CHAPTER 16: MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

  GARLAND HEIGHTS—NOVEMBER 18th, 1992 | LATE MORNING

  ?

  Esme O’Doherty wasn’t fond of being interrupted.

  Leroy knew this, and braved her workbench regardless, pulling in a problem that she knew was coming, but probably still wanted nothing to do with. Her short-sleeve button up was buttoned all the way to the top, and her reddish hair was tied neatly into a singular braid. A black bandana covered most of her head, secured in place by a set of welding goggles. She had eyes like black coffee, and around them were the outlined skin marks that came with wearing goggles for too long. Freckles dotted skin approaching the end of its youth, and her arms were covered in tattoos that made Leroy shake his head.

  “Esme,” he said in greeting.

  She nodded towards Cameron. “Leroy. This the dog you dragged in off the streets?”

  “Yup, that’s the one,” answered Leroy.

  “Dog?” Cameron sounded offended.

  “Relax. You’ve been called worse.”

  Esme glanced behind her, towards a grandfather clock nestled between a framed degree from the Brinehaven College of the Arts—a Master’s in Artificing—and all manner of strange trinkets and baubles; different metal styluses , like carving tools, mingled with slabs of metal, stones, cloths, and assortments of unpolished jewelry. All of it, however, was neatly organized. Everything in her shop was. It was no larger than the inside of an RV, but she made the space work for her. Her greeting desk was, at the same time, a workbench. Her display cases were as much storage as they were glistening advertisements of her skilled artificing.

  “You’re late,” Esme said.

  “By, what, five minutes? Parking garage was damn near full, Esme,” Leroy said.

  Esme placed down a set of small tools and turned around, sorting through a set of metal drawers for something. “Not my problem.”

  Cameron glanced around the inside of the shop, seemingly unimpressed. Kid didn’t know what he was looking at, though, and Leroy was doubtful he had much appreciation for artificing. “What is your problem, then? Nothing but lip, and you’re all pissy. People have been shot for less in the South End.”

  “Fortunately for me, we’re in Garland Heights,” Esme retorted. She twisted back around and held two things in leather-gloved hands: two small, surgical looking prickers in her left and two equally as small empty vials in her right. “Fingers, both of you.”

  Leroy placed a hand on her desk.

  “I’m not doing that,” Cameron said.

  Stubborn little weasel. Leroy grabbed him by the back of his neck and brought him forward, tightening his grip. “Yes. You are.”

  “Let go of me, asshole!” Cameron spat, elbowing his way around.

  “So. The sooner you calm down, the sooner this is over, and we’ve only just begun,” Esme said, surveying the clustered grouping of the two for some semblance of an opening. “It’s my strong suggestion that you relax. In fact, it’s in your best interest, else I might end up pricking you somewhere else.”

  “Do it quick, before the kid starts throwing a fit,” Leroy said.

  With expert precision, Esme inserted the metal pricker into the top of Cameron’s pinned finger. She twisted off the top of one of her vials, placed the pricker inside of it, and twisted it back on. Leroy released the writhing Cameron, and Esme proceeded with stabbing the second pricker into his finger, placing it into a separate vial.

  “Not so bad now, was it?” Esme joked. She collected her materials and brought them to the far side of the desk.

  “You do that to all of your customers?” Cameron asked.

  Esme eyed him up and down. “Call it a new business practice.”

  Leroy cleared his throat. Esme wasn’t as coy as she thought she was, the damned cougar. Probably had at least seven or eight years on the kid, and that was Leroy being generous. He tapped one of his non-pricked fingers onto the counter a few times over, a small effort that went a long way in getting her attention. “Esme. How long will it be?”

  “Oh, not long at all. All I’ll need to do is measure the circumference of your pinkies, melt those prickers—with your blood, of course—into a hot liquid, let it cool, add enough further metal liquid to create two rings, and then, lastly, pay attention, because this is the good part,” Esme’s tone was direct, and laced with the kind of patronizing tenor that made Leroy want to ignore her outright, “put on my goggles here, then put my magnifying lenses on over my goggles, and go through the painstaking detail of carving two Runes of Mutualism, modified with an exclusionary clause within said runes to skew it in your favor.”

  Three chairs were posted by the door. Cameron had taken a seat halfway through her spiel, and leaned his head back against the exposed brick wall. “You got a way of saying that in, I don’t know, English?”

  “Sure do. I’ll even demonstrate real slow and simple. Now, are you watching?”

  “Uh-huh, sure am,” Cameron said dryly.

  “Excellent,” continued Esme, who raised up both of her hands, lifting only her pinkies. “One ring. Two ring. Rings together; linked by way of blood. Your blood, his blood. Link equals mutualism. Mutualism—bodies bound by the arcanics of the runes in play. Runes in play on ring one, and ring two. Him,” she points to Leroy matter-of-factly. “Exclusionary clause. Means that it goes one way. His way. In his favor.”

  Leroy kept his arm halfway on the counter and turned. The kid looked dumbfounded, and Leroy couldn’t even blame him. Esme spoke with sincerity, sure, but not without sprinkling her own brand of snide on top of it all. Academic types like that pissed Leroy off to no end, but Esme was the best artificer in the borough, and probably the best artificer in the whole of Brinehaven; and most people didn’t even know it. She was his best kept secret. Stingy as she was on punctuality—evidenced by her damn late fees, of all things—you still got the most bang for your buck with her. He crossed his fingers and hoped to God that nobody else with real money to spend found out about her.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I’ll try and cut the fat off that. She’s making us rings that we can’t take off; you won’t be able to hurt me. I can hurt you. I get that right, Esme?”

  “In a sense, yes,” she said, offering Leroy a curt nod.

  Cameron stood up in his chair. There it was. That anger, the vexation: a fury so clear and visible on his face that anyone with a set of working eyes could see it and feel the intensity of it. “Not a chance.”

  “Minister’s orders,” said Leroy.

  “Not doing it.”

  Leroy grabbed his beared-jaw in exasperation, blinking slowly, his frustration nearing its tipping point. Slow, steady. “Alright, Kessler. This goes one of two ways. I put you on your ass again, and put the ring on you, or, you put it on yourself. For the sake of Esme’s shop, I’m hoping you go with the first option.”

  “I said no—”

  Leroy crossed over to him. “Tell you what. I’ll sweeten this deal, make it worth your while.” It gave him the illusion of choice he thinks he has. He might see right through it; but it was worth a shot. “You get your arbiter’s license, I’ll have a word with Minister Rostavich, and we’ll be back here to get our rings off.”

  Cameron opened his mouth, but Leroy continued. “By then, Kessler, you might just stand a chance. And I’ll personally write you a damn arbitration note for my own head. If you succeed, you get your revenge and you go scot-free.”

  Like music to his ears. Cameron shut up real quick after that, and set his jaw in some act of reluctant acceptance like he tended to do. Leroy extended a hand, and Cameron stared at it for a long while. Cameron took it.

  When their palms touched the whispers began.

  Yaerzul.

  His words weren’t articulated; they were swathes of dissonance, loud and unfiltered, like numbing whispers that threatened to give the folds of his brain frostbite. It took everything in Leroy not to scrunch up his face in discomfort.

  “Deal?” Leroy asked.

  It took longer for Cameron to arrive at the word. “... Deal.”

  You are making a mistake. There is power in promises. In oaths. In vows. In pacts. You know this better than anyone, yet you play with the strings of fate as if it were a spool meant to be weaved and unraveled by lesser hands.

  “If you two are done with—well, whatever it is you're doing—it’ll be four hours, maybe five,” Esme said, in a tone that proved she was only paying half-attention to their agreement.

  Nosy woman. Leroy took a seat next to Cameron and issued a nod to Esme. Cameron shifted one seat to the side so that there was a gap between them, and made an active effort to avert Leroy by staring out the thin window that doubled as Esme’s display case.

  “I’ll need a shirt,” Cameron said.

  Leroy leaned his head back against the wall and let his hands hang between his knees. “Good things come to those who wait, Kessler.”

  ?

  He should’ve known it would’ve been that long.

  After Esme took their pinky measurements, she retreated to the backdoor of her shop. Halfway through the wait, Leroy thought to get up and grab a cold one, but Garland Heights was no Cyprus Alley. Dive bars weren’t exactly commonplace, just cocktail lounges, none of which were open, and all of which charged a damn arm and a leg for a gin and tonic. And Esme, she’d disappeared and reappeared too many times to count, trekking back and forth between her shop and its back room, where most of the noise came from.

  Between the clanks and rivets of her artificing were whispers, loud and self-observant. Esme either couldn’t help herself or didn’t care that Leroy and Cameron could hear her. Both were probably true.

  Every so often he glanced over toward Cameron, who, for the first time since he’d met the kid, was quiet. Good. It was a welcome change of pace. If he wasn’t brooding or sulking, he was yelling, or finding every reason to throw a punch, and sitting next to a halfway-settled Cameron was much better than sitting next to a fight-hungry Cameron. It was better that way. All that bark for a bite that never got him very far.

  Not against Leroy, at least.

  But that was subject to change. Within the span of a few weeks, the kid had improved. Leroy could’ve ended that assessment earlier, but he wanted to get a better understanding of what the kid was capable of. When he wasn’t blinded by rage, he was still reckless. Headstrong. Impulsive. Too tenacious for his own good. By the same token, he was capable, as most hexlings were, of a great many things. With enough trial and error he’d find a way to leave Leroy with more than just a broken collarbone and a contused arm. Minister’s order or not, these rings were two things: a failsafe for Brinehaven and an insurance policy for Leroy.

  Esme pushed her way out of the back door. Her welding goggles were still on her face, but she hardly seemed to notice or care. In her gloved hands she held two rings, and promptly placed them behind the front counter, a workstation in its own right, which Leroy suspected was used for the more delicate applications of artificery; such as rune-carving.

  “How’s it looking?” Leroy asked.

  “Unfinished. I finished the molds for the rings, cast them, and as you can well see, they are ready to use. But they are both no better than unpainted canvases without the runes,” Esme stated, squatting down behind her counter.

  He heard her rummaging through what sounded like books, and when she propped back up, she held two in her hand. Tomes. One leather-bound and large, like an encyclopedia, and another far smaller, like some kind of personal pamphlet or notebook.

  Another hour at least.

  Time flew by, and barring any further interruptions, Esme’s focus was as solid as the metal she carved into. Cameron grew antsy and got up, and Leroy was surprised to find that it didn’t lead to another damn conniption. Instead, the kid turned a corner and leaned against the wall, watching Esme work her magic. Not a peep left him. He was either enamored by her, or, for the first time in a long time, curious about something other than bashing someone’s skull in.

  Leroy joined him and stood not far from where Cameron was leaning, spectating the artificer as she continued along. She’d put on a second piece of headgear over the top of her welding goggles, with layered monocles that lined up in front of each other. Must’ve been those magnifying lenses she mentioned in passing, when she over-explained the whole process. She’d since removed her gloves, which were tucked haphazardly into the front pocket of her button up.

  She worked carefully under an extremely bright desk-lamp, and to her side, had different metal stylistst—all sharp, to some extent—neatly lined up from largest to smallest. The books she’d taken out prior were opened to different pages, written in Latin, and full of displays and diagrams of runes, symbols, and arrays that Leroy couldn’t explain to anyone even with a gun pointed to his head.

  Esme placed her carving stylus down, removed her magnifying lenses, and pushed her welding goggles onto her head over her bandana. “Done. If you’d both kindly come here.”

  Cameron stepped forward, followed by Leroy. Esme picked up both of the rings and held them in the palm of her left hand. They were thickly cast, like signet rings, covered in a series of etchings and impressions, and on the top of the ring, more distinct runes. Leroy put his on first and Cameron did so after him, and as soon as they were fitted into place, the carvings on both of them were alight in a radiant red.

  Pain surged up Leroy’s pinky finger and caused him to stumble into Esme’s counter. Cameron fell to both knees, and the only reason he didn’t fall flat onto his face was due to Esme’s stabilizing hand.

  “Fuck! What the hell?” Cameron exclaimed.

  “It will pass in a moment. The rings are binding to you both,” explained Esme, as if it were common knowledge. She nodded and pulled Cameron back to his feet.

  “Total?” Leroy asked.

  Esme rested a hand at her hip. “Two.”

  Leroy flexed his hand, getting used to the weight of the ring. “Hundred?”

  “Thousand, Leroy. Two thousand.”

  Even Cameron was surprised, as evidenced by his widened eyes.

  Leroy reached into the pocket of his brown coat, but stopped as soon as his fingers touched his wallet. “Send the bill to Minister Rostavich.”

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  ESME O'DOHERTY

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