CHAPTER 27: LOOKING FORWARD TO THE DAY

  CYPRUS ALLEY—NOVEMBER 19th, 1992 | LATE EVENING

  ?

  Be wary, but do not cower in fear. This is a danger you are meant to run towards. Not away from.

  Leroy scoffed at Yaerzul’s interruption.

  The demon’s voice was cold in his head, and every word hurt his mind more than the last. Be wary, but stand strong. He expected no less from Yaerzul, whose contradictions no longer surprised him. He’d been hissing in Leroy’s ear ever since Gideon revealed himself, whispering commands between sweet nothings, all with the intention to get him to fight. Leroy had every intention of doing that anyways, but Yaerzul’s motives were more sinister. In Gideon was a danger so pronounced that Yaerzul likely had a chance—finally—to collect on Leroy’s soul.

  Around them, ice had formed along the asphalt, spreading like a disease and encrusting the streetlamps and the handful of crashed cars in the street. Power surged through Leroy, and a cold air encircled his body, ever-present, drawn from the dense fog that seemed omnipresent within the city limits of Brinehaven.

  As much as it gave him a blatant advantage, the injuries he’d received from Rachel—still in the process of healing—added further layers to this whole thing. A single slip up and Gideon would almost certainly get the jump on him. He’d need to be smart, relentless, and focused. There was no room for error.

  “Gideon, was it?” Leroy asked.

  Gideon remained half-concealed by a large necrotic hand, where five fingers pressed into the ground, leaking shadows and darkness. It had protected him from Leroy’s sudden frozen expansion, and Gideon stepped slightly out from under one of the fingers that shielded him, hands still within the pockets of his burgundy blazer.

  “I’ve heard of you, you know,” Gideon stated, voice as calm and cold as the ice around him.

  “Only good things, I hope,” Leroy said with a wry smile.

  “I’ve heard that you are.. effective. That you are good at what you do. Seasoned, even,” Gideon admitted.

  “Something like that, yeah,” Leroy said.

  “My expansion has been rapid. Sporadic. I suppose the Civic & Occult Authority could’ve hired you, but typically, with demonic contractors, they’d send the Special Response Unit. And yet, here you stand. So, it couldn’t be that.”

  Leroy waited for him to finish, though all of Gideon’s inquiring was beginning to bother him. He rubbed his beard in a blatant display of exasperation, and kept his grip tight along his P89—which had been so aptly returned to him by Cameron only a few minutes ago. Whatever was going on in there was beyond him, but the commotion was audible: the noise of crashing, thrashing, and the odd shout here and there.

  A plan was a plan, but that look Cameron had given him was one that Leroy understood all too well.

  It was a gaze of purpose that wouldn’t take no for an answer. He had something to handle with David St. James, and Leroy could respect that. He only hoped that Cameron would take care of things quickly, and some semblance of order would rise from the chaos thus far.

  “You done?” Leroy asked curtly.

  Gideon stared at him. “It was Marcus, wasn’t it?”

  Leroy remained silent.

  Gideon’s gaze sharpened. “But he has a criminal record. Therefore, he’s ineligible to hire an arbiter. And I know your type. You don’t do pro-bono work, so he must have something on you, or—”

  “Seems you have something against him, taking out all his informants north of Huang’s laundromat. He screw you over?” Leroy asked, tucking his P89 inside of his brown leather jacket. He had a feeling that his gun wouldn’t do much for him. Not against a man like Gideon.

  Tension erupted along Gideon's features. “I brokered deals on his behalf in the places he refused to go; which was everywhere outside of his damned nightclub. Mentioning his name gets you far in most places. Keeps you safe. But the last job I did for him was in the South End, where the power of names goes to die.”

  “You were an errand boy, then,” Leroy stated.

  Gideon smiled at the word. “For a long time, I’d called myself a liaison. It wasn’t until I was facing certain death that I realized I was just that—an errand boy—and in some sense, I have him to thank for this power. This gift.”

  “Gift,” Leroy scoffed, shaking his head. “Whatever you think you need this twisted power for, Gideon, it isn’t worth it.”

  Gideon’s resolve remained cast-iron. “It will be.”

  “Your vow. I’m guessing it has something to do with Marcus?” Leroy asked.

  He imagined Gideon’s vow was a simple one—kill Marcus Velvet. Demonic contracts were all steeped in stupid plights like that, made on the foundations inherent to human sin: revenge, power, greed, so on and so forth.

  “Yes,” Gideon answered. "And if you let me do what I must, you’d be saving yourself the trouble of any further dealings with him.”

  Leroy considered it for a long, muted moment.

  A part of Leroy thought to let him walk towards Spectre, and to point him in the direction of Marcus. If he made it to Marcus, that snake of a man would be all but dead, and Leroy doubted anyone would be able to stop Gideon by that point. Contractors were powerful in their own right, but contractors in proximity to fulfilling their vow were at their strongest. Difficult, painstakingly persistent, with heightened access to their demonic patron’s power.

  “You worked for him. Should know it isn’t that simple,” Leroy said.

  Gideon smiled. “Ah. You owe him a favor.”

  “Two,” Leroy clarified. “But there’s another arrangement there. As much as he’s got me by the balls, he also has information I need to get a job done—and stupid as it sounds, Marcus is my best bet. Greasy as he is, you and I both know that if he’s good for anything, it’s his intel.”

  “I see,” Gideon said plainly.

  “One of us is going to Hell today, Gideon, and if I’m being frank, I’m not sure who it’ll be. Either way, I’ll drop by and say hello to you once we’re both six feet under,” Leroy said, and tipped his hat.

  Gideon smirked. “I’ll be looking forward to the day, Leroy.”

  ?

  Gideon dropped to a single knee and plunged a single finger into the ground. Below his feet, the ice hadn’t reached him, and instead, there was only what seemed to be a pool of darkness.

  One of the necrotic, black-outlined fingers encasing him dissipated and re-appeared behind Leroy, warping outward from the shadows casted by the ice-covered cars.

  Leroy had a split second to think.

  With his right hand, he snapped two fingers up.

  Several walls of ice rose at once, building themselves from the fog, and the finger pierced through all but the last of them. A close call. Lucky, even. One less wall and that shadowy nail would’ve pierced straight through him.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  With a sudden turn, he faced Gideon, now only covered by four protective fingers.

  Leroy clenched with his other hand, and twisted his wrist in the direction of Gideon. A frozen dome erupted from the icy ground and trapped Gideon inside of it with the strange, four-fingered necrotic hand. His plan was simple: trap him, ensure he couldn't move and then, without a moment's warning, lower the dome and give him nowhere else to go but towards the other thing he'd have prepared for him. Not a wall—but weapons. Lots and lots of weapons.

  Still behind the cover of his final ice wall, Leroy whipped his arms back, two fingers pointed on either hand, and drew them up.

  Ice rose up from the frozen ground and shaped itself into javelins; dozens upon dozens of them.

  Frozen spears loomed over the icy dome, and with great strain, Leroy held them up with only one of his hands—using the other to clench and pull once more. The dome shattered into the ground, returning to the asphalt as shattered ice. Leroy swiped his fingers down into where Gideon stood, steering all of the frigid javelins at him in unison.

  No blood. Not even a yelp. Leroy squinted, only for his eyes to widen.

  Darkness leaked from the four-fingered abyssal hand. It clasped itself around Gideon, effectively protecting him from all of the frozen javelins that had pierced the hand itself. Shadow and flesh melded into one distinctly grotesque-looking makeshift shield. Not bad. Gideon was new to all of this, and even still, maintained a great level of control over his demonic contractor abilities.

  And it seemed he had another trick up his sleeve.

  The hand sank into its own shadow with Gideon in it. It re-emerged with Gideon inside where the other finger—the fifth one—still remained stuck in the final ice wall, shadows attaching themselves to reform the entire hand with Gideon inside of its grasp.

  On Gideon's intuitive command, the abyssal hand released its grasp from him, and crawled towards the final remaining ice wall that Leroy lingered behind. It was fast, faster than its size should've allowed for, and Leroy was overtaken by this fact, both awestruck and surprised. The combination, in turn, lead to a moment of hesitation. A moment that would've been better spent acting.

  All of its fingers grabbed onto the frozen barrier and crushed it flat.

  Ice, dust, and debris flew outwards, and Leroy couldn’t see a thing. His heart drummed in his chest, and next he knew, a talon of shadow cleaved through his side—cutting a chunk of his side out and spattering blood onto the frozen ground.

  Leroy whisked his fingers up, and created a small pillar, raising himself into the air, if only to buy himself a hair’s breadth of a second.

  He focused his gaze onto his wound, and a dim blue glow erupted along his blood, freezing the deep laceration closed. It hurt like all hell, and a groan escaped him, but he had no other choice. Better to have numbed, freezing skin than to bleed out.

  Gideon’s abyssal hand clasped around the pillar of ice and broke it with a sudden grip.

  Before Leroy could hit the ground, he rose a small platform, and another, and another, building a row of steps that only just barely allowed him to avoid getting grabbed by the fingers.

  Once on the ground, he rode a self-propelling ice path, shifting and swerving away from the hand that chased him by the skin of his teeth.

  With both hands, he whisked his fingers up, and recycled the ice he’d laid onto the ground. This was an arena of his own making—and Gideon needed to be reminded of that.

  Rows of shards rose, levitating like a small battalion of frigid short-swords, and with a sudden pivot along his ice-path, he directed them towards Gideon.

  Gideon’s eyes thinned in focus.

  He plunged his own hand into the ground, recalling the abyssal hand as it re-emerged in front of him.

  Each of the fingers on the hand contorted, flicking away the ice shards where they could, but the sheer volume of them found a way to sneak through the gaps of Gideon’s defenses. Only a handful of them pierced him—some shot straight through his body and others only lodged themselves halfway into his frame. Blood spattered onto the ground.

  Leroy skidded to a halt along his ice path, squinting.

  No sign of movement from Gideon, and his dark sentinel seemed unresponsive. For a moment, Leroy thought he’d dealt the decisive blow and put an end to the whole thing. But that was wishful thinking. Too good to be true. Gideon proved him right only a moment later.

  The dark-soaked hand that covered him grabbed him and sank into the shadows.

  Leroy couldn’t know where he was going to appear, only that he was going to appear, and quicker than he’d have time to counter.

  Instead, he needed to think with precaution.

  Leroy clenched two fists and twisted.

  Fog in the air zipped towards his body and hardened into an icy armor, covering his skin and numbing it all the same. It was a far cry from what Cameron could do, and it might end up hurting more than helping; but it was worth a shot. Ice stacked on ice and the bulwark of armor expanded outward, layering itself three times over in anticipation of Gideon’s next move.

  A wave of umbral wisps exhaled from where the massive hand re-emerged, slipping out of the large shadow casted by the front facade and signage of the Nightingale theater. It released Gideon, setting him free onto the sidewalk.

  From afar and with a steeled gaze, Gideon sunk his hand further into the pool of shadows, and in the briefness of that moment, Leroy allowed himself an opportunity to put together everything he'd just seen.

  It was an odd set of abilities, but demonic contractors all manifested their occult powers differently. Where Leroy could freeze water and liquid and subsequently manipulate it, Gideon's contract let him presumably summon the actual hand of the demon who he sold his soul to. It had all of the bases covered: offense, defense, and, most notably, the ability to sink into the shadows and come out through another one. With Gideon, too. In another life, he would've made one hell of an arbiter.

  The abyssal hand re-emerged from the shadows closest to Leroy and grabbed hold of him. It squeezed, compelled to do the bidding of Gideon like the strange and twisted specimen of occult decay that it was.

  Two layers of the frigid armor shattered, leaving Leroy with only one layer and barely enough time to consider his options. He looked down. Ice still remained on the asphalt, and he had more than enough.

  A pillar of ice rose beneath his feet, ejecting him into the air. He landed on the ground, hard, and groaned as his heavy frame skidded along the icy surface. The last layer of his frozen armor shattered, bracing him from an otherwise problematic fall.

  When he turned to face where Gideon had been crouched down, he noticed Gideon hadn’t moved in the slightest, and kept his hand submerged in darkness. The bigger, meaner, uglier hand, however, was still yet to be found. It was gone. Leroy’s eyes scanned his surroundings.

  There were far too many shadows in the area for him to anticipate where it was going to emerge from, and he waited with bated breath.

  Fingers crawled out from the vast darkness of the Nightingale’s building shadow closer to where Leroy had landed along the sidewalk.

  Leroy clenched his teeth.

  It was getting closer to him by the second, but he couldn’t afford a mistake. Not now.

  He had to goad Gideon into acting with tenacity—too much for his own good. Leroy had to be decisive, but more than that, he had to be cunning. Leroy remained exactly how he was: prone and on the ground, seemingly defenseless. The necrotic hand raised itself up and prepared to crash down onto Leroy, to flatten him into a bloody mass.

  Do something.

  “Yeah, Yaerzul,” Leroy said, brows furrowed in concentration. “I am.”

  Right before the hand could collide with him, Leroy clenched both of his hands and pulled. Ice contorted to his will. All of it. Within the slither of a second, every ounce of ice that covered the ground piled in on itself, growing rapidly and without warning. A massive spike rose in front of Leroy and skewered through Gideon’s shadowy conjuration, and grew to be nearly as tall as the theater itself.

  From afar, Gideon crouched with his hand still plunged into the shadows and shouted indiscriminately, not in pain, but in open defiance of the fact that Leroy’s patience had paid off. The hand writhed and its fingers contorted, as if breaking its own decaying bones to adjust and re-caliberate—and there was no blood, only a darkness which leaked out from a palm-sized hole.

  Gideon withdrew his own hand and tried to plunge it back down into the shadows adjacent to him, and made an effort to shove his hand back down into the darkness, perhaps hoping that he’d be able to re-conjure his sentry hand from a different set of shadows. Each attempt failed. The abyssal hand wasn’t touching any shadows, and therefore, couldn’t sink.

  And by his third try, Leroy was intent on not allowing him a fourth.

  Leroy focused on the fog that lingered around Gideon. A dim blue glow filled the air as its vapor was turned to ice, and with both hands, Leroy whisked two fingers forward and down. Chains of ice sprawled forth from the mist and latched onto Gideon, encasing his body in a new set of frigid bindings.

  Gideon fell forward onto the side of his face, and the noise of his fall was only just barely drowned out by the sound of Cameron exiting the Nightingale.

  Amidst the contorting of the shadowy hand and Gideon’s struggle to escape, there was an absolute silence, filled only by Leroy’s voice. “Hey!”

  Cameron looked at Gideon, then towards Leroy, raising his voice so that Leroy could hear him. “Hey.”

  “You do what you need to?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  Leroy nodded. “Yeah.”

  I hope you all enjoyed, this was a lot of fun to write. There are a few things I want to cover as some ending notes as well:

  - On demonic contracts, just to reiterate! Each demonic contractor makes a vow when they accept a contract. As Leroy mentions, contractors are stronger, so to speak, when in direct proximity to accomplishing their vow (hence, his unwillingness to let Gideon get to the club where Marcus actually is).

  - Final note on contracts: as you can see, each one is different. I wouldn't go as far as to say there are 'classifications' of demonic contracts, since they are all so varied.

  At any rate, thanks again for your continued support everyone.

  LEROY WATERS

  GIDEON DRAVES

  CAMERON KESSLER

  Enjoying BRINEHAVEN? If so, please a review or a rating, it helps this story gain much needed visibility!