King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2

by Maurice Broaddus

  There are so many folks to thank who have helped me on the journey of this book. My family for their love, support, and patience as I squirreled myself away in my office for long hours. My church family, the Crossing, for teaching me so much about what it means to walk with people. The Indiana Horror Writers for their continued support.

  My first readers, Trista Robichaud and Sara Larson.

  Jerry Gordon, Gerald McCarrell, and Jason Sizemore. They know what they did… and we've sworn to never speak of it again.

  And my writing family who have kicked me in the butt along the way to make sure this got done. Brian Keene. Wrath James White. Gary Braunbeck. Lucy Snyder. Rober Fleck. Debbie Kuhn. Steve and Becky Gilberts. A better family one couldn't have.

  And Chesya Burke. Where would I be without her? Writing is such a solitary endeavor, so it helps to have a dear friend who calls you regularly to, if not encourage you, then demand that you tell them how great they are (because that in turn should inspire you... I guess).

  Thank you, Angry Robot, for the opportunity, and Steve Stone for another kick-ass cover.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Maurice Broaddus is a notorious egotist whose sole goal is to be a big enough name to be able to snub people at conventions. In anticipation of such a successful writing career, he is practicing speaking of himself in the third person. The "House of M" includes the lovely Sally Jo ("Mommy") and two boys: Maurice Gerald Broaddus II (thus, he gets to retroactively declare himself "Maurice the Great") and Malcolm Xavier Broaddus. Visit his site so he can bore you with details of all things him and most importantly, read his blog. He loves that. A lot.

  Maurice holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University in Biology. Scientist, writer, and hack theologian, he's about the pursuit of Truth because all truth is God's truth. His dark fiction can be found in numerous magazine, anthologies and novellas.

  www.MauriceBroaddus.com

  Extras...

  Here's a little short story to tide you over until King's War – the soon-come conclusion to the Knights of Breton Court saga.

  Collateral Casualties

  No dream lasted forever and few people ever saw the bottom rushing towards them.

  Big Pez was a merry captive of the rhythms of his simple existence. Born Marlon Wainwright to Brody (who drank himself into an early grave) and Marjorie (who bore her bruises in silence) Wainwright, he knew he was destined for better things. Still weary from the night before, Big Pez wore the same shirt under the same soiled Army jacket for the last three days. The "N" from his high top Nikes had peeled off his right shoe, so he scraped the left one off to match. He was the height of haute couture for the business of obliterating oneself. His ashy lips and sunken eye sockets gave evidence to the inescapable horror that he may need to ease up in his drug use. Beckley wasn't a town renowned for plentiful opportunity, however, an enterprising dope fiend could pursue his hunt for the perfect blast with minimum encumbrance.

  J-Clev sat next to him, sucking on a glass pipe. Born Jesse Cleveland to Sherry Cleveland and one of a series of one-night stands she had to make rent. A red and black flannel shirt drooped over his oversized jeans that rode low on his hips. Long hair trailed from the back of his camo ball cap which had been pulled low to shadow his heavy-lidded eyes with their wide pupils. His unkempt beard, the hairs of which turned at peculiar angles long untouched by any form of a comb, couldn't disguise his gaunt face and sallow complexion. Sores, shaped like the bloody lips of an infant, opened along his neck.

  The headlights of a turning car illuminated the truck bed briefly, the sudden light causing them to wince with its interruption. The remaining shard of the broken window handle jabbed Big Pez in his side when he shifted. He jolted upwards, stirring the landfill of papers (mostly bills and collection notices), sausage McMuffin wrappers, and coffee cups filled with ground cigarette butts. The truck's blue vinyl interior, cracked and brittle, scraped his clothes. Big Pez closed his eyes and once again tilted at windmills, chasing the same, elusive high from his first blast. Tonight was different. Tonight he simply wanted a jump start so that he could go about his business. The plan was to break into Beckley Junior High School and steal lab supplies for their own lab. They had dreams of big time gangsta life down in Balmer, though part of them knew full well that they were going to pawn anything they could get their hands on to chase their next high. A couple of city goats trying to pretend that they weren't more than a couple of meth heads.

  Nudging J-Clev, Big Pez slowly opened his door and stretched slowly, his gangly form unfurling from the Chevy pick-up (originally blue, but now almost red with the rust which ate away at it like a pernicious lung cancer). Two students out for a campus stroll before their midnight classes. Definitely not two dropouts shipwrecked in life, their hopes dashed against the reefs of ignorance and hopelessness.

  The school developed a terrible aspect at night, its architectural design reminiscent more of a penal institution than a learning one. The steps alone were a series of foreboding shadows leading to the recessed darkness of the entryway. Big Pez searched the retreating lot for any unwanted eyes, then squeezed between the chained doors.

  With eyes downcast, Big Pez walked past the office, part of him afraid the principal would charge out to have him wait in her office. School was something he endured as long as he could, with only the cold glare of his mother's disapproval awaiting him at home.

  "What about the guards?" J-Clev asked, sucking in his imagined gut as he slid through the mild gap between the chained doors. "Alarms?"

  "Ain't no security to speak of. You see how old this place is? Ain't no one pouring money into this joint for on-site security. Or fancy alarms. Way they see it, not much here worth stealing no ways. I guess they depend on the scary stories to keep folks away." "What scary stories?"

  "Beckley Junior High used to be a hospital during the Civil War," Big Pez said.

  "Thought that was Beckley-Stratton Junior High?"

  "Over on Grey Flats? Naw, it was built a few years back and there was never a hospital there. The building that had the hospital had long been demolished, but it was all right here."

  "What's so scary about that?" J-Clev stroked the scraggily wisps of his mustache, a gesture he always did when calculating the risks of a potential score.

  "The way I hear it, there was a young woman named Hannah who worked as a nurse treating the wounded soldiers." At some point in the story, as best Big Pez could remember, some slaves got locked up in a room, but that part always con fused him so he picked up the story at the part he remembered best. "Hannah was killed and her moans and footsteps could be heard up and down the halls."

  The hallways stretched before them, spider web strands in wait. A few lights remained on, creating pools of shadow down each corridor. The artificial confidence provided by his meth had Big Pez sufficiently decisive, striding the hall with the giddy excitement of a kid embracing being locked in a toy store. His thoughts grew abrupt and fragmented. His hands balled into tight fists, hoping his instincts would navigate the labyrinthine halls to the science wing. Or a computer lab. Or the media room.

  The few fluorescent lights remaining on hummed then sputtered to lifelessness and the shadows slithered from their lairs. With each step, the darkness pulsed with a life of its own. The surrounding blackness created an envelope seal of obscurity. Big Pez moved as if in a separate world from J-Clev, his hands a blur in the abyssal night. Time stretched to disorienting flatness, each heartbeat a measured thud in his throat lasting a minute.

  "Did you hear that?" J-Clev stopped short, the wizened teeth of his fingers clamped onto Big Pez's arm. Drawing near, J-Clev wore the expression of irrational terror, his eyes widened, fueled by the unpredictable passions of his high.

  "Nah, I didn't hear nothing." Big Pez extricated himself from the grip. "You know this shit'll make some folks paranoid."

  The corridors branched in every direction, every sound coming at them from all sides with a gallow
s echo chamber. Staccato clicks, with the gasp of someone choking on coins, reverberated. Voices rushed with the ethereal hush of approaching whispers through a cornfield. The shadows shifted again, the corridors multiplying, a web of choices taking them further and further from where they wanted to be.

  Big Pez took off running, without warning to J-Clev (who dutifully followed suit). With no destination in mind, he followed his instincts down the nearest hallway. The ceiling lit up under the occasional eruption of light coming from the failed emergency lighting. Above him, pipes – corroded veins originally for gas lighting – jutted from the ceiling. He thought he spied a door. Big Pez shuddered as he neared it.

  The strong, dank smell of moist rot emanated from the door. Opening the door, he brushed through cobwebs and cemetery shadows. The dark smelled of spoiled potatoes, wood rot, and termite shit. The looming shadows coalesced into an image, an ancient movie projector focusing to life under the dreary pallor of light and the pall of mortality. Lanterns hung around the room revealing a procession of beds, crowded with moans. With forlorn and defeated faces, men hobbled about on crutches. The stench of gangrene clung to the air, smothering men buried beneath thick woolen blankets as if posed for their caskets. Emaciated and spiritless, locked in a fevered sleep, staring up at ceiling longingly with the steady gaze from bloodshot eyes, a death mask fixed on their faces.

  A woman, shapely as the black dress draped around her would reveal, got up from rolling bandages. Her white apron betrayed the severity of its scarlet stains as she drew closer. Strands of her hair frayed from the bun she had it tied into. The wounds of another patient needed tending as maggots crawled in his sloughing flesh. She scooped wine mixed with water and sugar, from a bucket.

  "Hannah!" A surgeon had his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his bare arms and linen aprons smeared with blood. As he called for her, men lifted a wounded man onto the table, his shrieks of pain adding to the nightmare din. The surgeon quickly examined his wounds, knives clutched between his teeth. He snatched a knife, wiped it twice on bloody apron, and began cutting. Big Pez covered his ears to smother the sounds of the grating of the murderous knife.

  Hannah fixed a pillow beneath the man's head and stroked his sweat-soaked hair. She gently daubed water on his face and neck. The surgeon tossed the freed limb to the corner. Pools of blood radiated from the pile of discarded amputated arms and legs.

  "Next!" the surgeon yelled. Hysterical tears trailed down his face. His gaze locked on Big Pez and J-Clev.

  Hannah grasped J-Clev's arm, her fingers digging into it like shards of broken glass.

  Big Pez staggered out the door, almost stumbling as he turned to run. The door closed behind him, not quite muffling J-Clev's fading screams. He ran blindly until he found himself by the front office again. Hoping to hear J-Clev following him, he cocked his ears to the silence. The sure tapping of footfalls emanated from the trailing darkness.

  "J?" he called out, little above a stage whisper.

  A chorus of whispers rose in response. The cries of the damned. "Doctor?" "Help." "God!"

  Big Pez's heart pounded, his hands trembling as he fumbled at the chained doors. He shook, almost too violently to squeeze back through door, but the icy brush of fingers scraping at him panicked him through.

  That night, huddled in a fetal ball of fear and drugs, he dreamt of shadows and blood.

  And for those who simply cannot wait to snatch a sneak glimpse of King's War…

  PROLOGUE

  The Glein/River Incident

  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 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 low cut 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 sky line 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 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. King the pressure piled on more these days. Everyone seemed to turn to him for answers. To solve their problems. The streets were becoming his even moreso than they were his father, 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 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 to allegiances 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 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. And he never looked more lonely.

  Only a few nights ago, they 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 Ector 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.