CHAPTER 7: BEHIND BLACK BARS

  SOUTH END—OCTOBER 17th, 1992 | AFTERNOON

  ?

  Cameron couldn’t move.

  The strength afforded to him by his transformation was sapped from his body, and there were only two things keeping him alive. The ultradense material that covered his skin and the mercy of his captor—who, behind him, mused and rambled to someone or something. Each word set Cameron’s chest aflame with a gnawing anger that compelled him to move. To do something. Anything. He groaned and groaned and groaned. No words left him. His flared teeth were still and the more he tried to move his mouth the more his lips cracked and bled.

  A biting cold plagued his face, and Cameron stared at the wall where his arm was stuck.

  Muffled and futile whelps gathered in his throat. Cameron hated that he was right. He hated that every word he’d said to Mercedes was a prediction, not a warning, and that he’d willed their demise into existence. Guilt compounded in his stomach, sloshing around like a pulp-ridden and heavy ichor that made him want to vomit until the bile burned through his skin. Every thug David had pit him against over the years paled in comparison to the rawness of his power. No bullet that had been shot at him ever pierced him. No group of bruisers, or thugs, or gangsters, had ever managed to hurt him—only themselves.

  He’d robbed and lied and beaten with such impunity that there were days he felt invincible. On those days, he was. But today was not one of those days; today was the first day he’d felt frail. He was locked in place, sniveling and powerless and utterly possessed by an anger that had nowhere to go but in.

  Cameron convinced himself that the killing of Germaine was the killing of the boy and the birth of the man he was meant to be—but there he stood, frozen, immobile. Weak. He wasn’t a man at all. He'd just lived the last six years thinking he was. In reality, he was just another victim to someone stronger than him.

  It should’ve been a thaumaturgist running with the 8th Street Gang, or maybe a hired witch working with the Lancaster Boys, or one of their captains armed with the right tools or the right abilities to shrink Cameron down to size. Instead, it was an old man. A complete stranger. Everything Cameron had built himself up to be crumbled in the span of a few minutes. All he could do was stare at the brick wall before him, and at the fractals of ice that reflected a gaunt and frost burned face.

  Hate burned in the depths of his chest, and even still, it was not potent enough to free him of his frigid prison. Cameron looked deeper into the reflection and its distortions, and his mind took him elsewhere; to a different face. To David’s face. To David, who when they needed them most, left them both for dead. To David, whose antics were the first domino in a row of many that led Leroy Waters to their doors. To David, whose ambition cost Mercedes her life. Tears welled in his eyes and froze halfway down his face.

  Cameron looked for a promise to make to himself.

  A vow. Yet the vow, if there was truly one to be made, could not be one of mere retribution. It had to be stronger than that. It had to be based firmly in the ugliest justice that Cameron could think of. And while his rage boiled, he searched, desperately, for places where it might go. There was a recipient that would be forced to bear the brunt of this. But it would not be David St. James. It was not his hands who killed Mercedes. Those hands belonged to someone else.

  “Leroy Waters?” a shrill voice asked from behind. Cameron couldn’t see it, but he heard it: two pairs of footsteps arrived at the door.

  “Heard you—... ah, shit.”

  “We will need to see your arbiter’s license,” said another voice. This one was deeper.

  “Of all the constables,” Leroy said, an audible tut leaving his mouth thereafter. “Captain Holmes must be doing this just to piss me off. Look, you two have already seen it, what, five days ago? You really going to make me dig through my pocket?”

  “It’s protocol,” said the deeper voice.

  Three sets of feet walked and gathered behind him.

  “There. Same as it looked two days ago. That look right to you, Constable Heathcliff, Constable Briggs?”

  “Yes, Mr. Waters. The ah.. the hexling. Is that him? In the ice?” asked the shrill voice.

  “That’s the one. Cameron Kessler,” said Leroy.

  “And the woman?” asked the deeper voice.

  Leroy cleared his throat. “Mercedes Garcia. One of the Sables.”

  “There is a third. Captain Holmes spoke of a David St. James, who is also mentioned in the arbitration note detailing the extent of your task. Where is he?” asked the shrill voice.

  “For Christ’s sake, I told the captain that—.. look. Take the kid. Haul him to wherever he needs to go. I’ll thaw the ice on him, just enough so that his hands aren’t covered. One of you can cuff him, and then I’ll get rid of it completely. Easy enough for all of us to understand, no?”

  Cameron saw the crystalline shards around his arms peel off like frosted scales, each of them hitting the ground one after the other. The ivory, demonic material that covered his skin was unscathed, and slowly, he felt movement return to his fingers, only to find that one restraint was traded for another. Heavy metal cuffs clanked around both of his wrists, black, like charred wood, with a milky texture and a series of glowing and pale yellow runes. Their coloring intensified and brightened as the cuffs locked into place. A numbing pain radiated through Cameron’s hands. The power he wore on his skin cracked and shattered into a deep scarlet miasma, flowing back into Cameron’s mouth, nose, ears, and eyes.

  Within seconds the ice that covered his body broke into innumerable fractals, but not quickly enough for Cameron’s bare skin to feel the brunt of the lowered temperature and the singe of the icy shards.

  He groaned and yelled, as best he could, lips still half-frozen and cracking, thin lines of blood forming around his mouth. Splotches of his skin peeled off with the ice and cold burn plagued nearly every part of his body that wasn’t clothed. His breath was heavy. His face quivered. The shouts that should have left him were reduced to whimpers trapped in his windpipe; and these noises—his weakness—were so palpable, so distinct, that he wished Leroy had bursted his eardrums to save him from the humiliation of it.

  Cameron fell into the puddle below him, face first onto the ground. Mercedes’s body remained still. Frost covered the entry wound and the exit wound, and her bronze, curly hair covered the sides of her face. Just beyond her, Cameron’s eyes focused on her sodden ushanka hat. He reached for it.

  “M-M..Merce..” Cameron’s teeth chittered.

  Two hands pulled Cameron from under his shoulders and he looked to either side of him. Black buttoned jackets greeted him alongside the accents of pale silver-colored lining. Guns tucked into holsters lingered at both of their waists, along with short blades sheathed along their lower backs. They wore belts with odds and ends: magazines for their handguns, black metal cuffs—not unlike the ones around Cameron’s wrists—and baubles, trinkets, talismans. It was the uniform of the Civic and Occult Authority.

  His eyes centered on two plaques bearing names on either one of their collars. One read CONSTABLE HEATHCLIFF, attached to the taller and skinnier one, and CONSTABLE BRIGGS, attached to the broad-shouldered, somewhat heavyset man.

  “These’ll hold?” asked the shrill voice, which Cameron saw belonged to Constable Heathcliff.

  A deeper voice responded, belonging to Constable Briggs. “They’ll hold.”

  Cameron’s vision blurred in and out. Shock, pain, fatigue. It all mixed together into a mess of heaviness that made everything slow and dull. Whatever was around his wrists was doing exactly what they mentioned: making him sick and weak. He heard only bits and pieces of what was said as he was dragged towards the door, and felt his body shift into the hands of one. He blinked. Constable Heathcliff leaned over and placed a similar set of cuffs around the still unconscious Rosco, whose long hair, Hawaiian-shirt, and oversized wife beater were all soaked.

  Rosco was picked up and hauled towards the door, same as Cameron.

  The last thing he saw was the distorted face of Leroy Waters.

  ?

  He woke to the sound of a fight.

  The holding cell he was put into was ripe with the stench of body odor, blood, and an unflushed public toilet. Cameron felt cold, even still, and the skin around his face was flush with frost burns. His lips were cracked and sore, and dull, pounding aches plagued his body from head to toe. He’d been robbed of the black hoodie and denim vest he often wore. Instead, he wore a plain black tee-shirt—and he could see on his arms that bandages had been haphazardly placed around where his skin had peeled with the ice. His wrists were free, and he rubbed the distinct, acidic-like markings on his skin. They still stung.

  “‘Ey! Knock it off, now!” someone barked. Beyond the milky-black, rune covered metal bars stood two constables of the Civic and Occult Authority.

  Cameron shifted his attention back towards the fight that ripped him out of his slumber.

  Not far from him on the opposite end of the holding cell, two men were going at it.

  The one with top position was a shorter, broad-shouldered man with tufts of reddish-brown hair and an ugly, impatient sneer. He wore nothing but a vest over a tank top, and had arms like stout tree trunks. The number eight was tattooed onto the side of his neck: something reserved for the 8th Street Gang’s crew leads. Below him, surprisingly, was a much, much larger man—fat, even—whose mass did not protect him from the guillotine choke. Cameron couldn’t make out the features of his face from where he stood, but heard him gurgle and gasp before falling onto the ground.

  The victor huffed and walked over to the far end of the bench nearest to him. No one broke the fight up in time, or rather, no one cared to, not even the constable who’d barked his order, who offered nothing more than a sidelong glance, indifferent towards the results, but seemingly content with the noise now being lowered.

  As for the holding cell, it was sparsely populated. There were the two skirmishers, and on the far bench was another. Raggedy, dirty-blonde hair extended down to his shoulders, and he wore a dress shirt, unbuttoned just enough to reveal a clunky chain. He looked older, but not old, with newly formed wrinkles and bushy sideburns. And then there was Cameron—and the one next to him, who he had only just noticed.

  Rosco: greasy brown hair, greasy face, greasy eyes, still fresh with all of the bruises that the arbiter had left him. Cameron furrowed his brows and leapt at him, pinning him against the bench. He cranked his forearm hard against Rosco’s throat.

  Heavy breaths forced their way out of his gritted teeth, carrying a seething and unresolved anger. David St. James was God knows where, Leroy Waters was nowhere in sight, and someone—anyone—had to be there to be on the receiving end of Cameron’s fury. He needed someone to hit. Something to make him feel strong, if even for a little bit, and who better than Rosco? He shared the blame with David in more ways than one. The sniveling, skinny, weasel of a man.

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  “You fucking rat,” Cameron said.

  Rosco gasped. His voice sounded crunchy. “I..I-.. d-.. didn’t have..”

  “Didn’t have what? A choice?” Cameron removed his forearm and brought it forward again, this time as an elbow directly to Rosco’s face. His nose broke to the left and blood spattered against the wall. Cameron yelled in his face nonetheless. “There’s always a choice, and you sold us out! Mercedes is dead, you know that? And that’s on you, on David!”

  “Hey!” said one of the constables from behind the bars.

  Rosco was unresponsive. Far from dead, but very much not conscious. Cameron cursed under his breath. He’d have to prod about David when he came to. If a man like Leroy couldn’t get it out of him—couldn’t beat it out of him—Cameron wondered what his chances were. That’s if Rosco even knew. A sharp huff left his flared nostrils.

  Cameron stood up and made for the constables. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and he needed it to go somewhere, and every ounce of rationality that he might have had otherwise transformed into blind indignation.

  “Wouldn't do that,” said another, a man with the dirty-blonde hair and the sideburns, who, leaning haphazardly against the wall, waved a lazy finger at the milky-black, rune covered metal bars of their holding cell.

  “Drychus metal," the man continued, "you touch the bars, it’ll sting. A lot. Worse than it stung when they put the cuffs on you. Those runes? Sigilmasonry. Couldn't leave even if we miracled a way past those bars. Whatever tricks you have up your sleeve, kiss' em’ goodbye. Won’t work. Try to leave? Well, shit, man. You can’t. None of us can. So take a step back, relax, and remember that that guy on the other side of those bars has a gun that can kill you, and that he’s looking for every reason to turn all the ‘stops’ and ‘heys’ into a beating or a bullet.”

  The constable huffed, and turned back around. Elsewhere, the panting, short, broad-shouldered fellow with the red-brown hair released a hearty laugh. “Hah! Haha!” Cameron leered at him, and the man stepped off from the bench, crossing towards Cameron, barrel-chest puffed, knuckles clenched. The stubble around his face framed a twisted smile. “What, boy?”

  “Arnold,” cautioned the man with the dirty-blonde hair.

  “Don’t! Don’t you call me by the name my mother gave me, you Lancaster fuckwit,” Arnold said, not turning or letting Cameron out of his sight.

  “Right. Anyways, name’s Sean Malley,” he said, eyes fixed to Cameron. “The midget in front of you is Arnold—sorry, Arnie—Goodbrother, and the one on the floor is Fat Rudolf.” Sean turned to Rosco, who lay incapacitated on the bench behind Cameron. “Seems like you already know Rosco. Idiot was blabbering to us for about an hour before you came to. I could hardly understand him with all the bruises and welts on his face, and uh.. looks like you added a few more.”

  Arnold snapped back toward Sean. “Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?”

  “And what’s that something, Sean? You gonna’ start throwing punches at him because he gave you, what, a mean look?”

  “Well, I just might! See, that fat bastard did less, and look where that got em’. Sprawled out on the floor, Sean! Next to the toilet where he damn well belongs. I ought to take a shit while he’s asleep, give him something nice to remember when he wakes up.”

  Cameron’s nerves dulled. He felt his instincts fade, and the adrenaline coursing through his veins cooled. A deep breath left him, and he sat down on the bench on the opposite side of the holding cell. He grabbed Rosco by both of his feet and pulled him onto the floor, kicking him once in the ribs. He thought it would help, that it might offer some sense of relief for the fight he started and finished quicker than he would’ve liked. It didn’t.

  “You said he was a rat,” Sean said with a nod to Rosco.

  “Yeah. Sold us out to an arbiter.”

  “Leroy Waters?” Sean asked.

  Cameron’s face darkened at the name. His brows tightened, half curious and half pensive. Sean shared a glance with Arnold, where the former smiled and the latter laughed wryly.

  “Frost burns on your face, peeled skin covered in bandages? Ah, come on, man. ‘Course we know him. Anyone who knows anything in the South End, and Brinehaven at-large, knows who the fuck Leroy Waters is,” Sean stated.

  “A right vile one, that Leroy Waters is,” Arnold said with a nod. “And you! You’re but a wee thing. Look at you. Scrawny and without a wrinkle, walking around like your balls just dropped, hah! How the hell did you end up on his radar?”

  Cameron clasped the back of his hands behind his head and stared at the ground. “The people I run,” he paused, “ran with made the wise fucking decision to try and sell some guns to Elizabeth Hausser. Deal went bad. We killed her lap dogs, two accursed hired-muscle types, but my....—someone in my group wanted to leave Elizabeth alive. Send a message to the other gangs, let them know that our outfit, the South End Sables, meant business.”

  Sean whistled, shaking his head from side to side, raggedy hair tousling along his shoulders. “Hausser? Sorry to say, but you and your—what’d you call it? Your outfit? Don’t ah, take this the wrong way, but, you guys had it coming. Hausser Waste Company has always been off limits, should’ve known that. Everyone knows that. Makes sense that Leroy came after you all. Shit, man. Not even the Lancaster Boys wouldn’t go anywhere near that woman.”

  “That’s ‘cause the lot of you are a bunch of cowards and sniveling little cocksuckers,” Arnold said, spitting on the ground in front of Sean.

  “Well, you know, Arnie, a few friends of mine might just say the same thing about the 8th Street Gang,” Sean said.

  “Yeah? You got names, then? When I’m out of here, I’ll have a word with 'em,” Arnie said.

  Sean scoffed. “When you can punch through Dyrus metal and reverse sigilmasonry wards, you let me know, Arnie.”

  “This holding cell. We’re in Sterling Yard?” asked Cameron.

  “A part of it, yeah, hand-crafted for everything and anything occult,” Sean explained. “That’s why there’s five of us. But, you know? It’s not so bad. Privacy, two meals a day. Downside is dealing with Arnold and Fat Rudolf. The three of us have been here all but three weeks, going on four. Then came you and Rosco, just in time to catch Arnie and Fat Rudolf finding another reason to get into it. You'll probably be here for a bit, so. That'll be something you need to get used to. ”

  “With that lip of yours, Sean, you’re lucky I haven’t swung on you yet,” said Arnold.

  “That's' cause’ you think I’m real pretty, Arnie, don’t you? You know, if you’re good, maybe this mouth will give you a nice little kiss, how about that?” Sean said, puckering his lips.

  Arnold reached for him but stopped, and Cameron couldn’t help but notice that, for all of Arnold’s bark, his bite seemed to be lacking. Or maybe Sean’s smooth talking and silvered tongue, if one could really even grant him that, was backed by something Cameron didn’t know about. Something that made Arnie think twice about making a real enemy out of him.

  Cameron glanced over at the incapacitated Rosco, and his mind lingered on what Sean had said. Occult. He’d only met the man a few times on occasion over the years. Usually, David was the liaison—organizing jobs, rackets, meeting with associates and contacts. All he knew about Rosco was the epithet he’d earned by scourging around Oldport, and the fact that he, like Cameron’s mother, was a bludhead, who had a habit of stealing from other bludheads laying around half dead in those abandoned port authority buildings.

  Somehow, he’d managed to live long enough on a diet of that black tar of a drug and balanced it out with enough pasteurized demon blood to keep him afloat. Not even Cameron knew what happened to someone who went off of it; only what happened when someone did too much of it. Bludheads like his mother. But what happens when you cold turkey blud? He didn’t want to dwell on that.

  “How’d you guys get pinched? South End Station is a joke. If there’s any honest constables left, they’re what, on payroll? That, or they don’t stand a chance. Not against the gangs. Not usually.”

  There was a lowness to Cameron’s voice, not a deepness, and it was far from a whisper—a quiet assuredness that, for the moment, quelled the burning spite he felt, even still, towards the man who’d put him behind these black bars. Sean Malley, Arnold Goodbrother, Fat Rudolf. These were names and people he would remember. Names that might prove useful if they all ended up in Blackpool Penitentiary.

  “I was over in Dockside, brokering a deal with the Syndicate. Ended up being a setup. Should’ve known. Hell, I even cautioned against it, but my boss insisted,” said Sean dryly. “Got hauled in by the constables local to that borough not long after. My crew is in the gen pop holding cell. Bunch of mundies.”

  “You?” Cameron nodded to Arnold.

  “Don’t wanna’ talk about it,” Arnold grunted.

  “Fat Rudolf and him got into it closer to the South End Station. Idiots. Constables had home base advantage, made quick work out of the two of them,” explained Sean, " and they probably hauled them in on public nuisance charges, reckless endangerment, or on assaulting an officer of the law. Stupidest part of the whole thing is that they’re both with the 8 Street Gang. You’d think their boss would have the sensibility to separate them, pair of hot heads like that.”

  “It was the fourth time in the last week he’d tried fucking me over on the commission rates, arguing to Big Pony about how he’d always do more, and that he deserved more, when all he does is stand there and eat bullets,” muttered Arnold. Eat bullets? Cameron glanced towards Fat Rudolf, unsure if Arnold was being literal or not. Maybe he had more in common with the guy than he realized.

  Sean shook his head at the shorter man, flashing a full and crooked smile.

  “You said you’ve been here three weeks?” Cameron asked.

  “And counting,” Sean said with a curt nod.

  “Your trial. When is it—” Cameron’s mouth shut abruptly.

  Heavy footsteps filled the corridor just outside of their holding cell, and the two constables outside of their locked door stood at attention.

  Black boots, a black buttoned jacket, black slacks. He wore a large belt, standard issue, bearing the gun, the sheathed blade, the baubles, the trinkets. The man was of an olive complexion, just shy of six-feet-tall. His dull brown hair ran taut against his scalp, slicked back so tightly that it looked solid and stonish. His face was bullish and strong and weathered, like the leather of a well-worn jacket. A thick scar ran through his thin lips. Cameron squinted at the metal plaque next to his collar. It read CPT. HOLMES, and the only thing separating him from the constables in front of him were twin emblems on his shoulders: two pentagrams on each.

  “Cameron Kessler,” Captain Holmes ordered, reaching for the set of Drychus cuffs on his belt. “Come with me.”

  CAMERON KESSLER

  CRAZY ROSCO

  SEAN MALLEY

  ARNIE GOODBROTHER

  FAT RUDOLF

  CAPTAIN HOLMES

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