CHAPTER 11: BRINEHAVEN V. KESSLER

  GARLAND HEIGHTS, CYPRUS ALLEY—NOVEMBER 14th, 1992 | MORNING

  ?

  Leroy stared at the mirror, unsatisfied with the state of his black tie.

  At fifty-two-years old, he still hadn’t learned how to knot one correctly. His black dress shirt fit him tighter than he would have liked and made his stubborn belly fat jut out for all to see, but he hoped that the broadness of his shoulders might distract from that, and thankfully, his navy-blue blazer still fit just right. He thought to slick back his silvering blonde hair, but stared longingly at the checkered flat cap on his bathroom counter. Old reliable. Leroy slipped it on without a moment of pause.

  A black cat sat in the sink of his otherwise unremarkable bathroom, its arms and legs sprawled out, belly exposed. Leroy reached down and rubbed its stomach. “Still got it, don’t we, Foot?”

  The cat bit at his large fingers, and Leroy winced. “Fuck you too, then.”

  Leroy walked into his room, ignored his unmade bed, and grabbed his brown leather jacket off the floor. He made for his inner closet, and debated on whether or not he wanted to put on his equipment harness and drag his gun or waterskins with him to the courthouse. It all called to him like the velvety whispers of an experienced lover, and it was only with great effort that he resisted. Another time, maybe.

  He closed the door to his closet, folded his leather jacket over his forearm and checked to make sure that the Foot’s cat bowls were filled up, and upon noticing that they were, grabbed the keys to his SUV and made for the door.

  The drive through Cyprus Alley was brief. This early in the morning, traffic wasn’t all that bad, and the beautifully mismatched cluster of buildings, soaked in their fluorescent advertisements—HUANG’S LAUNDROMAT, ALCHEMIST FOR HIRE, BEA’S DINER, and, of course, MULDER & SON SIGILMASONRY—brought Leroy a strange sense of comfort. Less comforting was Brinehaven’s incessant fog, which, even at the crack of morning, forced everyone to turn their headlights on.

  It was a borough-within-a-borough, distinct from the history and financial upholstery of Garland Heights, and home to all things new money. Clubs, pleasure houses, gambling dens, all in league with the honest to God mom and pop’s stores that lingered that occupied the bottom floor of every building. It was the one place in Brinehaven where you could rent out a room and get the best lay of your life and then walk across the street to grab coffee, a gyro, or a new set of bullets for whatever gun you happened to have on your person.

  Leroy checked the clunky digital display of his car’s dashboard and tightened his grip around the steering wheel. Light traffic or not, he was going to be late. He honked his horn, got several honks back, and tried to center himself between the shouts and middle fingers casted towards him.

  After five traffic stops and double the amount of turns, he made it into Garland Heights proper, and found that the only available parking was on the far side of city hall. Despite his best efforts, he nicked the car behind him and held his face in a tired hand as he shook his head and approached the looming structure of city hall. Classical, romanesque, with a central dome—a beauty rivaled only by St. Catherine’s Cathedral.

  Pedestrians, most of them mundies, Leroy imagined, cluttered up the sides of the streets like a sea of suits and ties, and he brushed through their ranks like a knife to butter. A few ‘hey[s]’ and ‘watch it[s]’ plagued his ears.The facade of city hall was finally in view, but Leroy ignored it and made his way up a wide and narrow set of stairs.

  He pushed the large doors open.

  ?

  “Thank you, Ms. Hausser, for your testimony today,” said a rehearsed, confident voice. Charles Hhaledi, Commonwealth Attorney.

  Elizabeth had just finished reciting most everything Leroy already knew—the South End Sables breaking into her lot, trying to sell her guns, killing two of her men. Even in her blazer and dress shirt she looked dirty; Hausser pride. If she smelled like the Mounds, it wasn't immediately noticible to the judge or the jury.

  Leroy's eyes trailed back to Charles.

  Leroy had the not-so-great-pleasure of meeting with him about a week prior at his office, nestled in one of the many nooks and crannies of city hall—adding to the growing list of times he’d been summoned there. Leroy lost count of the exact number. He’d built some semblance of a rapport with the man, but still couldn’t stand him.

  The fancy pinstriped suit he wore, his hair transplant, the hairspray for said hair transplant. The dye he used in his mustache to make it darker; the contacts he wore over his brown eyes to make people think they were green instead. All that on a city salary. Who was he trying to fool? He either had the financial literacy of a donkey or was making money in more ways than one, right under the nose of the very city he served.

  Every time Leroy was called to the courtroom he questioned his occupation, which said something, given the far uglier circumstances he’d grown accustomed to over the years.

  He preferred being shot, bitten, or beaten, to sitting in the courtroom, where, according to Charles, his permanent status as an expert witness for any and all cases he’d find himself involved in meant he was to remain in the courtroom at all times. Having an arbiter’s license granted him a lot of things, but it didn’t exclude him from court summons. And given his line of work, he’d taken the stand more times than he cared to admit to.

  Presiding over the trial was one Judge Claudia Kazlauskas, an older woman with short, gray hair, and in the jury box was a mix of both mundies and non-mundies, selected at random by the Commonwealth’s administration. A single clerk and court reporter drafted their notes speedily, taking into account Elizabeth’s testimony. To either side of the jury deliberation doors were two blackjackets of the Civic and Occult Authority.

  Further from all of them was the prosecutor’s table, currently unoccupied, given that Charles had the floor. He spoke with a practiced cadence, and if Leroy was none the wiser, he might think it was genuine. But Charles was the kind of guy who relished in being the center of attention, and Leroy had long suspected that the only reason he decided to become an occult prosecutor was due to the attention it brought him.

  Opposite to this table was the defense table. Leroy could only see the back of their heads, but he recognized the public defender to be one Rhonda Slater, whom he’d encountered several times before, and, of course, none other than Cameron Kessler. Leroy raised his brows and nodded his head from side to side. Kid didn’t look bad in whatever suit Rhonda had dressed him up in.

  “... and it is with confidence, esteemed members of the jury, that I can tell you that Cameron Kessler, alongside his accomplices, did, in fact, breach the Hausser Waste Company’s lot with every intention to coerce Ms. Hausser into an illicit arms deal,” continued Charles, pacing around the courtroom like he owned it.

  “Objection,” Rhonda chimed.

  “Sustained,” declared the judge.

  “Speculation. Mr. Hhaledi cannot confirm nor deny Mr. Kessler’s intentions prior to arriving at the Hausser Waste Company lot.”

  “Then, if you will, Ms. Slater, do explain to me why the locks of the gates were broken?” asked Charles.

  “Prior personal testimony, or I should say, prior consistent testimony forwarded by Mr. Kessler states that both the plan to sell the arms and the act of breaking and entering was initiated and followed through by a David St. James, currently at-large,” argued Rhonda.

  Charles cleared his throat. “Ms. Hausser. On the evening of the break-in, was Cameron Kessler present?”

  "Yes," she stated.

  “Objection, relevance—”

  “Overruled. Continue, Mr. Hhaledi,” said the judge.

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  Charles positioned himself in front of the jury box, slick as a snake, with a cast-iron confidence that would never rust. "At best, Mr. Kessler was an accomplice to only one of the various crimes he stands accused of today. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would ask that we focus our attention, then, to the more heinous crimes of Mr. Kessler.”

  Leroy centered his gaze onto Cameron, who, rigid as could be, sat at one of the two chairs at the defense table. He wondered what must have been going through the kid’s head, but shifted his attention towards the oversized evidence board that Charles had placed in the center of the courtroom floor. Forensic reports, photographs. Both equally damning in the eyes of the jury, Leroy suspected.

  The trial droned on for a while longer, and Leroy was growing tired of hearing Charles’ verbose statements and declarations. Rhonda Slater, zealous and impassioned, challenged him at every step. Objection, sustained. Objection, overruled. The legalese and courtspeak made Leroy want a cigarette, or a beer, or a Philly cheesesteak. Anything to erase the stale taste that proceedings such as this one often left in his mouth.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution calls Leroy Joseph Waters, expert witness, to the stand.”

  Leroy knew it was coming, but hated that Charles had opted to call him in so early into the trial. His eyes shot towards the clock hanging over Judge Kazlauskas. It was too damn early for any of this.

  “Will the witness please stand,” said the judge.

  Leroy stood up from the bench he’d been sitting on and made his way towards Judge Kazlauskas. There weren’t many from the public taking a gander, only a few older women and some intern-looking men taking notes. Students, maybe, or administrative assistants of some kind.

  “Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you shall give to the court on this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” asked Judge Kazlauskas.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” answered Leroy, right hand raised.

  Judge Kazlauskas nodded to the side and guided Leroy to the witness stand with an open hand. “You may be seated.”

  Look at him.

  Leroy tried and failed to hide the tinge in his face that often came when Yaerzul decided to speak to him.

  “Mr. Waters?” Charles asked, clearing his throat.

  Do not avert your gaze from he who you have wronged.

  “Quiet,” muttered Leroy.

  Charles looked from side to side, and rested a single hand on the witness stand, lowering his voice. “Hey, Leroy, what’s the hold up?”

  Leroy didn’t need to look at Cameron to feel his eyes on him. The wave of contempt was palpable, incredibly so, with a renewed distinctness separated by an order of magnitudes. It was the same look Cameron had issued towards him weeks ago—only stronger, with a steadfast focus that cooled the anger in the kid’s eyes into something more focused. Something precise. Something lethal.

  Yes. Let it sink into your memory; do not forget what I have told you.

  “Will the prosecution begin their questioning?” asked Judge Kazlauskas, with a lowness to her expression that paired well with her expectant tone.

  “At once, Your Honor.” Charles took a step back from the witness stand. “Mr. Waters, in what capacity do you stand before the jury today?”

  “Expert witness. I’m an arbiter,” stated Leroy.

  “The arbiter, who, while fulfilling an arbitration note drafted by Ms. Hausser, apprehended Mr. Kessler?” asked Charles.

  “Yes,” Leroy replied.

  “Now, Mr. Waters, during the apprehension of Mr. Kessler, you bore witness to the extent of his abilities, yes?” asked Charles.

  “Yes,” Leroy replied, only now averting his gaze from Cameron. “He's a hexling.”

  “And for those within the jury who are unfamiliar with his ilk, what is a hexling, Mr. Waters?”

  “Children of contractors, people who have signed their soul away to a demon in exchange for certain abilities. Hexlings inherit these abilities in a different form. In a specific capacity, similar, but distinct from the abilities of their contractor parent.”

  Leroy paused, glancing back over towards Cameron. Rhonda Slater was issuing him one hell of a death stare, and he could see the kid holding onto the edge of the wooden table, face rigid, fingers flexed and welcoming to any splinters that might find their way under his nails.

  Charles shuffled both hands into his pockets, nodding along. “And are you able to confirm or deny Mr. Kessler’s capacity to kill, given the abilities afforded to him by being a hexling?”

  “He can kill.”

  “You will see, Mr. Waters, on the board of evidence provided by the prosecution, photographs of the deceased Theodore McCormick, whom Ms. Hausser confirmed upon taking the stand—during her own testimony—to be one of her two personal security guards. Based on the evidence provided, what would you say Mr. McCormick’s cause of death was?”

  Leroy scrutinized the photograph. It was one hell of a man. Big, fat, with hefty arms and an ugly face distorted. An accursed. Within the photograph, his body was sprawled out. One arm broken, ugly and wretched, like it was beaten into breaking rather than snapped cleanly. His jaw was sunken into his face, teeth ripping through lips and cheeks. Crushed windpipe—dented like a piece of metal unfortunate enough to meet the head of a sledgehammer. “Blunt force trauma.”

  “Is Mr. Kessler capable of such a thing, within the context of the abilities afforded to him by way of being a hexling?”

  “Yes,” Leroy confirmed.

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Leroy was dismissed from the witness stand, and en route to the benches, he shared a glance with Cameron.

  Yaerzul continued to pester him with omens and warnings and prophesied his death at the hands of the kid, and Leroy couldn’t tell if he was starting to believe him or not.

  Time felt slower. Leroy’s brown eyes, knowing and jaded, had stared into the faces of men and monsters far more impressive than the likes of Cameron Kessler. Stare into Leroy’s eyes long enough and you’d see some semblance of that reflected back at you: blood and death in abundance, bespoken tragedies from all corners of the Commonwealth, machinations of horror that were too vivid and cruel to put to words.

  Cameron Kessler was the first person who saw all of these things and ignored them.

  He recalled Yaerzul’s omen: You will deny this for as long as it suits you. But one day you will look up to see where it looms, and you will know that Cameron Kessler is not another victim to your carelessness. He is your sword of Damocles.

  Maybe Cameron’s hunger was stronger than Leroy cared to admit. That kid’s gray eyes were vengeful. Vengeful, focused, and, as Yaerzul had put so aptly upon first meeting, foolhardy and headstrong. Assured, and fully backed by the naivety of youth that was fearsome in its own right. Leroy saw in them—in him—something worthwhile.

  It forced a smile to Leroy’s face, one so brief that he hardly felt how his cheeks creased and gave way to an expression as low and sinister as it was high and hopeful.

  It had been years since Leroy knew what he was looking for. He’d lost any semblance of that with the only woman he’d ever loved, whose death had robbed him of any reason to build anything. No family to speak of, no prized possessions, no legacy other than one of infamy and quid pro quos.

  If there was something, Leroy had long since lost sight of it, too buried in his piles of arbitration notes and the wads of cash he kept hidden in his floorboards.

  If there was something, he had given up on searching for it. But today it found him, and its name was Cameron Kessler.

  One day, Yaerzul would come to collect. And when that day came, when Leroy was inevitably damned to Hell, he had to have a way of making Yaerzul miserable. To force upon that bastard of a demon a sense of madness that would make him regret imposing his contract on Leroy so many years ago. It was at that moment Leroy decided that his capacity for spite was a stronger force than fate; the most important thing in the world would be the ability to tell Yaerzul one thing: you’re wrong.

  And he could only do that with Cameron Kessler—his Sword of Damocles. But it wouldn't be one that fell on him.

  It would be one that he wielded.

  CAMERON KESSLER

  RHONDA SLATER

  JUDGE Kazlauskas

  CHARLES HHALEDI

  LEROY WATERS

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