Another Lifetime

Chapter 25

DeAnna Kastell

I was out in the garage because Frank didn't let me use spray paints in the house because of the solvents in the fumes stinking up the house and getting me high, which was why I used top of the line gas masks to filter out the fumes since I really didn't want to get high. Okay so that's a lie, I really wanted to get high but I also knew better than to abuse substances now.

I had my rig set up next to my laptop and printer in the garage. I was playing music from my rig, had stencils open on my laptop and a tray of already finished stencils. I was using masking tape to stick the stencils up on the before board. I wanted to get them perfectly positioned before I started to spray anything after all the work I'd already done on the base boards.

Skype started ringing so I shut down the music on my rig and picked up the group call. Harry was the one who'd called us, whilst still working and he was on delivery now not in the restaurant. He probably shouldn't have called us but that had never stopped two of out of the four of us from doing things we shouldn't, drug abuse and criminal assault being my obvious examples for this.

"Someone just ordered a Kastell special," he told us, "like the pizza you and Frank always get, word for word with the order," he specified and I dropped the roll of masking tape around my wrist, going over to the laptop.

"What's the name on the order?" I asked him.

"Uh, a Mr Fernandez," he said, reading the order form, and I sighed slightly as I dropped into the crappy chair near the table.

"The person who taught me and Frank that pizza order was our uncle, one Jaime de Rosa-Iglesias Fernandez," I said and sat down at the decorators bench that had become a table.

"You think de RIF is in town?" X asked me and I didn't know, since other people had to know that order.

"Maybe, I mean Valero is coming to town in a fortnight, so maybe Jaime's the Cabal's advanced team," I thought aloud and it wasn't going to be good since I didn't like my uncle right now.

"The Cabal?" Harry questioned.

"DeAnna's family are like everywhere, and they made this major business collaboration that expanded into governments as KTS expanded into a global superpower," X explained to him .

"Think Heart Industries from Blood Drive," Jessie suggested to him and it was a fairly accurate description, minus all the grindhouse genres in it.

"Dude, that's heavy," Harry said and switched the camera, putting his phone in his shirt pocket. "Now to go make the delivery and hope for a tip," he said and we just watched him get out of the car.

"Anyone else feel like they're watching a found footage horror film?" Jessie asked us quietly and I felt like she wanted to go get popcorn but realised it would take too long to make and she could miss something interesting.

"You cannot say that after comparing the cabal to Blood Drive, Jess," X warned her and she just shrugged in response, a fairly standard Jessie response by now.

"Thank you guys for being so reassuring," Harry said sarcastically then knocked on the door of the hotel room. "If I get murdered now, make sure Frank investigates it, only the best can find my killer," he decided dramatically then the door opened, and it was my uncle Jaime but that wasn't that much of a surprise.

"Ah, thank you young man," he said and handed Harry a tip. "I don't suppose you know my niece, your pizzeria knew the family order as a Kastell Special," he said and Harry's default response was a classic.

"No, Mr de RIF, I don't," he said and it was clear he'd panicked.

"Harry, you're an idiot," I told him bluntly.