Chapter 331: New Guests
Dean remembered the dream but only in vague images that still haunted his waking mind. At first, he didn’t understand what he was watching. But as the dream wore on, he could tell that this was way to real to be just a dream.
Dean got out of his bed and walked out of his room. He noticed that there were some small flashes of light under Mike’s door, indicating the tv playing something and giving Mike some background noise. This also showed the power was back on, something Laz felt to be life saving as the cool air washed over his heated body. Dean stood looking out the back doors that were the deck. The back of the doors faced the lake and Dean felt, rather than saw, something was staring back at him through the rain and fog.
He knew it was there, but he didn’t know why or how he knew that.
For the first time in a year, Dean’s head started to hurt as though something wanted to break out of his skull. He fell on the couch and grabbed his head in both hands as crippling pain wracked his brain. It then went up and down his body, causing him to spasm.
He felt nothing but relief as the world darkened and he passed out on the couch. Because of this, he never noticed the glowing black flames that immerged from him and cooked his skin, turning it red but not damaging the furniture at all. Soon, the flames around him retreated back within him as a vague shape started to form inside his abdomen before the flames appeared. Bits and pieces of scattered debris seemed to be melting away under the presence of this black flame, forming a pile of liquid that kept burning. More and more of the black chunks were burned away by this flame, reducing the overall amount of fluid. But the fluid that was left was a clear golden color of the finest hue.
But Dean had passed out and didn’t know any of this had taken place.
...
"It’s been dark for a while."
"Are you sure?"
"Even if we can’t find him, we will will have revenge for him."
"You were there. You should have done something more."
"SHUT UP. ALL OF YOU!" Came a tired voice from the speaker phone in the SUV. The soft and sexy voice had suddenly taken on an indominable air of authority which caused the four young women in the vehicle to close there mouths and stop voicing their opinions.
Although they were quiet, there wasn’t a change to their expressionless faces. They didn’t even flinched when the yell came and didn’t bother responding afterwards. Instead, they sat in silence while waiting on the voice at the other end to finish.
"You should know that even though the mark of darkness had faded, it hasn’t disappeared. That means he is still alive somewhere. And yes, I was there. I watched him fight. I watched him sacrifice so that the rest of us could live. But you four weren’t even in the state at that point, much less the city. So you have no right to judge those of us who fought. And remember that I was the one who found you four,"
"We only serve the master," four voices came at once.
"Which is why it is your task to find out if that person is him. And if he is, then you must protect him and help him the to best of your abilities. Because if it is him, then there is something terribly wrong. Do you understand?" the voice said having finally calmed down.
"We understand. But we only serve..."
"Shut it. Because if you keep up with this shit, I will come find you myself. And you don’t want that."
"Yes," Four voices again said in unison.
"Good. I will have some operatives take care of the spoils from your last raid. Maybe it’s nothing to you, but the money can go a long way to help us reach our goal. And your share will be placed in the normal account So use what you need to."
"Yes."
"Let me know as soon as you make contact. And take care of yourselves."
"Thank you. You as well."
"Seriously that four voices at once thing is freaky. Well, whatever." The voice on the call cut off, leaving the four women in silence.
"At your next stop light, turn right and drive fifty miles until you reach your destination which will be on the left." The female voice from the GPS informed them.
As they pulled up to the club, they covered their heads with hats and had masks on their faces. The valets were quick to help them out of the vehicle as they went around back to get the bags. The girls in turn stared at the large building in front of them before they each turned their gaze in the same direction.
They could feel something.
...
"Yo bro, you ready?" Mike said, combing his hair while pulling on his shorts. Dean had been staring out the window off and on all morning and barely noticed Mike actually being awake. Dean took a quick look at the time as he woke up from his thoughts.
"What are you doing up this early? You’re actually going to the morning meeting?" Dean asked, taking a sip of his cold coffee before frowning and setting it down. He had no idea he had been staring for so long.
"Yeah man. I spent all night at Jackie’s and let me tell you, missing dinner was a bad plan," said Mike with a smile. They both ended up taking off for the meeting together.
What they didn’t realize was that the employee crowd would be so big today that it was standing room only by the time they showed up. Mike quickly exchanged some words with Jackie who had come over quickly to find him while Dean ended up getting stuck standing by Red. Red was a pretty handsome man with a good body, good style and excellent hair.
"Looking handsome today Dean," he said as Dean grabbed a cup of hot coffee and stood next to him.
"You know Red, over the past year you’ve pretty much low key sexually harassed me every time I see you," Dean said with almost a stone face.
"That’s just how it works sometimes. Got to wear you down before I make my move?" Red said with a smile.
"And how has that been working out for you?" Dean said, still not looking over.
"I honestly don’t know if you’re gay or straight since I haven’t seen you actually with someone in this entire year."
"And you’re welcome for keeping you guessing," Dean said, smiling this time.
"I swear to god there isn’t a fine gay man in this entire work force," Red said, offering a flask shaped bottle to Dean.
"Literally thirty percent of the lifeguards and almost fifty percent of the serving staff is gay. You’ve just had tunnel vision this entire year," Dean said, smiling and holding his coffee cup over to Red.
"Well excuse me for my high standards. Besides which, I’ve already dated the half of them that were worth my time and still haven’t found mister right," Red replied back while topping off Dean’s coffee with the amber colored liquid.
"Damn man... how many people have you dated in a year," Dean said, taking a sip of his coffee while Red took a shot from the bottle.
"Wouldn’t you like to know," Red laughed.
"No. I don’t think I would," Dean laughed back.
The meeting got underway and assignments were posted. Dean walked over to get in line for food while Red sighed and went to talk to the new ball boy from the tennis courts. He decided he would try lowering his standards as opposed to having a dry spell for a while.
Mike had caught back up to Dean as they ate and went back to their rooms. There was nothing remarkable from the meeting except to say some new VIPs had shown up.
On the way back to their room, they walked past four women with exceptional bodies but whose face and head were covered by masks and hats. Dean wasn’t planning on even looking since that could sometimes lead to trouble, but after walking past them, Dean had a strange feeling of Deja vu. Although he didn’t stop walking, when he turned to look back at them, he felt like they were also looking at him, even though the continued to walk forward.
"Must be my imagination," Dean said in a low whisper to himself as Mike was laughing about something and poking Dean to get his response.
Dean felt something was different suddenly, but he didn’t know what. Had he been able to view the sight within himself, he would have figured it out. The melting pieces of shattered energy were now liquefying at an increased rate while overhead, in the gray expanse that was his inner world, a huge shape appeared above the ground, a giant circle with four symbols spread out evenly around it spun in the sky.
The energy seemed to increase by ten fold when this happened, but to Dean, all he felt was his pulse increase as his breathing became a bit heavier.
Dean had no idea what was happening and took several breaths to calm down.
...
The girls sat around their common room, each having a chair that faced one another. None of them spoke as they tried to remember what had just happened. Although they were so close that in many ways, they all thought the same things at the same time, they were all thinking very different thoughts at the moment.
Remembering back to the last time they had seen Laz, they all couldn’t help but blush a little. All of them wanted nothing more than to have run up to that man they passed and hug him close and kiss him, but they didn’t.
It was Laz.
But it wasn’t Laz.
They knew from the video that had been sent to them of the man playing the piano and singing that his name was Dean. They had thought something had happened and he was either hiding or had lost his memory or something. But when they met him today, he had no energy fluctuations at all. In fact, his entire body felt somewhat devoid of energy at all like he was the most normal of people.
They really didn’t know if it was him or not.
"It’s him."
"Is it?"
"It must be."
"He looks exactly like him."
"Because two people can’t look exactly alike in this world?"
"Enough," Death said, ending their bickering.
"You believe it’s him?" War asked, crossing her arms. She had a clear meaning. They worked as one person with eight eyes and eight hands. But when someone stood forward, they were suddenly four different individuals.
This had only happened in the past when Laz had made each of them feel like different people and not just four sides of the same figure.
"Do you not?" Famine asked, getting up and getting some drinks for everyone.
"How can it be him though? His power was amazing. But this guy? He is nothing." Pestilence commented.
"Something must have happened. Something big, right?" Death then asked.
"Something huge. But how can someone just lose all of their energy and still be alive? It doesn’t make any sense." Famine said, passing out the drinks.
"Then what do we do?" Pestilence voiced the thought each of them were struggling with. What do they do? And the person funding their bankroll wanted an answer, so what to tell her?
"We follow him and we find out. We find out for sure," War stated, not even bothering to ask any other opinions.
Not that they had any. Either way, they were agreed that this was the best idea, leading to Dean having a very rough couple of days due to this.
