CHAPTER 43: A FIGHTING CHANCE | PHILTERWORKS—V

  COMMONWEALTH INDUSTRIAL PARK—NOVEMBER 20th, 1992 | EARLY EVENING

  ?

  Leroy’s eyes settled onto James—the only guard he knew by name, once a nervous, fearful mess of a man. Once, he’d been cooperative. Helpful, even. Smarter than he let on. He’d taken Leroy to the doors of the basement, and he knew when to keep his mouth shut. But James was gone. What remained of him was only what ether had done to him.

  Bulging red eyes, bloodshot, hungry. Angry to a fault. Ether’s effects spread from guard to guard like a wildfire, one after the other after they’d downed those vials:wide and gaping smiles, veins that seemed to bulge beneath their skin. Leroy had seen it before, and he’d made quick work of it. One bullet to the head made an example of Donovan Mayfield—but Donovan Mayfield was one thing, and four Donovans was another.

  That damned Emilio had left him with a headache of a problem to deal with, and with the door locked behind them, he imagined there was only one way out: through them.

  At the very least, this chamber, or lab, or whatever the hell it was, wasn’t burning-hot like it was just outside of the door.

  And the men in front of him weren’t apt on using their guns. Why would they? Power coursed through their veins, and they were all equally as eager to put their newfound strength to the test. Leroy could see it on their faces, beyond the animalistic twitches that plagued their expressions every so often.

  James. He was the first to leap towards Leroy, and Leroy was quicker to the draw.

  He reached inside of his jacket and threw one of his three waterskins directly against James’s head.

  Leroy clenched. Dim blue light poured out from Yaerzul’s brand on his neck, and erupted around the splash of water. Ice solidified immediately around James’ head, imprisoning his skull in a jagged, suffocating cold front.

  That hardly mattered.

  Bound by the effects of the alchemical concoction, James pressed onward, in spite of the immediacy of death that was promised to him. He couldn’t even breathe, but he swung. A wild and reckless fist darted toward Leroy.

  Leroy ducked, and avoided the direct hit by the skin of his teeth, bounding off his back foot to leap back into a nearby wall.

  James shattered one of the vats behind him containing the corpse of the garou. Greenish, jellied liquid gushed outward, and Leroy smiled a wide smile. No need to use any more waterskins. And strong as each of these ether-enhanced guards were—fearless as they were—Leroy had handled worse. Survived worse.

  Three of the remaining guards yelled, bolting towards Leroy.

  James thrashed around, breathless, angered, panicked. The ice that had frozen around his head finally put a stop to his thrashing, and he fell into the pile of green ooze next to the lopsided corpse of the garou that was sprayed onto the ground.

  Blue outlined the liquid. Around Leroy, three fists prepared to pummel him into a fleshy pulp up against the concrete wall. But they never got the chance.

  With his hand at his side, Leroy whisked two fingers up and swiped his hand across to the side, his fingers stopping only centimeters away from the crazed face of one of the three ether-enhanced guards. A short-lived silence filled the air, followed by a cluster of blood-gurgling groans. Greenish-blue ice skewered through the three of them in a singular, extended spike grown from the leaked vat fluid.

  "And there goes the everyman's so-called fighting chance, Emilio," Leroy muttered to himself.

  Exhaling, Leroy glanced down and surveyed their utility belts for his only way out of the room, and smiled to himself when he took notice of a sigil-marked key. He tore it from the waistline of the guard who had it on his person, and stepped out from behind the spike that kept each of them in place.

  Key in hand, he paced towards the door, but stopped and pivoted. He raised two fingers and pulled down, melting the ice around James’ head and face. Wrong time, wrong place. It would’ve been easy to sum it up as that, and true as it was, acknowledging that didn’t erase the nagging feeling in Leroy’s gut.

  He didn’t look that much older than Cameron.

  Leroy didn’t feel guilty for killing him, or even sad, for that matter, but within his indifference was a moment of clarity. Knowing someone’s name meant more to him than he realized. The three other guards. Leroy didn't feel anything for them. He’d killed them just as easily as he’d kill those garou in the Pines—which was to say, without a second thought. And he’d done the same to James, but it somehow felt worse. Knowing his name made it worse. Knowing his name made him more real. Realer than the prospect of the danger he represented, realer than the damage that he would’ve done to Leroy if he had managed to hit him.

  Leroy half expected Yaerzul to say a few words.

  Dissonant whispers brewed in his mind, cold, frigid, and uninvited. But there were no ominous warnings or over slights made at Leroy’s expense. Nothing. Just a feeling that Leroy had to sit in, and a memory that he couldn’t forget: Cameron’s face in that courtroom and the words he’d uttered without second thought. I’m guilty! Guilty of everything and more, but so is he! And he’s guilty of far, far fucking worse!

  Leroy exhaled. Cameron didn’t know the half of it.

  He adjusted his checkered flat cap, twisted the key into the door, and exited.

  ?

  Heat swelled as soon as he entered the basement-bunker-facility-place. Leroy still didn’t quite know what to call it, but the scent of alchemical processing and the smoldering, weighty temperature was undeniable. Leroy tugged on his black turtleneck, and grimaced. Back to square one. His waterskins would be useless out here—unless, like he’d originally planned, he threw them into the superheated liquid funnels to create steam.

  But that plan was a bust.

  And now, there wasn’t much reason for something like that. The guards had been handled, and there was only one person left to deal with.

  “Emilio!” Leroy yelled.

  He reached for his P89, withdrew it, and held it in both of his hands, maintaining a steady grip on it as he paced along towards the front of the facility, walking through tall shelving units filled with boxes, supplies, and crates.

  As he advanced, he saw the man overlooking the ether processing setup. Lab coat, navy blue suit, short curly hair. The only thing that was missing was that self-assured, shit-eating expression that lacked a grin.

  Leroy approached slowly, and the alchemist didn’t bother moving. Emilio’s hands were shuffled into the pockets of his lab coat, and he hardly flinched when Leroy, with a single hand, pressed the barrel of his gun against the side of his head.

  When he turned to face Leroy, there was no scholarly nose pointing, just subtle despondency.

  “They failed, then,” Emilio muttered.

  “The lycan. Tell me where to find the lycan,” Leroy said.

  “Even if you find her, and even if you kill me, Mr. Waters, you must understand that Bluestein Philterworks has my formula. Everything here in this operation is repeatable. It can and will be done to-scale, at a higher capacity, with greater refinement, with greater efficacy—”

  “But it won’t. Last chance, Emilio. Won't ask again. Tell me where the lycan is.”

  Emilio issued him a thin-lipped scowl, and his narrowed gaze had a blue tint to it on account of the glow of the liquid ether in front of him. “It’s.. it’s futile. Pointless, Mr. Waters. Destroying this operation will have no bearing on this company’s progress. On the work I started, which, even in my absence, they will finish.”

  “Maybe. But you won’t be there to see it.”

  Emilio withdrew something from the inside of his lab coat. It was a vial—no, a flask. Inside of it was a glowing blue substance, grainy and sand-like. Ether. Emilio wasn’t taking a single dose, he was poised to down at least six or seven times that: the alchemical equivalent of what Leroy imagined to be Scotch whisky, if not outright rubbing alcohol straight from the shelves of a medical cabinet.

  “And so it goes,” Emilio began, popping the cap off the flask, “that the everyman was given a fighting chance.”

  Not Cat’s Eye, not Cast-Iron, not Breker Tonic, not Fleetfoot. Of all of the elixirs he likely knew how to brew, it made sense that he only carried one on his person. His brainchild. His creation. His pride. If you were going to forfeit your humanity over an alchemical formula, better that something be of your own making than by the design of a long-dead alchemist who shared the name of the company you happened to work for.

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  The transformation was almost instant. A surge of energy erupted from Emilio's body, like an announcement of power that didn't care for Leroy's pistol. It startled him, but not enough to benefit his quickdraw. He choked, and now he'd pay the price for it.

  Emilio’s hair stood up straight on his head, as if struck by a perpetual static. His bone mass grew—he grew—to the tune of bones and tendons forcing themselves to spread along his new height and width. He cried out in discordant agony, in a voice that deepened two times over until it sounded more beast than man. Gone was the slight-shouldered Emilio la Cerva, and in his place was a six-foot-five goliath who’d broken through the clothes he was wearing.

  The glasses he wore across his face fell to the ground. White glazed over what used to be brown eyes, and his mustache, much like his hair, pricked up and outward. Iridescent blue coursed through the veins beneath his skin.

  “Fuck,” Leroy muttered.

  ?

  Debris shot up and around where Emilio’s heavy fist hit the ground, and a fissure emerged in the concrete floor. Leroy deftly avoided getting pummeled into a pile of gory pulp, and had his unceremonious roll to the side to thank for that.

  Emilio was stronger than strong, but he was slow. The ether-boosted alchemist was all muscle and rage and instinct, and there wasn’t a shred of intellect left in his features. Just an intuition to hit what was in front of him. He moved awfully similar to the demon Leroy put to rest in St. Catherine’s Cathedral and was equally as ugly.

  Leroy held onto his P89, tightly as he could, but knew better than to fire. He remembered in fine-detail what Emilio—prior to becoming Ether Frankenstein—had said to those Argent Group henchmen. A single stray bullet into those ether funnels and vats could cause the whole place to blow.

  Naturally, that was Leroy’s goal.

  Now it was just a matter of hitting two birds with one stone: dispatching Emilio and blowing up the basement without getting caught in the crossfire. And with the residual heat in the area, using Yaerzul’s brand to rely on his usual tricks was off of the table.

  He sprung to his feet and made for the stairwell.

  Emilio followed, swiping his big arms in Leroy’s direction, only for Leroy to slide to his knees, lowering himself before his upper body could be bludgeoned off. Each time he missed, he created another miniature crater in the ground, creating a cobweb of fissures that spread all along the basement facility.

  Yaerzul was silent as could be, but Leroy knew he was enjoying the show. Damned demon loved seeing Leroy walk the fine-line between excitement and certain death, and he didn’t need to announce as much for Leroy to know as much. A single hit from Emilio would break anything in Leroy’s body that could break. There was no skirmish to be had here, but maneuvers of decisive intent. He’d been dealt the cards he’d been dealt, and now it was a matter of using what he could to end things before things ended him.

  Leroy felt his waterskins sloshing beneath his jacket. Two left, but he'd only need one. One waterskin and a Hail Mary had gotten him far before, and he expected it to get him further now. Ice or not, water was still his namesake, and he didn’t need his contractor abilities to make a weapon out of it.

  Emilio’s fist crashed down behind Leroy once again, and he wasn’t as quick. No this time. Fortunately, the fist didn’t hit him directly, but just being in its immediate vicinity was enough to send Leroy hurling along the ground, battering his aging frame in more bruises than he cared to admit. Something cracked, but his adrenaline didn’t allow him to address what. A rib, maybe, or his elbow from bracing. Pain gushed out of from between his lips as an unruly groan.

  His back crashed against the edge of the ether production area, along the edges of the funnels and the pool of glowing blue liquid. Close call. If he’d fallen into that, he’d be half-melted by now.

  Emilio roared, and with heavy steps, poised himself to charge.

  “That’s it,” Leroy muttered. “Come at me, you fat-knuckled prick.”

  Leroy reached inside of his jacket and felt the fabric of the waterskin along his calloused hands. The ground shook as Emilio advanced.

  Leroy narrowed his eyes, and with a practiced deftness, threw one of the waterskins onto the ground directly in front of Emilio right before he pummeled Leroy. It broke upon impact and created a puddle just large enough for him to slip on. A rage-induced, mindless roar filled the air as Emilio was sent hurling into the burning hot liquid of the ether processing pools.

  Emilio didn’t feel pain on account of the ether. And with the lethally transformative dose he’d taken, Leroy imagined he didn’t feel anything at all, which was exactly why he was still trying and failing to swim through the superheated pool of raw, unprocessed ether. The sight of it was gruesome: pulpy flesh, sinew, exposed bone. Leroy stared at the display, his unbothered, placid face tinted blue by the bright light of the glowing pool of liquid in front of him.

  ?

  He overlooked the basement facility from the top of the access stairwell, just in front of the sigil-marked door. He still had the sigil-marked key he’d taken off of one of the guards, and flipped it through his fingers as he turned towards the steel reinforced door. It hummed as the key fitted into the lock.

  A wry smile looked back at him in his reflection as he recalled his words to Cameron—his unceremonious lecture about the importance of making due when you couldn't handily rely on your abilities. Just behind him and beyond the stairwell was a not-so-living, monstrous proof of his quick thinking. Emilio la Cerva, acclaimed alchemist, would die only to become Leroy's bragging rights. Proof that Leroy could prove a point. If he'd been a half-decent man, Leroy might've felt differently. But, he wasn't. So bragging right he'd be.

  Leroy pulled down the door handle and opened it.

  Noxious fumes from the main processing plant above hit him like a truck, and he very nearly reeled at the alchemical scent.

  With a pivot, Leroy deftly withdrew his P89 from under his gun harness, and pointed it with a single hand in the direction of the large metal vat that stood out like a sore thumb. Inside were all of the alchemical components that made ether what it was: liquified garou adrenal gland, lycan blood, and whatever the hell gave its blue tint. Among that unholy trinity was something that made it highly flammable, as Emilio had rightfully warned when the guards had all pulled their guns on Leroy.

  Leroy narrowed his gaze and aimed with baited breath.

  He had no way of knowing if it would be an immediate explosion or one that would take its sweet time.

  “Ah, screw it,” Leroy muttered.

  He aimed. He fired.

  The air hissed, and Leroy’s eyes widened.

  He closed the door as quickly as he was able to, and the sigils that covered the reinforced steel whined. Leroy could smell the explosion before he could feel its undeniable tremor: rancid alchemical fumes were sandwiched between dust and cinder. Sure, that door kept things out, but sigilmasonry wasn’t all powerful, and it wasn’t as if every wall in the basement had been marked with the sigils needed to contain an explosion of that caliber.

  Which meant that, even if the door itself could survive the explosion, it didn’t mean the surrounding walls, pillars, or infrastructure would be spared. If Leroy stayed and braced, that door wouldn’t flatten him, but something else would.

  He didn’t have a moment to spare.

  In due time that basement and everything inside of it would cave in on itself, and Leroy didn’t want to stick around to see if he was included in that pile of rubble. With as much speed as he could muster, Leroy bolted up the stairwell that led to the central processing plant.

  One waterskin left. It would have to do.

  Behind him, the walls were caving in. Rubble fell, each noise louder than the last, each noise a warning. They all told him one thing: move.

  Leroy threw his final waterskin in front of him and dived up along the concrete stairwell.

  Before he could fall flat onto his face, he clenched a fist and pulled with one arm. Water solidified into a jagged, disc-shaped platform that he planted both of his feet into. Its circumference was wide enough for him to fit on, but the platform was thin. Dangerously thin. If anything hit it, it would surely shatter. He guided it forward with two fingers, and with a sudden jolt, he glided upwards.

  Concrete and rubbled fell behind him and from above, and with baited breath, he bobbed and weaved on his frigid-disc, deftly avoiding a death by sudden impact.

  Sweat ran along his brows and temples. His heartbeat pulsed in his chest. He was nearly in the clear.

  The ceiling fissured.

  And it fell. All of it, slamming into the stairwell corridor and flattening into it.

  Leroy only just barely made it out, and even in doing so, the sheer impact of the crash behind him caused the thin ice-disc to shatter and sent him hurling across the processing plant. He skidded across the ground like a skipping stone, and each time he hit the floor, it granted him a new bruise and welt, each one worse than the last.

  He crashed into one of the many surrounding steel pillars. The metal rang out triumphantly when it came into contact with his back, and Leroy groaned and gasped for air. Winded, wounded, tired. Leroy planted a hand into the ground, and slowly but surely forced himself up to a kneel. Blood trailed down the sides of his mouth and stained his blonde-white beard in speckles of red. Something was surely broken, he just didn't know what, and probably wouldn't until his adrenaline finally died down.

  Leroy’s checkered flat cap had fallen off his head during his unceremonious return to the processing plant.

  With a hefty groan, he pushed himself off his knees and stood, and nearly limped over to grab it, dusting it off over his dark jeans—now caked in dust, much like the rest of his —body before he placed it back onto his head.

  Sirens blared.

  Emergency lights kicked in, a reddish-pink. He’d survived that basement cave-in by the skin of his teeth, but there was no telling how those tremors and impacts might’ve rattled the entire processing plant, and Leroy had no way of predicting the scale of what damage was yet to come.

  Leroy exhaled, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

  Not good.

  With one final adjustment to his flat cap, he glanced around, and with a single raised brow, scoffed to himself with a wry half-smile. Not a single employee was left on the floor, which meant Cameron hadn’t listened, hadn’t waited for the signal, and hadn’t done what he was told. And he’d saved lives because of it. For some reason, the thought of that made Leroy smile.

  Amidst the blaring of the emergency sirens, somehow, a nagging voice pierced through, and with it, the sound of twin doors swishing open. Leroy glanced over his shoulder. Standing in the doorway was Cameron. Leroy squinted. Blood stained his body, one of his arms hung somewhat limp, and he was missing half of his right ear.

  “Hey!” Cameron yelled.

  He carried a woman on his back; olive-skinned, curly black hair with maroon undertones. She was unconscious, or seemed to be, and had a lab coat covering most of her body. Guts whirred around Cameron’s heat triumphantly, and standing to Cameron’s side was Janice of all people.

  “Hey,” Leroy answered.

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  JANICE OLIVERA

  EMILIO LA CERVA

  TANIA ACKERMAN

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