CHAPTER 58: AND ANOTHER

  GARLAND HEIGHTS—NOVEMBER 25th, 1992 | EARLY EVENING

  ?

  If Leroy already wasn’t half-dead and Cameron didn't already want to kill him, he’d want to kill him even more.

  'I’ll be making some arrangements, getting a few more helping hands,' Leroy had said. In moments like these, Cameron’s memory felt sharp as a knife. And, if memory served him right—which Cameron was almost certain of—not long before that, Leroy had made a specific point to Cameron not to make mention of anything related to the Order of the Wardens to Tania. Not even a whisper.

  And there laid Arthur, not quite clawed into a pulpy corpse just yet, sprawled out on the hood of Leroy’s poorly parked Cadillac.

  Captain Holmes had raised his pistol, barking orders like a dog whose yips and yelps fell on the deaf ears of the she-wolf that was Tania Ackerman.

  Cameron felt like he had bees beneath his skin. What a fucking mess. An avoidable one, at that, if Leroy had just been forthcoming to everyone about who exactly his so-called helping hands actually were.

  “I won’t say it again! Step away from the warden, Ms. Ackerman!” Captain Holmes shouted.

  Cameron withdrew his Reign 18 without hesitation.

  Slide check: good. Bullet chambered, bullet ready. Safety: off. Two hands wrapped themselves around the handle of the pistol. He placed one foot back, loosened his shoulders, fired, just like Leroy had taught him. It two-thirds of the Mozambique drill: two shots to the center mass. Cameron didn’t fire a third shot, which would’ve been in Tania’s head.

  By that point, she’d had her clawed hand wrapped firmly around Arthur’s tattered red ascot, the one he had tucked just below the neck of his gray tactical sweater, and had lifted him off the Cadillac. She had no issue holding him up one arm, and looked more dumbfounded and annoyed with Cameron than angry.

  She dropped Arthur back onto the dented hood of Leroy’s Cadillac.

  For some reason, its alarm just now decided to go off. In a way, Cameron was glad—he’d driven the thing straight into a street lamp just before he arrived at Esme’s, and now he could just say the whole thing was Tania’s fault. There was no street lamp: just an angry lycan who happened to see the same red cross that belonged to her father’s killer on the neck of Arthur Yeager.

  “Did you just shoot me?” Tania asked.

  The flared and incredibly spiky black maroon hair, the wolfish sideburns that’d grown along the sides of her face, the scintillating yellow of her eyes and the predatory slits that took the place of what had once been pupils, the dark gray of her skin, the black claws that jutted out of her hands like daggers. Even in her so-called ‘half step’ form, Cameron saw the awe. Not shock, awe. An exasperated, jeering awe that drew her mouth open in offended shock and revealed jagged and houndish teeth.

  “Yeah,” Cameron said.

  Tania pounced. She moved faster than Captain Holmes could recognize, closing the distance between her and Cameron before he could so much as fire off a warning shot. His trigger finger was either too slow, or she was too dexterous. Cameron’s eyes widened. Her claws were inches away from his face, threatening to give him another scar he probably wouldn’t heal from.

  There was no pain that waited for him, and no shredded skin. No sudden spurt of blood from his cheek where his nose might have very well gone missing. Tania skidded across the sidewalk and into a nearby street lamp.

  Guts whirred around Cameron’s head, agitated and jumpy.

  Tania got up quickly. “Urgh! You fucking asshole, Cameron! You shot me! Twice!”

  “And you’re not dead! I knew you wouldn't die, too! You’re a goddamn lycan, Tania, and those bullets aren’t silver! You’re being—”

  “Being what!?” Tania said. She inched closer to him, but Guts threatened to blink again, and she reconsidered.

  “I… fuck, I don’t know! Dramatic! You’re being dramatic!”

  “Dramatic!? Look with your damn eyes! He’s got the red cross on his neck! He’s one of them!”

  Captain Holmes curled his fingers into his mouth and whistled the loudest whistle Cameron had ever heard. It made the subtle ringing in his half-mutilated ear ring even more, and he winced in a pain he didn’t know he’d ever have the displeasure of experiencing. He stepped between the two of them with a weight to his boots, and an authority that demanded attention. He narrowed those beady, oxen eyes of his and immediately made towards the groaning Arthur, helping him back to his feet.

  Arthur blinked widely like he’d been punched in the head. Like he was concussed.

  Captain Holmes' head swiveled from one end to the other; from Tania to Cameron.

  “Less than a minute. It took less than a goddamn minute for you two endanger the sanctity of this whole operation. You realize that? You see the kind of commotion you’re causing here? Do you understand how lucky you are—how lucky we are—that this… this is all happening in Garland Heights, where I have the jurisdiction to clean up this mess, and have nobody bat an eye?”

  The quiet intensity of Captain Holmes’s voice wasn’t loud like thunder. It was like a lightning hitting stone, and he was the stone that braved said lighting. Tania’s violence stirred in spite of it, but not enough to make her act on whatever bloodlust Arthur’s red cross inspired in her. Cameron tucked his Reign 18 back into the front of his belt, and issued a glance towards Guts.

  Guts didn’t calm down. The wind sprite kept blinking in warning, but clearly wouldn’t act on its perception of danger unless Tania attempted to blitz him again.

  It wasn’t until the shouting died down that Cameron took notice of the prying eyes. There weren’t that many pedestrians to speak of along the sidewalks outside of Allure Artificery, but enough passersby were already interested in the severely misparked Cadillac that it made it all the more easy for them to shift their attention to what very well could’ve been cold blooded murder. Not to mention the handful of cars on the narrow street itself; one way traffic or not there were enough vehicles in park to add several more pairs of eyes and further unwanted curiosity.

  “I want you both to think, with your head,” Captain Holmes continued, “about what could have happened if we were in, oh, I don’t know, Cyprus Alley. If Marcus Velvet had one of his countless goddamn prying eyes leering at us from behind God knows where. From the inside of shops, or apartments, or cars. Now, think about how easily that information would get back to him, and how easily he could take care of us.”

  “You done?” Tania asked, her eyes narrowed. The bullet wounds Cameron had put into her back were already closing.

  “... am I done?” Captain Holmes asked, dumbfounded.

  “Tania,” Cameron said.

  “Don’t ‘Tania’ me, asshole,” Tania retorted.

  “You’re not even bleeding anymore,” Cameron said.

  “Ah-huh, but I am,” Arthur said, raising a hand, if only to gather everyone’s attention, then pointed at himself. “And Leroy didn’t say that there’d be a fiend.. hnng.. bitch hits like a damn truck. ”

  Cameron set his jaw. “Not now, Arthur.”

  “Say that again,” Tania said, flexing her fingers, her claws moving like they each had a mind of their own. “Give me a second reason on top of the first one I have. It would make my day.”

  “You know, technically, as a warden, I am duty bound to slay you, lady,” Arthur said.

  Captain Holmes pivoted and gripped Arthur by the same tattered red ascot that Tania had grabbed only moments ago. “My city, my rules, my jurisdiction. You understand? No fighting. No fighting. No. Fucking. Fighting. All of you, inside. Right now.”

  Tania stood primed and ready to continue. Captain Holmes picked up on it, treaded towards her, shelved his standard-issue service pistol, and withdrew his Civic and Occult Authority badge.

  “Goes for you too. I can just as easily haul you back to Sterling Yard, put you into a cage, and give you a collar that’ll do more than shock you. Cut the lycan bullshit, go inside, and go upstairs.”

  Tania stepped up to him, leveling her yellow-eyed stare into his squared visage. At almost exactly six-feet, Captain Holmes had at least five inches on her, maybe six—even if her frayed and spiked half-stepped lycan hair made her look a bit taller than she was.

  Captain Holmes sneered in her face, nearly pressed his forehead against hers. “Now.”

  Cameron paced over to her, and Guts followed suit. He placed a hand on Tania’s shoulder, albeit not too suddenly, and nodded back inside Esme’s shop. Tania shoved past him and entered, her gray skin fading bit by bit with each step and her hair settling back into its normal black maroon curls. Arthur nodded to Captain Holmes and entered behind them.

  Cameron lingered by the door a moment.

  Captain Holmes withdrew a small hand-held walkie talkie from his utility belt. “Holmes, Dispatch, 8091."

  Cameron heard a crackling voice giving him the go-ahead.

  "10-79," Captain Holmes continued. "Requesting Constable Heathcliff and Constable Briggs to 17th and West. Over.”

  ?

  Esme’s patience was something else.

  She’d come close, oh so very close, to blowing a fuse, and she’d been the first one down the stairs after some of the smoke had settled and Captain Holmes had made his call. Cameron sat chaperoning between Arthur, seated to one side of him, and Tania, seated to the other.

  When she finally finished assessing the damage, there was a look on Esme’s freckled face that Cameron knew he’d never forget. She issued a final cursory glance and exhaled with enough breath to move a mountain.

  “Captain Holmes,” she began.

  “I—.. Ms. O’Doherty, it looks bad,” he said.

  “No, Captain, it is bad,” she corrected. “But what has happened has happened. There is a Department of Risk Assessment and Renewal for this very reason. Though, I don’t trust that they’d be able to make up for the value lost in commodities. Here is what would happen, Captain.”

  “I assure you, Ms. O’Doherty—”

  “Do let me finish, please,” Esme said.

  Captain Holmes nodded.

  “They will arrive here and they will quote me only for the broken window. They will not, however, cover the costs of the artificed objects either damaged or destroyed which lay sprawled about in broken glass or on the pavement. So, unless you would like for me to contact Rhoda Slater to file a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Brinehaven for, among other things, property damage, reckless endangerment, and certain unsanctified and perhaps even unlawful quartering of my places of business and my place of residence, I have a suggestion for you. It is one I strongly advise.”

  Captain Holmes cleared his throat. “I’m all ears, Ms. O’Doherty.”

  “You will arrange an empty check to be sent to me. I will appraise, Captain Holmes, the combined total value of every artificed object currently compromised, and write in a number that is both fair and appropriate for everything that has transpired so far. Yes?”

  Captain Holmes nodded. “Consider it done, Ms. O’Doherty.”

  Esme nodded, seemingly pleased. “And my property taxes will be waived for this year.”

  “And your property taxes will be waived this year, Ms. O’Doherty,” Captain Holmes repeated.

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  Esme eyed him up and down. “And you will buy me a drink when this is all over.”

  Captain Holmes smiled. “That I will, O’Doherty—”

  “Esme. Just Esme.”

  Cameron’s eyes widened. He glanced towards Tania, who scoffed, smirked, and shook her head, and then towards Arthur, who slowly clapped his hands in Esme’s direction.

  “Well, Esme, I’d rather take you to dinner,” Captain Holmes said, nodding with a soft smile.

  Esme smiled back. “Dinner it is.”

  ?

  Cameron stared out of the window of Esme’s loft.

  A single Civic and Occult Authority cruiser was posted up in the middle of the road, stopping any traffic from going through. Pedestrians were allowed to pass along the sidewalks, but most of the foot traffic had died down within the three hours that passed. The lanky Constable Heathcliff stood with his arms dutifully crossed, and the husky, soft-bellied Constable Briggs sipped away at a cup of coffee from the inside of the cruiser. The door remained open and he had his feet kicked out.

  Behind him, the loft was silent, save for the drone of the TV.

  Tania wouldn’t talk to anyone. She sat not on any of the couches, but on the kitchen counter, legs criss crossed, arms crossed, her borrowed black baseball cap drawn lower along her brow ridge.

  Cameron didn’t need to be up close and personal to know that her amber eyes were firmly fixed onto Arthur—lackadaisical and completely unworried—who sat on one of the two couches in front of the coffee table, Canis strung over his lap, hands clasped behind his dreadlocks, a half-amused smile on his face as he watched whatever program was on the television.

  Leroy had since been moved from the coffee table and into Esme’s room, which wasn’t really a room, but an upstairs space defined by some railings, accessible only by way of a thin metal staircase. He’d been catching up with two days of overdue rest and likely wouldn’t want to be woken for another week. But they didn’t have a week. They had until morning at best, and there still was no plan of action. Just the tentative notion of a raid.

  Cameron anxiously checked the digital clock along Esme’s microwave.

  Captain Holmes was glued to the wall-mounted phone. Constable Davis and Constable Surry gave him the run-down on what had happened at Lieberman Scrap & Stack, and apparently had the gall to take Moira Saunter to Sterling Yard, who, of course, was released without any charges to her name.

  Cameron was called over a few times, where gave him the description of Dean Dresker, explained his involvement, how he’d attacked Leroy, and how he’d mostly likely been the one behind the death of Anthony Lieberman. It was reported to Captain Holmes that his closest living relative was, in fact, Silvio, and that he was currently in Garland Heights General Hospital damn near beaten half to death—when he learned this, Cameron felt sick to his stomach. As it turned out, Dean had gotten to Silvio before he'd gotten to Leroy, and beat the information regarding Leroy's location out of Silvio.

  If Dean Dresker was still alive, whatever career he had with the Argent Group was over, and Captain Holmes had arranged for something called the Special Response Unit to track him down. Whatever that meant.

  Cameron had only wished he’d been the one to do it. If there was anyone worthy of being one of the first prim and proper recipients of the ugly justice he’d laid out to Armisthor, it was a man like Dean Dresker.

  Cameron’s gaze settled on the living room.

  Janice and Esme were the only two talking, and they both did so with coffee cups in their hands, nodding along with shared enthusiasm over conversations that centered solely on their experiences at the Brinehaven College of the Arts. Cameron was glad, because it took Esme’s focus off of how badly her storefront had been ruined by Tania’s little stunt with Arthur: an entire display window shattered, artificed items for sale scattered on the ground.

  Footsteps prompted Cameron's good ear, and his bad ear, to perk up. He swiveled his attention toward the stairwell.

  Leroy had one side of his body pressed completely against the wall, and opted to drag his blanket-covered shoulder against the exposed brick rather than grab hold of the railing. His shirt was still off, and his body was covered in all of the gauze that had been in Esme’s measly first aid kid. Cameron could count on his hand the number of times he’d seen Leroy without his stupid checkered flat cap. In that moment he could add another finger to said count. His blonde-and-white hair, more white than blonde, was damp with grease, and his brown eyes were so dull that they could’ve been black. In the odd places where his blanket didn’t cover, Cameron could see the alchemical formulae that held together the impromptu, unorthodox applications of Janice’s Stoneskin potion.

  Cameron set his jaw. He’d never seen Leroy like this—weak, and injured to the point where he actually looked his age. His wrinkles sat deeper along the crevices of his face and each step down the thin metal staircase was heavier and slower than the last.

  By the time Leroy reached the bottom step, he slipped.

  Cameron rushed over. He caught him and held him up. Leroy glanced at him like he didn’t recognize who Cameron even was, and Cameron gritted his teeth, guiding him towards the center of the loft’s living room where most everyone was gathered.

  Tania pushed herself off the counter with every intention to confront the barely conscious Leroy, but Cameron glared at her in a way that he never thought himself capable of. Tania matched his intensity, but only for a moment. It didn’t last, and in that moment, his wolf was bigger and badder than her wolf.

  Captain Holmes backed away from the wall mounted phone, which he’d practically been glued to, and assisted Cameron in placing Leroy onto the couch next to Arthur. Arthur made room and stared at Leroy with his mouth agape, looking towards someone, anyone, really, to share his surprise.

  “Holy shit,” Arthur muttered. “He looks way worse than I thought. I mean, I don’t even see how he’s up and walking—”

  “Coffee,” Leroy muttered.

  Esme got up from where she was sitting. “I’ll get you the biggest mug.”

  Leroy nodded to her in thanks.

  Janice shooed Arthur off the couch and sat beside Leroy, and with a nod of the head, urged him to hold his arm out. She grabbed it and supported it, holding him in place so that he could fully lean forward. Leroy groaned and winced and laughed at himself, weakly, while shaking his head.

  “Quite the sorry looking thing I am,” Leroy said. “But—”

  Leroy’s eyes widened. Life returned to them, if only for a moment, as he coughed up and spittled blood into the white of his full beard. Tania of all people ran to the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel, and handed it towards him. Janice locked eyes with her, smiled softly, and wiped away the blood from Leroy’s face.

  “Take it slow, Leroy,” Captain Holmes said, opting to stand, arms idle and resting uniformly at his sides.

  “First,” Leroy began. “Tania. I see that look in your eyes, and I see Arthur in the side of the room, and I know you’re real pissed off, but on short notice, there’s few people capable of carrying their weight for this raid. But know this—... hnng.. this kid here, Arthur, he wasn’t involved. Kid’s so low on the totem pole he probably doesn’t even know, so save your… your rage for the person who deserves it.”

  Arthur, dumbfounded, raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “I’ll be crystal clear with you, Leroy. I’m going to be doing this thing with you because of what Cameron pointed out earlier a few days back—between Bluestein and this Velvet guy, I know that the only way out of this is if I run into the eye of the storm with you,” Tania said.

  Leroy nodded. “Glad we have an underst—”

  Tania didn’t give him the chance. “But the moment this is over, I’m done. Gone. Whatever you think you owed me, whatever you said you owed me, whatever favor I asked for for doing this? You can shove it right up your ass. Captain Holmes, when this is said and done, I want you to take Janice and I into whatever protective custody arrangement you had planned for us before this shitshow aired. Think you can do that?”

  Captain Holmes cleared his throat. “Sure thing, Ms. Ackerman.”

  Janice was dead silent.

  Cameron was too.

  Leroy cleared his throat. “Right. I.. Arthur, I asked for you and Eisenhower.”

  Arthur leveled a stare at Tania, then glanced back towards Leroy, his features softening somewhat. “They have him cleaning up the last of the garou over in the Pines with a few other wardens. The Chaptermaster said he couldn’t be spared, and he had to really, and I mean really smooth talk her to allow me to make my way over here for this bullshit.”

  Tania hadn’t moved an inch from where she was standing, and Cameron saw her fists tighten; they were clenched so firmly against her palms that there was hardly anywhere for that pressure to go. Her hands, only her hands, shifted to gray, and her black claws jutted out through her palm and out through the opposite end.

  The breath that left her thereafter was heavy and it carried the weight of loss. As far as Cameron was aware, nobody else noticed it, but Tania noticed that Cameron saw, and glanced at him with a fire in her eyes that he once saw in his own reflection. A fire that he missed. One that he yearned for.

  Tania crossed to the couch, sat down, and distanced herself from the impromptu roundtable gathered in Esme’s loft. She seemed stable enough, for now, but liable to blow at any minute. She’d put up with more shit in the last twenty-four hours alone than Cameron had in the last few weeks combined, and Cameron couldn’t tell what he was more impressed by: her rage, her patience, or her capacity to temper that patience into a rage that would be stronger and more potent than any outburst Cameron had ever had to date.

  He shifted his gaze to Arthur.

  The whole time Arthur been with them, he’d been lugging around a metal mailing tube thing on his back secured by a strap that ran over his torso. Cameron had only barely noticed it before when Tania had nearly spilled his guts on the sidewalk, and it was only now, under the light of Esme’s loft, that he could make out some of its details. It was some sort of brass or copper, wrapped tightly with rosaries from top to bottom.

  “Seems he got my message, at least, and passed it on to you,” Leroy said.

  “Yeah. About that. He wrote a note, your eyes only apparently. Here,” Arthur said, producing something from his pocket and handing it over to Leroy, “and he told me that after this, no more favors. What you’re asked for has to violate at least six or seven different ordinances, and if he wasn’t a marshal, frankly, this would be grounds for both me and him spending the next two years on… I don’t know. On some kind of probation. Or worse.”

  Leroy opened the note. He smiled that wry smile of his, his chapped lips cracking as his smile widened even further. “I figured he’d be able to pull it off.”

  “Of course he’d be able to pull it off,” Arthur said, with a newness to his voice, a proudness, “he’s second only to the Chaptermaster. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on her shit list because of it, even if he has the power to—”

  “To what?” Cameron said, arms crossed.

  Leroy and Arthur exchanged a glance.

  “You heard him,” Leroy said, raising the note. “Said my eyes only.”

  “No,” Cameron said.

  Captain Holmes glanced over at him. Then Janice did. Then Tania. Then Arthur. And finally, Esme, who had just returned from the kitchen with a freshly brewed cup of coffee for Leroy.

  “No,” Cameron repeated. “No. Arthur, the reason you almost got disemboweled on the street is because Leroy didn’t tell any of us that you’d be our outside help. And, look, it’s not my place to say, but I’ll say this much: Tania has a damn good reason for reacting the way she did. The point I’m getting at here is that maybe she wouldn’t have if you had told us to expect him, Leroy.”

  “Calculated risk,” Leroy muttered.

  “What the fuck do you mean, calculated risk? You could’ve gotten him killed,” Cameron retorted.

  Arthur cleared his throat. “If I had a vantage point, a clean shot, she wouldn’t have—”

  “Arthur, and I really mean this,” Cameron began, pointing an agitated finger in his face, “shut up. I’m saying this for your sake, don’t sit here and make a fool of yourself, alright? Leroy. Do you get what I’m saying? Do you get why I’m fucking mad right now?”

  “Yeah,” Leroy said.

  “Alright, good. Show us the note,” Cameron said, resting a hand on his hip. “Right now.”

  Leroy inhaled deeply and exhaled. He handed the note to Janice, who handed it to Esme, who handed it to Tania, who handed it to Cameron.

  LEROY WATERS,

  WHAT YOU HAVE ASKED OF ME IS, IF I MAY BE SO DIRECT, STEEP. VERY STEEP INDEED. I DWELLED ON YOUR REQUEST FOR A LONG WHILE, I IN FACT PRAYED UPON IT. GOD DID NOT ANSWER ME, BUT I FEEL THAT WITH THIS ARRANGEMENT WE MAY YET MAKE A CHILD OF GOD OUT OF A MAN WHO HAS DAMNED HIMSELF. HE MAY SERVE A GREATER PURPOSE. VATICAN CITY MUST HAVE SEEN AS MUCH, FOR THEY HAVE APPROVED MY REQUEST FOR THE DEPLOYMENT OF A CRUCIFORM. I WISH YOU AND CAMERON KESSLER LUCK IN YOUR ENDEAVORS.

  “What?” Cameron muttered. “What the hell is a Cruciform?”

  “A pain in the ass, is what it is,” Arthur said in a low, standoffish voice.

  Janice handed Leroy his cup of coffee, which he slowly took a sip from.

  “The day Marcus gave me the call to kill you, Captain Holmes, I set up a visit with Minister Rostavich, during which I asked him to give me clearance for something. I told him.. told him that I needed to gather some people for a job—this job. The raid," Leroy said.

  Each of those in the room honed their attention onto Leroy, waiting for him to continue.

  “Not long after our meeting, I phoned him again, and gave him the names of the people that he’d put into his Ledger as interim arbiters for this one job,” Leroy said, placing the coffee mug down, a groan punctuating his movements. “I did this, Captain Holmes, right before I met you at Forsythe Park. These are the names I gave him. Tania Ackerman. Eisenhower Whitfield, who couldn’t join us, Arthur Yeager, and another.”

  “The last one. Who is it?” Cameron asked.

  Leroy stared straight at him. This smile was wider than the last, more sinister, and more assured. It was the same smile he saw in that courtroom, the day that Cameron pleaded guilty to the entire world, and the day that Leroy decided that Cameron had use.

  “The only man in the world who wants to see Marcus Velvet dead more than me.”

  the Raid begins! Things are about to heat up, and I'd love to have a few more of you in our for when the Raid rolls around (but no pressure at all, always).

  Also.... sadly, the Rituals chapter for Esme is still on the backburner. I am truly sorry for the delay; I have been working overtime trying to make sure that my backlog is currently caught up with the current chapter postings. Seriously, thank you guys so much for your continued patience and understanding.

  A final note: wow! We're nearly halfway to 500 followers! :D

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  JANICE OLIVERA

  ESME O'DOHERTY

  TANIA ACKERMAN

  ARTHUR YEAGER

  CAPTAIN HOLMES

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