CHAPTER 28: ALL THREE OR NONE

  CYPRUS ALLEY—NOVEMBER 19th, 1992 | LATE EVENING

  ?

  As soon as Cameron walked out of the Nightingale, he noticed the street.

  It had been transformed into a battlefield.

  Cameron couldn’t stop his eyes from widening, even if he wanted to. Last he had seen, frozen residue was everywhere—cars, street poles, the sidewalk. But that was all gone. All that was left was a massive spike of ice only about two dozen feet away from Cameron. It must have reached the third or second floor of the Nightingale theater, maybe even to the roof.

  At the base of it was a large, shadowy hand, probably as large as a small car, writhing incessantly as if it had a mind and a body of its own. Shadows leaked from where it had been pierced straight through the palm. Before long it was nothing but shadows, fingerless and then utterly formless. The darkness travelled back into the demonic marking on Gideon’s neck and slithered back inside of him.

  “That's yours?” Cameron asked, glancing down at Gideon.

  The contractor was covered in what looked to be numerous stab wounds, the burgundy of his navy jacket and slacks deepening in color where he must’ve taken hits—no doubt a consequence of the icicles and shards.

  “Katia? And Boris?” Gideon asked, trying and failing to break away from the icy chains that covered him from head to toe.

  Cameron glanced towards where they were laid out, assuming them to be the other two members of his crew, the accursed. Both of them were unresponsive, but, on a passing glance, it seemed that they were breathing.

  “Did you—..hhng.. kill them?” Gideon asked, shifting as best he could in an effort to force his head in their direction.

  Cameron sat down on the sidewalk next to Gideon, resting his hands between his knees. He stared at Leroy who, slowly but surely, made his way towards the two of them. “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “And David?”

  And David. Cameron felt anger tug at his features, and there was an instinct to get up and finish what he’d started in that theater. Sufficient warning had been given, and Cameron prayed—for David’s sake as much as his own—that he never saw his face again. It would’ve been easy to end it then and there, and every fiber of his being told him he ought to have done it. Cameron looked at his hands. They shook slowly and threatened to shake faster, as if each finger was diseased with its own quake and tremor. Fingers closed around one another and Cameron clenched.

  “You couldn’t do it,” Gideon said matter-of-factly.

  “I could. But I didn’t,” Cameron stated.

  Leroy finally reached them, holding onto his side. Cameron saw red ice crusted over a large potion of his side. Gideon got him good. If Leroy hadn’t frozen his own blood over that wound, he might not have been standing. “Couldn’t and wouldn’t are two separate things, Gideon.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. Trouble is, Leroy, I can’t seem to figure out if you’re a couldn’t or wouldn’t kind of guy. Shouldn’t I be dead by now?” Gideon asked, his voice labored.

  “There’s still time for that, yeah. But Marcus didn’t specify if he wanted you dead,” Leroy said.

  Cameron raised a brow. “What’d he say, then?”

  “Just that he wanted Gideon taken care of.”

  That seemed pretty clear to Cameron. Taken care of, whacked, killed, murdered—they were all the same things as far as he was concerned. Leroy’s apparent reluctance to kill Gideon drew Cameron’s face into a soured expression, and he made his indignation readily known by setting his eyes onto Leroy. And then his features softened, and he gripped his shaking hand. It felt like his stomach was dropping upwards instead of down, and he couldn’t make sense of things.

  Confused was one thing, but Cameron was beyond confused. The undercurrent of his anger was steeped in a sense of disorientation. He’d seen Leroy kill at the drop of a hat. Warning or not, he killed Mercedes and it made no difference to him. He’d placed a bullet in the head of Donovan Mayfield in broad daylight. But he hadn’t killed Rachel Chen, and now, he seemed to be indecisive about what he planned on doing with Gideon Draves.

  “How do you choose?” Cameron blurted out.

  “Choose what?” Leroy asked.

  Cameron’s voice was direct. “Who gets to live and who gets to die.”

  Gideon opened and closed his mouth, as if he thought to say something, but he must have sensed that now was not the moment for that. Instead he tried to roll himself into a semi-comfortable position, and while the chains of ice were firmly pressed to his features, he managed to squirm just enough to sit in an upright position, groaning all the while.

  “How do you?” Leroy asked.

  “I’m asking you, this isn’t about me,” said Cameron.

  “Sure it is. You want to know because you want an easy answer, some sort of guiding principle that tells you when it is and isn’t okay. But there is no easy answer. No one-size-fits-all solution to the question you’re asking.”

  A defensive vigor began to build in Cameron’s voice. “That’s—.. that’s such bullshit, and you know it!”

  Gideon finally spoke. “Some people—”

  “Was I fucking asking you?” Cameron said, turning to Gideon with a focused glance.

  “No. But I’m not dead yet, and until I am, I’ll say what I damn please,” Gideon said. “You must know what he’s saying has some merit. You yourself spared David, and Katia, and Boris. The easier option—the smarter one—would’ve been to kill them. You didn’t.”

  Leroy sat down next to Gideon, who remained between him and Cameron. The three of them looked onward towards the aftermath of all that had just occurred, and there was a despondent tranquility that lingered around them. An acceptance, maybe, of what had happened, and an acknowledgement of what didn’t.

  “Maybe one day, Kessler, I’ll buy you a beer, and I’ll tell you about the first time I took a life, and you can tell me when you did,” Leroy said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Cameron said sharply.

  “After the first drink, you’ll be mad. You’ll be coming up with reasons why you and I are different. By the second or third one, you’ll reach the truth at the core of the matter—the reason why anyone kills. We’ll both leave that bar with the same answer we knew when we first walked in.”

  “And what’s that?” Cameron asked.

  Gideon spoke in Leroy’s stead. “People either want to, or they have to.”

  Leroy tipped his hat to Gideon. “And there’s a secret third one. The need tos.”

  “And what the hell is the difference?” Cameron asked. He felt like his head was spinning.

  “If the end result is the same, there isn’t one,” Leroy stated. “Suppose it all boils down to what we say to make ourselves feel better for doing the deed.”

  Cameron stood up and began pacing, and was fortunate enough not to slip on the surrounding ice. “Neither of you make any fucking sense. Self-righteous assholes, the pair of you, sitting here talking circles around me with all your goddamn—”

  “Our what?” Gideon asked.

  “Argh! Shut the fuck up! I don’t know what, but it doesn’t make sense! You don’t make sense,” he said, and pointed an accusatory finger towards Gideon, and then towards Leroy, “and you don’t make sense either!”

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  Gideon and Leroy shared a knowing half-smile that made Cameron want to rip both of their heads off. Strangely, as angry as he was, his abilities had all but worn themselves out, and he lurched over, both hands firmly pressed to his knees as the white-ivory that covered his skin exploded into scarlet, waxen dust. It poured back into his head, his nose, and his mouth. A burning sensation re-entered him, and it gave him a place to put his anger. Back in.

  By the time it was over, he’d be lying to himself if he said the process had brought him some sense of clarity or cleansed him of his rage. It still lingered, but by now, Cameron was more tired than anything. Tired, hungry, and feeling far too many emotions all at once.

  “So?” Gideon asked, turning to Leroy.

  “So, I’m going to take you to an exorcist.”

  “It won’t work,” Gideon said. “It won’t work, I already accepted the—”

  “The contract. I know. Not saying he’s going to cleanse your soul, you already went and fucked that up, same as me. But I’ll give you an option, Gideon, ‘cause I respect you. You remember that thing I told you?”

  Respect. Cameron couldn’t find the words. Leroy was going to spare him. Cameron felt like grabbing the P89 out of Leroy’s jacket and putting a bullet in the man’s brain himself, if only to spite Leroy. But he couldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t want to, and that confused Cameron to no end. Everything that had been said thus far and up until now put him in such a state of disbelief, he questioned if what he was seeing was even real.

  Gideon stared at him. “No.”

  “I told you I’d say hello to you in Hell one day. I’d like for that day to be very, very far from today or tomorrow. So. Option one is I kill you, not because I want to, and I’d like to avoid going with the ‘have to’ or ‘need to’. So, option two. I hand you over to a friend of mine, and he figures out what to do with you, and I can tell Marcus that I took care of it. I get what I want, and you don’t die.”

  Gideon grit his teeth. “He won’t go for that. He’ll want to see me dead.”

  “You worked for him. You should know that he doesn’t take things personally,” Leroy explained. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Gideon admitted. “No, but—”

  “But end of story. We need to go. Now. The Civic and Occult Authority will probably be here soon.” Leroy grabbed Gideon by the icy-chains and dragged him across the ground.

  “Wait! Katia, and Boris, and David. What will happen to them?” Gideon asked.

  “Don’t know,” Leroy said. “They’ll probably go to Blackpool.”

  Cameron followed after them, and stopped only to glance at the shattered doors of the Nightingale theater. “All except for one.”

  Leroy stopped in his tracks, and looked at Cameron. “Did you do what you needed to?”

  “I—.. yeah. I did.”

  Leroy stepped closer to him, pointing a finger against Cameron’s chest. “Be sure of it. Because if we leave him here, chances are you’ll never see him again. He’ll either skip town, or get caught up behind bars in a place you’ll never be allowed into. Want to, have to, need to. He’s either one, all three, or he’s none. So which is it?”

  “None,” replied Cameron. “He’s none. There’s only one person I know who’s all three.”

  Leroy lingered on his words, and then, with a pull and a clench, caused all of the ice in the surrounding area to melt. Water pooled on the ground and flowed steadily into the storm drains. If one could ignore the copious amount of shattered glass and the damage done to the Nightingale, it was almost as if they were never there.

  ?

  They delivered Gideon Draves to a man known as Bishop Hargreeves, who, strangely, happened to be up at such an hour. During the ride there, Leroy kept the windows open, and kept re-applying the chains of ice as they melted by letting the fog roll inside of the car.

  It was the first time Cameron had ever been in a cathedral, much less one that seemed older than the Commonwealth of Brinehaven itself. Cameron waited at the pew closest to the entrance while Leroy dragged a non-reactive Gideon to the altar, and while the whole ordeal was going down, Cameron couldn’t help but stare at Bishop Hargreeves. He was easily the tallest man Cameron had ever seen, so tall that he needed some kind of crutch to correct his gait on one side of his leg.

  Given the state of Leroy, Bishop Hargreeves insisted on offering him a double-dose of pasteurized demon blood, only for Leroy to insist he only needed one, a lot of stitches, equally as much bandages, and a few painkillers.

  The two of them spent a long while in some side room, which Cameron presumed to be Bishop Hargreeve's office. By the time they’d finished, Leroy exited with his brown leather jacket slung over one shoulder, wearing only his black turtleneck.

  When he got close enough to Cameron, Cameron saw a liberal amount of bandages applied, and a bit more pep to Leroy’s step. Whether or not he double-dosed was difficult to tell, but he’d know by morning. Given the state of that wound he’d endured from Gideon, on top of everything Rachel Chen had gifted him with? Cameron didn’t see any other way he’d survive the night without two vials of that sickly green slop to get him to the morning.

  “You said that guy is an exorcist,” Cameron said, shuffling his hands into his pockets as he followed Leroy back to his black SUV.

  “Yup,” Leroy said with a nod.

  “Right. What does that mean, and what does giving Gideon to him even do?”

  “He works for the Exorcist Association, which is a subdivision of the Vatican that deals with the containment of demons and the extraction of demon blood. It’s a delicate process, apparently, and requires some sort of.. ritual. At least, that’s what Hargreeves has told me. Anyways. They’ve got a sister organization, too, called the Order of the Wardens. Those are the ones that deliver the demons to the exorcists, or kill them outright, among other fiends and shit,” Leroy explained, entering the driver’s side of the car.

  Cameron opened and closed the door on his side of the car, and saw that Leroy was setting the radio to 99.3, the Rat. “Didn’t need a whole damn history lesson, just tell me how Gideon plays into all of that, and what that means for your deal with Marcus.”

  “It’s important you understand, Kessler, 'cause like it or not, the Vatican has their hands in every pie. Especially in Brinehaven. Think. It’s one of the only places in North America where you’ve got people like us living side-by-side with mundies. Seeing as I don’t have a pair of Drychus cuffs on me like Captain Holmes, Bishop Hargreeves and his exorcists are the next best option. They’ve got rituals to keep him quiet and in one place—”

  “Change the song, this sucks,” Cameron interjected.

  Pearl Jam was playing.

  Leroy issued Cameron a look of blatant disgust. “Pearl Jam is and always will be the best thing to come out of that shithole called Seattle.”

  “Nirvana,” Cameron countered. “Nirvana is better. Also from the Seattle area, more or less.”

  Leroy turned the volume up, and Pearl Jam’s ‘Even Flow’ played through the loudspeakers. “In a pinch, they can contain Gideon, and typically with demonic contractors, they get tried in a church proceeding. He’ll be found guilty of heresy, and be sent somewhere far, far away.”

  Cameron raised a brow. “And why haven’t they tried you for heresy, then?”

  Leroy pulled out his wallet, and inside was his arbiter’s license. “This. As long as the Vatican is operating in the limits of the Commonwealth, they can’t make a move on me. Or any other contractor for that matter—not unless my license gets revoked. If they knew you were a hexling, they’d be putting you in whatever dungeon Gideon is going to. Fortunately for you, you’re my underarbiter.”

  “Yeah. How fortunate,” Cameron sneered.

  “To wrap it up: once I tell Marcus we left Gideon with Bishop Hargreeves, he’ll know what it means, and he’ll know that Gideon is no longer a threat to him. And that’ll be the favor taken care of. Make sense?”

  Cameron nodded. “Sure.”

  Leroy drove them through the hustle and bustle of Garland Heights, though Brinehaven's metropolitan core wasn’t exactly all that busy this late into the evening—or, by now, early morning. That nasty coffee he’d had at Bea’s Diner ended up doing him more justice than he would’ve imagined. Kept him awake. But the effects of it were wearing off, and the strain and fatigue of the day were settling into his body. Aches pooled in each of his muscles, and Cameron felt like if he was made to do anything else, his limbs would start to feel like pool noodles.

  “You suck at planning,” Cameron declared.

  “What?” Leroy briefly turned to face him.

  “You heard me. You took me to Bea’s and gave me this whole elaborate scheme about what was going to happen, or what needed to happen in order for us to pull off that win, and we won anyways. I won, and I didn’t need your help this time. Or anybody else’s for that matter. Admit it. You underestimated me.”

  “Maybe I did. But you’ll learn that it’s hard to plan for things in this line of work, Kessler. Possible, but hard. Being an arbiter means you’re chased by chaos every time you do a job. Think of it like.. shit, I don’t know, a book,” Leroy said.

  Cameron’s expression settled into confusion. “A book? Are you fucking serious right now? What does a book have to do with—”

  “Let me ask you this. Do you think every author, or writer plans everything in advance?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t read a book since I was, I don’t know, sixteen or seventeen—”

  “Some will say they do. But the reality is, most don’t. Same is true for painters, sculptors, or musicians. Chaos chases them too, throws them solid rights and quick jabs. People like that try to bob and weave, try to step out of the way, but the truth is, everyone eventually learns that you can only do one thing.”

  “And what’s that?” Cameron asked.

  Leroy smiled. “You can only roll with the punches. Take the hit. Hope it doesn’t put you flat out on the ground.”

  “So, first, you’re comparing what, mercenary work, to being a goddamn writer? A painter? A musician? Man, are you fucking full of yourself, Leroy, and then—here’s the cherry on top—you turn the whole thing into a boxing reference?”

  Leroy nodded. “Yup.”

  “How about this, Leroy. Next time you decide to give me your sage wisdom, or whatever you think it is you think you’re giving me, do me a favor—don’t. You sound like a damn moron. I mean, everything you just said, you could’ve said in like, five or six words: things don’t always go according to plan.”

  “Seven,” Leroy said.

  “What?”

  “That’s seven words.”

  Cameron shook his head and leaned back in the seat of the car. “Asshole.”

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GIDEON DRAVES

  BISHOP HARGREEVES

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