CHAPTER 13: BY ORDER OF THE MINISTER

  GARLAND HEIGHTS, STERLING YARD—NOVEMBER 18th, 1992 | MORNING

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  They stood on the wharf in cuffs.

  It was only yesterday, after weeks of temporary confinement in the occult holding cells of Sterling Yard following the guilty verdict, that Cameron had an opportunity to shower. By now, he was confident that he could stomach any smell that Blackpool Penitentiary had lying in wait for him. It was one thing to go nose blind to yourself, but another thing entirely to get accustomed to the stench of four other men. And much like Cameron, they’d been given the courtesy of a final shower—their collective freshness was almost strange.

  Sean Malley, Arnie Goodbrother, Rosco, and Fat Rudolf were all found to be guilty, and all of them, like Cameron, were due on the next armored narrowboat to Blackpool. Not quite in their jumpsuits yet, they’d been forced to forfeit their clothes for simple black tee shirts and slacks, and were provided with raggedy, uniformed shoes.

  They were situated on a small wharf connected to Sterling Yard, where small boats meant to patrol Brinehaven’s surrounding waters remained empty for the time being. Most of the blackjackets present were charged with overseeing the transport, and spearheading the whole thing was Captain Holmes, who checked his wristwatch so often that Cameron figured he had somewhere to be.

  “Damned fog,” muttered Arnie, who was closest to Cameron. “Got us up bright and early to stare at a whole bunch of nothing.”

  Sean Malley glanced to the side, his raggedy blonde hair tussling on his shoulders. Situated on one side of the wharf was a watchtower with a beacon, not unlike a lighthouse. “Lights-a-shinin’. Won’t be much longer now with that thing on.”

  “Fuck, man,” said Rosco.

  If Cameron was glad about one thing, it was that Rosco was on the other side of Fat Rudolf, who was so wide and dense that Cameron could hardly make out his figure. The heavyset man turned and nodded to Rosco, almost as if agreeing with the sentiment.

  “Quiet,” said one of the blackjackets.

  Cameron glanced over his shoulder. There had to be at least six or seven of them that made up their transport group, and he hadn’t bothered looking at any of their nametags. The collection of faces blended into one, and so too did their voices. Low and deep, shrill and gravely, pitched and timbered; they all mixed together into one singular, monotonous voice as annoying as it was persistent.

  Cameron couldn’t count the amount of times he’d heard quiet, stop, knock it off, or enough over the past couple of days. Most of that was due in part to Arnie and Fat Rudolf, whose thrashings continued well into the night, almost every night they were there, but Cameron shared the blame too. Rosco didn’t know where David was, and of that Cameron was certain—but that didn’t stop him from yelling at Rosco, who, over the last several days, whined, groaned, and puked every other hour.

  Arnie thought he was well on his way to becoming accursed, and swore by that. Given the strange features he’d seemingly sprouted out, Cameron believed him. And there was the mystery solved: a bludhead who stopped taking blud, who, by necessity, had to have ended their addiction on a final dose of P?-BLD—else they’d be dead and gone—turned into an accursed, same as the lucky few who survived demon attacks. Two sides of the same coin.

  If he took a few steps past Fat Rudolf, Cameron would find Rosco’s face distorted by a second set of teeth, sharp and yellow, that grew through his lips. He’d see that Rosco’s hair was all but gone, and in its place was ingrown and needle-like protrusions that made him look more porcupine than human. Ugly as the bastard was, Cameron smiled when he saw him, knowing that he looked more like what he really was: a rodent.

  “When we get there, Cameron,” Sean started, nudging Cameron in the arm. “You’ll need to pick a side. Now, I can vouch for you, put in a good word with the Lancaster Boys, but Arnie, he’s going to want you to go with the 8th Street Gang—”

  “Quiet!” barked one of the blackjackets, a man of middling height and a tough chin.

  That, however, was not a sufficient deterrent for Arnie. “I’ll do no such thing, the hell? What the hell is this kid going to do for us? He’ll be someone’s prison bitch, maybe, and that’ll be about the extent of—”

  The same blackjacket stepped forward. The man unhooked his sheathed shortblade, smacking Arnie across the face with it, hard. Arnie was too staggered by it to bark his usual bark. Fat Rudolf of all people stepped forward and knocked down the blackjacket with a shoulder bash.

  Captain Holmes, who’d been checking his wristwatch the whole while, finally turned. He sauntered towards the group of prisoners. His stare had merit to it; like those beady little oxen eyes of his had earned the fear that Fat Rudolf must have felt. He backed off and stepped back into the line.

  “Glad we have an understanding,” said Captain Holmes. “Now, let me be very clear. When that narrowboat arrives, you five are no longer my responsibility. Not now, not ever. Alright? That privilege goes to the ladies and gents over at Blackpool. But until then, you’re mine. Now, I'm on a tight schedule, and that narrowboat is running late. So let’s not complicate this, alright? No talking. No fighting. Easy. Simple. Alright. Good. Fan-fucking-tastic.”

  Captain Holmes nodded towards the blackjacket who’d struck Arnie, and he found his place back in line with the other constables.

  Cameron was glad for the interruption. Sean's statement carried too much weight. He didn’t want to pick a side when he got to Blackpool; better to keep his options open. Lancaster, 8th Street. It didn’t matter who wanted him or who didn’t. Undoubtedly, nobody within the walls of Blackpool would be able to make use of their abilities. In those walls, nobody was a hexling. Nobody was a mesmer, or a kineticist, or a demon contractor, or a witch. Even the accursed and all of their ugliness were just that—ugly, but equally as weakened by whatever combination of Drychus metal and sigilmasonry made Blackpool into the fortress that it was rumored to be.

  To that end, Cameron had to try to be smart, even if, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he’d eventually give in to impulse and adrenaline. If he could guide that somewhere useful, he’d be better off for it. But even now, he wondered if he could trust himself to do that. Especially after the trial.

  Overhead, the beacon manned by the blackjacket in the nearby watchtower rang some sort of bell. Captain Holmes turned towards the fog, and so too did Cameron and the rest of those around him.

  A sleek and armored narrowboat, no larger than two or three trucks meshed together, cut through the fog and the brackish waters. It had a clunky diesel engine and a simple steering till at the back of it.

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  Dominos of shouts fall into place and the surrounding black jackets thrusted Cameron and the other prisoners forward. Six men and women donned in uniforms not dissimilar to those of the blackjackets, only, theirs were a dull gray—orderlies, Arnie said they were called—secured ropes to the edge of the wharf and dropped a boarding bridge down.

  Arnie was the first to board, groaning all the while, and not far behind him was Fat Rudolf, whose sheer mass prompted the surrounding blackjackets closer to the boarding bridge. By some miracle, it held, and next to go was Sean Malley, who briefly glanced over his shoulder towards Cameron, with an expression that read as: think about it. Rosco was the final one to cross, his steps jittery and shaky, like he was half-willing to jump into the brackish waters surrounding the wharf.

  Cameron inhaled and took the first step, then a second, then a third.

  An orderly armed with a large rifle pushed Cameron into the prisoner’s box and closed the door shut—Drychus metal, of course—which made up the entire middle section of the armored transport narrowboat. It had a single ported hole, with no glass for a window, and Cameron had to shove and prod his way out from between Fat Rudolf and Sean to look out of it.

  He watched as the orderlies unraveled their anchoring ropes, offering nothing more than nods and brief words with Captain Holmes, who seemed eager for them to stop speaking. He ordered a blackjacket to assist in handing over the boarding bridge and securing the ropes, checked his wristwatch, and made to leave. Cameron squinted and followed him with his eyes, watching as the man stepped into the dregs of the fog around the wharf. Their narrowboat only traveled what must have been a few feet before it stalled.

  “Get this damned thing moving, would you?” one of the orderlies barked.

  “I’m trying to move it, the tiller won’t budge,” said another, from the rear of the narrowboat.

  Cameron couldn’t see either of them, and as dangerous as the Drychus metal was, it couldn’t have been very thick. He could still hear them; in fact, he could still hear the murmurs of the blackjackets on the wharf.

  Fat Rudolf groaned, and said that it was too cold inside of their metal box. Rosco chittered in agreement, and Cameron slowly turned towards the two of them, shaking his head. It was November in Brinehaven. A draft, especially so close to the water, was to be expected. Arnie and Sean seemed to have a similar line of thinking as Cameron, not bothering to comment or pay any mind to the cold. It was worse outside than it was in their new box.

  Cameron turned back toward the window. He slammed both cuffed hands overhead, the sides of his fists pounding into the solid black Dyrchus metal. Marks like acid emerged where the cuffs tugged at his wrists, but were more pronounced where his fists hit the black metal wall.

  “Fuck!” Cameron cursed.

  “The hell has gotten into you?” asked Sean.

  Through the ported window and the fog, Cameron saw Captain Holmes bumping into someone. Equal in height, with shoulders just as broad, and a checkered flat cap that he’d never forget.

  Leroy Waters. Cameron thought to try and squeeze his entire body through the porthole he was looking through, just for the chance to get his hands on the man.

  “Let’s keep this simple. Simple, quick, easy,” Leroy stated. Cameron noticed he was holding up a single hand and clenching the air, and even through the fog, saw the faint, dim blue glow alight on the side of his neck. The narrowboat. He froze the water around the base of its metal fixtures.

  “Shit,” said Captain Holmes, in a voice that sounded somewhere between defeated and guilty. “Damned orderlies. If they’d been a bit sooner, we could’ve avoided this whole thing, Leroy.”

  “Ah-huh. And then you’d get a write-up for ignoring the minister, and I’m sure Chief Montgrave would tear you a new one. Tell that narrowboat to turn around.”

  “This kid is as dangerous as the rest of them, Leroy. Don’t see why you’d want to do this, and if it was my choice, he’d be going there with the rest of them—”

  “But it isn’t, is it? Your choice. Call them back over here, Holmes.”

  Cameron saw Captain Holmes briefly turn over his shoulder, and his scoff, loud and apparent, could be heard from the narrowboat. “Go ahead and thaw that damn ice, then.”

  Leroy unclenched his fist and brushed past Captain Holmes, squatting along the edge of the wharf and tilting his head ever so slightly. Noise filled the air—the sound of ice cracking and dislodging itself from metal. He tipped his checkered flat cap in the direction of the narrowboat, but not towards the orderlies manning it. If Cameron couldn’t tell where he was looking by that alone, Leroy’s crooked smile all but sealed the deal.

  “Haul it back!” Captain Holmes yelled, standing not far behind Leroy.

  “The tiller—working again,” muttered the orderly from the rear of the narrowboat.

  The other orderly cleared his throat. “Get this thing moving back to the wharf, then.”

  Within moments, the blackjackets and the orderlies set up the boarding bridge once more. Armed orderlies scattered throughout the narrowboat begrudgingly grab hold of the ropes and throw them to the blackjackets, who anchor them to concrete posts. Captain Holmes was the first to cross the boarding bridge, and next Cameron saw him, he opened the Drychus metal door at the far side of their box.

  “You, out,” Captain Holmes demanded.

  “What the hell?” Arnie stood up, albeit not very tall, in protest. “The fuck are you taking him, blackjacket?”

  Fat Rudolf did not move, but glared, and Sean’s eyes widened in blatant surprise. Even Rosco was disconcerted, scratching at the strange quills that grew between the tufts of his remaining hair. Cameron took a step forward without a second guess, and everything behind him faded into obscurity. Sean, Arnie, Fat Rudolf, Rosco.

  Any plans he had for Blackpool were thrown out the window the moment the Captain extended his hand towards Cameron.

  If his cell-mates from Sterling Yard had anything further to say, they all agreed, maybe in some act of protest, to remain quiet. Here was a South Ender, same as them, gladly accepting the hand of a blackjacket to help him out of a narrowboat due for Blackpool. If they thought Cameron was a rat, they’d be right.

  Prior to the trial, Cameron had given Captain Holmes everything he wanted to hear: information on David St. James, the origin of the guns they’d gotten their hands onto. Everything you could imagine—a personal testimony, Rhonda Slater had explained—just shy of a confession. He only did it so that they’d get one step closer to finding David, and hoped, somehow, someway, that that information would find its way back to him. It was all one big plan: Rhonda's plan, not his, and Rhonda never got the chance to see it in action. Cameron pleaded guilty, but not on the terms she wanted him to. He declared himself guilty, absent any plea bargains and without any semblance of a reduced sentence.

  He was hauled along the bridge and placed in front of Leroy Waters, who, by now, was no longer squatting at the edge of the wharf, but stood with both hands shuffled into his brown leather jacket.

  The surrounding blackjackets stood at attention, and reached for their handguns, but Captain Holmes raised a single hand to stop them.

  Cameron leapt at Leroy, or tried to.

  Captain Holmes’s grip was stronger than any punch Cameron had ever taken. With both hands, he lifted Cameron up and slammed him down into the concrete of the wharf, pushing the bulk of his weight down onto Cameron’s wrists. “Behave. I’m going to stand you up again, alright? Take it easy, and if you have anything to say—don’t. Now’s the time to listen.”

  The Dyrchus metal cuffs dug deeper into the red and boiling skin already on Cameron’s wrists, causing him to groan. With hardly a heave, Captain Holmes raised him back to his feet, and Leroy.

  Leroy removed something from his coat pocket and flashed it in Cameron’s face. Cameron squinted, and couldn't make out the handwriting but noticed a wax seal: a crow grabbing hold of an anchor wrapped in rope, and the founding words of a city that normally left people like Cameron for dead. Civitas non secreta. Whatever that meant, established 1712.

  “You’re in luck, Kessler. Minister Rostavich and I, we talked,” Leroy said.

  Cameron strained against Captain Holmes’ grasp. “Yeah? About what?”

  Leroy smiled that same disquieting, hopeful smile. “We both decided you’d be better off as my underarbiter.”

  CAMERON KESSLER

  CRAZY ROSCO

  SEAN MALLEY

  ARNIE GOODBROTHER

  FAT RUDOLF

  CAPTAIN HOLMES

  LEROY WATERS

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