Chapter 13 Pay Your Demons

Main Character’s POV (Point Of View):

67% of my health had recovered from those smashing injuries which took me out of commission for a few weeks. It was thanks to my trusted minion, Ember who recently got promoted to a Coloured Scorpion. It seemed that the Assassin League of Black Scorpions changed their assassins’ hierarchy since I was pronounced dead.

In light of my fake death being pronounced, I had a lot of free time to kill and work on my personal affairs. I was no longer being bothered by any task from the league. So I decided to open up my establishment and enjoy my recuperation in peace.

It was a Monday morning when I got out of bed and greeted the burning celestial body outside. I showered, ate some menial breakfast then went downstairs to open my shop. I cleaned the accumulated dust which had formed since my shop closed, moreover, I fed water to my plants. Luckily, Ember had been here taking care of my beautiful flowers while I was out of commission, otherwise, my business most fundamental dependency would have all died out. Probably one or two of my beauties would have survived.

There was a rare Capristar orchid growing in my greenhouse that I had planted alongside an Arc Coral Bamboo some years ago. I wasn’t worried about this Capristar plant losing vitality because it could survive for months without water due to its special water hoarding xylems. My crimson chrysanthemums, sweat pea and bluebells were also germinating splendidly.

Finished tending to rest of my beloved plants, I went upstairs to retrieve the rare bundle of Aquatic Tailons from a water vase. Coming back to my greenhouse, I found a good spot to plant these fresh beauties. I separated them in singular formation within a nutrient-rich geo-chamber to enable multi-growth spurts. With this new addition to my collection, they would surely generate a lot of traffic to my shop. Since I stopped being an assassin temporarily, I needed to depend on my shop’s income. Albeit, I wasn’t lacking in the currency department.

After securing the luxuriant of my flowers, I went out front to tend to the plants on display. When that was all over, I decided to catch my breath by relaxing in my comfy chair. Some people who walked by on the pavement greeted me, I reciprocated their greeting with my bright smile. I didn’t usually expose my untainted personality to strangers. Whatever came over me that day was still unknown. However, I was feeling a fortune of tranquillity.

As the sun grew hotter in the sky, I drew for my straw hat along with a bottle of cool water. Later, my trusted minion came to help out with the business. She brought me the usual coffee and snacks.

“Good morning, boss. You look quite cheery today.”

“Do I?”

“Of course, your glowing girl. If I didn’t know any better I would say that you found a man to keep your bed warm at night. Being dead must have really promulgated your nice girl persona.”

“You think so? I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, Ember. But I feel really alive today. Probably it has something to do with my undying experience or that traumatising nightmare I had.”

“Nightmare? What nightmare could my boss have to be so cheerful?”

“Ahm… the other day I dreamt about this little girl and her father who…”

“Hey, there ladies….”

Before I could finish explaining my nightmare to Ember, three burly men walked up to us. They looked like pure unfiltered dissidents with their lean faces and unattractive apparels. The leader among them was sucking on a poison stick of smoke which didn’t bode well with my flora life forms. These three disgusting men just barged directly into my shop without any permission.

“Woah! Pretty ladies, what have we here? Look at all these colourful vegetation.”

Taking notice of one of the men breaking the head of my budding plants, I got up from my seated position, went over and gently pushed his hand away. “Excuse me, misters, can I help you with something?”

Shortly after, Ember joined me, saying: “Yeah, what brings you to our shop? Are you looking for flowers to impress a lady friend?”

“What? Tsk, these stupid bitches. Does it look like we’re some limp dick assholes who need to buy women flowers to eat their pussy? Speak such nonsense again and I might just let you enjoy my length and strength.”

Perceiving the unattractive man’s brutal tone, I asked him: “Then what is it that you want by barging into my shop unannounced, moreover, with such dirty tongue?”

“You see this?” The dissident’s leader opened his jacket and showed us a scary symbol of a demon’s head. “I’m sure you’ve heard of us.”

“No, I haven’t.” Though I recognized the distinctive symbol belonging to the Demon Triad, I pretended not to.

“Fu-ha-ha-ha! Of course, a plain lady like you wouldn’t know about us, demons. Well, let me enlightened your unknowledgeable minds. We are envoys of the Demon Triad syndicate who took control of this block recently. From now on all the protection money and taxes that you used to pay to that fat cocksucker Mega Pop will now be allocated to us, got that?”

“I’m not sure what you are talking about, mister. I’ve never paid any taxes or protection money to this person known as Mega Pop.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you did or not. What I’m saying is now you will have to start paying us them taxes. That is if you want to maintain your business of selling stupid flowers.”

Ember lashed out at the men when she heard their ridiculous condition. “Isn’t this blatant extortion? We won’t pay you mongrels a single penny. Now get out of our shop before I call the cops.”

“Call the cops? Fu-ha-ha-ha! It seems you don’t understand, little girly. The pigs are already oinking in our boss’s pen. You will only be seeking more trouble if you go complain to the cops.”

“Hey, Bugwo isn’t this mouthy bitch a looker?”

“Now that you’ve mentioned it, she is quite the beauty unlike that plain 4-eyes girl behind her. Hey, woman why don’t you give me a blowy then I might overlook you payment for today?”

The ugly man reached his hand out towards Ember. I moved in front, stopping his lascivious advance with much simplicity. [Grab!] “Please don’t abuse my employee. If all you need is money then I’ll gladly give it to you. How much?”

“Huh?” The man seemed startled by how easily I caught his arm but after he heard the mentioning of money, a greedy drool took over his rusty countenance. “Now you’re speaking my language. Oi, boys, how much did the boss request again?”

“That’s a… 25,000 xells per residence, Bugwo.”

“25,000 xells? Fu-ha-ha-ha! Considering our costly expenses for extorting these civilians, I’ll say the total you need to pay us is 100,000 xells. I need to feed my dogs after all.”

“What? That’s way too much money!” Ember retorted. “Do you think that we’re running a damn brothel? This is a flower shop, you dimwits! We don’t even earn that much in a month.”

“We don’t give a stinking shit! Either you pay up or we’ll take your attractive bodies as compensation. What will it be, lady?”

“What about the third option?” I noticed Ember secretly reaching for a mini-shovel over by the flower pot. “We could just get rid of you mongrels.”

“Get rid of us? Ha-ha-ha-ha! This tiny girl is joking, right boys?”

“Ha-ha-ha! Right, Bugwo. She’s spouting nonsense.”

“What can she do to us with that tiny body of hers? Even my dick can choke this bitch to death. Probably we should do just that. Fu-ha-ha-ha!”

“Why you….”

“Ember don’t!” I hurriedly intervened, stopping my minion from making a mess of my shop then spoke to the men. “There is no need for more conflict. I’ll go get you the money you requested. Please wait for a moment.”

I went to my private space upstairs and prepared 100,000 xells in a briefcase. Since the opening of my shop, I never had to pay any taxes to any underground affiliates. After the death of Tainted Scorpion became public, the Demon Triads seemed to have upgraded their exploits.

To maintain my cover from being blown, I brought the money to the gangsters who were waiting in my shop downstairs. I’ve earned plenty of money during my enjoyable carer as an elite assassin. Thus, I didn’t mind paying the demon dogs to go fetch a bone somewhere else.

“Here is the money.” I handed over the briefcase to the dissident’s leader.

“It better be all there for I’m not going to count it. Come on boys let’s go collect the rest of the taxes.”

“Where are we off to next, Bugwo?”

“Where was that old lady’s place again?”

“Are you talking about the granny of that vegetarian restaurant?”

“It was over by that street around the corner.”

“Good, let’s go there now. We’ll stop at the others along the way.” [Thud! Thud! Thud!]