enough for her to twist loose. Her arm was wrenched from underneath her, nearly toppling her.
'Damn it,' she muttered.
'Getting slow in your old age.' Colvin tramped toward her dropped package. He was stunned: she really did bring the product. Though, he should have been: he had really brought the money. They were fey after all. Straddling the line between what they called honor and the necessity of betrayal were what they did best. He turned to leave, deciding whether to watch the rest of the show or go ahead and depart.
The Red Caps jabbered amongst themselves with titters and croaks not meant for human throats. Not even half-human ones. They drove her back by their sheer weight of numbers, all talons and teeth gnashing and swiping towards her: a pack of hyenas tearing into a wounded lioness. Strength ebbed from her limbs. She bled from innumerable scratches and tears. But she was fey. And you neither took a gift from her kind, nor made them angry.
A scarlet fugue state burned in Omarosa's emerald eyes as the fierceness of battle overtook her. The rage which so often fueled her when her back was pressed against the wall and the desperation of survival was all she had left. She rushed headlong through them to break their purchase. Lashing right and left, she struck with tepid punches more designed to throw them off than inflict any real damage to their tough hides. She swung her leg in a high arc and caught one in mid-air; the back blade of her boot heel slit its throat and it was dead before it hit the ground. Her spiked heel crunched down on a skull, a spike driven through it. Its opened throat spilled blood over her new boots. They'd never come clean again.
She barely dodged the taloned hand. Its nails would have opened up a scarlet trail along her chest. The better course of valor brought no shame to the fey. She would live to see the blood of her enemies spilled. Through the stark stretch of open ground, she bolted for the tree line with speed which easily outpaced her pursuers. The occasional elf arrow whizzed past her. She turned, nearly invisible in its shadows, to see Colvin salute her. A bag in either hand.
He was sloppy and brutal, no finesse or style to his game. But he was fey.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun rose a violet and orange backdrop to his lakeside perch. Lott slept soundly beneath an apple tree, bone-weary, with the gentle laps of the lake providing all the lullaby he needed. He'd always found comfort at lakes. The heavy footfalls of an approaching brigade stirred him from slumber. A staggered caravan of four figures on horseback coalesced into view. Though quite a distance away, it became readily apparent that the parade consisted solely of women. Each wore a red cap, a beret of sorts, and slowed as she neared as if beckoning him to follow her. Few women crossed him. Fewer still drew his attention.
The first had a familiar bearing as if she'd always been around the way, a presence in the neighborhood he'd taken for granted. She drew back her long black hair from her Asian-looking eyes. Her horse, black as death and hate. Eyes reflecting ambition and power. Glaring at him, she found him wanting. The horse snorted in disapproval, and she rode on.
A commanding dark-skinned beauty if one could see past the layers of clothes with which she wrapped herself, Lady G rode second. Her horse a wild-eyed, wildfire-red stallion, untamed and unfettered yet she rode him with a practiced, graceful aplomb. An inviting flutter of her eyelashes framed the sidelong glances of her slow- moving eyes. Her lips curled with understanding. Romantic and ridiculous, she took peace from him, her vicinity smashed right into his nature. His eyes couldn't help but to follow her. Despite other horses coming into view, he always went back to her.
The third horsewoman was Omarosa astride an ashen horse with a grey, mottled mane. She carried a great sword. Drawing up, she paused at the far side of the lake. She dismounted from her horse and let it drink while she crouched beside it to scoop water into her mouth. Her vanity held out for conquest.
Lott wondered where Lady G had ridden off to.
The fourth rider was unknown to him. Atop a white horse, a bow slung around her and a crown atop her head. She rode with the confidence of a conqueror. His heart leapt at her approach, yet he allowed her to pass by also, too preoccupied with tracking the movements of Lady G.
'The thing about women is that we don't share. It's not in our nature,' Omarosa said, her voice as clear and close as though she stood next to him. Its waters clear and deep, she glided across the surface of the lake. 'I've spent a lifetime listening to men who seek prostitutes. Some blamed their wives for making them choose to spend their money to be with another. Others wept with guilt and shame, though that didn't stop them from having a head bob in their laps in car seat trysts. Others, in fits of machismo to mask their childishness, spoke in grandiose terms about their lives, bragged about themselves, wanting to be praised. Or they even turned violent. All to satisfy the demands of an ego to show they didn't actually need to pay for it.'
'I-'
'A fierce battle, a war, wages within you. Greatness must be earned and not just by leaping to rescue every queen that comes along your path. This queen rescues herself.' Omarosa turned on her heel, reducing the lake to little more than her personal catwalk. 'Be careful when you help the women. Not all of them are damsels in distress. Most will take advantage of a young handsome knight.'
'What about you?'
'I'll devour you.' Her skin, slightly blue and puffy as if she'd been drowned, and long greenish hair, damp and drawn like seaweed. 'I'll drag you straight into my underwater palace where my most prized knights await. And you, above all knights, should lead them.'
Lott sprang up from his pillow. Disoriented, it took him a few minutes to recognize the confines of his room. Then he fell back onto his pillow, knowing he wouldn't be drifting back to sleep. So began Lott's daily work of beating back the past, haunted by dreams. He'd managed to work out an arrangement with the manager of the Speedway Lodge, formerly a Howard Johnson's, where he stayed, offering onsite security now that he worked second shift at FedEx. This filled his nights and left the early hours of the morning for him to sleep. Or run around with King. All the better knowing what waited for him in his dreams.
The 1950s-era lampshades cast the room with an orange pallor. All of his belongings fit into his backpack or a drawer so he could pick up to leave with no notice should life carry him elsewhere. His rootlessness matched his restless spirit. The dream stirred up something else. Or perhaps the fact that he slept in his brother's shirt stirred the dream.
Lott stripped off the shirt, letting it catch on his shoulders, not admitting to not wanting to let him go. His brother, Morris. The shirt was a connection, though it had long lost any scent of him. It wasn't as if he had grown up laying awake at night one day hoping to work for FedEx (though he knew he couldn't be a UPS man in their shit- colored uniforms). In another life, Lott dreamt of being a rapper. Music filled his head and songs played in color. Rhythms and beats formed his skin, and spat lyrics formed his palette. Pouring out his soul in his music, it was easy to notice the laughter, if not the pain behind the song; easy to be caught up in the dance, behind the beat, with the anger which could be marketed. Exploited.
'Your brother, now he was the smart one,' Lott's mother said, her voice as clear in his head now as it had ever been any of the times she tore into him. The pain of his mother's indifference lashed out in desperate ways; undealt with, it ripped into those closest to him before turning inward like a metastacized cancer. 'Such a beautiful child.'
'All the neighbors said so.' Lott knew her soliloquy by heart and filled in the next bit, even matching the cadence of her voice.
Her eyes narrowed to slits, the only warning, before she sprang up and slapped him for the disrespect. If he knew what was good for him, he would allow her her time, her story, and her way of telling and he'd listen to every word of it at her pace. The imprint of her hand stung his cheek.
'He had potential. Those fools he ran with… not two nickels' worth of sense between the lot of them. But they were drawn to my baby. My baby boy.'
Morris was fourteen months younger than him.
Lott touched his face where the memory of pain lingered. He braced himself for his mother's next words. 'You and your music are a complete waste of time, effort, energy, and resources. What good did it do your brother? You
