CHAPTER 46: THE SECOND FAVOR

  GARLAND HEIGHTS—NOVEMBER 22th, 1992 | AFTERNOON

  ?

  Two days ago, Dean Dresker dropped all of them off at Silver Falls, and Leroy took Captain Holmes' advice. He hardly said a word to the man, and slipped into Captain Holme’s cruiser easily enough. By some miracle, he hadn’t heard Tania’s whole episode in the back of that transport truck, probably due largely in part to the sheer amount of steel those walls had.

  One day ago, Leroy received his blood money from Ruby Shakur. In spite of all that had happened, he remembered that most of this was hush-hush money paid to her by Donovan Mayfield for his accidental killings of her brothel workers.

  The same girls that Leroy was meant to avenge, more or less, at the expense of involving him in one of the biggest corporate scandals in the Commonwealth’s history. After all was said and done, Leroy was happy to close that chapter. At least for the moment. The implications of Ruby Shakur’s arbitration contract would haunt him for the foreseeable future. The Philterworks Incident, as Captain Holmes had taken to calling it.

  Seven grand.

  Chump change, in the grand scheme of things. He would’ve charged three times that if he knew what putting an end to ether distribution actually entailed. At the beginning, he was convinced it was just some alchemy project brainchild of a Brinehaven College of the Arts dropout looking to make some quick, dirty money. He should’ve known better.

  Still, Ruby Shakur’s lackluster payout would keep Leroy’s lights on and his stomach full for the better part of the next three months, but most of that would find its way under the floorboards of his apartment with the rest of it. Banks didn’t handle money well. Financiers and clerks and suits didn’t care about keeping money safe, they cared about roping you into their next big scheme. Rats and weasels and rodents. Cash was king, and Leroy only ever trusted himself to keep his money safe.

  Cameron expected a cut. At the time of asking, they were both situated in Leroy’s living room, and Leroy promptly laughed in his face, reminding his undeararbiter that extenuating circumstances—as in, him being under glorified parole—meant that Leroy handled the finances. Leroy had decided that Cameron was due thirty-percent of every contract they’d end up doing, which was generous, he thought, but Cameron still tried to haggle.To negotiate. Leroy aptly reminded him that he didn’t have any expenses, and that he’d get his underarbiter’s trust fund once he finally got his license.

  “Leroy.”

  Cameron’s voice broke him from his daydreaming stupor. All of that was in the past. Somehow, Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’—courtesy of 107.1, the Smitten Mistress—had him forgetting that his Cadillac was parked on one of the lesser known stretches of Garland Heights. Outside, the fog was dense, brackish, and gave the redbrick buildings and surrounding skyrises a blue-gray tint. That was Brinehaven. Always dark. Always miserable. Dark and miserable and tired. Two days after the Philterworks Incident, Leroy felt much the same.

  Leroy rubbed his eyes and glanced towards the signage.

  ALLURE ARTIFICERY & REPAIR

  His favorite hole-in-the-wall of a workshop. Esme O’Doherty’s storefront was just as she left it, even from the outside. A thin window display showed off trinkets and oddities that were well out of Leroy’s price range.

  Leroy turned the radio off and hovered his hand over the door.

  “Hold on,” Cameron said. He prepared to release Guts from his sprite cage.

  “No, no, absolutely not. Guts stays in his damn cage unless you need him out of it, you got it?

  Cameron set his jaw and leaned his head back in the seat. His right ear was taped over in a copious amount of gauze; a parting gift from whoever had shot half of it off over at Bluestein Philterworks. For whatever reason, the kid had insisted on letting it scar. He’d mentioned something before about it being ‘proof’ that he needed to be better, and Leroy wasn’t about to argue with him over it.

  “You uh, ever hear from Eisenhower and Arthur?”

  “Yeah. Called and checked with Chaptermaster Morgan last night. They’re fine.”

  “Going sentimental on me, Kessler?” Leory asked, a wry smile emerging on his face.

  “You said it yourself. Without them, we probably would’ve died in the Pines,” Cameron pointed out. “Just wanted to know if they made it out.”

  Leroy nodded his head from side to side.

  He was right, and even after several rounds of washing his clothes, the stench of the garou horde still lingered on his person: blood, saliva, scabies, and reckless violence. From what the Chaptermaster had mentioned, efforts were being taken to address the horde at-large, which meant Eisenhower and Arthur hadn’t finished it off, which also meant Tania had turned more people than Leroy cared to guess about.

  “You… Leroy, you remember what Tania said? In the back of that Argent Group truck?”

  Leroy stared out of his windshield. “Yeah.”

  “The woman she was talking about. Eye patch, braid. claw mark, red cross. That’s the Chaptermaster, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Leroy muttered. “Look. Whatever happened to Tania that pushed her into the Pines isn’t for us to worry about, alright? We don’t have the full story, and frankly, it’s above my pay grade to be going around snooping into Order business. Which means it’s definitely above your pay grade too. Don’t want to hear about this, not again, and especially not in front of Tania. You got it? Don’t bring that shit up. “

  Cameron was oddly silent, but his contempt spoke volumes. He stewed on Leroy’s words for what felt like a long while before slamming open the door and exiting. Leroy exhaled, did the same, and stepped out onto the sidewalk and into the front of Allure Artificery.

  It looked the same. Esme’s framed degree hung proudly on the wall, accrediting her as a Master’s in Artificery from the Brinehaven College of the Arts, and she was surrounded by all manner of projects. Baubles and trinkets and oddities. Her welcome desk and workbench was cluttered, but not sloppy.

  Esme looked the same too. Her military-green, short-sleeve button up was buttoned up all the way. Her reddish hair was tied neatly into a long braid, and a black bandana covered most of her head, secured by welding goggles that rested over the top of the fabric. Eyes like black coffee, freckles, and too many tattoos on her arms for Leroy to make sense of.

  “Leroy. Cameron.” She nodded their direction.

  “How’re our star witnesses?” Leroy asked, leaning up against the counter.

  Cameron nodded back at her, and situated himself behind the desk. He peered over her shoulder and, seemingly, had lost the ability to understand how personal space worked. He wasn’t just nosy, he was interested. Intrigued. Leroy couldn’t decide if it was in the artificery, or Esme herself.

  Probably both.

  “What’re you working on?” Cameron asked, innocently enough.

  Esme didn’t turn to face him, and picked up what looked like a bracelet of some sort. It hummed with power. “Your Rings of Mutualism. I trust they are working well. You haven’t killed each other yet.”

  Cameron’s mouth opened and closed in disbelief. Leroy saw an anger flood into his gaze, but that’s where that ended. He’d been getting better at containing his outburst and subduing the urge to vocalize how he really felt to Leroy, much to Leroy’s amusement. It was like watching a toddler denying himself the urge to throw a tantrum; unnatural as it was impressive.

  “To answer your question, Leroy, they’re fine. They’re both upstairs. Cameron, if you don’t mind,” Esme raised a hand to shoo Cameron away. “You’re lurking. I don’t work well with lurkers.”

  Cameron cleared his throat. “Yeah. Sorry. My bad.”

  Leroy pushed himself off her counter. “Thanks again for doing this.”

  “It’s not a matter of thanks. You told me the Civic and Occult Authority would be compensating me. I’d appreciate some updates on that end, Leroy,” Esme remarked.

  “Ah-huh. You can bet on it,” Leroy said with a nod. “I got Captain Holmes’ word.”

  Esme placed down the bracelet she’d been working on. “And what good does that do me, Leroy?”

  “You don’t know?” Leroy smiled a knowing smile. “His word is worth its weight in gold. Right, Kessler?”

  Cameron scoffed. It looked like, for a moment, a smile might plague his features—a far cry from the anger that had only just faded from his features.

  Esme produced something from her person, and slid it over the counter. A key fob. Sigilmarked. “Two keys. One to access the back room. Another to access my loft, which is closed off by a door, which leads to a stairwell, which leads to the aforementioned loft."

  Leroy grabbed the key and nodded. He shuffled through the tight space of Esme’s store and made his way into the back room, where most of the magic happened. He inserted the first of the two sigilmarked keys into the lock. Glyphs and wards hummed, as if announcing that access had been granted through the whispers arcanism. The door would remain open, for now, until closed manually.

  Esme’s front reception area was for final tweaks, precise carvings, and finished products. What Leroy walked through was the vestigial organ of a blacksmith’s forge: there was a small forge with a furnace, castings for molds, raw materials organized into stacks of ingots, protective equipment, and clothing lines with stray schematics. Unlit candles rested on shelves next to odds and ends. For all of her cleverness, this seemed stupid: a safety hazard at best and a disaster waiting to happen at worse.

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  “Woah,” Cameron muttered, stopping just behind Leroy.

  Leroy paced to the far end of the back room, where the sigilmasoned door awaited them, and placed the second key into the lock. A hum of arcanic power whispered out to him. “Yeah. Woah.”

  ?

  Esme’s loft was about what Leroy expected. Large yellow-tinted windows, exposed brick walls. A single steel beam ran along the ceiling, and Esme had an assortment of hanging plants, a den of couches, and a kitchenette. Minimal yet lived-in, and even more lived-in than usual given her recent guests.

  Janice was out of the Bluestein Philterworks jumpsuit-uniform Leroy had first seen her in, and was situated along the couch with a cup of coffee in her hand, wearing a simple green pullover sweater and baggy jeans. Her curly brown hair was drawn into a bun.

  Opposite of her on the other couch was Tania Ackermann, who wore a blindingly white tank-top and baggy black cargo shorts that went down to her ankles. Her amber eyes regarded Leroy with vigilance. She wore a baseball cap that only just barely contained her wavy tufts of black-maroon hair.

  And it seemed Leroy had walked into something.

  “We can’t,” insisted Janice, soft-spoken but firm.

  Tania sank into her seat, and stared up at a large ceiling fan. “It’s not a matter of we, it’s a matter of I. I have to go back.”

  “Back where?” Leroy asked. He tipped his checkered flat cap to the both of them.

  Cameron cleared his throat and nodded to the both of them.

  “How much longer do we need to stay here?” Tania asked, lurching up and glancing towards Leroy.

  “Until the trial,” Leroy stated.

  Tania leveled her gaze. “And when is the trial, exactly?”

  Cameron paced around Esme’s apartment, taking note of her dwellings. “Could be days. Could be weeks. If I had to guess, you’re probably looking at the latter. The Commonwealth has to prepare a case, and preparing a case against a company like Bluestein Philterworks takes.. well. It takes a long time. I’d imagine. Probably.”

  Leroy raised a brow. “And you’re the expert now, are you?”

  “No—... I’m just spitballing here, asshole,” Cameron said, turning to face the group.

  Janice took a sip from her coffee. “That sounded right to me.”

  Leroy nodded. “Well, he’s not wrong. The short of it is we don’t know, Tania.”

  Janice placed her cup of coffee down. “She wants to go back to Silver Falls.”

  “Yeah, I could’ve guessed that,” Cameron retorted.

  Tania grimaced. “Sooner rather than later.”

  Leroy shifted his attention between the three of them. A former Bluestein Philterworks alchemist, a lycan, and his underarbiter. Each of them seemed to be in the know-how, and he stood there like a bumbling idiot with his old and tired face drawn into half a scowl. Improvising was one thing, being out of the loop was another. Leroy could tolerate being one or the other—not both.

  “Eye patch. Braid. Claw mark. Red cross.” Tania spoke in a low tone, and she said each word like it was part of a ritual.

  “The Order of the Wardens. You’ve got history with them,” Leroy thought aloud.

  Cameron paced over to the two couches and stood behind the one Janice was seated in. “If I had to guess, that would be putting it lightly.”

  “It’s my business to handle,” Tania snapped. “Not yours. Not his. And definitely not fucking Janice’s.”

  “Well, I want to help regardless,” Janice retorted, her voice stronger than it was quiet. “It’s.. it’s the least I can do.”

  Leroy brought a hand to his face and gripped the bridge of his nose.

  Ever since he’d met Cameron, it was one thing after another. He only had himself to blame for this; rescuing Tania and Janice wasn’t exactly a part of the arbitration contract Ruby Shakur had written for them. Hell, normally, he would’ve made the both of them sign an arbitration note for this kind of service. Cameron, however, wouldn’t have agreed to that. Worse, he would’ve thrown one of his usual tantrums. The path of least resistance, then, was this, which undoubtedly would end up turning into the path of the most resistance. Dull pain thumped through Leroy’s temples; a headache was overdue.

  “One thing at a time,” Leroy said, raising up both of his hands, as if to calm the group. Really, he was trying to calm himself. “Look. Whatever problem you have with the Order, Tania, it isn’t mine to solve. You can handle that on your own time once everything is over and done with. If I let you leave, Captain Holmes will tear me a new one, and if you leave—either of you—what’s left of Bluestein Philterworks will tear you both a new one. So.”

  “So,” Cameron mocked.

  Leroy glared at him and exhaled. “So it’s going to be a whole lot of nothing before there’s something. Get comfortable.”

  A long silence filled the air. As much as she’d tried to hide it, each word Leroy had spoken had made Janice more and more unsettled. On the opposite end of that, Tania seemed more and more vexed by the prospect of having to wait, and Cameron simply crossed his arms, brow raised with a stupid and questioning look on his face. He expected more than that, and Leroy had nothing more to give.

  “You two hungry?” Leroy asked.

  Janice and Tania glanced at each other.

  “She needs to eat,” Janice stated, with firmness that seemed to come and go. “The only thing that kept her from starving to death was the fact that she was transformed while having her blood—”

  Cameron clapped his hands together once. “Right. That memory might be a little on the sore side, Janice.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Prince Charming,” Tania said with a scoff. “It’s fine. Janice’s right. Esme has been feeding us instant noodles and protein drink-things for the past two days. The college bum and geriatric diet.”

  “Sounds like fuel to me,” Cameron said, allowing himself a rare smile.

  Tania sneered at him.

  “It’s lacking in nutrients, which is what Tania needs. And—... well, I’d prefer something with less… sodium. And fat. It’s a miracle Esme retains her figure,” Janice said, letting out a brief laugh.

  Leroy paced around the loft, and his eyes honed in on a wall-mounted phone. “Sounds like you both need a big fat burger. And a milkshake. Two large chocolate milkshakes. I know just the place.”

  A look of concern washed over Janice’s features. “Well, no, that’s actually the opposite of what—”

  Leroy glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Cameron had placed a hand on Janice’s shoulder, and slowly shook his head. He didn’t say a word, but Janice more or less understood where he was coming from, and resigned herself to the idea of a not-so-healthy lunch. Tania was indifferent. Her mind was elsewhere.

  He dialed the number for Bea’s Diner.

  Buzz after buzz after buzz. Strange. Leroy hung up, dialed the number again, and waited.

  More static.

  With a heaving sigh, Leroy re-entered the number, and waited.

  “Heard you’re making quite the waves, Leroy.”

  Leroy’s eyes widened. He gripped the phone tight, and immediately felt his breath tighten inside of his lungs. His chest was heavy, and his heartbeat skipped a pulse to the tune of a voice that reached his ears like honeyed-timbre.

  “Marcus,” Leroy muttered.

  “And on my intel! Think of all of the things you and I could do together.”

  “How’d you get this number?” Leroy asked, lowering his voice.

  He could feel Cameron’s prying eyes on his back. And Tania’s. And Janice’s.

  “About that second favor, Leroy. You remember the terms of our.. agreement, yes?”

  Leroy grimaced. One favor for sparing him and Cameron’s life at Spectre, and a second one for providing him the intel to take down Bluestein Philterworks. Marcus was coming to collect what he was owed.

  “I need time,” Leroy said.

  Cameron paced over to him. His footsteps were heavy with a sense of urgency, but Leroy turned and held a hand up to him, and nodded towards the couch. Cameron narrowed his eyes, exhaled, and made his way back over towards Tania and Janice.

  “Ah-huh. Time is always of the essence, Leroy. You’re striking a hard bargain here. I could remind you, explicitly, of what might happen if you take too much time to uphold your end of what’s been agreed upon. Need I, or?”

  “No,” Leroy stated.

  Cameron’s words came to mind. Even if Marcus didn’t have anything on him prior to making that deal, he certainly did now. That fight with Gideon was itself grounds to put his arbitration license into question.

  “Look,” Leroy continued. “You want me to get the job done, yeah? And you want it done well, yeah?”

  Marcus was silent on the opposite end of the line.

  “I need a week. Minimum. Time to prepare, really prepare, for whatever it is you want me to do.”

  “By then it would be too late. Or close to it. I’ll give you four days, Leroy, and that’s me being generous. I’m still a bit sour over what you ended up doing with Gideon, you know.”

  “You told me to take care of him. He’s taken care of. What’s this second favor, Marcus?”

  “I’ll be clear this time, since you took liberties with Gideon, and for whatever reason, refused to—for a lack of better phrasing—read the subtext of what was being asked of you. I am at risk, in no small part due to your arbitration contract. This case that is being developed surrounding Bluestein Philterworks will inevitably lead back to Spectre, and I have no doubt that the Civic and Occult Authority will use it to try and implicate me. Disrupt my operation. Disrupt my business! Can you imagine?”

  “And you can’t have that.”

  Leroy could practically hear Marcus smiling through the phone. “No! No I can’t.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Are you listening? I’ll only say it once,” Marcus chimed.

  Leroy gripped the phone. “I’m listening.”

  “The man in charge of the investigation—Captain Holmes. I need you to kill him.”

  Brinehaven: Rituals will come out this Friday as a bonus chapter. Per the voting poll, Bishop Hargreeves is the winner.

  Come Friday, I will also be introducing the second Ritual meter with 3 more selectable characters. I have some in mind, however, this is where you guys come in. If you have a certain character you'd like to see in a separate short story set in the Brinehaven universe, feel free to leave some suggestions down below, and I can add them to the Ritual poll.

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  JANICE OLIVERA

  TANIA ACKERMAN

  ESME O'DOHERTY

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