Maurice Broaddus
King's War
'Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.'
PROLOGUE
All stories ended in death.
Lost in the white noise of the engine, that was the first thing that popped into King James White's mind as he idled down 16th Street. Sitting tall and straight in the car seat, he shifted uncomfortably, visibly muscled, but not with the dieseled appearance of prison weight. A head full of regal twists fit for a crown, he had the complexion of burnt cocoa, and a fresh crop of razor bumps ran along his neck. The thin trace of a goatee framed his mouth. He scanned the streets with a heavy gaze, both decisive and sure. He hated driving and doing so put him in a foul mood. Not a gearhead by any measure, he neither had oil in his blood nor an overwhelming need to be under a hood. For that matter, he didn't have any love for huge rides, trues and vogues, ostentatious rims, booming systems, or any of the other nonsense which seemed to accompany a love of cars. A ride was just a ride. He much preferred walking, to have the earth solidly under his feet.
His ace, Lott, who rode silently beside him, simply believed him to be cheap, not wanting to pay the nearly $3 per gallon unless he absolutely had to. Lott always seemed a week past getting his lowcut fade tightened up. His large brown eyes took in the passing scenery. His FedEx uniform — a thick sweatshirt over blue slacks; his name badge, 'Lott Carey' with a picture featuring his grill-revealing smile, wrapped around his arm — girded him like a suit of armor. Lott drummed casually to himself, caught up in the melodies in his head.
Scrunching down in his seat again to check the skyline — as if maybe the creature might fly by in the open skyline by day — King turned at the sound of a beat being pounded out on the dashboard.
'What?' Lott paused mid-stroke under the weight of King's eyes on him.
'What you doing?'
'Nothing.' Lott grinned his sheepish 'been caught' smile, both beguiling and devilish. A row of faux gold caps grilled his teeth.
'We supposed to be looking for this thing.'
'We don't even know what this thing is.'
'What kind of man would I be if I ignored that?' King asked.
'A man. An ordinary man.' Lott began drumming again. 'Ain't nothing wrong with that.'
For days King had trailed a beast strictly on the say-so of a mother's plea. Not even a year ago, he'd have dismissed the tale as another barber shop story told to pass the time, little more than a campfire story in the hood. The only monsters who prowled about in the dark were strictly of the two-legged variety. That was before he found himself caught up in a new story. One filled with magic, trolls, elementals, and dragons. The shadow world, an invisible world, once seen couldn't be unseen. Now the world of demons and creatures was far too real. All he knew, all he had sworn, was that nothing would prey upon the weak and defenseless in his neighborhood.
Descriptions of the creature changed with the teller of the tale. Sometimes it had wings. Sometimes the body of a lion. Sometimes it had the body of a snake. Sometimes claws. King feared he might be dealing with more than one creature, which was equally as bad an alternative to facing one creature with all of those characteristics. Even in a concrete jungle, life belonged to the swift, the strong, the smartest. King stalked among it, the latest generation of street princes. And heavy was the head that wore the crown.
'We heading over to Glein?' Lott asked in his lazy drawl, obviously pleased with himself. He loved accompanying King on his little missions.
'That where the Harding Street bridge folk ended up?'
'As long as the problem is swept under someone else's rug, the mess is considered clean.'
'I think so. Been hearing reports about it. Been wanting to check out this 'tent city'.' For his part, King was energized by Lott. It was like there was nothing he couldn't accomplish with Lott by his side. The pressure piled on King more these days. Everyone seemed to turn to him for answers. To solve their problems. The streets were becoming his even more so than they were his father's, except he hated the sheer… responsibility of it all.
Lott rolled with it all. The FedEx gig was working out. The company would be promoting him soon and he'd get a better shift. His story, too, had changed much in only a few months. Gone were the days of living in an abandoned house. He had a job with a future. And, for the first time he could remember, he had a friend who'd walk through fire for him, one for whom he'd do the same. Lott wasn't one to swear oaths of allegiance to anyone, but once he called someone friend, he was loyal to the end. And King was his boy.
King wasn't the type to make friends easily. Investing in people wasn't worth the effort: in the end, they all abandoned him. A melancholy cloud had settled on King over the last few months, but it wasn't anything either felt the need to talk about. Not every little feeling had to be talked through. Sometimes it was better to just let folks be.
They continued west on 16th Street passing Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, Methodist Hospital, and the Indiana State Forensics Laboratory. On Aqueduct Street, they pulled into a gravel lot. Signs pointed toward the Water Company, but they were more interested in the park across the street. Calm and resolute, King stood motionless, taking in the tranquility. His tall and regal bearing was swathed in a trenchcoat, matching his black jeans and black Chuck Taylors. The wind caught his open coat ever so slightly, the brief flutter the only movement, revealing the portrait of Medgar Evers on his T-shirt. And the butt of his Caliburn tucked into his waist. He never looked more lonely.
Only a few nights ago, they had cleared a corner. It was one of those little runs King didn't tell Wayne Orkney — the other member of their triumvirate, who was also on staff at a homeless teen ministry called Outreach Inc — nor his mentor, Pastor Ecktor Winburn, about. The grumbles of their disapproval of his off-the-book runs would echo in his ears for weeks.
But Lott would be all in.
For all of his bravado and certainty whenever he went about his business, King needed someone to watch his back. To Lott, he wasn't Robin to King's Batman, but rather Batman to King's Superman. He rather reveled in that image.
Dred, though east side, hadn't been heard from; Night, once king of the west side, had been dropped by King (so the story went). The Eagle Terrace apartments bordered but were a respectful distance from Breton Court, King's undisputed dominion. A couple of non-descript fools, in baggy T-shirts and baggier pants who couldn't have been more than fourteen years old, not even a hard fourteen. Lott could practically smell their mother's milk on their breath. The first one leaned toward tall, a little bulk about the shoulders but with thin legs, like a basketball player growing into his body. A threat from the waist up, it was a dead giveaway that he'd found a set of weights and concentrated on his arms and never worked his legs. The other was short, stocky, with brown eyes too big for his head. Too quick to show his teeth, he cracked endless jokes about doing the other's girls heedless of the fact that he was on the clock. And then two brothers who meant business stepped to them from the shadows.
'You gonna have to move on,' King said with no play in his voice.
'This is our spot. Who gonna move us?' the tall one said. His head had been filled with how good he was, the tone of entitlement in his voice.
