CHAPTER 20: THE REAL SECURITY

  CYPRUS ALLEY, SPECTRE NIGHTCLUB—NOVEMBER 19th, 1992 | EVENING

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  Leroy recognized all of them. He even knew their names from the last run-in he’d had at Spectre. It was a unit of three, who, prior to working for Marcus Velvet, each had storied histories and enough street credit to be worth more than a passing glance.

  Seated on the right bar stool was a man known only as Hughes.

  Average height, thin features, a slight bend to his posture. On the street, he was the kind of guy that one might glance over and think nothing of. Unless you saw his eyes. Sunken, hyena-like, so brown that they looked black and alien. A dark thermal tee shirt clung to his wiry chest, and strapped over it was a Kevlar vest. To either side of his hips: Desert Eagles. On his belt were more throwing knives than Leroy could count. If the rumors could be trusted, he was an ex-military contractor.

  Seated on the left stool was a woman well into her late thirties. Leroy recognized the unkempt, short, reddish hair before he took note of anything else.

  Aria Remeau. White tank top, no bra, cream-colored trench coat. Jeans that looked like they should’ve been washed ages ago, and simple slides on her feet. Her nose was distinct, big in a way that would’ve looked off if it were any smaller. She had no weapons on her. Thaumaturgists often didn’t need any. From what Leroy knew, she was a recent dropout from Brinehaven College and a drunk—which meant she was powerful and easily steered. A perfect combination for someone like Marcus Velvet.

  Between both of them, seated at the center stool, was Rachel Chen.

  She looked younger than she was, and wore a pair of sunglasses. Small, rimless, oval; almost like what you’d seen on the face of an alien. Her dark hair was tied tightly into a bun, pomaded over in the front. A dull orange biker jacket covered her upper body, and dark business slacks hung over her legs, draping gently over what looked like gladiatorial sandals.

  Then there was the sword.

  A sheathed jian blade, older than anything in Brinehaven, which she carried in one hand. Outside of being a former Triad enforcer, Rachel was also a curator; someone soul-bonded to an object of arcane or occult power. Nobody but her could wield it, but if and when she died, her spirit would be trapped in that thing, same as every other wielder before her.

  “Rachel,” Leroy said, tipping his checkered flat cap in her direction.

  “You know these people?” Cameron asked, turning. His hoodie came down as he did so, revealing the extraskeletal material he wore atop his skin.

  “An unceremonious entrance, to say the least,” Rachel said, getting up out of her stool. To her side, Hughes also stood up, while Aria crossed one leg over the other and continued drinking whatever was in her glass.

  Leroy stared at Cameron. “Yeah. To say the least.”

  Around them, the patrons seated in the VIP lounge all promptly stood up from their fancy booths and made for the doorless entrance, scurrying down the metal stairwell where the ambient noise of the club music leaked in.

  The bartender moved out from behind the counter, only for Aria to point a finger. “No. No.. no, no. You. You stay. I want another gin and tonic.”

  “Ms. Remeau, I—”

  “You.. what? You’re scared?” Aria slogged down what was left of her booze and placed down the glass. Hard. “Your boss hired us to not be scared.”

  “Our boss,” Hughes corrected.

  “What?” Aria said, turning to him.

  “Our boss. We all work for Mr. Velvet,” Hughes pointed out. He reached for his Desert Eagle and withdrew it faster than Leroy could register. Cameron reached for his own gun, the Reign 18, which had been tucked into the front of his belt. Leroy grabbed his wrist, and eyed him.

  “Which is why we’re here,” Leroy explained, nodding towards a door on the far side of the room. “Need a word with him. He in his office?”

  “I’m inclined to believe that Mr. Velvet doesn’t want anything to do with you, Leroy,” said Rachel.

  Cameron looked at Leroy expectantly.

  “For all of our sakes, let’s pretend I wasn’t here two years ago,” said Leroy.

  Rachel glanced down at the incapacitated bouncer, not quite dead, but broken and battered in a mess of what remained of the door to the VIP lounge. Slowly, she removed her sheath from her jian, revealing a sleek, double-edged sword with a tipped point. It was rusted in certain areas, and covered in Chinese characters that steadily leaked a black ooze, like ink. “Let’s not.”

  “A sword? Really?” Cameron asked aloud, voice dredged in disbelief.

  Leroy exhaled. “Cover your face, Kessler.”

  “My face—hey, hey, hey!”

  Leroy shot his arms under Cameron and heaved, picking him up and holding him forward like he was some kind of riot shield. Hughes fired three times.

  Bullets flew, but none of them reached Leroy. One after another, they ricocheted off Cameron’s bone-like skin, zipping into the nearby walls.

  The bartender ducked under the bar counter, screaming.

  Rachel dashed towards them and twisted into a sword slash. Leroy saw it out of the corner of his eye, and pivoted, shifting Cameron in front of her. Sparks flew from the length of her half-rusted blade as it came into contact with Cameron’s skin. Just as Leroy suspected—it couldn’t cut him.

  But Leroy knew from experience that enough point-blank bullets could dent or crack his skin, and Hughes seemed to have a hunch that mirrored this to a T. Shifting to a double-handed grip, Hughes charged toward Cameron and shoved the barrel of his Desert Eagle into the hexlings chest.

  One bang.

  Another bang.

  A third bang.

  A fourth.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He hadn’t been pierced, Leroy guessed, but that kind of firepower would’ve left a deep dent and enough blunt force trauma to match. Under his second set of skin, his real skin was probably ugly and twisted. Black and all kinds of blue. Probably even worse than that.

  But Cameron wasn’t the kind of kid that would let something like that stop him. No. He was a pitbull; easily angered and unlikely to let go once he had a reason to bite. Leroy smirked at the sound of Cameron’s recoil, but he wasn’t about to let the kid fall over. With a jerk, he straightened Cameron up and shoulder bashed him in the direction of Hughes.

  Cameron heaved through a pained breath and slipped his arm forward to punch Hughes square in the chest, and sent the heavily armed man back into the counter of the bar. The impact sent wood splintering out, and the witch, Aria Remeau, wasn’t happy with the interruption.

  “.. My drink,” Aria muttered.

  Cameron pounced. Good—Leroy needed him to keep the both of them busy. He had bigger problems to deal with, or a bigger problem. That problem’s name was Rachel Chen. She wasted no time correcting her stance and stepped towards Leroy, swinging her blade.

  He only just barely avoided getting stabbed straight through the stomach, but even in stepping to the side, she chased, and with a pointed jab, sliced through Leroy’s brown leather jacket and took away a little more than two inches of his skin. Blood spattered outward and he gritted his teeth.

  Worse, it wasn’t over. Leroy saw another splash—but it wasn’t his blood, and it wasn’t water.

  With every swing of Rachel’s jian, ink sputtered out from the Chinese characters along its surface.

  Splotches of black hit the ground, and as soon as they did, exact replicas of Rachel’s jian sprouted out. Around him must have been a dozen blades, spontaneously emerging like a minefield of sharpened steel. As he stumbled and pivoted around, the blades took more blood from him. They sliced along his legs, tugged on his pants, and chewed through his skin like the skewers they were.

  Pain flushed through him, and it was through that pain that he recalled the three times they’d fought before.

  Ice, ink, blood, and lots of it. But more important than any of those memories was the single time she’d mentioned the name of her soul-bonded sword: the Blade of One-Hundred.

  Plenty of his blood had been spilled so far, and it wasn’t ideal, but it still gave him something to work with. Leroy felt light-headed, and only just barely caught his breath enough to clench a fist. He twisted his fist and pulled in just as Rachel stepped forward with her jian.

  A dim blue glow poured out from the symbol on his neck, and the same glow outlined every ounce of blood Rachel had taken from him.

  Crimson solidified. With what he had to work with, he could shape it into something small, or, many, many small things. Leroy went with the second option. Dozens upon dozens of thin needles shot into the approaching Rachel, peppering the entire front of her body.

  Behind them were gunshots. Cameron, surprisingly, was holding his own against Hughes—he was doing more than just surviving. But that wouldn’t last. Hexlings, no matter how their abilities happened to manifest, were known for hitting hard and hitting quickly. Cameron didn’t have much longer, and Hughes gunshots would be the least of his problems. Light began to accumulate around the outstretched hand of Aria Remeau.

  Leroy gritted his teeth. Being a babysitter during active combat was one of the many reasons he had avoided taking on an underarbiter.

  He reached under his jacket and withdrew his heavy handgun, fist firing a round in warning at Rachel and then shooting three more bullets behind her. Rachel exclaimed, body torquing to the impact of the bullet that shot clean through her chest. Behind her, several liquor handles shattered. Booze flew through the air.

  Leroy clenched, twisted, and pulled.

  Aria prepared something ghastly in her outstretched palms. Purple-black energy had gathered around her hands, and the air kicked up around her body. She spoke an incantation into the air in a double-voice. “Tenebris Sagitta—”

  A solid ball of ice made of gin, whiskey, and wine slammed into her head. Aria’s frame shifted so suddenly that whatever she’d shot from her hands was completely misdirected. Her thaumaturgic spell exited her hands as an arrow of dark essence, which exploded upon impact. Nearly half of the VIP booth on the opposite end of the room was consumed in a wispy, violent explosion of blacks and purples that caused all of the windows to shatter at once. Tables incinerated and what remained of the lounge booths was tattered tufts of fabrics formerly called couches.

  Aria hit the floor hard with a resounding groan.

  In the heat of it all, Leroy saw Cameron leap towards Hughes, who’d been backpedaling with both Desert Eagles withdrawn, firing incessantly. Each bullet sent a recoil through Cameron as he approached, but he wouldn’t be stopped. Couldn’t be.

  Leroy witnessed him push off his back leg, impacting the ground in dust and debris as he launched himself towards Hughes, grabbing hold of both barrels and bending the metal down.

  Glass shattered. Leroy’s eyes shifted forward, and he saw Rachel emerge with a dull green stain on the corner of Rachel’s lips. It wasn’t liquor. She produced another vial from her belt, downed a second vial’s worth of pasteurized demon blood, and threw it against the ground.

  “Double dosing,” Leroy noted. “You’re playing a dangerous game with that one, Rachel.”

  “And you look like you could use some,” she said, taking a step forward.

  Double-dosing wasn’t uncommon, but it was stupid. If one dose of pasteurized demon blood enhanced the natural healing process, two supercharged it to mend grievous injuries. The bullet wound in Rachel’s chest was all but closed, and so too was the skin where she’d been pierced by Leroy’s many needles, dislodging them from her skin. Convenient in a pinch, but she’d be paying her debts by tomorrow morning. Unbearable muscle cramps, vomiting in excess, and searing migraines were a few symptoms among many.

  And as much as that all sucked, Rachel was onto something. He was stupid not to re-up before taking a job.

  Moreover, he couldn’t move far, if much at all.

  Rachel’s ink-blades weren’t going away anytime soon, and if he moved even an inch, he’d be sliced up and down. She stepped forward with a lunge, blade pointed. Not a swing, a point. No ink splotches, which meant no more swords. But he didn’t have Cameron’s skin, and with the blood he’d already lost, he couldn’t afford to get stabbed in the stomach.

  Think.

  He had to think.

  The blade was going to hit him—he’d missed his chance to stop it fully. And while Rachel knew what Leroy was capable of, she also knew that in this moment, he was cornered. Anyone with any sensibility could recognize that, but Leroy recognized something else. She saw him as weak. As vulnerable. Sunglasses be damned; he didn’t need to see her eyes to know that. It was in the way she moved, with a sure-fire confidence that Leroy couldn’t even blame her for.

  But what may appear to be weakness may be a path to triumph.

  Leroy grabbed the jian and gritted his teeth. The half-rusted blade cleaved through the thin flesh of his hand and stopped just in front of his stomach. Blood spilled into the ground, and Rachel’s focused expression shifted into a scowl.

  She pushed harder, and Leroy had no choice but to step back. One of Rachel’s existing ink-blades cut upward along the back of his calves, and he bellowed out in pain. Not yet. It wasn’t over. Far from it. With his free hand, Leroy reached inside of his jacket and withdrew one of the waterskins.

  He threw it onto the ground.

  Water splashed outward, and within seconds, a dim blue glow encased the aqua-spatter.

  Rachel tried to withdraw her blade from Leroy’s hand, but he denied her, and clenched down with every ounce of physical bruteness he could muster.

  “Fuck,” muttered Rachel.

  A knowing and twisted smile flashed across Leroy’s face.

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  I'm in this for the long haul, and ambitious as it sounds, I want to create an entire Brinehaven universe with multiple book series and spin-offs. If you are a fan of the series so far and would like to help me make that dream a reality, I'd greatly appreciate your support! Thanks so much for everything so far. I never imagined I'd reach over 100 followers, and I have each and every one of you to thank.

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  RACHEL CHEN

  ARIA REMEAU

  HUGHES

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