Chapter 1: A Revelation

Being the assistant to the worlds most famous super hero, was really beginning to wear on Carson Larks last nerve. Everyday his phone would ring at all hours of the day, demanding he meet Cedarius at some off the beaten path location,so they could discuss what menace to society Cedarius was planning to capture that day. He wasn’t even sure how he’d ended up in this situation to begin with, he remembered losing his cushy office job, going to a bar not far from his home and then everything was a blank. We woke up in a strange bed, with Cedarius sitting over him chuckling softly. Cedarius had never told him what really happened that night, or how he’d gotten to be in Cedarius’s house. Glancing at the clock on his bedside table that stated it was 2 in the morning, he put the book he’d been reading down and crawled into bed hoping that Cedarius would wait until a decent hour to call on him. That hour happened to be 2 hours later when his phone began screaming Highway to Hell and only one person had that ringtone in his contact list.

Groaning he reached over to answer a call he was beginning to dread.

“ Boss” he said sleepily.

“It’s time you know what really happened the night you came into my services.” This jolted Carson awake faster than if someone had dumped ice water on him.

“Why now?” Was all he could choke out in his shock.

“I’ll explain everything when you arrive. You know the old trailer park on Forester road?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me there in an hour.”

There was a click and the line went dead. Carson sat staring at the phone in his hand unsure of what to do. On the one hand he really wanted to know what had happened to him that night, on the other it was bloody 4am and he just wanted to rollover and get some sleep before another day in the service of Cedarius began. Curiosity got the better of him and sighing loudly, he made his way over to the mirror and stared at a very exhausted looking reflection. His brown hair was sticking up in all directions, his blue eyes seemed distant and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like he’d been punched in the face one time too many. Quickly raking a hand through his hair in an unsuccessful effort to tame it, he grabbed his car keys from the hook by the door and strode out into a still dark chilly morning, the first rays of light were just beginning to streak their way through the starless night sky, it really was beautiful he smiled to himself as he climbed into his red Dodge Challenger, put the keys in the ignition and listened for the purring of his engine that always made him smile. First he thought Coffee.

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An hour later he was thundering his way down a quiet country road, towards the old trailer park his stomach in knots over what he was about to learn. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, bathing the sky a strange pink color and for a moment he remembered something his grandfather used to say. Pink sky in the morning sailors take warning, pink sky at night sailors delight. Trying to shake off the sense of foreboding he now felt, Carson turned onto the winding gravel road shuddering at the fact that he now had dust covering his impeccably clean car. He was surrounded on both sides by dense forests, from time to time he felt as though he was driving through I tunnel as the branches of the trees met above his head. Finally he saw what was left of the sign at the entrance to the park now being slowly reclaimed by the nature that surrounded it. As he rounded the corner he say Cedarius sitting casually under an impossibly large pine. Carson pulled up next to his black Cadillac, muttering to himself about how he’d probably have to wash and wax it later and made his way over to the tree.

Cedarius eyed him up and down before chuckling. “You look like hell.”

Carson eyed him starting to feel slightly annoyed. “Hazards of working for you.”

Cedarius glared at him. “Well, didn’t someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

Sighing Carson stretched out on the ground beside him, beneath the tree. “So what happened the night my world came crashing down and I woke up on the wrong side of Hell?”

Cedarius sighed. “That’s why I like you, always straight to the point,no beating around the bush. Very well, I think it’s about time you knew the truth.

After a deep breath Cedarius began. “That night is probably what you remember, you were fired from your boring office jockey job, and decided to drink your sorrows away at the Dirty Birdy bar not far from home. What you didn’t notice, was that there was a black SUV following you from the underground parking lot of the office garage right to the bar. They waited for you to go inside, then drove around the block for a couple hours until you came out again. This is the part you don’t remember, when you came out of the bar two very large burly men with inverted compass tattoos jumped you demanding you tell them what you knew about Charles Vagar. You swore you knew nothing, and had never even heard that name before. Those men, they didn’t believe you.” Cedarius shuddered before he continued, “They took you into the alley between the bar and the boutique next door, and asked you one last time what you knew and when you said nothing, they shot you in the left shoulder and hit you with an iron pipe knocking you unconscious.”

Carson was staying at him opened mouthed, and shocked at what he’d just heard. “They shot me!” He exclaimed. “Why?”

Cedarius nodded as if he’d been expecting this answer. “Ever wonder where that scar on your left shoulder came from? I came around the corner as they pulled you into the alley, I managed to chase them off and carried you to my car. I dug the bullet out that had it been inches closer would have killed you and then started doing some digging of my own.”

Carson had his hand over his left shoulder rubbing it gingerly as he struggled to digest everything Cedarius was telling him. “What did you find?”

Cedarius visibly swallowed hard and said “The night your parents where killed it was an arranged hit by a kingpin in an underground drug ring. The man who carried out the hit was Charles Vagar, your parents threatened to go to the police with everything they knew, and he had to have them silenced. Why you were spared that night no one knows. Perhaps it was because you were too young at the time to tell them what happened. Now they want to finish what they started in case you remember something that could incriminate them all.

A single tear escaped Carson’s eye before he could catch himself at the memory of his parents. “So all this time they’ve been watching me, waiting for me to screw up.”

Cedarius nodded solemnly. “When you woke up, I decided it was too dangerous to leave you out on the street without protection, especially since you only had use of one arm. So I took you under my wing as my assistant so I could protect you until the day came where this Charles Vagar showed himself again.

Carson knew now, that the sense of foreboding he’d felt earlier was about to rear it’s ugly head, in one of the worst way imaginable. “Has he?”

Cedarius stared at him for a moment then turned away looking down at his hands folded in his lap and merely nodded…..