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
