Cruz K. Flores leaned back in his chair, gazing out of dirty glass at the rugged mountains of western Mexico.

It was a beautiful place that the drug-lord looked upon. Like a stormy sea turned to stone- magnificent waves of rock frozen mid-rise, crested with the green sea-foam of lush plant life. High above the bright sunlit peaks, and higher still above the cool, shadowed valleys, he could just make out a bird soaring through the air. It seemed appropriate, like the finishing touch on an already picturesque postcard.

Not that he cared. Flores was not a man to appreciate beauty. He was practical. He was efficient. He was cunning. He was deadly.

And, right now, he was seriously annoyed.

“CAGLIO!” he bellowed. The room echoed with his voice. Where was the man anyways? He should’ve been here ten minutes ago, before Flores even called for him. Attendants. Pah. Never where they should be, eh?

The room was a long rectangle, with gloomy white concrete walls and naked stone floor. A plush recliner, the one that Flores was currently situated upon, sat near a bank of windows in a sad attempt to make the place more comfortable. It didn’t really work.

Nothing like my mansion, eh? If I was back at my home, ah! Ah, the crisp warmth, the light, the soft carpets and rugs, the pristine walls and floors, the in-door pools, the gleaming countertops, the…

Flores let his mind wander for some time. It was a small comfort, but he had grown used to letting his mind lose itself in one of his more opulent houses, just to distract himself from the chilly bareness of his current abode.

A quiet yet firm step sounded outside the room.

“CAGLIO! Ibas a estar aquí ayer!” The chastisement thundered in the dank room as Flores wheeled around his recliner in righteous wrath.

“I do not speak Spanish, sir, presuming, of course, that you have just employed that worthy tongue,” replied the thin Italian coolly as he entered the room. Caglio, Flores’ most recent attendant, was extremely tall. He stretched towards the low ceiling like a spaghetti noodle that had assumed human form. It bugged Flores that all of his best underlings were grossly taller than himself. Last he had checked, Flores’ circumference was several times that of his height.

“You don’t speak Espanol?! Bad! Pah!”

“What do you want, sir?” The Italian never showed any sign of nervousness, never lost an ounce of the catlike grace with which he moved. That made Flores mad.

“What do I want?!” It was a rhetorical question. Caglio lowered his head as the fat drug-lord prepared for one of his rants. “What do I want?! I want everything! I want money! I want power! I want global domination! I want to shoot every policeman in the world! I want to shoot them again! Then I want to shoot them a third time!”

“Remarkable.”

“I’m not finished!” Flores’ voice was quickly rising to the high, tea-kettle pitch it assumed when he was angry. “I want to be immortal! I want to find that man Hector and cut off his ears! And his toes! I want to get that snake! I want to kill Hector! I want to-”

“Speaking of the snake,” Caglio calmly interjected. “I’ve just been contacted regarding that operation.”

Flores sat up straight in his chair. “What? What did they say? Did they get it?”

“The snake, sir?”

“Yes, the snake! What else?!”

Caglio paused. “Well… no. There have been complications.”

It was at times like this that Flores wished he could breathe fire. Not so much for any utilitarian purpose as much as the intimidation factor. He wanted those who were unfortunate enough to be around him to feel his rage. He didn’t even know what to yell this time. “I- I- I-” Flores took a deep breath. “I paid good money, Caglio. Good money to see that mystic! Good money to get him to tell me about this fern, and the snake! And he led us to the wrong place?! The audacity! The insolence! Why, I’ll have him-”

“No, sir, he did not mislead you. A” It was a good thing Caglio had cut Flores off, because whatever he had been about to say was probably violent enough that if I had included it in this book, I’d get boycotted by the National Association of Virtuous Mothers.

“What did he do, then?” Flores’ desire for dragon-breath decreased, albeit by a small amount.

“Not he, sir. They. You may not believe this, but only one of our agents returned from that place alive. If you don’t mind, I will let him tell the story.” The Italian turned to the room’s only door and opened it.

In stepped the tallest man Flores had ever seen. He practically had to stoop over just to fit inside the dank room.

The drug-lord frowned. “Where is your brother, Marcus?”

The hulking figure frowned back at him, eyes invisible under solid black sunglasses that looked like they weighed at least a pound. He had thick, dark-brown hair and wore a dirty black tactical outfit. There was a large, red-soaked bandage wrapped around his head.

He crossed himself gloomily before answering. “He’s nuh more, mastuh.” The man’s New York accent was so thick that Flores couldn’t understand half of what he said. Generally, though, he didn’t talk much, so it was fine.

Flores’ frown morphed into a downright scowl, folds of fat contorting in a most unpleasant manner around his dark lips. “How did he die? What happened? Tell me everything, Marcus.”

The man shifted uncomfortably, as if unaccustomed to the art of speech.

“Uh… well, uh… it started like this, sir. We got to da place yuh told us ta’ go. Well, not five minutes latuh, there comes three people.” The huge man scratched his head. “One of ’em was Hector Domini.”

Flores blinked. “Go on.” His voice was like cold steel, with the slightest hint of malice.

“Well, it was him and two other guys. One was kinda crazy-lookin’. He had long, long black hair. And the other…”

“Was?” Flores prompted.

“Old,” Marcus replied, as if that explained everything. “Real old.”

“Okay…” Flores wasn’t sure where this was going. “What happened next?”

“Well, Karl stepped out from da other side wit’ his gun, and tried ta’ shoot the Hector man.”

“That won’t kill him, you know.”

“Well, he tried to shoot him anyways. As I was sayin’. But then there’s this wind all the sudden, that blows sand into Karl’s eyes, and he drops the gun.” Marcus’ deep voice began to quiver, weighed down with intense grief. “And then… and then… the old guy, he whistles. But it ain’t normal, that whistle. It was strange.” The man accented the word, evidently giving it special significance. “And all the sudden, a snake bites Karl, and- and he dies.”

He crossed himself again and wiped his sunglasses before moving on.

“Well, I stepped out, and soon as I did, I got hit with a big rock that the crazy guy had thrown. Everything sorta went dark. When I woke up, I was alone. And I didn’t see no snakes, and I didn’t feel like searchin’ for none, either. Not aftah’ what da one snake did ta’ Karl.” He shuddered.

Flores spun his chair a few times in frustration. “I want to go there myself! By Jove, we need that snake! How else can we kill Hector?!”

“Perhaps, sir,” Caglio replied, “killing your nemesis is not the only way you can get revenge. After all, death is a relief compared to immortality filled with torture and agony, eh?”

A slow smile split Flores’ face like a knife through a whoopie pie.

“You’re right. When will the fern be ready, do you think?”

“I’ve been told that it’s nearly ready. Out of all of the animals the lab techs tested it on, three have survived. You are now the owner of an immortal cow, an immortal rabbit, and an immortal dog.”

“Pah.” Flores had no use for animals, except for food. “Nearly ready? What does this thing mean, eh? It has been over a week!”

“Within the next two days, sir. Possibly tomorrow. The lab techs just want to make sure that-”

Flores didn’t bother to listen to the rest of Caglio’s sentence. “And if it really was Hector at the snake temple- what a coincidence, but I see the reason now- he is planning something. He evidently has also sought knowledge of this magic fern, and he probably wants the snake so that he can kill me.” He chortled with malicious glee. “Which means that he thinks I am already immortal.”

“It certainly seems that way, sir.”

“And you- you are positive that the man you saw was Hector, Marcus?”

The tall assassin grunted in affirmation. “I’ve seen him befoah, suh. I don’t fuhget easily.”

“Well, well.” Flores rubbed his chin vigorously. “So it begins, eh? He tries to kill me with a magic snake, and I try to capture him and make him wish he had never been born. And I can win easily, if I simply stay out of his way. All we have to do is find him.”

Caglio smiled, albeit with his mouth only. Even so, any kind of smile whatsoever was uncommon with the placid Italian. “Sir, I don’t think we will need to find him. It’s entirely possible that he’ll come to us first.”