CHAPTER 52: SACRAMENT OF THE THRESHOLD

  GARLAND HEIGHTS—NOVEMBER 23rd, 1992 | EARLY MORNING

  ?

  Cameron paced back and forth, his hands deep in the pockets of his gray cargo pants. Sooner or later, he knew he’d have to come to terms with what he was, but up until today, he’d never given it much thought.

  It was one thing to be deemed a threat. To be labeled occult, in the legal sense of the word, as his one-time defense lawyer Rhonda Slater had explained to him oh-so-many weeks ago. At the very least, his existence was damning enough to almost earn him a permanent stay at Blackpool Penitentiary, as opposed to whatever prison he’d be sent to if he was a mundy.

  Now, he didn’t know if he was damned in general.

  His pacing eased to a sudden halt, and he stared at his open palm, leering into the callouses and scars. Rite of the Whispered-Whatever. With a sudden pivot, he glanced towards Leroy, his gray eyes tightening into a display of hollowed anger.

  “You said that the people who know things, whoever the fuck they are, men of letters, or scholars, or whatever—you said that they think it’s one of two things. I’m either going where you’re going once you’re dead and gone, or I’m going nowhere at all.”

  Leroy shook his head from side to side in quiet agreement. “Well. Yeah. One of the two.”

  “Forget this Rite! Once all is said and done, I’m either forced to share the rest of fucking eternity with you, or, or.. or, what? It’s just black? It’s just nothing? Limbo?!”

  “Don’t know,” Leroy admitted.

  Cameron lowered himself to a squat and held his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

  He heard Leroy pacing over towards him, popping a squat himself, albeit with a groan. He placed a heavy hand on Cameron’s back. “Look. Throwing a hissy fit over it isn’t going to help. In fact, it isn’t going to do anything. I mean, shit, Kessler. You are what you are. Can’t change that.”

  Cameron swiped his hand away, stood up, and continued pacing. Hot breath escaped him like the smoke of a new flame, and with a set jaw, he pointed a finger in Leroy’s direction, brows narrow, face tight, voice sharp as a knife.

  “You made the choice to sell your soul. You damned yourself. I didn’t have a choice. I never had a choice,” Cameron declared.

  Leroy stood back up and rested a hand on his hip. “My point still stands. You are what you are, and you don’t seem to whine about it when it serves you. How many times has that white ivory saved you from an early death, Kessler?”

  If Cameron’s raven-black hair was long enough to pull, he’d be ripping it out of his skull. “That doesn’t matter! My options after I drop fucking dead, Leroy, are spending the rest of.. of forever, with you! With you! Or, it’s nothing! Nothing at all! Just going to sleep and never, ever waking up!”

  “Better get used to me, then,” Leroy said curtly.

  “No, you better get used to me,” Cameron said, his voice croaking with impassioned contempt. He flashed his Ring of Mutualism. “And you better fucking hope that there’s nothing waiting for me once I’m gone. We won’t have these in Hell.”

  “No,” Leroy admitted. “We won’t. Now, are you done? Clock is ticking, Kessler, and we have a little under two days to get you through this. I need you primed and ready for the raid.”

  Cameron turned around and resumed his pacing. “I am ready.”

  “You aren’t,” Leroy said firmly. “Last time we were at Spectre, you just barely beat a mundy by the skin of your teeth.”

  “Yeah, an ex-fucking commando or super agent, or something,” Cameron retorted.

  “Look. This mess with the favors, with Marcus Velvet, it all boils down to the fact that we weren’t the shot-callers on that day. We were the ones who lost. Had our backs against the wall. You think Marcus will extend that same deal to us if we show up, guns blazing again, with every intention to get rid of him?”

  “No,” Cameron muttered.

  “No,” Leroy said matter-of-factly. “He’ll kill you. He’ll kill me. Simple as.”

  “Yeah, well, you should’ve had more waterskins, or something,” Cameron retorted. “Otherwise that sword chick wouldn’t have kicked your ass like she did, and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Or! Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t have used me as a goddamn human riot shield!”

  Leroy pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, well, maybe not, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, these hissy fits don’t do anything. We’re at where we’re at, and the fact of the matter is I need you to be better than you are now. Cameron Kessler now doesn’t cut it. Cameron Kessler after the Rite of the Whispered Name just might.”

  Cameron ceased pacing, and found himself a wooden palette to sit on. “Fine. What do I need to do, then?”

  “Go inward! And go deep, very, very deep, into the so-called soul that may or may not be writhing around in your punk-ass little chest,” a voice answered, rough and patchy with undertones of a nicotine addiction.

  She emerged from the far side of the junkyard and made her way to the clearing from the office nook of Lieberman Stack and Scrap.

  She had to be about fix-foot-nine, but her heels made her closer to six-feet-tall. Her head was bald, and she had a spiked choker around her neck. Black lipstick, black eyes, black fingerless gloves, high-waisted black slacks. A tweed blazer one size too big covered her torso, with the sleeves rolled up the elbows. An assortment of tattoos covered her body like a mural of occult appreciation. Symbols, glyphs, the works. Not a shred of skin was spared, save for her face.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  A leather utility belt was unceremoniously strung along her waist, with all manner of cloth pouches, mini-holsters for what looked like long pieces of chalk, candle sticks, and trinkets he assumed to be talismans or something otherwise esoteric in nature.

  She rested her arm on Leroy’s shoulder, and smiled a pretty, haunting smile. A cigarette hung from between two of her fingers.

  “Kessler, meet—”

  “Moira Saunter. Arbiter, witch, and, last but not least, bassist and frontwoman of Siren Song. Leroy, you got my money?” Moria asked.

  “Once we're done here, yeah,” Leroy said, moving to the side just enough for arm to fall back into place.

  “Siren Song? What the fuck is that?” Cameron asked, unimpressed.

  Moira paced over to him and threw a finger in his face. “Don't get lippy with me, kid. Siren Song is the best upcoming act out of Garland Heights, thank you very much.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never heard of you guys,” Cameron retorted.

  “Well, you wouldn’t,” Leroy stated.

  “Hold on,” Cameron said, smacking Moira’s finger out of his face. “She’s an arbiter?”

  “And a witch,” Leroy said. “And as it happens, we can’t do the Rite of the Whispered Name without one.”

  Moira took a drag from her cigarette. “Not true. Having a witch around just lets you skip some steps, cut off the fat. Go straight to the lean and mean meat. Think of me as your short cut—is that a sprite on your belt loop, kid?”

  Cameron glanced down at Guts. “Yeah.”

  Moira crouched down and made faces at it. Guts did not blink, but tilted to the side ever so slightly, as if confused by her antics. Cameron glanced at Leroy, unable to hide his awkward confusion, and Leroy just shook his head, as if to suggest Cameron either ignore it, or keep his mouth shut.

  “Cute,” Moira said. “A wind sprite. Curious little things, though, spritebinding has never been my forte. Where’d you get it?”

  “Uh—”

  Leroy cleared his throat. “Moira. The arbitration note I wrote you is pretty clear, yeah? The Rite. Let’s get on with it.”

  Moria rested a hand on her hip and glanced at her shoulder and stuck out her tongue.

  ?

  “Quit moving,” Moria nagged. “This is a delicate process, okay? None of that twitching stuff, kid. In fact, if you get the urge to sneeze, hold your breath. Have an itch? Ignore it. Just stay still.”

  “How long does it take, usually?” Cameron asked.

  He sat criss-cross in the center of some sort of ritual circle. Moria had withdrawn six candle sticks from her witch-looking utility belt, and set them up around Cameron. She had just finished lighting the last of them with her silver-plated Zippo lighter.

  “To be totally honest? I’ve only ever assisted one other hexling with this. Couldn’t tell you, kid,” Moria noted. “It’s not the typical route. The Rite of the Whispered Name is meant to be intuitive, natural. Something that comes to you—not something you seek. It happens when it happens, not when you want it to happen, and typically, the common denominator is.. well, age.”

  Leroy sat on a wooden palette a ways away, arms crossed, face pulled into that same tired half-scowl that he usually wore when he didn’t have anything to say. He’d forfeited the reins to Moira, and Cameron was beginning to wonder how much she’d actually be able to help. Her admission wasn’t one that brought Cameron much comfort, and was starting to question if she really even knew what she was doing to begin with.

  Cameron glanced at Leroy. “Yeah. Leroy more or less said the same thing.”

  Moria removed both of her high heels, much to Cameron’s surprise, and used one of the heels to begin carving an array of circles and symbols between the small lit candles. It would have to do. Chalk, which he figured she normally used, probably wouldn’t work all that well in the dirt of the junkyard’s clearing.

  “So, a few things you should know,” Moria began, seemingly deep in focus. “What I’m doing for you, or, to you, I guess, is called the Sacrament of the Threshold.”

  Camroned grimaced. “So, a ritual for my ritual.”

  “More or less,” Moria said matter-of-factly. “It lets you go where you aren’t supposed to go; which what we witches call, naturally, the Threshold. Think of it as the line that separates life from death. The in-between. Near-death, but not death itself.”

  His eyes widened. “What? How the fuck does that help me, Moira?”

  Moira finished carving the array, and placed her hell onto the ground. “We’re dangling your soul, or lack thereof, as... cheese. The essence of the demon you’ve inherited is the rat.”

  “Alright, and?” Cameron asked.

  “And we know that hexlings get stronger with age, yes? So, the implication is that, unlike demonic contractors, where the demon actively wants to steer its contractor into danger, whatever part of the demon you inherited wants you to stay alive for as long as it can. Don’t ask me about the big overarching why. I don’t know about that why. But I do know that’s why the Sacrament of the Threshold can be used to jumpstart the Rite of the Whispered Name.”

  Cameron’s head began to ache. Too many whys, too little else to work with. “Right.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t be alone there. You’ll have one hell of an anchor,” Moira said with a wink. “And trust me. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

  “Trust a witch who I’ve never met,” Cameron said. “Right.”

  Moira stared daggers into him. “I can just as easily leave you in the damn Threshold, you little shit. Don’t bite the hand that feeds.”

  “Kessler,” Leroy said, just loud enough to be heard.

  Cameron glanced towards him.

  “Be careful.”

  Cameron nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

  Two days.

  That was how long he had to complete the Rite of the Whispered Name.

  Occult power hummed from the arrays and symbols carved into dirt, filling the air with a particular strain of dread that felt as inviting as it did repulsive. It was a contradiction of forces, intoxicating and fearsome all at once.

  One by one, each of the lit candles went out, only to be reignited. Flame as black as midnight erupted along the wicks, and spread down throughout the ritual circle, burning and congealing through the air all at once. Cameron’s eyes warbled in place, and his mouth was forced agape. Hairs stood up along the back of his neck, and a tightness pressed down onto his chest, heart, and throat. It wasn’t painful—it was wrong, like irregularity given physical form that sought to make him feel like an unwelcome passenger in his own body.

  Moira sat down just outside of the circle, her features obscured by the flickering and ever-growing surge of black flames, and through the veil of the crackling ebonblaze, he saw her eyes roll back behind her head. Cameron’s eyes mirrored hers, and his body surged upwards, made to levitate by an unseen and deeply aberrant force.

  And then there was black.

  Only black.

  Now we know of two: Leroy Waters and Moira Saunter. ??

  Six more remain, but they're all busy doing their own arbitration notes and contracts. Perhaps we'll see some as the story continues...

  (There are of course, the underarbiters, apprentices like Cameron who can be taken on by arbiters to eventually become one themselves, which is why we saw Minister Rostavich in that same exchange encourage Leroy to take one on--it's the only loophole to potentially have more arbiters operating in the city.)

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  MoirA SAUNTER

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