Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I suppose the Resistance won't be too happy at my running off, but that ship just stunk too much! Besides, there were gifts to give out...and I helped the cow Santa (so weird!), not that stupid Zurg!
I left the Mothership after the smell got too bad, ditched my mask and antenna (but kept the veil in case I ran into someone from the Resistance and had to hide), and went off to join the gift-giving frenzy! My first gift got left on Cindy's desk...it wasn't untill later I found out they were empty cardboard boxs, prettily wrapped! But the gifts I got from Santa for giving...lovely! I also went carolling, and my out-of-tune rendition of "While Zurg shot down ships by night" (yes, I made it up) got me some cool stuff too...including a new pair of boots! I got so hyped up that I joined a bunch of other carolers on the train to Durem on Xmas Day...
"Take it and go away!" Edmund was in a raging temper as he threw a bunch of mistletoe, tied with a red ribbon, at us. I caught it and tucked it into my collar, and hurried off in case he recognized me.
"Nice look, m'girl." I blinked.
"Not you again!" I gasped. Standing in front of me was...Dark. The landlady from Hell.
"Cut it out," she snapped. "I should be the angry one! You and that father of yours got me in a lot of trouble with my bosses...so much that I'll have to go back down after I give you your..." She leered. "Present."
"What are you talking about?" I was shivering from more then cold.
"Why not come to my office?" she asked. "You look half frozen, out here without a coat...saintly little ragamuffin!"
I followed her, numbly noticing that her footsteps left puddles of melted snow.
"What about my father?" I growled as we entered her sweltering office. She sat back in her chair and sighed deeply.
"He contacted me a few days ago," she said. "Said he'd found out that his daughter wanted that place...he didn't bat an eyelid at the terms. I warned him that getting rid of the current tenants would cost a bit...a few hundred more centuries, maybe. He was all for it." She reached into her desk and pulled out another, all-too-familer, contract. The name, signed in blood at the bottom, was Johnny K. Gambino. I stared at it in shock, and Dark laughd.
"Wish I knew what that K stands for," she muttered. "It might get me out of trouble a bit... Anyway, I got rid of the tenants with a gas explosion. I'm warning you, it wrecked the top two floors..."
"You did WHAT?" I asked in horror.
"Got rid of them," she answered matter-of-factly. "They were dammed anyway, why not sooner rather than later? They'll probably have a a century or so stoking the fires, a bit in the transit system, then come back to pay off the rest in sales like me. And I'd say this is the worst bit...too cold!"
"You mean you're...you were..." I stammered.
"I was a real sinner," she said with a disgusted snort. "Not a sucker like I sell too...but I'll likely be as saintly as you by the time they let me out for my next incarnation. That's what the sales is for, wears you down."
"I'm not saintly," I blurted out, only to be cut off by another snort.
"I was bearing in mind that you're a Gambino," she said. "By the way, you've got the whole building."
"What would I want with that?" I asked.
"Dunno, but your dad wanted to give you a proper present...only the best for all that's left of the only woman he loved, that's what he said." She glared at me, and I quickly looked away from her firey eyes. "I'll have a bone to pick with him when he gets down to Hades, I will."
"Uh, why?" I asked, not really wanting to know.
"Because he'd already earned six million years!" she shrieked. "And didn't tell me! And I was so impressed, thought I'd get a proper post in the government downside for a big fish like him... I'll give you a life lesson, girl, always do background checks on people you're selling stuff to. I gave him a paltry five-thousand-year contract...utterly void, since he'll already be doing that in earned time! Needless to say, the Top Demons wern't very happy at all. I'd lost a good property for nothing... You want to know what your father did so bad?"
I was ready for that. "Genocide, biological warfare, killing off people who knew too much, causing the death of someone he claims he loved and loved him, hating his own creations when they went wrong, blameing everyone but himself..." I could have listed much more, but Dark raised a talon-like hand.
"All true," she said. "I'm glad you know it already... Now you know your legacy as a Gambino. It's up to you to chose if you want to follow it, or...you sound like you can handle what your father's done, but I'll just tell you...there were some good Gambinos, back before the ones now. I could tell you more, but the Top Demons are mad enough at me as it is..." She looked, for a moment, sad. "If only another Gambino could go to their next incarnation without passing through Hades...even your mother did, did you know that? Just commonplace stuff, barely a week...stealing from her family and leaving them to poverty, that kind of stuff. It was canceled out by a lot of other stuff." She shook her head sharply and smirked again. "Well, get going. They'll come get me as soon as you step inside your new house..." She tossed a key across her desk at me. "Don't worry, it's just a normal key." True enough, it wasn't even hot.
"But...what should I do what the place?" I asked. "A whole building..."
"Maybe make a disco?" Dark suggested. "Hmm...the Hellfire Club has a nice ring, dosn't it?"
"I'll bear it in mind," I said as I walked out into the snow.
Just before the door slammed, I heard her call, "Good luck! We won't be meeting again...I hope."