CHAPTER 21: NOT YOURS

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

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  How this guy hadn’t died was beyond Cameron.

  He’d punched him square in the chest, more than once, and a blow like that was usually all it took. But now that he was up close, damn near breathing into the guy’s face, it started to add up.

  The vest.

  Kevlar.

  A far cry from the defense that Cameron’s skin offered, but it must’ve done just enough to keep the guy nimble and ready to fire his bullets over and over and over again. And each time he was hit by one, Cameron felt he had been punched wherever the bullet had bounced off of him.

  The worst of it was when he’d been fired at point blank.

  Leroy’s handgun was one thing. Hefty, with a kick to it. His gun took half a magazine to put a proper dent and crack into Cameron’s skin.

  Desert Eagles were of a different caliber entirely, and with each of those shots that had been fired point blank, Cameron’s white-ivory carved into his real skin, several inches deep, cocooning the bullets around malformed skin and musculature. Better that than going through him.

  After being shot at so much, he wondered why the hell he was trying to get up close and personal, and even thought about pulling out his Reign 18. It remained tucked in the back of his belt this whole time, with a filled magazine that was oh-so-graciously returned to him by Leroy before they headed out for the day.

  That would’ve been the easier option, but Leroy, for whatever reason, decided that Cameron would be put to better use as a meat shield at the start of this whole mess.

  Asshole.

  At least he’d dealt with that thaumaturgist. Cameron briefly acknowledged the woman with a passing glance. That ball of ice she’d taken to the head was enough to cleanly knock her out.

  Had she still been up and slinging incantations, Cameron was doubtful how long he’d last against both her and the man before him; who, with either hand still gripping onto the handle of his twin Desert Eagles, dropped his weight entirely and slid under Cameron.

  Cameron pivoted, but by the time that he’d turned around, a throwing knife sliced across his face—one of the only parts of his body uncovered by his white ivory; a fact that had always pissed Cameron off. The head was the most important part of the body, save for the heart, and the balls.

  No bullets, no matter.

  Even without his guns, the guy remained prone on the floor, and whisked both of his hands down to his belt, which contained more throwing knives than Cameron had ever seen.

  He knew where to aim now, and Cameron had to cover his arms across his face. Metal lodged itself into his white-ivory of both of his forearms. With his head facing the floor, Cameron picked up the pace and charged towards the man peppering him with blades. Sparks flew from where the metal clashed against the material covering Cameron’s skin. He’d run out soon, just like he had ran out of bullets, and Cameron needed to be damn-near breathing on him by the time that happened.

  No more knives hit him.

  But it wasn’t because the man had run out of things to throw.

  Cameron hardly heard it. The man had kicked-flipped off of the ground, and when he lowered his forearms from his face, Cameron saw that he’d vaulted over the bar counter—no, not over. On top of it.

  He whisked two throwing knives forward, crossing his arms in a sleek, precise motion, and Cameron only just barely held up his hands over his face. Sparks splayed outward. The tips of the twin blades dug into Cameron’s cheeks, deep enough to prompt a groan of pain. If he’d waited a second later, he would’ve been dead.

  Cameron clenched. The two knives shattered in half.

  Ball up, wait for it to end. Cover the face, don’t worry about the body. But that wouldn’t work. This guy already realized he’d be wasting metal, and by then, Cameron would get the jump on him. Time was running out, however, and Cameron knew that his hexling abilities wouldn’t last much longer.

  He had to think.

  There was a tool he needed to become to flesh himself out into a weapon capable of defeating this bastard of a mundy. Getting humbled by a man like Leroy Waters, a demonic contractor, was one thing. All this guy had was bullets and blades, and he’d made a fool of Cameron up until now.

  Battering ram into sledgehammer. A one-two that would have to work.

  Cameron pushed off his back legs and the floor caved in beneath his feet, forearms covering his face. He sprung into the counter that the man stood upon, breaking it completely, and as he hovered in the air, Cameron uncrossed his forearms.

  Deft as ever, more knives—what seemed to be his final pair—zipped towards him.

  One cut grazed the side of his face, deep enough to leave a scar, and the other nicked his temple and caused blood to spatter out, forcing one of his eyes to close as the crimson seeped into his gray eyes.

  Cameron reached out. Both of his hands grabbed hold of the man’s legs, and Cameron raised both of his arms up and back.

  He slammed him down into the ground.

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  Winded, the man could hardly bellow out in pain. His frame rebounded off the fissured tiles below, and before he could fully hit the ground, Cameron’s white-ivory hand gripped his face.

  Cameron slammed him again—this time by the face. His body and legs flailed as he was forced back into the ground. Dust and debris flowed freely in all directions, and Cameron felt more than one crack. He’d broken the man's face in more places than one, and likely cracked his skull open. If he wasn’t dead outright, he was close to it.

  A dim scarlet glow washed over his body.

  His second set of skin dissipated into a red miasma, and flowed freely back into his eyes, ears, nose and mouth; like burning vomit that he was forced to consume. Cameron shook his head in disgust, and heaved, as if there was something to spit back out.

  Several of the bullets that had been lodged into his white ivory fell onto the ground, and Cameron could feel how the sheer force of the impacts had battered his real skin. If he had taken black hoodie and denim vest off, he’d probably find his skin black and blue and utterly painful to touch.

  He removed his hand from the man’s face.

  Cameron felt something odd. Germaine. Theodore McCormick, and everyone he’d killed on David’s behalf, people whose names he didn’t even know. It felt right to kill Germaine, it felt necessary to kill Theodore, and all of the other ones couldn't be helped—it was killed or be killed in the South End.

  Captain Holmes’ words echoed in his head: And now she’s dead. Same as the man you killed, who, whether you want to admit it, had his own Mercedes Garcia.

  There was no gunshot, but he heard one. Leroy. Donovan Mayfield. The coldness of that kill. It hit him all at once. Cameron’s hand began to shake and he looked for something to hold. His eyes darted around the mess that had been made, for something, anything. But his hands settled onto the man he’d just beaten half to death—onto his Kevlar vest. Cameron grabbed it and squeezed.

  It didn’t make sense.

  He didn’t understand why he felt this way, and why everything started to feel so hazy and surreal. It was overwhelmingly dark and bright and the noise of Leroy’s skirmish behind him faded into obscurity. All Cameron could hear was the quickened rhythm of his heartbeat.

  Shattered glass lay around him. Within their reflections, Cameron saw Leroy fighting that woman.

  She moved effortlessly with that sword of hers, cutting and cleaving through the spears of ice that Leroy sent in her direction, and with every slash and swipe of her blade—something stranger. Ink splotched onto different surfaces; the ground, the wall, the seating and tables of the VIP lounge. Swords grew from them, and Cameron had to turn and blink twice to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

  And Leroy, he stood on a disc of ice that left a trail of frost, like he was riding some miniature avalanche, bobbing and weaving around the woman and her nest of swords that only continued to grow in number.

  There must have been two or three dozen by now, and the only way Leroy averted getting sliced further was by remodeling the ice that he rode upon, over and over again. But the woman was quick. More than quick, she was agile, with reflexes that seemed to border on cat-like.

  She fought with persistence, even in spite of taking numerous hits from Leroy, who continued to recycle his water to create javelins that he sent towards her with nothing more than the usual whisk of his two fingers. None of them hit her directly thus far. She proved to be too quick, with an ebb and flow that mirrored that of a ballerina. She had to be—or she’d fall victim to the beds of blades she brought into the world.

  As their exchange continued, the sound of Cameron’s heartbeat plagued his ears less and less.

  Piece by piece, the world’s noises and clamor returned to him: the groans of the man who lay next to him with a crushed jaw and face, music leaking in from Spectre’s massive audio system, the sound of the woman’s blade cutting through Leroy’s javelins of frost.

  He furrowed his brows and focused his sights onto Leroy.

  Blood pooled around his features and along his frame, staining the icy-blue platform that he rode upon.

  “No,” Cameron muttered.

  Cameron reached behind his belt and grabbed hold of the Reign 18, and as each finger wrapped around the handle, the shaking in his hands stopped. His glare was focused. Precise. He was no marksman, and barely knew how to handle a gun outside of the first time he fired at Theodore.

  Tighter.

  His nails dug into the metal of the gun handle. He exhaled slowly.

  Captain Holmes was right. Everyone had someone that cared about them, which meant every death meant something to somebody. He’d denied it for as long as he could until it caught up with him, and each wheeze and groan from the man he’d left half alive reminded him of that. But Cameron couldn’t afford to let that continue, and though he knew that it would, he had to find a way to store it inward.

  Whatever had just haunted him into a standstill—be it guilt, regret, or otherwise—was the lesser of the two forces that vyed for for control of Cameron’s awareness.

  And it would always be that; lesser.

  No force could contend with the heat that flushed through Cameron’s features. It was the temperature of anger that had reached a permanent boiling point. Undeniable, all-powerful, and deeply intrinsic.

  The flame of passion.

  The flame of rage.

  The only flame strong enough to melt the coldness of Leroy Waters, too stubborn and too selfish to let anyone or anything else take away the fact that it was owed as much.

  Cameron shouted at the top of his lungs and stumbled forward, barely holding himself up on the splintered edges of the counter he’d broken.

  He fired. He fired again. He fired a third time. A fourth. A fifth. A sixth. He fired until there were no bullets left.

  Only two of them hit the woman. One grazed the back of her leg, and another shot cleanly through her upper back, closer to the shoulder. With no bullets left to fire, he threw the Reign 18 towards her with as much strength his body could muster. It clanked against the ground, swatted out of the way by the pommel of her blade.

  Cameron gritted his teeth.

  The woman pivoted. She was slower now, too brindled in her injuries to react to Cameron with the same deftness she’d awarded to Leroy. Her sunglasses covered her eyes, but Cameron didn’t need to see them to know that she was displeased with his intervention.

  “He’s.. that’s—...”

  Cameron pushed himself off the counter.

  “... Leroy Waters… isn’t yours to kill.”

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  RACHEL CHEN

  ARIA REMEAU

  HUGHES

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