King Maker: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 1 (33 page)

  The dog flared its teeth, a rattler warning of its strike. Baylon stroked the fur along the dog's neck.

  "Better watch yourself. My bitch don't like people stepping up on us incorrect." Baylon spit on the ground. "It's about being the man. This here's a… how they say it?… a consumer-driven market. They come to me. I give them product. They give me cash. No muss, no fuss. I ain't some Jehovah's Witness going door to door with the shit trying to convert nobody."

  "I just don't want it done in my neighborhood."

  "You want to be the king, you got to take the king."

  Baylon turned his back to him, with a casual dismissal, and walked into Prez's little play condo. This was the life they chose. Empty, but free. The prospect of big money versus the lack of flash of menial work: that was the problem with too many brothers: they felt owed, as if the act of being born entitled them to instant coin and high living. That was what they saw on television and was how they thought they were supposed to live. It was stupid and short-sighted, but King understood it. But he had pride in his neighborhood. He lived with good people, good neighbors, and he wasn't going to see it ruined by the likes of Prez. Or Baylon. Or Green. Good men had to stand for something.

  "I hate to break up any internal soliloquy you got going on," Merle said, "but you've got company."

  Merle was worse than a repo man and King hated the way he appeared and disappeared whenever he wanted. An umbra tent, Merle's black jacket wrapped around him. His aluminum foil hat teetered on his head, extra layers having been added since his last visit. He smelled of day-old fish wrapped in spoiled vegetables, flecks of food trapped in his red beard. Terribly lucid eyes focused on the pair approaching them, Wayne and Lott.

  "Yeah, I was expecting them," King said.

  A contrast in dark and light, Wayne had a bucket of Popeye's under his arm. A white down vest covered a blue zippered sweatshirt, his jeans had a picture of a phoenix, an eagle, and a crown reminiscent of a crest, along their sides. His big-boy girth made his belt superfluous. His stylized Yankee cap tilted on his head at such an extreme angle, it defied the laws of gravity by staying on. Lott, with his light complexion, seemed almost white when next to Wayne. His FedEx uniform like layers of blue armor.

  "We gonna do this?" Wayne said between bites of a chicken leg.

  "We still have to figure out what exactly we gonna do," King said. "What do you think, Merle?"

  "I think you need to check with the lady." Merle pointed to the woman standing at the end of the row of condos. A nest of micro-braids crowned her cream complexion. With ears not quite as pointed as that dude from Star Trek, she wore an opened fur-lined hoodie over a T-shirt with the word "Babe" across her chest. Fur-cuffed jeans topped her fur-lined Timbo boots which had pom-poms dangling from them. Walking with the easy stride of a large cat on a hunt, she approached them.

  "Hell-O." Wayne admired the fashioned beauty, trying unsuccessfully to not ogle her chest.

  "You are seriously fucking up my shit." Her piercing green eyes narrowed, focused solely on King.

  "I don't even know who you are," King said. Her beauty enrapturing, he straightened his posture. His palms moistened with nervous sweat.

  "Omarosa."

  "So
you're
Omarosa," King said with too much lilt to his voice.

  "Of the fey," Merle said, with something short of an elbow to his mid-section. A gentle reminder before the worst instincts of the Pendragon spirit carried him away in a torrent of lust.

  "Stay out of this, mage." Omarosa stared down at Merle, but whatever rules of intimidation she played by were lost on him and his distant musings.

  "That's exactly what I mean," King said to Merle. "It sounds like there's some shit between y'all that we are caught up in."

  "
Shining Star for you to see/What your life can truly be
," Merle sang.

  "How exactly am I 'seriously fucking up your shit'?" King asked, returning his attention to Omarosa.

  "I don't know what you did, but somehow you've got Night and Dred pulling out every trick they got beefing over this little stretch of real estate. It don't even take in enough to make it worth my time, but they steady squabbling over it. I don't even know if Night knows why, but because Dred seems to want it, he's fighting for it."

  "It's getting bad out there, King." Wayne suddenly sounded weary. "I tried to get up with Tavon earlier today, and seems the brotha was onto something. Half the smoke-hounds out there have been dropped by a bad package. The other half is wildin' out for real."

  "Night gets his package off Dred's consignment and think he's safe over at his place in the Phoenix," Omarosa said. "Dred spiked that shit. Fool fake Jamaican motherfucker."

  "Damn, girl," King said.

  "Nigga plays both sides and then fucks the middle. I don't know if even he knows why he does things besides the fact that it amuses him."

  "From the way he behaves, you'd think he was a half-caste fey," Merle said.

  "Have you seen Mab lately?" The fey were well aware of Merle's long-time feud with his mother, despite the fact that she had long passed through the Veil, remaining in Nod while he still roamed the mortal plane in his pursuit of the true king. "I'll have to remember to give her your love next time I see her."

  "Damnable bitch." Merle adjusted his tin-foil hat. "I'm going to bake you a cake. I like cake."

  "Things are jumping so much, a girl can't make an honest living," Omarosa returned her attention to King.

  "Ripping off both sides?" King asked.

  "A girl's got to earn."

  "I'm surprised you ain't taken him out." King leaned toward her, not threatening but crowding her space. "Isn't that how you operate?"

  "Taking out a drug dealer, that's biting the hand that feeds me."

  "Sounds like you're part of the problem to me."

  "What did you say?" Omarosa's eye arched curiously. There was a royal charge of offense to her question.

  "It's bad enough we've lost so many to this nonsense, but you, you're the…"

  "Carrion feeder," Merle helped.

  "No, I'm a predator among predators. I'm higher up on the food chain." Omarosa was fey and it was a terrible thing to raise the temperature of her blood. Worse still to be the object of her rage. Worse further to be caught in the throes of history, a pawn in a game, fated to misfortune. She admired and pitied this one, but they all had a role to play. Omarosa handed him a heavy box. "This is for you."

  "What is it?" King reached out for it.

  "Your legacy. A client hired me to… procure it for you."

  "You shouldn't accept gifts from her kind," Merle warned, though his eyes recognized the runes on the box.

  "It's no gift. I'm returning something rightfully his. I've been watching you for a long time. Not much slips past my eye. That's a quick way to get dead in my line of work." Omarosa studied the man. "Haven't you tired of playing the reluctant hero? You don't wear it especially well. You need to embrace your calling. Play or get played. But that's not your biggest problem. Do you know what it is, King?"

  "What?"

  "You
give
a fuck." With the curt dismissal, Omarosa turned on her heel and walked away from them. They stared in appreciation as she left for what good it did them. At the first shadow, the darkness enveloped her, or she merged with it, and disappeared. She'd accomplished what she came to do.

  King turned the box to face him. It warmed in his hands. The strange lock nearly popped open on its own as he barely brushed against it while still examining it. He opened it with great care. Merle sighed.

  "What is it?" Wayne asked.

  "Twin 9mm Springfield Armory custom-ported stack autos, with the frames, slides, and some other parts plated in 24K gold, and gold dragons rearing up on the contrasting black grips," Merle said, without so much as a glance into the box.

  "Twin? There's only one of the… Caliburns?" King picked it up. In his hands, he didn't know how to describe it, but it felt like more than a gun. It was magic. He knew he was meant to wield it from the moment he first touched it. No, from the moment he laid eyes on it.

  "Caliburns? I've never heard of it," Wayne said.

  "Privately made," Merle said. "It's time for the hero to act."

  "I'm not much of a gun guy." King returned it to the box and closed it. "What do you think?"

  "I think we've talked enough. We've come this far and we're ready to follow you to the next level," Lott said.

  "And you?" King turned to Wayne.

  Wayne studied the shadows for any hint of Omarosa. "I love her like a big-tittied play cousin at a family reunion."

  Despite his comment, the moment remained tense. Their assembled little band stood in silence. King, its leader-apparent. Wayne and Lott, his most loyal troops. Merle, his advisor. They were the core, though of what, they didn't know. They were a sword in search of blood to draw. There was one place to begin their journey.

  "You know who we are going to cross before this is over with?" Lott asked.

  "Baylon," King said.

  "You sure you just not looking for an excuse to beef with him?" Wayne asked.

  "Nah."
Yeah
. History built up between them. Too much unanswered for. A debt of blood and broken promises. "He handles the package. He'd know."

  "So much like the father," Merle said. "Now look, the gang's all here."

  Lady G handed Big Momma a glass of red Kool Aid then walked over to the collection of swinging dicks. She could always spot when men were up to their "men things", ready to prove themselves to whatever fool or fool notion crawled up their behinds to gnaw on their insecurities.

  "What you fellas up to?"

  "Nothing," Wayne said.

  "We're going to the Phoenix Apartments." King stepped to her. Whenever he neared her, he felt he could do anything. He didn't know if it was because he needed to prove he was the man he wanted to be for her or if the power of her faith in him charged him. "Put a stop to some of this nonsense once and for all."

  "Not without me," Lady G said. "Rhee stays up in there."

  "You'd take a bitch into your mess?" Baylon exited onto Prez's porch. He cold-eyed Lady G who sniffed in his direction then sucked her teeth in disgust. Between her obvious disdain and his own growing irritation, Baylon was in a mood to push things. The Durham Brothers. Junie. Parker. No one heard anything from Green or Tavon. With Night buying on consignment from Dred anyway and both sides weakened, Baylon saw an opportunity for consolidation. Perhaps head-hunting the top talent in order to make a move of his own. With their troops getting thin, Prez had risen up the ranks of foot soldiers. Baylon no longer had the luxury of traveling with a retinue of any sort. It was too late to recalculate the strength of his position now staring into the ranks of King's crew.

  "No, I'd take a woman who could handle her business to clean up your mess." King glanced up from his perch to the porch step and stepped between her and Baylon. Although the idea of her anywhere near danger didn't sit well with him, he'd respect her decision.

  "What you doing over here?" Lady G asked.

  "Checking on some business. I had no idea you stayed here if that what you thinking," Baylon said. "Some niggas need them high-drama bitches. They need the bang, the rush. Not me. I need a straight bitch. One that can handle her, and my, business. Say what you will, and Lady G's no joke, but she ain't needless drama."

  "Careful now." King squared off against Baylon. A spirit of over-protectiveness commingled with a surge of jealousy. His face grew hot.

  "What? You don't like it when I talk about your 'friend' like that?" Baylon asked, stepping down to meet his stare. His Pit Bull leapt to the screen door, all thunderous scrapes of paws against glass. It mimicked growls as best it could through its severed vocal cords. "Oh, I see. That's it isn't it. I don't think I like the way you be looking at my girl, dog."

  Lady G wasn't his girl. She knew of his… whatever he was feeling, and never accepted his overtures. She was something he desired that he didn't own and couldn't control. He didn't even know her beyond whatever idealized idea of her that he had built up in his head. Nor was she especially flattered by the pissing contest going on between these two, neither of whom had any particular claim on her. Her affections were hers to place wherever she wanted.

  "How's that? With respect? Like she's a person?" King knew he had crossed a line. He'd called Baylon out, in front of the neighborhood. There was no backing down for him now. Honor, if he could call it that, demanded that Baylon answer this upstart's challenge. No one could afford to show any weakness.

  "It ain't shit to be loved by a saint. Saints have to love everyone. You might as well be a dog. But we devils, nah, we ain't got to love anyone but ourselves. So when we do love a bitch, shit, they know and they ain't going nowhere. Me, I'm straight-up gangsta now, not the boy you grew up with. Gangsta recognizes gangsta… and you lookin' kinda unfamiliar."

  Baylon threw a quick hard punch with his free hand and caught King off guard with a punch to the kidneys. King doubled over at the impact, leaving his head perfectly poised to receive another crashing blow from Baylon. As the roundhouse arced downward, King stood into it, deflecting it. His back slightly turned to Baylon, King thrust his elbow into his belly then stepped to the side to hit him.

  That was the last clean blow landed.

  Fights rarely worked the way that they did on television or in the movies, nor lasted as long. Baylon scrambled from his awkward stance and charged King, wrapping his arms around him. The two of them bowled over into the front lawn. A flurry of movement meant to be the exchange of punches followed, neither one of them doing much more than pushing into one another while entangled.