CHAPTER 47: DEATH'S DIFFERENT FACE

  GARLAND HEIGHTS—NOVEMBER 22th, 1992 | AFTERNOON

  ?

  “No.”

  The word left Leroy’s mouth with a weighted immediacy. He said it quickly and with a firmness that left zero room for misinterpretation; it was a cold no, matter-of-fact and final. A declaration that need not be said twice.

  On the opposite end of the phone, Marcus clicked his tongue. “Leroy.”

  “Ask me to do something else.”

  “I’m not asking. I’m telling. And I’m telling you to do this.”

  “Find someone else,” Leroy stated.

  Static buzzed through the phone, and a sigh from Marcus buzzed through the white noise. “I figured you might offer me some.. resistance, Leroy.”

  There was more to be said, and while Leroy waited for Marcus to continue, he fought the urge to hang up the phone.

  “There are a few people who might like to know who Leroy Callahan is. And at the moment, I’m feeling inclined to tell them.”

  A tightness erupted in the center of Leroy’s chest, and he felt the phantom of two hands around his throat. Marcus’s hands. Paralysis beset him and all of his limbs felt heavier. If there was any feeling left in his body, it was in the hand that gripped the phone. Tighter and tighter it clenched. Yaerzul’s mark hummed, and every liquid in the room froze.

  “From what I understand, Leroy,” Marcus continued, “there are three people still alive who know that name. Yourself, Minister Rostavich, and Carlisle Booker. Now there are four. You don’t want there to be a fifth. If not for your own sake, than for your dear friend Minister Rostavich’s.”

  “Marcus—”

  “You have until Thanksgiving Eve.”

  Static.

  The line went silent.

  Leroy placed the wall-mounted phone back into place and stared at the wall in front of him. Footsteps approached from behind, and without turning, Leroy knew who it was. A calloused and scarred hand touched down upon his shoulder.

  “Kessler. I need to run an errand, and I need you to stay here,” Leroy stated, his voice low.

  With a pivot, Leroy turned.

  Cameron released his grip. “That was Marcus, wasn’t it?”

  Behind him, Janice stared into her frozen coffee cup, and Tania looked at the icy crystals that had once been her glass of water. The two of them exchanged a glance before both turning towards Leroy and Cameron.

  “Keep an eye on them for me.” Leroy paced towards the exit.

  “What does he want you to do, Leroy?” Cameron asked, following after him.

  “There’s something I need to do. By myself. Stay here, sit tight. Watch them.”

  “But—”

  Leroy slammed the door shut.

  ?

  Inside the telephone booth, the line buzzed.

  “I need to leave a message for Minister Rostavich, Sally. Tell him to meet me at Grove Cemetery."

  ?

  Overgrown weeds and rolling hills and a mist that was more gray than blue. Grove Cemetery was much the same, and it was the same no matter the day.

  The fog was dense, but not so dense that Leroy couldn’t see the bay that ran between the precipice of the Pines and beneath the Brinehaven Bridge. Leroy glanced over his shoulder to the sound of dress shoes. Minister Rostavich slithered through the stone steps and cobblestones that ran between the tombstones and mausoleums and stopped just beside Leroy, adorned in his usual dark gray suit, white dress shirt and red tie. Wavy, medium-length salt and pepper hair framed an angular, aging face.

  “I was surprised to hear you wanted to meet, Leroy. And here, of all places,” Minister Rostavich said, removing his thin square glasses and wiping them along his blazer.

  Leroy held his checkered flat cap in his hands and stared down at the tombstone in front of them. His tufts of silver-white hair draped along the back of his neck.

  MELINDA JOSEPHINE ROSTAVICH

  AUG 8 1943 - DEC 19 1982

  “Almost ten years now,” Minister Rostavich noted.

  “Someone knows, Mikel,” Leroy said dryly.

  Minister Rostavich opened and closed his mouth, pausing, as if in a brief but deep moment of deliberation. “Was it Carlisle? Has he told anyone?”

  Leroy shook his head. “No."

  “Measures were taken, Leroy, by the three of us to make sure that the past remains in the past. How could—”

  “Marcus Velvet. The Uncrowned King of Cyprus Alley, as he likes to call himself.”

  Minister Rostavich’s lips thinned. “The nightclub owner.”

  Leroy crouched down and ran his hand along the tombstone. “Don’t ask me how. My first run-in with him was years ago. A few arbitration notes put us at odds, and he made it point to put me on his radar. I got on his bad side in ‘86. He’s had all that time to put the pieces together.”

  Minister Rostavich inhaled. “And I take it your recent misadventures at Bluestein Philterworks involved this Mr. Velvet.”

  “His information is what let me fulfill the arbitration contract. Look, Mikel. He knows I used to be in the Syndicate.”

  Minister Rostavich shuffled his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “And I take it he knows your real name.”

  Leroy grit his teeth. “I'll bet he knows more than that, Mikel, and if he shares what he knows with the right people, I’m not going to be the only person with a target on my back. What you did for me, Mikel, it’s grounds for your removal.”

  “Yes,” Minister Rostavich said coolly. “The Commonwealth Council is not without its opportunists. I can think of several who might use such information to assume my position. Carlisle. Does he know?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Leroy shook his head. “No. And he won’t. This is something you and I can handle ourselves. But there’s a few things I need from you.”

  Minister Rostavich nodded towards Leroy. “If it is within my power, I will help.”

  “First,” Leroy began, standing back up. “I need an arbitration note to kill Marcus Velvet.”

  Minister Rostavich’s features darkened, and his brown eyes looked a shade deeper. “And what else, Leroy?”

  “I need you to find something in that Ledger of yours that lets me put together a team. A temporary team,” Leroy stated. “I’ll be getting some help, and the people who I’m planning on including will need functional immunity.”

  “There is something,” Minister Rostavich noted. “A special provision within the Ledger. Give me the names of those you intend on joining you, and I will deputize them as interim arbiters. For the duration of your arbitration note, they will be offered the same privileges as you and your undearbiter.”

  Leroy nodded. “I'll pass those names onto Sally and have her leave a message for you. And another thing. I’ll need to borrow Captain Holmes for this operation.”

  “Captain Holmes?” Minister Rostavich raised a brow.

  “It’s—... look. There’s a lot to this whole mess. Too many details, and too little time for me to include all of them, but I’ll say this: the whole reason any of this is happening, Mikel, is because of how Marcus does his deals. He does them in favors. The reason I’m here, the reason why any of this is our problem, is because he wants me to kill Captain Holmes. That’s the favor.”

  Minister Rostavich smiled. “And you said no.”

  “And I said no,” Leroy repeated. “But I’ll still need his help to get this mess squared away.”

  Minister Rostavich nodded. “Consider it done. I’ll need to speak to Chief Montgrave regardless. This Marcus Velvet figure, if anything else, seems resourceful. I would imagine that if any of this reaches him, he’ll have a contingency in place, and a means of delivering this information to members of the Commonwealth Council, in which case all of this will be for nothing.”

  Leroy cleared his throat. “What’s your angle, then?”

  Minister Rostavich stared at the tombstone for a long while. “I will inform Chief Montgrave that I have reason to believe that the Commonwealth Council is in danger. Grave danger. He will have no choice but to place a protective detail on each of them, and I will see about pushing for a.. shelter in place policy, so to speak, until you have done what you need to do.”

  Leroy placed his checkered flat cap back onto his head. “And out comes the viper.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Leroy. You know that better than most,” Minister Rostavich said plainly.

  “That I do, Mikel. That I do.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No,” Leroy asked.

  Minister Rostavich nodded. He ran a hand over Melinda’s grave, and inhaled. “I noticed Cameron Kessler is not here.”

  “No,” Leroy said.

  “You’ve left him to his own devices. The terms of our arrangement were that he be under your supervision, Leroy, until he himself becomes an arbiter. I—”

  “Desperate times,” Leroy stated.

  Minister Rostavich smiled and pivoted to begin his departure. “Desperate times. You should know, Leroy, that there is a car parked not far from your Cadillac.”

  Leroy grimaced. Marcus. He doubted that there was any way he could have listened into the telephone booth where Leroy had placed the call, but he’d be less surprised to find out that someone had been following him. Whether or not he’d had a meeting with the Minister, it stood to reason that Marcus would likely have someone tailing him.

  “A loose end. Stay here. I’ll take care of it.”

  ?

  It was a silver Toyota, and it saw that Leroy saw it the moment he stepped out of the fenced gates of Grove Cemetery. An engine spurred into life and wheels screeched along the pavement. Rubber burned, and the car swiveled harshly in an attempt to turn itself around. Yaerzul’s brand erupted in a dim blue.

  Fog on fog on fog.

  There was more than enough for him to work with, and plenty of it for him to deal with this quickly.

  In a sudden jerk, the car had completed its reversal.

  It was farther than Leroy would’ve liked, some thirty-odd feet from where he was standing, but as long as he could see it and had something to freeze, distance mattered little. He formed a fist, clenched, and pulled.

  A massive spike of ice formed above the car, hanging over it like the blade of a guillotine. It dropped down immediately, skewering the Toyota’s metal chassis into the asphalt. Metal crunched and whined. Its alarm beeped and its hazard lights droned on and off. Leroy saw a man exit the car soon after, falling out from the door he kicked open and scrambling to get back to his feet.

  He’d been spared any damage—and that was on purpose.

  Leroy had to know who it was.

  With an angered patience to his steps, Leroy approached, taking a moment to adjust his checkered flat cap tighter against his head. Fog wafted away from him as he neared the man, who’d broken into a sprint.

  Leroy whisked two fingers forward, face drawn into a scowl.

  From the mist, frozen chains materialized around the man, coiling around his body like a collection of frigid snakes. Leroy clenched. The crystalline links tightened against the man’s skin, and he fell flat onto his side.

  Leroy treaded towards him and placed his boot under his stomach, flipping him onto his back.

  Thin and beady eyes. Slicked back hair, five-o-clock-shadow. A kevlar vest. Two Desert Eagles, an excess of throwing knives along his belt.

  “Hughes,” Leroy muttered.

  He was the spitting image of what he’d been prior to very nearly getting killed by Cameron—and as he should’ve been. Triple-dosing on pasteurized demon blood was as much a risk as it was a chance at saving yourself from certain death, but not even a single scar remained on his body.

  Leroy crouched down over him and let his hands rest between his knees. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”

  He was tight-lipped, and issued Leroy a look of contempt.

  “You’re going to take a moment to reflect. A moment to think. To really think, and I’ll do my due diligence in helping you with that,” Leroy said, pointing a finger against his own temple. “Not even a few days ago you almost died for this guy. For Marcus. And here you are, once again, staring into one of death’s faces. A different face, this time, sure. My face—not my underarbiter’s.”

  More silence. Each word seemed to prompt further disdain from Hughes.

  “Ask yourself, Hughes, if this guy is worth dying for. When you come to an answer, you let me know. Nod your head, or something, maybe say ‘aye’ for good measure. If not? Stay quiet. I’ll give you a moment of silence, let you figure it out for yourself. I’ll even count for you with my fingers. When I get to five, and you’re still quiet, we'll come to an understanding.”

  Hughes narrowed his gaze.

  Leroy raised one finger. “And that understanding is this: your silence is your ticket out of the city.”

  A second finger. “It’s the only way you get out of this alive.”

  A third. “It’ll mean that you take your mundy ass back to wherever it is you came from.”

  A fourth. “It’ll mean you don’t look back.”

  A fifth. “Not now. Not ever.”

  There wasn’t a nod. No ‘aye’ from Hughes. Just a blankness to his features, and a placid look on a face that was moments ago consumed the disdain of a good dog given bad orders. Leroy smiled a wide half-smile, and slapped the side of Hughes’ cheek. Leroy stepped aside. A dim blue glow outlined the icy chains that curved around Hughes body, and the water melted against his clothes and splashed onto the concrete. With a nod of the head, he urged Hughes to stand, and directed him towards the road with another nod of the head.

  Hughes stood up, glanced at Leroy, and began walking down the road.

  Leroy waited until he advanced at the far end of the road, where Brinehaven’s fog grew thicker, and slowly raised a hand and clenched. A dull blue outline emerged around the liquid that stained Hughe’s clothes, covering his legs and torso in frost. He writhed and reached for the gun on his belt. With a twist of his fist, the mist erupted into a blade of ice just above Hughes’ head. Leroy pulled.

  The frozen sword dropped.

  ?? drum roll ??

  Also, a new Ritual! The winner of our previous Ritual, Bishop Hargreeves, will get his chapter come evening US-Pacific time.

  You'll see three characters attached below this post-chapter note to vote upon. If you've read this far, you know the drill! With every rating or review, one ? is added to the Ritual meter. On completion, I release a side-story from the POV of a character that has already been introduced in the story as a bonus chapter. And you guys vote on which one you want to see.

  Cast your ballots my friends ??? !

  [VOTING CLOSED]

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  LEROY WATERS

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  HUGHES

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