CHAPTER 61: TRY TWO | THE RAID—III

  SPECTRE—NOVEMBER 26th, 1992 | MORNING

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  Small explosions peppered the empty dance floor below.

  Leroy broke away from Arthur and Captain Holmes, his booted feet thumping against the large metal platform that functioned as Spectre’s second level and bar. He grabbed onto the hand rails with one hand, and held Old Man Winter tightly with his other. Sweat built along his brow, each breath leaving him heavier than the last. The Stoneskin fillings that Janice had made over his wounds itched more and more, and it took a little bit more elbow grease than he expected to suppress the urge to scratch.

  Just below, the empty dance floor had turned into an arena.

  Leroy stared at the display with a wicked excitement that made him feel ten years younger. And that, paired with the jumpiness that coursed through his veins from the Vigor Janice gifted him, included a certain rush that defied the sluggishness that he felt everywhere else in his body.

  Cameron and Tania were going toe-to-toe with Aria Remeau and Rachel Chen.

  Aria recited thaumaturgic incantations and called forth a variation of black and purple energies. Tania advanced toward her and enjoyed the speed and instinct of her partial lycan transformation—she was at the half step stage, if he recalled correctly—but didn’t allow herself to take any hits. Leroy’s brows furrowed at that. A lycan could regenerate from most things, but given Tania’s caution, he was beginning to believe that thaumaturgy was about as potent as silver or wolfsbane to her ilk.

  Cameron kept Rachel Chen busy. Busier than busy. By some miracle of maturity, he wasn’t charging head first, and from what Leroy could see, was laying down intermittent suppressive fire, shooting at her with his Reign 18.

  A dozen or so blades jutted out from a swathe of ink blotches that were set in front of her, not as a pool-like radius, but like a straight line. Leroy squinted. She hadn’t swung it around to create obstacles of sword protrusions, as she’d done against Leroy in their last fight, but used the Blade of One Hundred like a brush. The only thing saving her from Cameron’s bullet fire was the line of swords that she hid behind.

  Knowing her, she was waiting for him to run out of ammo. Smart. Guts, it seemed, wasn’t much help either. Cameron’s trusty wind-sprite lingered by his head, unblinking, docile as a deer.

  So far so good.

  If they could hold their own, fine, but after Cameron’s training, Leroy hoped that he’d do more than that. It wasn’t a matter of survival—Leroy had no doubt in his mind that they’d survive, but it was, in its own way, a litmus test. If Cameron could handle either one of them, Leroy might finally admit to himself that Yaerzul’s foreboding omen had some bearing.

  Arthur emerged beside Leroy, already reaching for Canis.

  Leroy grabbed his wrist with a suddenness that surprised the young warden.

  “What gives?” Arthur asked.

  Captain Holmes fell into their growing line. He’d already removed his Warwick M9 from his clunky utility belt: the standard service-issue weapon for every constable in the Civic and Occult Authority. Leroy eyed it briefly. It had that off-black gunmetal coloring with a brown, svelte looking grip.

  “You’d give away our position,” Captain Holmes said.

  “Our position has been given away,” Arthur retorted, shaking his hand free of Leroy’s grasp. “Man, we busted open a door and dropped down onto the second floor. Now we’re sittin’ here oogling them down there."

  “We dropped down right when the fight started,” Leroy pointed out. “And that was the plan. It would cover the sound of us entering. They’ll notice us eventually, whenever we run into the rest of Marcus’s damned goons, but at the very least, they’ll be too preoccupied to do anything about.”

  “All I’m saying?” Arthur rose both of his hands, lips drawn into a slight scowl. “One, maybe two shots from Canis, those ladies are kaputz.”

  Leroy scoffed. “You’re real full of yourself. You know that?”

  “Confidence is never a bad thing,” Arthur said assuredly.

  “But overconfidence is,” Captain Holmes retorted. “Let’s move. The kid’s right about one thing; right now we’re sitting ducks.”

  Captain Holmes turned towards the 2nd floor platform with all of the gusto and duty on a mission, his Warwick M9 pointed forward with purpose.

  The only thing that separated them from the VIP Lounge—the 3rd floor of Spectre—was a long interior catwalk that extended out from the main bar area, and a steep set of metal stairs that led up to it. At this hour, there were no lights on save for a few, and all of the glamor of Spectre’s vast factory floor’s worth of an interior was muted by the very dredges of grayed sunlight that washed through the rows of industrial windows on either side of the building. Not light, but certainly not suffocatingly dark. Just Brinehaven gray, like Spectre had invited the shitty weather inside.

  Leroy narrowed his eyes. “Holmes, stop.”

  No one waited for them.

  No army of hooligan bouncers stood in their way. No ether crazed soldiers stood primed and ready. Not even a poorly aimed bullet was fired in their direction. Marcus Velvet wasn’t so arrogant as to rely completely on his in-house security. His front door bouncers were more decorative than anything else, and his trio of hand picked bodyguards was down one and nowhere near him.

  “What is it?” Captain Holmes asked.

  “Your flashlight, on your utility belt,” Leroy said, nodding towards it. “Shine it forward along that catwalk.”

  Captain Holmes carefully lowered his pistol to one side, grabbed hold of the flashlight along his belt. Alongside the holster for his Warwick M9, there was room for a flashlight, two bullet magazines, Drychus cuffs, his badge, and a sheathed short blade along his lower back; not quite dagger-sized and not quite sword-sized.

  Every so often, Leroy wondered what the extent of their training entailed over at the Civic & Occult Authority, and how effectively it even prepared them for all of the bullshit the city threw in their direction. Soon, maybe, he’d get to see a real officer of the law at work—really at work, not work in the sense of showing up to check if Leroy had his arbiter’s license on him at the tail end of a note or a contract.

  “Nothing that I can see,” Captain Holmes muttered.

  Leroy grimaced. He was half-expecting to find tripwires, or sigilmasonry rigged to detonate or something. Moreover, the sounds of the skirmish below droned on and on, and no one else had emerged to either intercept or aid Aria Remeau or Rachel Chen. Marcus had an angle here, and there was something that Leroy wasn’t seeing that would bite them all in the ass.

  “What’s the hold up?” Arthur asked.

  “I’m thinking,” Leroy retorted.

  “Think faster, man,” Arthur said.

  Leroy glanced towards the doors of the VIP Lounge.

  Captain Holmes kept his eyes trained forward. “Velvet left four people here. The bouncers at the doors, and the two that Cameron and Tania are up against. If he’s got any sensibility, he wouldn’t do that. Not without some sort of an ace up his sleeve.”

  Leroy gritted his teeth. He thought back to Hughes, and the implications of killing him that day he’d tailed Leroy to Grove Cemetery. It was a lose-lose situation. Had he let Hughes live, he’d tell Marcus. And even if he didn’t tell Marcus, the then-alive Hughes leaving the city per Leroy’s command was the kind of action that spoke louder than words—Marcus would’ve assumed Leroy had killed him or scared him away. On the off chance that Leroy failed in noticing him, Hughes would’ve gathered intel and still reported it back to Marcus.

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  In every outcome that Leroy could think of, Marcus would end up knowing.

  Hughes was a perfect piece, positioned on a chessboard in a way that ensured Marcus would still be able to say checkmate with a shit-eating grin regardless as to whether or not that piece was removed from the game or still in it.

  “Fuck,” Leroy muttered.

  “Yeah, fuck, but what else? We just, what, wait?” Arthur asked.

  Leroy glanced at the sealed metal tube strung along his back that was nearly as long as Canis, the bow he held in his hand: dark red, accented in silver, covered in engravings with ornaments of wolf heads on either side.

  “Keep that handy,” Leroy said, nodding to the copper tube.

  It was sealed with the cross of the Vatican in a deep set wax, with rosary beads that coiled around it like intertwined snakes.

  “You think we’ll need it? This soon? Man, there’s nothing here,” Arthur said.

  Leroy grimaced. “There will be.”

  Before even so much as stepping onto the catwalk that led to the VIP Lounge, Leroy shifted his attention towards the entrance to Spectre. Barring the way that they’d entered, there was only one way in and one way out; and the doors that sealed off that entrance were on the floor.

  Below, a collection of footsteps and labored creaking filled in the gaps of noise between the ongoing skirmish between Cameron, Tania, Aria and Rachel. Nondescript hired men all worked in tandem to move a large, wheeled dolly that was needed in order to move a nearly 8-foot-tall metal containment tank.

  Falling in behind them was Maude Dupre, just as unsettlingly perfect as Leroy had remembered her: adorned in a white blouse, a black business vest, wearing a necklace of pearls with her dark hair set into a bun. The glasses she normally wore on her face were in her hands. She cleaned off its glass with a level of nonchalance that made Leroy question his patience.

  Captain Holmes shifted to the side and directed his Warwick M9 towards whatever the hell she’d brought to Spectre with that.

  “Leroy. Who’s that?” Captain Holmes asked curtly.

  “Maude Dupre, COO of Bluestein Philterworks,” Leroy said tiredly. "Christ."

  Arthur adjusted his grip on Canis, finger hovering over the drawstring. “And uh, that? In the big metal box thing?”

  At the far end of the catwalk, and just above them by way of steep metal stairs, the door to the VIP Lounge—replaced since the last time Leroy had been there—swung open. Someone stepped outside of it.

  A thin man no taller than five-foot-seven. He wore a black track jacket accented with white stripes, zipped all the way up to his neck. Dark brown slacks covered his legs, and Oxford-style dress shoes covered his feet. His head and hands were covered in bandages, with room only for a mouth that was chapped. Wide and sleep-deprived eyes, red and sullen and utterly disconcerting stared down at them.

  “Fuck,” Leroy muttered.

  Arthur held his nose. “Eugh! What the hell is that.. that smell?”

  “That smell is Clayton Trench,” Captain Holmes said, his jaw tight with contempt. “One of the only people in the last twenty goddamn years to escape from Blackpool Penitentiary, and the psychotic piece-of-shit ritualist behind the 18th and West Massacre of 1989.”

  Clayton raised a taciturn hand in greeting: stiff, like too much movement might cause it to break.

  Leroy recognized the name, the face, and the event that made him infamous.

  Three years ago, Clayton Trench became a household name in Brinehaven after wandering onto the streets of Caulton and massacring twenty-six people. His incarceration dominated nightly news segments and newspaper headlines for the better part of the six months that followed the incident. Then, like any other breaking news, his horrific story faded into obscurity for a time until his name wormed his way back into the news cycle: a daring escape against all odds. After that, there were dredges of articles that were released about an occult criminal-at-large, bounties issued by the Civic & Occult Authority, failed arbitration notes after his head, and the odd sighting here or there that couldn’t be verified.

  Leroy never had the pleasure of meeting him in person, and he couldn’t say he was thrilled to make his acquaintance either. His stomach curled the moment he stepped out of the door to the VIP Lounge. Clayton reeked of rot, and he carried the odor of a walking, talking case of rigor mortis.

  “And you let him escape?” Arthur asked, brow raised in confusion.

  Captain Holmes leveled his Warwick M9 onto Clayton. “No, damn it, I didn’t.”

  “Hello.” Clayton’s voice was haggard and breathy, like his mouth wasn’t meant to move or produce any noise at all.

  Leroy glanced over the railing. Maude Dupre caught a glimpse of him, waved, and turned back towards the group of hirelings who had finally halted the dolly. She removed a hefty key ring from her pocket, and began inserting it into what seemed like rows upon rows of locking mechanisms.

  There it was. Marcus’s response. His plan. He had waited for Leroy and his impromptu task force to make their entrance, and it was only after doing so that he’d show his hand. With Captain Holmes and Arthur by his side, they had the numbers advantage, but in the same vein, they were cornered. Whatever was in that containment vat would surely be coming up to the 2nd level, and Clayton Trench covered the opposite end of the catwalk; and now they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

  Leroy eyed the Vatican-sealed metal canister on Arthur’s back. The idea was tempting, but the moment wasn’t right.

  “Holmes. What are we dealing with here?” Leroy said, pointing Old Man Winter in Clayton’s direction.

  “Trouble,” Clayton remarked. “Hah.”

  “A ritualist,” Captain Holmes said.

  “What kind of ritualist?” Arthur asked. He seemed twitchy, more so than Leroy himself, whose heart thumped like a drum against his chest.

  Noise and clamor echoed throughout Spectre. Cameron and Tania’s fight with Rachel Chen and Aria Remeau went on, and without even so much as peering over the ledge, Leroy knew that all of them were far too busy to take note of Maude’s sudden entrance or the emergence of Clayton Trench—the ugly result of a Marcus Velvet and Bluestein Philterworks meet-and-greet and one big fat problem of a quid pro quo between the both of them.

  “One blessed by the beauty of decay,” Clayton said, making his way down the steps. “One fortunate enough to be the recipient of the rot that is the wellspring of life.”

  Specs leaked from beneath the grooves and rivets of Clayton’s bandaged features. Leroy squinted, and those specs multiplied. Clayton smiled. Insects crawled out from the holes of his several missing teeth and gushed out from his throat. His tracksuit fluttered and contorted more with each step he took, leaking swarms upon swarms of winged invertebrates that blended together like a black and chittering smog.

  “All flesh must hollow itself, that the lesser lives may inherit its frame. To speak the names of worms is to quicken one’s own shell,” Clayton recited, the words pulsing between the mass of insects continued to pour and pour from his mouth. The words didn’t feel random; they were a requirement. A cadence of activation.

  “The Law of the Husk was thence spoken; by I alone blessed as its beholder,” Clayton continued, “as decreed by the De Vermibus Obscuris.”

  “Holmes, what are we dealing with here?” Leroy asked, his finger twitching along the trigger of Old Man Winter.

  Captain Holmes answered curtly. “A monster.”

  A loud crash emanated from the atrium-hallway where Maude Dupre stood.

  Her hirelings stood back in awe, muttering among themselves until their discourse devolved to screams. Maude didn’t spare a breath. She didn’t even blink—she only stared contentedly at what stepped out of the 8-foot-tall metal containment tank, and the hastiness in which it moved.

  Leroy briefly broke his gaze away from Clayton.

  It was a mass of muscle and half-melted flesh that had since been filled with a substance that failed to mimic it. A patchwork of burned skin tinted a familiar blue assaulted Leroy’s eyes. Metal bolts secured what must have been steel plates along its entire back and shoulders; and jutting out from his spine were pumps that activated with every breath. Pumps that recycled liquid ether throughout its entire glowing body.

  Emilio la Cerva had no eyelids left and what used to be his nose and mouth was covered by a permanent breathing apparatus made of the same bolts and steel that covered his back. What remained of his black hair pricked up and outward. Iridescent blue coursed through the veins beneath his skin.

  Arthur glanced over the railing. “A monster? Try two. Shit.”

  LEROY WATERS

  ARTHUR YEAGER

  CAPTAIN HOLMES

  CLAYTON TRENCH

  MAUDE DUPRE

  MR. ETHER

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