King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 (34 page)

  "You scared right now?" Garlan withdrew the pistol from her skin.

  "Make you feel good knowing I was?" The bravado of her words couldn't hide the shake in her voice. It wasn't the first time a gun had been pointed at her, but it wasn't an experience she longed to repeat.

  "Heh. Come on, we need to go somewhere."

  "I ain't going nowhere with you."

  Garlan jabbed the gun at her head again. "See, you thought that was a request."

  "Can I get dressed?"

  "Go head."

  Lady G backed across the other side of the bed. Piles of jeans stacked at her feet. "You looking?"

  "You want me to lie to you?"

  Lady G turned her back to the direction of the voice. She pulled the top pair of jeans up quickly, doing a bit of a bounce to get her full behind into them. She thought about how best to maneuver into a bra. A hand brushed the side of her breast. Not caring about his gun, not being able to see it anyway, Lady G lashed out, shoving at the area the intrusion came from.

  "Hands off the temple."

  Garlan slapped her with an open hand which she could neither see nor defend herself against and sent her sprawling into the standalone lamp. The bulb flashed with a lightning burst and went out.

  "Girl, have you lost your Goddamned mind?"

  "You gonna kill me, do it now. But you ain't get to just touch me any which way."

  "Come on. Let's go."

  Lady G grabbed a sweater and a jacket. "Where we going?"

  Where were they going? Garlan hadn't thought that far ahead. Lady G's colored page caught his eye. "I know a place."

 

The sky charged with a dull luminescence. Threatening clouds like glaring corner boys. Assuring them that he knew how to find Colvin, Merle led the group to the bus stop in front of the church. An Indy Metro idled at the stop. Though it was five o'clock in the morning, the bus was still driverless. What few passengers that waited at the stop behaved as if they didn't notice it. Or them. The six of them boarded the bus. None of the bus stop throng gave them a first glance, much less a second.

  "There are people all around us," King whispered. "What's up?"

  "Relax and act natural," Merle said.

  "I don't get it," Rok said, "there ain't nobody fixin' to drive this mug."

  "They won't have to. No one living travels these lines," Dred said.

  "Do what?"

  "These rides ain't for the living," Dred repeated. "Didn't you notice the people? They seemed more concerned about their own affairs than anything we were up to."

  "So?"

  "These are the dead lines. The ghost lines of the Metro Buses. Those in the know can simply board them and travel along the unlit paths. You sure you know what you doing, old man?"

  "I got this," Merle said.

  "The toll's yours to pay, then."

  "Where are we going?" King asked Merle.

  "When the bus stops, we've arrived."

  The city landscape passed in gray and brown blurs. Through the bus windows, the city took on an alien aspect. The buildings canted at odd angles, the geometry of the city bent by shadows. Though they passed though areas of the city they knew intimately, the landscape was as unfamiliar as the moon's surface. For nearly an hour they rumbled along 38th Street, occasionally stopping to take on and drop off passengers while the night held its grip.

  The door of the bus sighed shut. Still with no driver, the bus slowly shifted into gear. Rellik never considered himself a pessimistic individual. Life was darkness, so his history had taught him. All pain, loss, and death. And he had walked so long in its darkness, the light had to appeal to him, if he could believe in it at all.

  King hated quiet moments, to be trapped with his thoughts. Unasked, they drifted to Lady G and his feelings for her; to Prez and how he failed him and looked for redemption for them both; to his vision for his mission and how things seemed to drift. Instead, he focused on the task ahead: how best to deploy the men, guessing what Colvin might do, how to turn the situation to his advantage. His life had been reduced to the next problem, the next mission, the next tussle. With dawning realization, he smiled, a rueful grin. He wasn't living, he was distracted. Adventure, busyness, was his drug of choice. Better the problems of his neighborhood than to wrestle with the issues in his own life. How long had it been since he'd seen his little girl, Nakia? Just thinking her name, he couldn't help but think that he was his father's son. Running the streets rather than being there for his child. His friendships with Lott and Wayne. He loved them, but they hadn't hung out, just hung out, in ages. He wondered if they saw his leadership as him treating them as equals or as servants to be ordered about. And he felt strange going off into a battle without them.

  And then there was Lady G.

  Theirs was a complicated mess of a relationship. But when
didn't
he have a complicated mess of a relationship? If he'd ever had a normal one, he couldn't recall it. Things had to be sorted out. And her him. But was it enough? Was it healthy? Was it the best for each of them? This was why he hated quiet moments.

  "Something on your mind?" Dred asked him. "You look… distracted."

  "Just thinking about Colvin."

  "And what you're prepared to do in case he don't see the light of your wise ways?"

  The bus turned up High School Road, passing what they knew to be Breton Court, though none dared glance at what they called home through the tainted glass of death. High School Road stopped at 56th Street, the bus swung left then slowed to a halt in front of the entrance of Eagle Creek Park. With a nod, Merle led them from the bus. Its gears groaned and the bus sighed as it pulled away, scurrying away before the light of the rising sun.

  An early morning mist settled along the woods, creeping along the forest floor with a cold dampness that seeped into the bones, ached joints, and sapped strength. The woods took on a life of their own. Tree limbs like gnarled hands raised in praise against the night sky. Light pollution drained the velvety pallor from the blanket of night, leaving it a tepid gray-blue curtain. The moon baked to a warm orange glow. Again King wished Wayne was by his side as he was at his best at this time. Although he relished the adventure of the situation, King's face remained solemn as duty and his shoulders weighted by obligation. They marched in an insolent stroll.

  The sounds of crickets and tree frogs and other things moved in the night. Countless creatures populated the woods. Deer. Badgers. Foxes. Owls. Coyote. Snakes. All manner of predators and prey. The Eagle Creek Reservoir had suffered a series of algae blooms during the summer. They'd gotten so bad, it had affected the drinking water. The chemicals that the Department of Environmental Management dumped in to treat the problem did nothing to kill the taste. To Rellik, it tasted of seaweed. And reminded him of hair greenish with algae. Rellik hadn't visited Eagle Creek Park in well over 20 years, but even then he'd had to relearn the paths each trip. The trees had a way of shifting. "What's the plan?" Dred asked. He measured each man with his steady gaze. Merle shifted with an antsy energy as if searching for a missing friend. Rellik had his brother's beefy mien, ready to rumble into whatever. Rok was the least prepared,

a squire among wolves. Dred challenged and dared with each word. He followed only so long as King's interests matched his own. Baylon worried him. He certainly didn't want to depend on him. All of them looked to him as if that were the natural order. "We go in. We take him down."

  "That ain't much of a plan." Dred always pushed him, always questioned and cut him no slack.

  "I want to try to talk to him first. Give him a chance to back down."

  "Out to save him?" Dred asked.

  "Give him an opportunity," King said. "Merle and Dred hang back a bit in case some weirdness goes down. Rellik, you and Rok with me. Baylon, keep out of sight in case we have any surprises."

  "Sounds better."

  "Didn't know you wanted the details."

  King's smirk collapsed into a scowl as he spied the flashes of green light. The pale glimmer from a small hill unsettled him. It turned his stomach, an offense to the surrounding nature. The woods took on an alien quality in the luminescence, a ruin of forest circling the clearing. The trees gnarled, burnished gray like aged stone with an unpleasant quality. Their outlines grotesque, limbs bent at odd angles. Sweat cooled on his forehead. His heart thundered in a measured pace. As if the anticipation of combat calmed him. Tendrils pushed in at the edge of his mind, threatened to worm their way into his thoughts.

  All sound ceased except for the sound of their own footsteps as they crunched along the dead leaves piled along the ground, a thick carpet of brown that crunched under heavy footfalls.

  "Come on in." Colvin barely took notice as he met them, their faces grim and alert.

  The excitement in his eyes wouldn't hesitate to squeeze a trigger and spray his brains along the tree line. They stepped into the clearing. "Something you want to say to me?" The muscles of Colvin's wiry frame nearly danced as he moved. His tan-brown skin, like calf's hide, made King's appear darker in contrast.

  "This is madness. Come on now. You out here on your own. When was the last time you saw folks united? We poised to make a real difference." More of a gauntlet thrown rather than a statement. They glared at one another in established enmity. King's heart saddened that things had to come to this. But it was what it was. King was still somewhat self-conscious of the broadness of his nose and the deepness of his cheekbones. The twists of his hair jutted skyward in defiance, the sides and back of his head freshly shaven. His physique boasted a brawn now tested with regularity in the streets. He got real serious behind shit like that.

  "That the thing: the only difference I aim to make is to my wallet."

  Something about the set-up wasn't right. Rok couldn't remember if he'd ever been surrounded by so much green. He lived in a concrete world. The trees loomed taller and thickened, engorged on the foul emanations. They crowded against them. The muscles along Rok's stomach tightened and cramped. His mouth went dry. His palms slickened with sweat. Men like him, the kind of men he imagined himself to be, never carried fear like this. Their veins pumped ice. Their hearts didn't pound so hard their throats ached. He couldn't remember the last time he had a drink or took a leak, but needed to rectify both scenarios soon.

  "King?" Merle was the first to sense it.

  Dred sniffed the air as if catching a scent which disturbed him. He backed a few steps away from the circle, wary and on edge. Picking up on the tenseness coming from them, Rellik and Rok flanked King. They scanned the trees, not certain what they were watching for.

  Colvin gestured with his fingers. Furtive movements somewhere between flashing gang signals and issuing sign language. His lips moved though King heard no words.

  A green crackle of energy flared to life, a single flame suspended in the air above Colvin. The woods glowed as a few more flickered to life, emerald sparks which danced in an unfelt breeze. The flames mesmerized them, their breath half-held knowing they signaled only the beginning. The flames lengthened, trailing down, four strands of flame in the clearing. The light intensified, a flood of light bathed them. King visored his hand above his eyes, too late realizing that he couldn't see beyond the periphery of the light.

  "King!" Merle yelled.

  Shadows moved between the trees, advancing on them. Their sizes varied slightly, no more than a head's difference among the lot of them. Nearly a dozen of those they could see. A score of red eyes dotted the night and closed in on them.

 

Lott's mind raced with dark possibilities. Life had a way of jumping off in a variety of ways. There were so many ways for pain to intrude upon them. Robberies. Beatings. Rape. Death. Try as he might to focus on the task at hand, the possibilities for brutality drove him to distraction. Big Momma let him in and got out of his way as he bounded up the stairs. He surveyed Lady G's room. They already knew the police wouldn't have done anything. Not even Cantrell. To their minds, a teen – a homeless teen at that – threw a fit and ran off. They'd be lucky if a pen even found its way to a report. Yet Lott's next instinct was to call King, but he hesitated and wasn't sure why. Maybe he was too proud to ask for help. Maybe he wanted to be the hero. Lady G's hero. Shaking himself, he made the call anyway. A small part of him was relieved when the call again went to voicemail. Again he left a message. It was now firmly on record that he tried. The mind had a way of shaping circumstances it wanted to happen, as if he could will his desires onto life. Still, he was no detective and had few resources to speak of. He prayed that whatever Providence guided him would lead him to her. Examining the bed – no struggle, no scent of anything beyond hers… and he lingered at her smell – he spied the drawing. It was a hunch, a wild hope more than anything else, but he had nothing else to go on.

  Lott hated walking up High School Road. A couple years back, he was minding his own business on a Saturday night when a group of teenage boys slowed down and hit him with a cup full of Mountain Dew from Taco Bell. Random white punks out doing random hateful shit, though it was dark enough out that they might not have known he was black. Every time he took to the sidewalk, the same edgy anticipation swept over him.

  He hadn't eaten at Taco Bell since, either.

  The church didn't appear disturbed. The boards remained intact. Cracks filigreed the near yellow walls. Scorch marks seared the outlines of doors and windows. A few more gang tags marked it: a spray-painted cross with a six-pointed star on it and two swords crossed behind it; a heart with devil's horns coming out of its lobes; a pair of dice, one with a two facing, the other with a six. Around back, planks of wood, water-damaged furniture, and bits of ruined dry wall filled a dumpster. A stretch of plywood had been pulled from the rear door. Steeped in shadows, the narthex devoured the wan light let in by the loosed board. Upon it falling back into place, the darkness reigned unabated. The room took on a sinister cast, as if befouled by an unwanted presence. Lott crept forward, his feet almost sliding along the granite floor layered in ash. A fine-ground debris. He turned into the main sanctuary. Slits of light filtered through some of the uncovered stain glass windows hear the top of the room. He marveled that no one had hurled rocks to shatter them. The thin light cast the room in gray murk. A couple of columns, more decorative than load-bearing, had fallen on one another.