Children of the Knight, Michael J. Bowler [classic book list txt] 📗

like it,” announced the king with a cheesy grin.

He wiped his mouth and took another bite, careful this time to pull the cheese apart with his fingers.

Lance watched him eat, watched him charm the owner and the other kids, and sighed.

You need to stop being so selfish, he told himself once again, and then shook off the feeling by laughingly elbowing Jack beside him. He feigned a powerful struggle to lift something heavy as he shakily raised his own slice toward his mouth. Jack laughed and pretended to help Lance lift the pizza. They cracked up again, and Lance tried to get Mark into the fun.

“Hey, Mark, we got somebody here with unlicensed guns.”

Mark pulled his gaze from Arthur. “Who?” And he looked around the place to see who it might be.

Lance pointed conspiratorially toward Jack’s upper arms. “I think we should call the cops.”

Mark actually laughed at that feeble joke. He mockingly flexed his own skinny arms. “Hey, Jacky’s not the only one with unlicensed guns, man. Check out these water pistols.”

Jack almost spit out his Coke, and the three boys dissolved into laugher. Suddenly, Jaime burst into the restaurant and hurried to Arthur. “The cops, they be coming!”

The restaurant owner looked surprised. “How they find out? Nobody called.”

Jaime shook his head. “Don’t know, señor, but my jaina text me from my neighborhood. She seen ’em coming this way.”

Arthur stood instantly, strong and commanding. He’d planned for something like this, and his knights knew what to do. “You all know thine instructions. Alert the others and position yourselves.”

Without hesitation, everyone was up and out of the restaurant, leaving Arthur and the owner staring after them.

“I regret we must depart without cleaning thine establishment, señor,” Arthur told the man, who waved the apology away as if it were nothing. But Arthur reached into a small leather pouch attached to his belt and pulled out one of the precious gems he’d found when he’d awakened. “Take this, my friend, and muchas gracias por la comida.”

Before the dumbfounded owner could even gasp out a reply, Arthur had flown out the door with a flourish of his red cloak. The owner opened his hand to gape at the almond-sized ruby in astonishment.

The drivers hurriedly ran to their trucks and got behind the wheels as others snatched swords and shields from the truck beds and scattered to their positions. The drivers then drove the trucks away, so a police roadblock wouldn’t trap them. The archers grabbed their quivers and bows and took up positions atop the roof, behind mailboxes, in all available trees. Each slipped out an arrow and fitted it expertly to their bows, taking aim at the street and the parking lot.

If the cops want a fight, we’ll give it to them, thought Reyna as she clambered up a tree to the roof of the lavanderia. From that vantage point, she scanned the surrounding area and checked the positions of her other archers. Good, they have it down.

Within minutes, the parking lot, which only moments before was filled to capacity with children, now stood virtually empty. Everyone was in place, ready and prepared for a fight, just as they’d planned it out. Only Arthur and a small group remained standing before the restaurant entrance. Llamrei whinnied in anticipation. With Arthur stood Lance, Esteban, Mark, Chris, Jack, Tai, Duc, Darnell, and Jaime. All had their shields raised and swords at the ready. Even little Chris brandished his sword, taking a fighting stance between Mark and Jack and glaring gravely.

Arthur eyed his “bodyguards” appraisingly. They were children, he knew, but under his new order they were also warriors. Most, he knew, had been at war their entire lives, so death was, sadly, nothing new to them. Still, he considered their youth and the approaching danger.

He’d been told often enough by the gang kids that cops today shot to kill at a moment’s notice. They often didn’t even shout out a warning before they fired. Alas, his crusade sought to promote peace and justice, but the authorities might choose to overlook that fact. Probably would overlook it, unless the minds of those in power had changed significantly over the centuries.

What if one of your children is shot? How will you feel then?

“Lord of all that is good and pure, watch over my knights this day,” he whispered, and the boys flanking him each made his own hurried sign of the cross. Then they waited anxiously, weapons ready, hearts thumping, hope unfurling.

Gibson was on the radio as Ryan drove furiously through Esteban’s neighborhood, red lights flashing, followed by a long line of black and whites with their own lights blazing. The residents once more returned to the streets to watch, but this time they looked angry.

“Repeat,” Gibson reiterated into the radio, “nobody fires unless ordered to do so by myself or Sergeant Ryan. Defensive positions only!”

Ryan spotted the strip mall just ahead, the Round Table Pizza place coming into view through the windshield.

“There it is,” he announced anxiously. He floored it. Ryan glanced over at Gibson. “Tell the men to—”

He never finished his order, for just at that moment both men heard a loud thump sound, and Ryan lost control of the car.

“Hellfire!” he cursed and spun the wheel hard, fighting to regain control as the car screeched and lurched. The thunk, thunk, thunk sound of a flat tire clued him in to the cause. Hitting the brakes, Ryan spun and skidded the car into a sideways spin, where it came to a stop at a ninety-degree angle to the road.

The archers ensconced within the trees let loose a volley of arrows at the approaching police cars. Their aim was perfect. Tire after tire blew out with loud popping sounds as each was punctured, and the cars squealed and spun and swerved and struck each other, twisting themselves into a black and white pretzel. Some veered off the road to crash into a retaining wall or drop into a narrow ditch, while others in the far back slammed into those already immobilized.

Within seconds, accompanied by a chorus of rending and crumpling metal, every car had been incapacitated and a weird, almost end-of-the-world kind of silence enveloped the area.

Cops of varying ages scrambled from their vehicles, weapons drawn, and took up defensive positions behind their now-useless cars or behind the low stone retaining wall surrounding the Round Table parking lot.

Ryan and Gibson stumbled shakily from their vehicle to take up positions behind it. Neither had drawn his gun as yet, but Ryan had the foresight to grab his bullhorn as he’d leapt from the car.

They paused, catching their breath, glancing cautiously around them at the trees and other buildings. Then they focused their attention on Arthur and his knights standing calmly in front of the restaurant, gawking at the huge swords and shields and medieval garb.

“Hell, Ry, they look like they’re going to war!” Gibson exclaimed, clearly taken aback by the scene before him, and by the fact that he and his men were already on the defensive.

Ryan kept his gaze locked on Arthur. The king and his kids stood rock solid and resolute, even the tiny little boy. Astonishment welled up within Ryan, something he hadn’t felt in years.

Gibson looked at Arthur and then back over his shoulder at all their men crouching behind damaged police cruisers, guns drawn, awaiting orders. “It’s like we got two rings of a circus out here, Ry, us and them. All we need now are the frickin’ clowns!”

Suddenly, several TV camera-crew vans roared up behind the wrecked police cars and began disgorging camera operators and reporters. Helen leapt from the Channel 7 News van and pelted toward the scene, microphone in hand. The crouching police officers waved the reporters down, and Helen ducked calmly behind a sagging black and white. She waved at her cameraman to film the arrow sticking out of the front tire.

Ryan cursed loudly. “The clowns just arrived.”

Glancing at the scrambling camera operators pointing their cameras toward himself and Ryan, Gibson furrowed his brows with worry. “We better talk fast, Ry, ’fore we got a major public incident on our hands.”

Ryan shook his head in disgust. “We already got that.” He raised the bullhorn and spoke into it as calmly, but forcefully, as he could. “This is Sergeant Ryan of the LAPD. We do not want bloodshed. Tell your boys to drop their weapons and nobody’ll get hurt.”

Arthur called back in a commanding voice, “Methinks, Sergeant Ryan, that it be thee and thy men who wage war against us. We have no quarrel with thee.”

Ryan raised the bullhorn again. “You, sir, are wanted for questioning regarding an assault on two officers. If you surrender yourself, these children will not be hurt or arrested.”

Gibson leaned toward Ryan. “Great diplomacy, Ry. Why not just tell the man we’re gonna put him in jail too?”

Arthur remained unfazed by the demand. He called out in a calm, gentle voice, “In my previous encounter with thy men, Sergeant Ryan, I acted in self-defense after being assaulted by one of their weapons. Would you this day use such weapons against children, in full view of this city?” He pointed to where the TV cameras were rolling away, capturing every dramatic moment.

Ryan and Gibson soberly glanced in that direction, and Helen waved to them. Ryan lowered the bullhorn and turned to Gibson, feeling as disgusted as he must’ve looked.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?”

“Maybe not. Depends on how you handle it.”

“Sergeant Ryan!” Arthur called out.

Ryan raised the bullhorn a third time but did not stand up. “Yeah?”

“Can we not stand face to face like men?” Arthur offered in a nonthreatening tone. “Thou hast my word as a knight and a king that there shall be no bloodshed this day unless it be initiated by thee and thine.”

Ryan considered everything he’d heard about this guy, and reflected on the research he’d done. The King Arthur of legend had been about justice and peace and avoiding conflict whenever possible. If this guy really believed he was that King Arthur, then he hopefully believed in the same things. He handed Gibson the bullhorn.

“Are you sure?” Gibson asked.

“Whatever else this nut is, I hope he’s a man of his word.”

He stood up and stepped around his car so he was in full view of Arthur, and a prime target if anyone should get trigger-happy. Cautiously, hearing bodies shift position, and feeling twenty service revolvers at his back, Ryan took several steps into the parking lot and stopped ten feet from Arthur and his boys.

He eyed the kids, at their set expressions and their formidable weapons, and almost gasped at some of the young faces. He’d arrested a few of them, many times. And was that, my God, Esteban? The boy who’d practically grown up in juvy and had probably been Ryan’s most frequent collar, smirked at the sergeant as if to say, “And you thought I was just a punk, didn’t you, Ryan?”

Ryan met Arthur’s eyes. For a moment, his resolve faltered. What had he seen in those eyes? Sincerity? Truth? He shook the feeling loose. “Why? Why involve these kids?”

Arthur’s intense gaze met the sergeant’s. “They were already involved, did you not know this?”

“What’s your point?”

“That we be on the same side, thee and I.”

“The same side?”

“Is not thy purpose to uphold justice?”

“My purpose is to uphold the law, which you’ve been ignoring.”

“And from whom does the law arise if not from the people? Are not these children people,