The Second Book of the Alienbutt Saga. The Rise of Mr Fluffy. Part 29.

“Blackarachnia, I presume?” he asked calmly, still not moving, his hands on the table before him.
Blackarachnia reached up and removed the assassin’s face mask he was wearing. With deliberate slowness he began to walk around the table to the last of the council members.
“Join with me Blackarachnia. Together we will end the war and you can rule the universe beside me.”

Before the seated figure was a large shallow golden bowl filled with roasted coffee beans. Looking over to the far wall he saw an elaborate coffee bean grinder. He had noticed many of these grinders as he had worked his way through the Order’s lower members, and now knew it was a sign of Order membership. Grabbing a handful of beans he yanked the Order’s leader from his chair and dragged him over to the grinder, the hood of his cloak falling back to reveal his face.
“Blackarachnia, I can give you the master assassin that shot your wife. He was not following our orders when he shot her; you were both supposed to be taken alive,” the order’s leader pleaded, falling to his knees.
Blackarachnia paused and looked at the terrified face looking back at him. “Turn on the grinder,” he ordered.
The man nodded, tears now streaming down his face. As the machine came to life Blackarachnia threw the beans into the machine, listening to them as they were ground to a powder. “They seemed like good quality beans,” Blackarachnia observed, picking up the cup that had caught the ground beans. “Not your off the counter stuff I take it?”
“It’s Kopi Luwak,” answered the now terrified leader.
“The ones that that beetle shit out?” He threw the cup across the room in disgust. Then he stepped back and with a kick sent the ornate covering for the grinding blades clattering across the room, revealing the spinning disks used to grind the beans. Grabbing the hood of the cloak with one hand, he yanked the man up from his knees. With his other hand he grabbed the man's short grey hair. Bending down Blackarachnia looked into his terrified face, his fury evident and terrifying to behold.
“That is one disgusting drink, and I wouldn't ever trust you, and never would I join with any of you so-called leaders again. I will find your assassin and kill him in my own time. I don't need you for that. To be brutally honest I think you would say anything and sell out anyone to stay alive. You make me sick.”
Blackarachnia began to force the man’s head down towards the spinning blades. His pleading quickly turned to screams of pain as blood began to splatter over the grinder and up the wall behind.
The blades suddenly stopped and Blackarachnia yanked back the Coffee House leader’s head, half his lower face missing. A faint gurgling whimpering was all he could manage from his shattered face.
“Damn!” cursed Blackarachnia, looking at the tooth that had jammed the blades from spinning. The force of the blades suddenly split the tooth and the blades began to spin again. Blackarachnia’s blood-splattered face split into a smile. “Let’s try again shall we?” he said as again he pushed the head down for a final time.

General Jee walked into the secret chamber where the council meeting had been held. He had come down with just a handful of his most trusted men. The fewer people that saw what had occurred the better. He had not learned of the attack on the meeting until he had arrived, as no emergency call had been transmitted. The destruction up on the surface was extensive with most of the security detail dead from a chemical weapons attack.

The many ships in the underground hangar belonging to the various Council members had been destroyed. The death count from this one attack was staggering; the Order had lost many of its top security personnel. That worried him far more than the fact that the whole High Council was amongst the dead. Their deaths saved him a job in the future, while highly trained security personnel would be hard to replace. He walked over to where the body of the Lord High Coffee Baron lay by the ruined and gore-splattered coffee bean grinder. Turning over the body with his boot he saw that the face had been removed by the machine’s blades. Turning from the sight he read the message on the wall above the grinder, written in blood and gore.

YOU’RE NEXT JEE

Jee had no idea how Blackarachnia had found the location of this meeting. Not only that, he had got in and then killed the entire council before escaping. Jee was having a bad couple of days, as he had also been informed on his way to the meeting that Grommit had been rescued and his estates destroyed. He could feel his careful plans beginning to unravel as events were happening beyond his control. The Ick were proving harder to destroy than anyone thought, and he wasn’t ready yet to take control openly of the inner systems. He looked down at the mutilated face of the leader of the Order of the Bean. Now he would never know what he looked like, he mused.
He turned to the sergeant of arms he had brought down with him. “Have the room purged as soon as we leave and order a video meeting of all surviving members. We have to re-position our forces quickly.”

To be continued.
All images are mine.