"What do you mean? Do you honestly expect me to believe that you could not acquire a mere toy from a child?" The voice was soft, but strict. The sound of a predator displeased with the lack of prey. It filled the hollowness of the room, surrounding and bearing down on the lone, elderly man that stood in the very center of a ring of candle light.
"I sent the three that scare the neighborhood the most," replied the man in monotone. His frame was crippled with age, but his voice was strong and uncaring. "Something went wrong."
"Obviously!" A tall figure strode between two candles. His hair was golden blond, pulled into a ponytail on the top of his head with a ruby clasp. His eagle sharp features bore an expression to match his mood - cold and humorless. "What do they claimed to have happened?"
"The girl who made the toy reappeared, and stirred up the crowd against them."
"Did I not tell them to wait until she was long gone before approaching the child?"
"Master Xavier," the man said, staring straight ahead into the darkness, "when I say she 'reappeared', I mean that literally."
"Clarify." Xavier stalked a circle around his subordinate, fixing him with dark blue eyes. His thin mouth was set in a straight line, apathetic.
"One watched the girl until she was a good two streets over. At that point, a man began to speak with her. It was only then that he returned to his comrades and they hassled the child." The old man's throat pulsed as he swallowed - a moment of weakness in an otherwise emotionless display.
"If that is true, how did she know to return?"
"All I could gather from those who were there is that she came from what appeared to be a cloud of silver light. Most believe her to have walked on moonlight."
Xavier scoffed, his knee high boots scraping to a halt in front of his subordinate, a man whose name he had never bothered to learn. He managed to cool his sneer, transforming it into a rather charismatic smile. Folding one arm across his chest, and resting his elbow on it, Xavier rested a black gloved finger against his temple. The leather was well worn and soft.
"And I am supposed to believe that? How can I be sure that you are not lying to save your worthless hide?" The question was rhetorical, at least for him. Of course he already knew. That's what made him so effective.
"I'm not that stupid, master."
The resulting laugh was both amused and malicious.
"No." Xavier's smile only accented the cruel knife edge of his voice. "You are at least smart enough to protect your own skin."
"Thank you for the condescension."
"So tell me," Xavier continued as he enjoyed the dry, but cold air of the room. He had a fine jacket on, worked with piping and embroidery; his subordinate was clothed in only knee length trousers. This exposed the scars and tattoos from gangs and fights the nameless man had been in since his youth. His moments of strength and all of his weaknesses. "If I have to do everything myself, why do I have you idiots?"
The response was silence, and a minor crease in a heavy brow. The smartest answer that had been given yet. Xavier let the quiet hang, restarting his steady pace around the edge of light. Simple human minds could always come up with more terrifying things than he could; all he had to do was maintain an air of ill intent. It wasn't difficult; Xavier had bad intentions for nearly every being he came across. He finally let his gaze rest from looking at the eyesore before him, turning it instead to the room.
Around the walls, obscured by darkness, were statues that stood five men high. Each had a single distorted feature, the glory of grotesque. Eyes that were not level, or one turned on its side, a nose that was just too high, or too flat, a mouth with no bottom lip, or made of teeth rather than flesh. Lights from candles flickered around the ring, shifting shadows over the imperfections. To the untrained eye, the statues appeared to move, ominously judging any who stood before them.
"Well?" Xavier pressed, clasping his hands behind his back. "Do you have any idea?"
"No, master." No longer monotone, the nameless man's eyes were darting to and fro. Trying to confirm that the statues were indeed lifeless. That he was not truly surrounded by giants.
"Of course you don't." A heavy, beleaguered sigh. "If I did not have you and your peons, I would waste my precious time on far too many worthless things. Your failure is the first step to confirmation. There are several others I will send after my prey, before devoting my personal time to it. I have patience."
"All this for a toy?" The question barely left the nameless one's lips before a searing spike of pain drove into his spine. He collapsed, screaming, to the dirty floor. His body contorted unnaturally. There was a pop. His shoulder wrenched itself out of the socket.
"Not for the toy." Xavier stepped closer to the writhing man, even as coils of blood leaked from the pores in his back. "Your mother should have thrown you away and kept whatever stork brought you. You are beginning to cause stupidity in myself. Why would I have ever thought you could accomplish something? I want the girl. The girl who walks on moonlight."
The nameless one groaned, and then lied still. Before his eyes reeled the faces of those he spoke to on the street. Those whom he had betrayed, crushed, and manipulated. He found one last store of strength to speak.
"If you're looking for a lay so badly you might want to consider the 'cash-in-hand' approach."
The resulting snarl of shock and rage comforted him, even as the pain began anew. There was nothing left for him in this world, and even as his vision was consumed in blood, the nameless one gave up all his notions of pride and accepted his failure. For the first time since he was but a tiny, orphaned boy, the one named Ricario prayed with all his heart to any spirit willing to listen to a monster's plea.
Let the girl flourish. Darkness do not cast yourself on her smile.
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