself into puke-mode or to become really fuckin' envious of the lifestyle. I mean, I was broke after all. His mansion, by the by, didn't take up a huge amount of space, but it was a good six stories in height, and riddled with gold lining and surrounded by Greek pillars. This man must've thought he was a god.
-'Hello? Hello? Who's there?'
Lo and behold, his wrinkly face and Rogaine-saturated head barely revealed itself through the crack he'd made for the door—well, the door was chained, after all.
-'Yo, hombre. Recall the voice?' I asked him, cool and all that shit.
-'I…don't think so….'
-'"Fuck off." Does that ring a bell?'
His face lit up like a damn Christmas tree.
-'Dante Sparda! You…after all these weeks…you've finally come. I p-p-pr-promise I'll pay you the $500,000. Just…j-just get that cat out of the three for me, please!'
This was where Lady jumped in, secretary-like with an overcoat on top, and apparently intimidating. Hot shit.
-'Um, excuse me, sir…about that…. Why are you paying so much?'
His eyes were darting all over the place. Whatta whack-job.
-'Could…I mean…would it be too much to ask you to just get the cat for me, and then I'll explain, please?'
-'What if you're bluffing, Mister? I'm not trying to throw mud on your credibility, but I'm not exactly very happy about taking two and a half hours trying to find your house.'
-'Miss, could I first ask who you are?'
-'Fuck who I am! What's the deal with the cat? Why hasn't it gotten down, and why the hell haven't you picked it out of the tree? Why hasn't anyone else? Why the hell have you been calling Mr. Sparda for weeks just to get a damn pussy out of the tree?'
I was pretty taken aback by her mini-explosion, but that was nothing. You know when she's mad the moment she whips out her pistols. He didn't know that, though. The guy was ready to piss his pants out of fear. He could barely speak right after that.
-'M-m-ma'am…pl-...plea-…Miss! I...she—Mittens—she…she claw-…she clawed me every time. Please…g-g-g-et her for me! I beg y-y-you!'
God, he was choking like a lil' bitch. Well, I was behind Lady during all this, so I'm not sure if she gave him a dirty look, but she usually gives dirty looks before she cedes and walks off do fix the whole problem peacefully. I couldn't do that, personally, but that's why I had her do the talking. I would've shot the motherfucker after two of his stutter-matic sentences. So, Kenobi points out to us the way to the tree that his cat is stuck in. Let me tell ya, the tree was the skinniest piece of shit I've seen in my life. To top it all of, it was probably as tall as I am.
Fishy. Very fishy.
Well, I just sighed for the hell of it and walked over to the tree. I'll give Ben this—that cat was quite feisty indeed. The moment I reached out for her she started freakin' out like a pig on heat. I grabbed the grey pussy, holding tightly for fear of letting the wench slide right through my grip. She was still flailing around like a fish out of water, but I held her out to Benjamin. That thing's eyes were swirling around and making a crazy light show, like those tricked out postcards of cities at night with streaks of car lights littering the streets. Needless to say, I was kind of starting to wonder what the hell was wrong with this twat.
-'Here you go, Mr. Gehenna.' Lady announced as I held the cat out to her master.
He let out the craziest sigh of relief I've ever seen, then unchained the door, gesturing us to come in. The cat calmed down shortly after the gesture, and I tossed it in. Lady tapped me on the shoulder, then leaned in to whisper into my ear.
-'At the risk of spewing the obligatory line for a crazy scene like this—something's very, very wrong with this picture.'
I shrugged, and walked in. Things were getting freaky, and I couldn't help but start to get excited. There was something very fucking wrong with the whole situation, and I was hoping that shit was about to go down. Lady followed shortly, closing the door behind us, and Mittens leaped into her master's arms. We just sort of stood there under the circular room, with the gynormous chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling.
'Hol-y shit…. How the hell did you manage a dome in a six-story mansion…?'
He sat down in a giant chair in front of an electric radiator, rubbing his head all over his cat's body. This was getting a little awkward, to say the least. Though I was inwardly finding it somewhat funny, Lady was starting get all riled up again.
-'Alright, where's the money, Mr. Gehenna?'
He turned his chair around, so as to hid himself from us completely.
-'One more favor…please.'
Apparently, he wasn't freaking out as much. In fact, he sounded almost excited.
-'What the hell? That wasn't part of the deal!'
-'We never really had a deal, Miss. In any case, I thank you immensely. No one was going to be able to tear her from that tree. That's the way she is, that damned Mittens…always being so belligerent…so-'
-'-the favor, Mr. Gehenna?'
She was tapping her feet like it was that time of the month and she needed to leak.
-'Yes…. Well, it's simple. I want you to take Mittens. And never return here again.'
He got up and put Mittens in her cage and went into another room, very quiet-like and all. I turned to Lady, my excitement having faded away.
-'I'm not digging this at all.'
-'I'm digging this less, Dante. This guy's way fucked up, and I don't know what the hell we're gonna do with a cat…the only good thing to come from this is the money. Something still doesn't feel right at all about any of this.'
-'God, you are starting to sound like a movie.'
She wasn't in the mood at all. A swift jab to the shoulder was hint enough. Before she had any ideas to beat me down anymore, Benjamin Gehenna reappeared with a trunk of what I presumed was money. Once in the room, he immediately opened the trunk and proved to us that he wasn't bluffing about the reward.
-'You see? $500,000 in cold cash. Now, if you would leave and never return. I'd very much appreciate it.'
Y'know, I really wasn't digging how not-freaked-out he was right then. Slightly grumbling, I grabbed the trunk of money, while Lady grabbed hold of the cat cage, and we were out of there without a word. He slammed the door behind us, which sent Lady into a silent swirl of rage. I decided this was my chance to express her anger for her.
-'Bitch!'
For spice, I pulled Ivory out of its holster and plowed three shots through his front door. I made sure to add:
-'Much obliged, motherfucker.'
And we were out of the bastard's hair.
-----
The trip back home was a weird one. To get to Gehenna's mansion, we had to take the freeway surrounded by forests. I guess you could say he was rather isolated (which is why he didn't even need a gate surrounding his house). By the time that we were re-entering the city and getting near HQ, it was probably well into the AM. The moon hung at mid-height in the sky. There were few cars blazing the streets, but they definitely were blazing. I could tell Lady was getting incredibly tired, and that she was still pissed. I offered to drive a few times, but she only smashed the pedal with every request. You learn to keep your shit shut around pissed off women, especially after dealing with them when they have guns and rocket launchers at their disposal.
It was pitch black—like we were driving through a mammoth ass. The lights, for some reason, were fucking up that night. So, all we had were the car's headlights, which weren't bad. I mean, it was a relatively old blue Cadillac, so we didn't expect to be depending on a pair of suns. What we had was, again, just enough for the job, and we were cruising (re: burning asphalt) right where we needed to.
Though Mittens was pretty quiet, her damn collar would not clanging all the damn time. I knew I couldn't shut her metal tag up, I was growing more and more curious as to what the hell was carved on it.
-'Hey, I wanna take a look at this cat's collar. It's making a lot of noise and all…I've got this image of a damn floating, clanging cat tag in my head. I need to see the piece of shit.'
She was quiet for a minute. I think what I said annoyed her even more. I swear, women annoy me with their lame fuses.
-'Whatever. Flip the light on.'
So, I did. I tilted the cage every which way to get a nice vantage point. It really wasn't worth a damn, though. All that was carved on the tag was 'XL'.
-'XL? This cat's not even fat.'
Lady glanced quickly at me before focusing on the road again. She suddenly forgot how annoyed she was—her face looked more like she was completely confused.
-'XL? Why would XL be carved into her tag instead of her name?'
I scratched my head, Lady blinked, and the cat sort of just…licked herself. All of a sudden, though, light burst from the cracked out lamp posts, forcing us all to squint for a moment. The lamps then shattered into small specks of light, and everything faded right back to black, and we were left completely blind from the instant switch.
CRASH!
An enormous figure impacted the ground right in front of the car, and we smashed right into it. The car, in a split second, went from pimp-style, long-ass Caddy, to a mess of metallic debris. We were launched right out of the sides of the shattered ride. I rolled what felt like a million times along the street, trying to get a hold of what the hell was going on. Thankfully, Mittens' cage was still in my hand. I really couldn't see anything—the moon was fading into darkness before our eyes. Something fucked up was going down.
-'Dante! What's going on?'
I could hear her, but I couldn't see her worth shit. I wish I had been worried about her, but that was the last thing on my mind.
'There are at least three bodies surrounding us. They're clearly trying to attack us, but are they out for blood?'
I could feel hot blood course through every one of my veins. I was getting excited—happy.
-'So, what's the honor, folks?' I asked to the darkness around me.
A sort of stage whisper was the first to reply:
-'We'll be taking that cat from you. It's officially out of your hands.'
'Huh? What the hell?'
I smirked.
-'I don't think that's going to work out too well…I was looking forward to having a pet around the house. Plus, I didn't waste five hours of my time just to give you back a fuckin' feline.'
A bunch of pompous villain laughter filled the air. It was annoying as hell, but I'm at least glad that they laugh. The murderous bastards that don't laugh are no fun at all.
-'I don't know how you got into this mess, but don't mingle any more than you need to. We're taking the cat. It's very important to us.'
'I bet they'll fight for it!'
-'You know what, fellas, I dig your spunk. You've got huge-ass heads, prolly, and I can only respect your cockiness. The deal is, though, that I'm cocky as fuck, too. So, how's about this—let's have fun. If you can pry this cat from my fingers, then sure, she's yours. A word of warning, though, guys—I intend to kill you before you manage that.'
I could hear Lady breathing too quickly for her own good…she was mortified. Understandable—it's been forever and a half since she last stomped some ass. Admittedly, I was slightly nervous. Really, I was just nervous because I couldn't see worth a damn.
-'So be it. We'll get what we came for.'
More reason for me to smirk.
-'Lady! Do you have an oozi under your overcoat?'
She took a while to answer. She must've gulped a huge wad of spit.
-'Yeah, but I can't see anything!'
I got up onto my feet and held tightly onto Mittens' cage in one hand, pulling Ebony out with my other. Ebony loved the dark. I lifted the gun up and spread my legs out slightly. I didn't have a sword with me, but I'd make do. I've managed worse, I think.
-'Don't worry about seeing shit….'
I could hear the big one start moving, however slowly. The other two—I could hear it—were coming straight for me at insane speeds.
-'Just start shooting at my voice!'