'I got it.' The implication being that he didn't trust Mulysa with a task he deemed too delicate.
'I summoned them, I should lead them.'
'Who have you ever led? Don't strain yourself, I got this. Your gifts are better served elsewhere. Make sure our other talent is ready to go.'
'A-ight.' Part of Mulysa seethed. He'd risen as far as he was able and wasn't about to be trusted with more. His bubbling anger needed to be vented. Someone had to hurt.
A squirrel bounded along the black, cracked pavement of the sidewalk at a house just a little south of the Phoenix Apartments. Rumor had it that this was once Dred's mother's home. Rumor had it that Dred's mother had a bit of a falling out of some sort with her son and hadn't been seen since. Rumor had it that the home was once one of his convenient banks. To the non-discerning eye, it was just another boarded-up two-story. The squirrel stopped, indifferent as it sniffed the air, then scampered up a pole and ran along an overhead wire. It hopped over the pair of tied sneakers dangling from it. Again, it paused, this time it chirped, a squawk reminiscent of a chicken, its tail raised like a cobra striking the air.
A tree hung low over the roof, its branches scraping the shingles and brushing the overhead lines. A group of three young men cloistered along the sidewalk. Today's topics steered towards trick, lesbian bitches, LeBron James, the latest product, exaggerated tales of Omarosa, whispers about Dred, Young Jeezy, and rims.
Sir Rupert dropped nuts on them.
'What the fuck?!?' They threw up their arms to shield themselves.
'Ah, Sir Rupert.' Merle snuck past the distracted lookouts. 'Ever the gentlemen's gentlemen.'
It was said that when the angels fell, the ones who fell on land became faeries and the ones who fell into the sea became selkies. It was said that he was born the son of an incubus and a virtuous woman, though he doubted anyone had ever once considered the mad harridan Mab virtuous. A tale well spoke, however, once said that she met a priest and asked him if there were any way for her soul to be saved. 'Of course,' he said, 'none are beyond saving. Why don't you say the Our Father with me. 'Our Father which art in heaven…'' After a hesitant tremble, she opened her mouth and began speaking. 'Our father which wert in heaven…' She caught herself, mid-prayer to the fallen one. The priest, mouth agape, watched as she ran off in tears. Later it was whispered that upon his birth, Merle was entrusted to that priest at birth who hurried him to a baptismal fount.
Merle adjusted the fitting of his aluminum foil cap. The voices said a lot of things and it was harder and harder to sift through them all and divine the ones worth listening to. Merle delighted in mystery and causing wonder. Wise and subtle with the gift of prophecy, he knew the dark corners of the human heart and moved, like a dream. And dreams were what brought him here.
'I feel like I am walking backwards through my life, passing myself on the way down.' Merle fingered the small stone in his pocket. He'd found it at the first scene where the bodies at the Phoenix Apartments had been discovered. 'I see angels,' he repeated to himself. After he heard snippets of Prez's story he choose to investigate that scene. He wished he'd been able to examine the bodies like he did in the old times. Searching for a hairless spot in its side or any lump beneath the skin, any sign that they had been trow-shot. The strange pellet slipped back into his pocket. According to the old ways, anyone who found an elf arrow was immune from their hurt if they kept it with them at all times. If it were given away, the generous soul was liable to be kidnapped away by the faeries. 'Youth is primal. And wasted.'
Though not along a ley line, a natural place of power, Merle was still drawn to this place. If he thought of magic as a lake that folks dipped from, leaving ripples in the wake of their use, he could track back the riptides created from massive use. Someone was pumping like a lift station from here. The familiar click of a switchblade springing to life froze Merle in his tracks. The blade then closed. Closer still, it snapped open again and clicked closed. Nearer still, it snapped open again. Merle turned. Baylon held his dagger like a sword pointed toward the ground.
'You're certainly the biggest fairy I have ever seen,' Merle said. 'I will scoff at you with a slight French accent.'
Baylon smelled of the grave and atrophied muscles, the stench of bed sores, the mildewed tang of body odor and spilled food. Grass stained his once-white Fila jogging suit, as did dirt and the grime of trash bins. He gestured with the weapon for Merle to walk toward the rear door. Once a faithful lieutenant, he didn't know why he stayed with Dred. They were boys from way back and there was a time Baylon would have done anything for him. Back in the early days after joining the Egbo Society. Him, Griff, Dred, Night and Rellik. When they were one huge family. When they had it all and thought it would last forever. They were living the dream. Dred brought him on board, with the lure of the two of them starting and building their little slice of the kingdom together. Baylon imagined the two of them weathering any storm and fighting back enemies of all stripes. Together. The two of them. Dred provided the vision, Baylon made it happen; the head and the facilitator. He supposed some of that was hero worship, with the way Dred swooped in and was there for him after the death of King's cousin, Michelle. A terrible misunderstanding which ended when her life did and was the death knell of Baylon and King's friendship. Dred was there, picked up the pieces of his life, and gave him purpose and direction again. Saving him from his darkness.
Then Dred stole it all from him.
It had to be Dred. One moment Dred was in a wheelchair from a bullet wound Baylon blamed himself for; the next he walked around as if the bullet had never plunged into his flesh, split muscle, vessels, and nerves; while Baylon became trapped between life and death like a zuvembie. He didn't know what Dred did, but the life, the vitality of his essence drained from him. Dred never denied responsibility, hell, he didn't deign to answer Baylon at all.
These days, Dred went his own way. Baylon seemed almost an inconvenience to him now, an uncomfortable reminder of what used to be. Yet he shuffled about, still followed him around, still connected to Dred. Still jumping to obey his orders. All from behind the scenes, like a secret Dred was ashamed to share with the rest of his crew. A faithful dog, though even the most faithful dog could only be kicked so many times before it didn't come home again.
Baylon ushered Merle up the stairs, recalling the days before the transformation, before the bullet changed everything. Though inside prison, Rellik had been promoted to general, overseeing all of Indiana. Neither Dred nor Night were connected to any gang, but came up under his colors. Night was reluctant to bring in Dred. Too unknown, but bowed because of the flex to his step and the power he represented. He learned the rituals, the prayers, and they never realized how much he knew.
Merle entered the chamber. Smoke slinked along the floor, thin wisps dissipating with each step. The clouds reverberated through his bones with a stony chill.
Dred mastered the dragon's breath, or what was left of the residual embers within the earth after the passing of the dragon. The age of magic had been pronounced dead many times; every time the rumors proved premature. The age of science was at its zenith, but it too now waned though many hadn't realized it. But Merle did. Just as he recognized the smoke ritual.
The Iboga was a small perennial shrub of the Apocynaceae family used by the Bwiti cult. Its roots contained a powerful hallucinogen that provided a mystical experience. The root tasted of copper, bitter to the tongue, which numbed the inner part of his mouth. With bloodshot eyes ringed by fatigue, Dred remained awake for the entire night, accompanied by a state of euphoria with hallucinations. The room blurred, as if lost in a fugue of heat waves, then slowly faded. Dred's heart slowed. He matched his breathing to theirs, those whose dreams he wished to intrude upon. Nudging a thread, not shaping the tapestry, he willed a dream into them. Then, as if sensing Merle's presence, his heart sped back up and his attention focused. He returned to the living presence, a leopard-swift predator with a new scent.
'We need to talk.'
Any abandoned house was fair game for a squat. At Washington and Oriental Streets, the Camlann Apartments weren't the worst Tristan and Iz ever stayed in. They shared their last place with two other couples, with one room lined with a tarp to collect feces.
Tristan passed a few fiends who staggered about, zombies to the pipe. A couch had been discarded by one of the nearby homes and now was in steady use on the front lawn. Squatters had a lifestyle of running: running from police, family, someone they owed money. A portly redhead, with a mischievous smile and bright blue eyes that never met her eyes, stumbled with her lumbering gait. She was shy, except for the occasional passing bon mot. With a snaggle-tooth smile, she wrapped a belt around her arm and prepared to launch.
The unimaginative brown eyes of her male companion tracked her movements with all the dullness of a cow
