"What? We show up," Wayne said. "Ain't but five of us. Ain't like we leading an army."

"Look, Dred's called for a summit meeting. He needed to pull together his whole crew to see what he was working with. It's all his top people plus his crew. They got numbers."

"What we got?" Lott asked.

"Five cold, wet fools," Wayne said.

"Six." A voice came from the underbrush. Lott and Wayne flanked King, ready for an attack. Her hand pulled back the branches, allowing Tristan to come into full view. "If you don't mind the company."

"Where you come from?" Wayne asked.

"Been here waiting. Saw you pull up."

"Waiting for what?" Wayne asked.

"Waiting to figure out my next play."

"What'd you decide?"

"Didn't. You all pulled up. You decided for me." Tristan came alongside them. "Time comes, a person's got to stand tall and do right."

"Way I figure it, we just need to take out Dred."

"Take out?" Tristan gestured a throat-slash.

"No, that crosses a line. But if he can be humbled before his people... challenge him for the right to lead..."

"You ain't exactly one hundred percent there, chief. Why not let Lott? Or Wayne?"

"Because it's my fight."

King no longer knew what was normal. In his gut, he knew exactly what he was doing, but had little idea why he was doing it. Things just needed to play out. All he needed to do was reach Dred, the rest would take care of itself.

At first glance, the greenery formed a smooth, thick grove, fairly impenetrable to incursion. Wayne formed a visor with his hand for closer scrutiny. A section of the undergrowth seemed to dimple. As he neared it the strange play of shadows revealed an entrance. He had traveled this way before. Once, with Outreach Inc. He suspected that the camp wasn't a live camp but a party squat. Towels and random pairs of shorts buried in the mud marked the path. He wasn't but a few meters in before brambles and burrs covered him. An action figure, Pyro a villain of the X-Men dangled from a tree. Two chairs a burgundy car bench from the rear seat of a car and a green vinyl La-ZBoy were arranged around a set of bookshelves. Like cupboards, the shelves kept clothes, candles, flashlight with a hand crank, and a set of toiletries from a more recent Outreach Inc. visit. A Bible rested on top of all of it. Off to the side, milk crates with toilet seat covers squatted over holes in the ground. Empty bottles of Cobra, Magnum 40, and Miller Lite littered the camp.

"It's like a tower of Babel of beer up in this piece," Wayne said. "Is it just me or is naming your beer 'Magnum' overcompensating?"

The rain increased. The dampness of his clothes irritated Wayne as much as the itch from the burrs, but he tried to keep a good humor about things. He stepped over half-filled bags of trash. The haunted echo of a train whistle blew in the distance. Everyone kept moving in a morose silence, except for the thick crunch of trodden gravel. Twigs snapped, leaves crunched underfoot, branches cracked with commotion as they skulked through the woods. These were city folk, not woodmen. A thin sheen of sweat dappled his brow despite the cooler temperature. One person through the woods was bad enough, but a half-dozen of them wasn't sneaking up on anyone even half-paying attention. Weeds choked off gra.s.s, which only grew in spurts and rough patches to begin with. Thickets like knots of foliage. King adjusted his pace so they could more silently make their way through the woods. A grumble of thunder pealed though the skies, refusing to fully open up.

"Down there." King drew aside the intervening growth. Through the barrier of foliage, he pointed toward a swift-flowing stream following a steep hillside of gold, yellow, and brown leaves. A long, secluded drive made worse by the muddy trail as the rain picked up to obliterate their view.

"This is their organizational meeting?"

"A ghetto pep rally," Wayne said.

"Quit playing," King said. "We can make our way closer to hear what's going on and see where we can make our move."

Camlann had the feel of refugee camp, with three-quarters of its occupancy slated to go as lowincome housing, people jockeying for position on the waiting list, each desperate to secure their own welfare, at the expense of neighbors. The Camlann experiment was what spurred talk of the threat to raze Breton Court. After the mysterious though most suspected arson fire burned the original Camlann to the ground, it dislocated many homeless squatters. City officials got it in their heads to construct low-income/transitional housing. Unfortunately, no communities wanted such a project in their neighborhood. Tenants worked together or crawled over each other, community leaders looked out for themselves. So the city designated an area near an industrial park as the new potential site. As the grandest of messes, it began with good intentions. The Camlann project was a bureaucratic mess. The city declared eminent domain. Thus the era of tenement housing and abandoned property left to rot ended with a whimper. A new era began, one of re-gentrification, locals pushed out by stingy agencies; inspectors in on the hustle; grant money thrown around; all while media and politicians promised a new day and new opportunities.

The abandoned construction site teemed with a few dozen hard-eyed thugs. Many played around, whooping and yelling. Dred was the last to arrive, cutting through the heart of the throng. Doling out fist pounds and shoulder b.u.mps like a politician working the crowd. A few grumbled that was how they saw him, more politico than soldier. But they were hushed down by the reality of a lot of new vacancies having opened up at the top of their clique.

Dred was the undisputed general, their commander-in-chief. His troops would die for their colors, their crew, little more than urban kamikazes. Not caring if they lived or died, they were one-person suicide bombers. All he had to do was rally them, give them vision, promise money, and have a plan. He could've been a CEO or a politician with his skill set. Instead, he squandered it in blood feuds and magic.

"We ride together, we die together," Dred yelled, calling his meeting to order.

"Look around. See how they do us? They will build new projects to house us and tuck us out of the way so that we ain't inconveniencing anybody by struggling to survive. I don't know about you, but I needs to get mine. I ain't going to be satisfied with hand-outs, told what I can have and when I've had too much. We grew up in this s.h.i.t. Our cousins, our uncles, our brothers... it's what we do. I'd say our daddies, but f.u.c.k 'em. Don't know what they do."

The line got laughs, which was sad to him in some ways. A little too on point.

"So we do this, swim in this s.h.i.t, every day. Now, some motherf.u.c.kers just get to tread water. I ain't about that. We ain't about that. You feel me? If we gonna do this, then we do this for real. Playtime's over. This s.h.i.t's about to get deep. And ain't no one gonna get in our way. Not the Mexicans. Not the police. Not King."

As King surveyed the area, a faint rustle of leaves behind him warned him. He side-stepped at the last moment, barely avoiding the charge of a shadow wraith.

"Look out!" King yelled.

The creatures sprang up from all around, tendrils of shadow lashing out, creeping along the ground like snakes erupting to wrap around them. The creatures rose out of each person's shadow. Lott punched his shadow self, his blows connecting with something solid. The creature slithered a step back, only then did Lott realize that it emanated from his feet. The creature looped itself around his feet, tripping him up, then poured on him once his legs were taken out from him.

Lady G's eyes widened in surprise then sprinted back the way she came. Another train whistle sounded, drowning out the sound of her footfalls through the brush. Branches slapped her in the face as she veered from the path directly through the copse of trees. She chanced a glance backward. Her shadow elongated, stretched further back like a rubber band caught on something. The line of the woods was only a few more steps away. The train whistle blew again, its rumble vibrating the ground beneath her. When she burst through the tree line, the train rumbled along the track, a slow-moving processional of cars stretching back as far as she could see. The train's engine was almost at the same point where she was, but she thought she might be able to beat the train, cross ing the tracks in time to get to the other side.

She broke into a sprint, her eyes fixed on the engine of the train. A warning whistle sounded again, imploring her not to race it. The inexorable grind of the wheels along the track wasn't slowing down for anything. She bolted the rush of air from the train catching up with her. Her arms pumped furiously. Her chest tightened. Only a few more steps and she might be able to make it. Her foot hit a patch of rocks that slipped from under her. Twisting her ankle, she tumbled to the ground, careening toward the tracks, but with slowing momentum. She came to a stop five feet from the tracks. The train cutting her off, she turned in time to see her shadow beast leap upon her.

Tristan slashed at them with her blades, but for every rent shadow, two others sprang up to replace it. Thick fingers gripped Percy's head as if attempting to separate him from his shoulders. The dark wraith hovered over him. Likewise another coiled itself around Wayne like an anaconda squeezing the life out of him. He couldn't work his hands free enough to grip the obsidian creature properly.

King's beast launched itself at him with maniacal fury.

King forced his hands into a defensive position, waiting to swing at the encroaching cast of shadows. He launched himself with reckless abandon, thrown off balance by his own attacks. Dizzy from pain and blood loss. The creature formed a mallet with its fists and pummeled King. Part of him wanted to curl into a ball as Dred's crew gathered around to watch the blood sport for their entertainment. They called for his death. He would show them how he would go out. His hand stretched, reaching out for the hilt of his Caliburn. His fingers scrabbled hungrily for it once they found purchase. He worked the gun into his hand and a renewed vigor filled him. The endless chorus of the poor and the powerless cried for his blood until a tiny voice cut through the din.

"Daddy?"

The crowd fell silent and parted as Dred escorted a little girl forward.

"Nakia?" King asked. Then the darkness overwhelmed him.

Lee parked in the Indianapolis Zoo and waited as he decided whether or not to call for backup. In his patrol car, alone. The situation seemed too large. He didn't know what was out there. What awaited him. The last time he was caught up in a situation like this was with the mad man, Green. Lee still remembered him lumbering toward him, no longer human-looking. A ma.s.s of flesh and branches, he carried a human head which it had just severed. It was just him. Scared. Not just fresh-out-of-the-academy scared, but down-tohis-core terrified. He might die tonight. Omarosa all but said she wasn't coming back. So he had to make a choice: to go on being scared (in which case he needed to be off the streets or quit); or to get over his fear (in which case he needed to get out of his car and risk getting his a.s.s handed to him).

Lee picked up the radio. He wanted every available unit.

Like bundled packages, King, Percy, Lady G, and Lott were brought to the center of the Camlann site and deposited.

"You can give me that thousand-yard all day, King. I ain't afraid of n.o.body's stare. You may want to look around. These boys here, my crew, would just as soon shoot you if you looked at them funny."

"Nakia, you okay, baby?"

"She's fine, King. Just insurance."

"Hiding behind a little girl? That how your crew does it? A bunch of bada.s.ses against a little girl."

"You're going to want to keep a civil tongue, King. Or else I'll hand her over to a very special babysitter. You've heard of his handiwork with Lyonessa."

Noles stepped forward, his hair flat on his head and cut with a severity along his forehead. His face meticulously clean-shaven except for the razorthin goatee around his mouth and the growth of a beard only over his Adam's apple. A dress shirt hung loose on his frame, making him appear skinnier than he was. Only one half of his shirt was tucked into jeans. His eyes studied her in that way. They roamed and lingered.

Noles ran his large hand across the front of her pants while holding her firmly. She screamed, scared and confused, not understanding anything that was happening to her. Noles cried out in imitation of her, a mad howl in a falsetto voice. And laughed.

"Don't do this. It's me you want."

King was powerless to protect his princess. He pulled and jerked with all of his strength but was held firm. Fingers gripped tighter into his arms, nails driving into him. Jolts of fresh pain as they punched him in the side for struggling.

"Daddy!" Nakia screamed, her wide eyes pleading.

King begged for the strength to free himself, to help his little girl. His mind raced for any plan, mad or ingenious. Tears blazed hot trails down his face, his vision blurring. He slumped in his shackles, deflating. Beaten.

"That's enough, Noles. I just wanted King's mind focused so we could have a little chat."

"You know what your problem is?" Dred lowered on his haunches to get level with King. "You give a f.u.c.k when no one's paying you to give a f.u.c.k. You speak of peace. We aren't men of peace. Neither of us. Don't delude yourself. You earn peace at the point of a gat every bit the same way I do. You want to hit me, go ahead." Dred waved King's Caliburn in front of him. He reached into his dip to retrieve another. He held them both up, allowing the light to reflect from them. "A matching set. The way they were meant to be. You settle conflict the same way I do, except with hypocrisy. You think you're different. You try to be nice, normal. But there's a part of you that will never be that guy. Look at you. You're a facade. Your whole look is designed for everyone else. 'Look, but don't touch. Don't approach. Don't get close.' Like me. So desperate for folks to love you, yet so incapable of feeling love. You are easier to manipulate. You see yourself as their leader. Their pastor. Their shepherd. But at your core, you're still the insecure little boy you always were. Not sure of yourself. Not sure of your decisions. You're weak and that weakness can be exploited."

King's eyes bugged like disjointed marbles. His fists clenched. His chest high as his whole body shook with rage. With a snarl King turned and spat at Dred's feet.

"This is what I wanted," Dred said. "My birthright. The two reunited, the way Luther used to have them. A pair, never meant to be separated."

"Like us?" King asked. "You want me to join you?"

"We both know that would never happen. I'll make this simpler for you. All you have to do is give up and leave. You see, Indianapolis is all I know. Like you, I was born and raised here. These streets pump through my veins. So I can't leave. Nor do I really expect you to. "

King's chest tightened and his body trembled. Fear welled up in the back of his throat, and it had a coppery aftertaste. Grabbed by the forearm, shadow tendrils dragged him to the center of the room. He peered into the creatures' night eyes. He imagined his end might come like this. Surrounded by thugs, some armed with chains or bats or knives but mostly guns. He knew that to take a stand against them might end with his death. Execution.

"The storm is pa.s.sing," he muttered. The rain fell lightly upon his shadowy form, as if attempting to cleanse him of the darkness of the night. He marveled at how far he had come, how much he'd learned in so short a time. Dred strode with determination and power. The Egbo Society controlled the gangs, the drugs, the money in Indianapolis, served at the pleasure of the Board of Directors and they to the Hierarchy. Not content to remain a lieutenant or a captain, Dred vied to get to the Board. For as long as he could remember, his ambition drove him to get the power and reign as the supreme power in the Egbo Society. Already he was one of the Ndibu, the high order of the Egbo Society. Soon he would have it all. Hands skeletal and gnarled, he uttered an incantation, a low whisper. Shadows danced about like ghostly dark flames. They lit along his body, wisps of black fire. He writhed in pain.

Dred had prepared a sacred place, carved out by his ritual. His pulse quickened. He lit a lone candle, and with its bare luminance, prepared the necessary instruments. Adorning the wall of the incomplete building were a legion of clay statues and wooden figurines, wrapped in twine, of various sizes, depicting personages of an earlier time. Three drums laid in wait next to the sacred vessels. Dred quickly rose and poured the water from the first vessel on his feet and then in a path toward them. He walked the water path to the rear, where he raised a small pot full of ashes. With them, Dred etched symbols along the beams.

Dred lowered his robe to his waist. Two yellow rings circled each breast. Below them, a white ring stamped his middle. Underneath it, two more yellow rings, forming a square on his chest. His back had the same pattern emblazoned on him, with the color scheme reversed. Alternating yellow and white stripes ornamented each arm.

Dred began to speak, his face falling into its shadows. "Ours is the house without walls. We call upon Oba.s.si to guide and protect us. Ok.u.m ngbe ommobik ejennum ngimm, akiko ye ajakk nga ka ejenn nyamm."

The creatures' features morphed, becoming ebon sculptures of people he was unable to save or protect. Mich.e.l.le Davis. Parker Griffin. Tavon. Rellik. Rok. Iz. Baylon. Prez.

Nakia.

No one thought to ask the question "Where's Baylon?" Not Dred. Not King. Not the knights. Not any of Dred's crew. Truth be told, no one cared. Except for one person. Omarosa cared where Baylon was. She cut through the underbrush like a deadly wraith. Snuck around the concrete debris, the spires of discarded rebar, the piles of brick, the mounds of gravel, with the ease of a lioness on the prowl. And she caught his scent, not too difficult to do with him smelling of graveside rot. A spark of interest flickered in Omarosa's eyes. He wouldn't be like any of the usual level of street trash she dealt with. However, his petty magic parlor tricks, really while they might have worked against other folks, she was of the fey. Her heightened hearing matched her heightened sight. She glided smoothly over the packed dirt, waiting for a telltale blunder or charge. Wisely, he didn't move. She turned her back. Not only was he upwind, the air thick with his stink of sweat and fear, his jackrabbit heart thundered in her ears.

His jogging suit reduced to a farm of mildew. His hair disheveled, whorls of knots. His complexion ashy, an ashiness that ran down to his soul. He was gone long before Dred had cast his spell which used Baylon's vitality to cure his paralysis, leaving Baylon little more than a shuffling husk. It wasn't the spell which broke him, it was the decision to use him for the spell. The betrayal. They were like brothers, Baylon had told himself. Dred came to him, chose him, found him, and said come do this thing with me. Together, they a.s.sembled the crew. Together, they ran things. Then King returned to the scene. It was like Dred forgot about Baylon and became obsessed with King. It wasn't as if Baylon wanted Dred to choose him over King, he just wanted to matter. Not be used and discarded.

"I'm surprised you're not standing with your boy," Omarosa said.

"I'm here. Where I always am. In his shadow. Supporting him as necessary." He continued to watch the ceremony.

"I'll never get you, B. Here Dred does you like he did, and you still here. That's some serious codependent s.h.i.t right there. You're like a faithful puppy that no matter how's he's kicked, he comes right back to nip at his master's heels."

"Even the most faithful dog," Baylon turned to her, "can get kicked one time too many and not return home. Or if he do, it's to tear down the home from the inside to remind the master what all he's capable of doing."

"That's the difference between me and Dred. I got a dog and it comes home and starts chewing up my furniture, I just go ahead and put him down."

Omarosa trained her sawed-off shotgun on him.

"You all about business. I ain't holding, so this must be personal."

"You killed my brother."

"Who?"

"Colvin."

Baylon remembered.

The mad half-fey gestured furiously, his hand danced about. The occasional green gleam sparked, but dissipated as if shorted out. King strode toward him with furious intent. Colvin locked eyes on him, so focused he did not hear the click of a blade springing to life behind him.

Baylon fought for his throat, but Colvin twisted out of the way at the last instant. Not to be denied his opportunity, Baylon arced the blade again and buried the knife up to its hilt into the fey's belly. He turned the blade then drove it up, spilling his insides. Eyes splayed open in shock, his mouth agape as if pain was an entirely new sensation which caught him short, Colvin dropped to his knees.

"So, he was your kin. He needed to be put down."

"I don't argue that. He was of the land and I am of the sea. And I hated him with that special fury reserved for siblings. You understand the betrayal of a brother."

"Me and Dred, we were like brothers."

"But Colvin was still of the fey. He deserved to be taken down by someone worthy of him. Not some lap dog. No offense."

"None taken." Baylon began to move his hand. Omarosa checked him with a nod of the barrel. With a slow and deliberate motion, he reached into his pocket. He withdrew the ring Colvin had given Garlan. "I suppose you'll want this back."

Baylon rushed her. The shock of her recognizing Colvin's ring threw off the timing of her attack. Baylon possessed a speed that belied his condition. Adrenaline and the need for vengeance choked Omarosa, clouding her a.s.sa.s.sin's instinct. She staggered into his fist. It spun her around and his wizened arms wrapped around her. They pinned her arms to her side with her unable to find purchase. Face to face with him, she stared into his eyes. Cold, dead things without a hint of recognition.

Antic.i.p.ating that she was about to head b.u.t.t him, Baylon slammed her into the ground, allowing his full weight to smash into her back when they landed. He shuffled out of the way, landing a fierce kick to her side. A rib cracked. He brought his fist down, a hammer blow to her mouth. Pain wracked her. White-hot tendrils of pain shot up her neck into her skull.

She regained her footing, then entangled his legs with hers. Omarosa clocked Baylon in the face. She crouched with a feline grace, her hands a blur of stiff finger strikes. Baylon deflected some of them, but with his sluggish movements, he appeared to think about each blow, choosing to defend himself only against every third one. She struck several nerve cl.u.s.ters along his arm. His left arm hung at his side, useless. Her leg snapped forward, landing first in his side, then at his head. That was it. Half-kneeling, Baylon was already defeated, even if his body hadn't fully accepted it. Omarosa retrieved her shotgun.

"Dred didn't deserve you," she said.

"That's what was so sad. I knew he didn't and I served him anyway."

The shotgun at the ready, she squeezed the trigger.

"The game doesn't have to be played this way. So many bodies. So many lives ruined. You're destroying our community."

"Acceptable losses. Collateral casualties. You are a weak king making grown-up decisions. Your choices can end lives. You are arrogant and unworthy. You lack the strengths, the will, to use power. You spent a lifetime repressing your emotions, thinking that was the best way to act. All you did was b.u.t.ton it all away, let it eat at you from the inside, spilling out in ways you couldn't control. You should give yourself permission to hate. It's cathartic. Freeing. Energizing. It can give your life fuel and pa.s.sion. You've got enough hate for both of us. I'm just sad. This whole place makes me just... sad."

Dred addressed his a.s.sembled crew. He wanted them to witness King's absolute humiliation and know that it came by Dred's hands alone. "The crown is not for dreamers or idealists. Artists nor politicians. But men of steel. Men don't want unity. They want leaders. People who know how to use power. You are a weak king. A weak king knows nothing of power and how to use it. If you want to be king, sometimes you have to be willing to take what's yours."

Dred swung a haymaker right to King's jaw, the blow rattling his head. The rush hit him like a junkie sending a load home. It got his head up. Dred threw another punch, hitting him on the other side of the face. The beating got to feeling good to him. With his right, he hooked King a few times to the kidneys then mirrored the attack with his left. King looked over to Nakia and silently took the beating.

"Do you think you're some hero, King?"