high yella, stone-cold beauty whose large breasts pushed her shirt straight out, exposing her flat belly over her tight jeans. Her Asian eyes and long black hair framed an intoxicating face. Using men against men, teasing out vulnerabilities, to exploit their weaknesses, her flaw was that she discounted their strengths. Her own brand of enchantment left his will slacked, honor drugged, and canceled his conscience with lust. Hers was a deadly game; even knowing how she operated made her no less effective, or him any less prey to her advances.
'Same old Morgana. Still using the same tricks. You play a dangerous game.'
'Most risky gambits can be successful, if undertaken boldly and without hesitation.'
Rellik had his own agenda. And orders. The officers, even the Ngbe who ran the bulk of the traffic in Indianapolis, served at the pleasure of the Board of Directors. The Hierarchy brought him in because things were in disarray. Not content for lieutenants and captains to report to him, Dred vied to get to the Board. And now he was nowhere to be found.
Rellik pulled her close to him. For his part, he used women like some people used drugs: to numb himself from the pain of his world. She feigned protest until a mischievous smile snaked across her face. It was her nature. She couldn't help herself. She knew him and accepted him as he was and as much as she was capable. In her own twisted way, she loved him.
The idea of love, its sheer tenacity, scared the shit out of him. Love stayed right there with him during the ugly and dark times. All love did. Love clung right to the person he was meant to be and helped move him along toward becoming that. Love didn't let him off the hook, nor did it want him to define himself by his sin or failures. He couldn't outrun love. So he knew he'd one day have to kill her.
'Is there anything I can do for you?' She plunged her tongue deep into his mouth. His hands explored her back, before scooping her up and setting her on the edge of his couch. She fumbled at his shirt, their tongues never breaking from their mutual explorations, while he hiked up her skirt.
She really wasn't wearing any panties.
The depth of his entry caused her to break their kiss. In a well-practiced move, she winced through closed eyes, and threw her head back. Her arms locked around the back of his head, then she moaned long and deep. There was making love and there was a hot fucking that burned bright and brief, threatening to break them both in its intensity. He rode her in slow strokes. The sex was as true and vital as the first time he smashed her.
Morgana wasn't one for cuddling afterward. The night called and she had much to do before dawn. She left him to his empty room, his thoughts and his life. Unlike many of the squares who went to their cubicle worlds and went through the motions of life, pushing papers, accepting berating bosses, and underperforming and back- stabbing colleagues, he could say he put in a good day's work. True, he couldn't say 'I built that.' He couldn't say 'I taught them.' The devil whispered in his ear. That dark voice that came to him in the still times. When he stopped moving, stopped playing the game, when he didn't distract himself with the pretense that he wasn't alone and unloved. He wasn't fooling anyone. His dreams tormented him. Sometimes flashes of what life would have been like with his brothers, with anything approximating a real family. Other times, his nights were filled with water, dragged under, his breath fleeing in a desperate gasp. He paced the floor, an unsettled cat, then drew his Taurus 92 from beneath his pillow. Plopping on the edge of his bed, he aimed his gun at his heart. It'd be easy to end the pain which haunted him, without name, without reservation, without relent. One day he'd find the strength to squeeze the trigger.
'I miss my brothers.' The sound of his own voice startled him.
In the end he knew how empty his life was. All he knew was that life was accidental.
Only death was deliberate.
Behind the Phoenix Apartments, a grove of trees lined a path, its banks formed a natural green space that had become popular as a walkway. During early morning hours, many a citizen walked its path for exercise, each armed with a stick or bat in case of emergency. On occasion, people held dog fights back there. Cars crowded the rear of the Phoenix Apartments parking lot, sealing it off into its own little world. Folks knew they were entering designated Switzerland, a 'no beefs allowed' zone. It was its own, lost world.
The sounds of cars traveling along 38th Street drifted in from the outside world. Cigarette butts and beer bottles littered the ground. Overgrown masonry protruded from the earth, large cement slabs which were the foundation from a previous building. The trees grew at odd angles in this fairly isolated thin trickle of a creek. The older ones half-uprooted as if a great upheaval had once taken place there.
This was where Omarosa agreed to meet Colvin. Not neutral territory, but they weren't here to parlay. She knew the lay of the land and it was enough into Rellik's tightening control for Colvin to have to step lightly. Omarosa moved swiftly and without sound. Her light footfalls slipping through the foliage without displacing a leaf. She was prepared to take out a guard, Mulysa, or at least a young buck which passed for security. But there was no one. Colvin stood alone and vulnerable in the center of the field.
A faint light illuminated his features. Despite his evident beauty, his heroic jaw, and his angular setting, his face contorted in pain and concentration.
'It's been a long time,' Omarosa interrupted.
'I'm trying to decide if it's been too long or not long enough.'
'Didn't expect to see you handle this personally.'
'And trust this to Mulysa?' Colvin asked.
'He's your boy and all.'
'Would he still be standing here if he had a bag full of money? Easy pickings.'
'I let your courier scurry along home.'
'To let me know you were responsible.'
'Still, you, me. Out here. Alone. You getting bold in your old age. We gonna do this now or what?'
'You unarmed?'
'You alone?'
Twins shared a special knowing. There was no psychic connection, no special power given them. There was just a simple knowing. They understood their doppelganger because they shared a womb with them, knew them in the most intimate and close of settings. So both Colvin and Omarosa appreciated the little dance of cordiality they both endured and inflicted on one another. No need to voice their history of quiet resentments and litany of perceived slights. Her mother always favored Colvin. There was always something fragile about him, despite his bravado and narcissism. A palace built atop rotted timbers. Not that Omarosa consciously picked up on it. She tried to love him, but there was no room for her in his world. That was what she told herself.
Their estrangement had nothing to do with how many times she tried to kill him over the years.
'So we gonna do this?'
'Yeah, but let me ask you something,' Colvin said.
'Go ahead.'
'Do you keep up much with the old ways?'
'The old ways are not for us. Let King and his dog, Merle, truck in those parlor tricks. I got better things to do. Like finish this up, crash at my crib, and count my ends, you feel me?'
'Yeah, about that… I'm afraid there's been a change in plans. You see, I didn't come alone.' A jade spark burned just above him. It trickled down like slowmoving lava, leaving a suspended trail in its wake.
Omarosa recognized the glamour of hidden doors. A half-dozen men tumbled from the nexus. They stood about to her waist, with bulbous bellies and faces like old men. Nude save for their spiked iron boots and caps faded to a deep carnation.
'Red Caps? Seriously?' Omarosa pulled out her sawed-off shotgun from the bag. 'I didn't exactly come unarmed.'
Their weapons sprung to their hands, slings firing shots like iron thorns. Omarosa fell backwards, dodging the first volley while getting off a shot. The first creature fell back, blood erupting from the wound of the shotgun blast. It slowly rose, the attack not lethal. Hardy bastards. She dove for cover behind one of the jutting concrete slabs. Her side burned as if lanced with a hot poker.
The men scattered, converged on her spot from a variety of angles, each serving as a distraction for the others. Their teeth ripped into her flesh as they swarmed at her, a host of maggots writhing on a stilltwitching carcass. The full weight of one of their bodies slammed into her back from above. The iron spikes of its boots, like nails hammered into her back. It drove the breath from her lungs. Others wrestled her, attempting to subdue her. With a curse, she kicked free, then thrust her elbow into the groin of the one behind her. It slackened its grasp
