Sal's

Pologies in advance for any typos. Had some drinks.


So we met up at Sal's, as planned. It's a nice place. The bottom floor is the bar area. There's thirteen tables and a bar with about eight or nine stools. There's a couple pool tables, a poker/blackjack table (tonight was Blackjack night, apparently),  and an air hockey table.

Sal, as I'm sure you can guess, is the man who runs the place. He looks to be in his late twenties, with jet back hair and blue-gray eyes. He dresses in black nd red clothes, and wears an apron.

Sal doesn't have many employees. Just a few people he trusts. The guy managing the card table is a bit younger than me, and has beached white hair. Not sure what his name is. Think it starts with an eye. The bouncer at the door is a muscular guy with Black hair and shades. His name is Ken. I like Ken. He's cool. Then there's  couple other interchangeable people working there. Sal does pretty much everything else there himself.

Ken recognized us and nodded for us to go on in. His main job is to keep non-servants out, and he's pretty good at telling who is and isn't working for a Fear.

Have I explained Fears on this blog yet? Eh, I'll do that next post...

All you need to know right now is that our boss is one.

So we went in, greeted Sal, and took a seat at table number 8. Each table has four chairs, each with a poker suit engraved on it. I sat in the spade seat, while Terrence took the diamond and Ciel sat in the heart. If Greg were with us, he'd have taken the club seat. I miss him.

Sal came over to us a minute later and took our orders. We got steak sandwiches and beer. Sal can grill up one hell of a sandwich, by the way. Sal brought us our drinks and went back behind the bar to get the food ready.

As we were waiting, two men entered the bar. One of them was a muscular dude my age,  wering a tight purple t-shirt, with dark, neatly combed hair. The other one was thinner, blonde, and had some recent burn wounds. That was an immediate clue they weren't coming in piece.

Burnscars McGoo glared straight at us on his way in and made a B-line for our table.  He made to grab at me, but I got up and took a step back before he could. He drew a knife and shouted something about his friends that I killed.

His knife hand was then twisted violently behind his back by Sal. I could've sworn he had been behind the bar a second ago, but when it comes to Sal doing badass things, I've learned not to question it.

Purple shirt man caught up and said "I warned you not to start anything, Henry."

"Some one explain," Sal said. "Now."

"This bastard killed my allies and burned our base to the ground!" Henry McGoo hissed.

"I don't care," Sal said. "I do not allow fights in my establishment."

Sal loosened his grip on Henry and shoved him away.

"Derek, back me up here!" Henry said.

"First of all, don't call me that," Purple shirt man said. "Second of all, I told you Sal wouldn't-"

"Fuck Sal!" Henry shouted, gripping his knife and charging at Sal.

As soon as Henry's foot left he floor, Sal's eyes narrowed, and a tremor ran through the bar. Bottles vibrated on their rack, a pool game ground to a halt as balls rolled everywhere, and poor Henry lost his footing and stumbled to the ground.

"Leave," Sal said sternly, as the earthquake came to a halt.

"I'm terribly sorry for this," Derek said, grabbing Henry by the shoulder.

"But-" Henry tried to say.

"We're leaving," Derek said.

He led Henry to the door, but before leaving, he turned back to me.

"Justin, right?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"If I ever run into you outside of this bar," he said, "I'm going to kill you."

"Sure thing, Derek," I said, intentionally trying to irk him.

"My name," he growled, "Is Quan."

And then he left. Sal let out a sigh and turned to me.

"You need to learn to stay out of trouble, Reaper," he said.

"Sorry," I said.

Sal went back to work and I sat down. Sal returned a few minutes later with our sandwiches, and placed a tray of fries and jalapeño popper in the middle of the table. He also placed a small glass of a bright blue drink in front of me. I glanced up at him quizzically, and he pointed to a corner table. Number 3, I think.

"It's from him," Sal said.

At the table was a man wearing a hooded longcoat, and  young girl with brown hair.

"Dark, mysterious," I said, raising the glass to my lips. "Buys me booze. I like him."

I took a sip. It tasted really good. Like some kind of non-sour citrus, mixed with cherry and I think a bit of grapefruit, with the slight sting of vodka.

Ciel made a slight scoffing noise.

"You gonna go over there?" Terrence asked.

"Yeah, I'll talk to them," I said. "Who knows? I might get lucky."

"With which one? "Ciel asked.

"Does it matter?" I replied, finishing the drink.

I got up and approached the table.

"Hey," I asked. "Thanks for the drink."

I had a better look at the too of them now. The man, as I had already noticed, was wearing a dark red longcoat with black accents. Underneath it, he wore a black vest that was zipped up in the front, and a pair of blue jeans. The top half of his fce was concealed under the hood, but he wore a smile on his face and had about a days worth of stubble. He also had a funny looking collar on, with a blinking green light. The girl was dressed in a long skirt and a modest sweater, and was staring shyly at her drink, avoiding eye contact with me. She had pretty eyes. Bright green. The man sat in the spade seat, while the girl sat in the diamond seat.

"You're welcome," the man said. "Justin Ferin, correct?"

"Justin Gremori Ferin," I said. "I'm a little proud of my middle name."

"Of course," the man chuckled. "I'm gld you came over. I wanted to chat for a couple minutes."

"Sounds good," I said.

"That man from earlier," he said. "Quan..."

"You mean Derek?" I asked.

"Yes, him," he said. "Be careful. He can hold his own."

"Against me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "If you come to blows with him, which I'm sure you will, don't hold back. It'll get you killed."

"I won't then," I said. "Thanks for your concern."

"Also," he said. "Would you mind if I looked at that pocketwatch you obtained for a moment?"

"How did you-" I started to asked.

"Read your blog," he replied.

Oh. Duh.

"Alright," I said, drawing it from my pocket. "But look with your eyes, not your hands."

"That, I can do," the man chuckled.

I dangled it in front of him. He just sat there facing it for a minuted. His face slowly grew into a frown, and then a grimace. He then lifted a finger and tapped it a couple times. I decided to let that slide, since he wasn't straight up snatching it from me.

"Not quite sure what it is," he said, "But there's something wrong with this thing."

"Really?" I asked.

"Keep it close," he warned me. "Don't let it fall into the wrong hands."

Alright. Cryptic...

"So wait," I said. "Did we steal something important from the Slenderproxies?"

The man shrugged.

"Maybe," he said.

"Brother," the girl said quietly. "It's getting late..."

The man checked his watch and stood up. The girl did too, slowly.

"I'm sorry, but we should really be going now," he said.

"That's fine," I said. "Thanks for the advice, man."

"No problem," the man said, walking to the door, with the girl close behind him. "See you around."

"Wait what's you name?" I asked.

"I'll tell you later," he said.

Then they left. I went back to the table. Terrence had already finished off the poppers. Dick...

"No sex tonight?" Ciel asked.

"Nah," I said. "I'll score next time."

We finished our food, then Ciel ordered me to rent us a couple rooms. One for her, one for me and Terrence to share. I reluctantly agreed. The second floor has ten rooms for rent, and a semi-decent price. I got the keys for rooms six and eight. As I did, Sal informed me that one of his night shift employees, Keran, was asleep in room three, and asked me to wake her up. I obliged, and went upstairs. The upstairs hallway is set up with the doors to all the odd numbered rooms on one side nd the even number ones on the other. I went to door three and knocked. There was no response, so I knocked agin.

"Jus sec!" came a tired sounding voice from the other side.

The door opened up, and I saw the inside of the room. There was a woman lying on the bed, and I caught sight of several glistening threads extending from the fingertis of her right hand, opening the door, before retracting and vanishing back into her fingers. Weird, but I guess I've seen weirder.

"Um," I said. "Sal sent me to wake you up."

"Wha?" she grumbled, glancing at the clock. "Oh, shit"

She kind of tripped out of bed and fell to the ground before getting back up and hurredly running to the closet.

"I slept in!" She said. "Thanks for telling me! Close the door, please."

"Um, right," I said.

I closed the door and went to room eight. Ciel was in room six. Then I started typing this. nd now I'm gonna go to sleep. Tonight was interesting...