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

widened with comprehension. “What a fool am I! In our mad dash for supplies, Reyna, I forget.”

Awkwardly, he thumbed in a message to Lance, letting the boy know that he was using Reyna’s phone and to please contact him. Then he gazed deeply at the screen a moment, as though expecting Lance to text right back. The screen remained blank. Only his reflection gazed back at him. The reflection of a distressed and guilt-ridden man. Sadly, he slipped the phone into his pocket.

Reyna cleared her throat. “Um, isn’t it time for you to call the mayor? You asked me to remind you.”

“Thank you, Reyna, for your help and your loyalty. You have become one of my most trusted and dependable knights, and you have become a better young woman, as well. I feel great pride in thee, my child.” He placed a hand lovingly on her shoulder.

Reyna uncharacteristically blushed with embarrassment. “Um, thanks, Arthur,” she mumbled. Then she placed both hands on his shoulders. “We’re gonna find Lance, Arthur, believe me. If he’s not back by the time we move out, I’ll go looking myself, soon as were done.” She paused and lowered her hands to her sides. “I never thought I could take orders from anyone, especially a young kid like him. I always had all the answers.”

She hesitated, and Arthur knew why. He’d been told how Lance helped her make peace with Salma, had helped her connect with Esteban on a deeper level than she’d ever connected with any boy, had helped her not become her parents.

“That boy is special, Arthur, more special than anybody I’ve ever known, and I love him. We’ll get him back, I promise.”

Arthur nodded with gratitude, overflowing with a deep sense of love. How great a gift he’d been given in these amazing children, he thought for the umpteenth time. “Thank you, Reyna, for loving my Lance as I do, and for your fealty.”

She nodded and then took on a look of mock seriousness. “Ahem. The mayor?”

Arthur bowed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, causing Reyna to grin. He pulled out her phone and punched in the mayor’s number.

Across from City Hall, the eleven-story sheet still covered the Mural Project. A system had been set up utilizing a long pull cord attached to the top of the sheet and connecting to both upper corners. At the appointed hour, the mayor would pull the ripcord, the sheet would flutter down, and the mural would reveal its face to the world.

Bleachers had been erected on the grounds of City Hall to accommodate crowds and dignitaries for the grand unveiling scheduled for tomorrow night. Among the setup paraphernalia along the Temple Street side were several wooden ramps that had been used to roll the heavy bleacher sections into place and now awaited removal. The ramps were relatively steep and sloped, attracting any skaters who happened to live in the downtown area. A security guard had been stationed in front to make sure no kids got hurt before the ramps could be dismantled.

Even Villagrana had not yet seen the finished mural, but then he didn’t care to. The mural was just an expensive, tedious attempt on his part to show, publicly at least, solidarity with Arthur’s crusade. Sadly, all his efforts to discredit the man had backfired, including the school issue. The mayor intended to pursue that angle vigorously by riding that obnoxious woman teacher on every home school standard the state insisted upon. If nothing else, he hoped to burn her out and leave Arthur stranded.

Sitting in his office, Villagrana was hosting President Sanders and Chief of Police Murphy. The topic for discussion was the mural unveiling, crowd control, and how to spin the event to their advantage.

The mayor’s secretary beeped on the intercom. Annoyed, Villagrana flipped the talk switched abruptly.

“Diane, what part of ‘no calls’ didn’t you understand?” His tone was snippier than usual.

Diane’s slightly nasal voice filtered in through the intercom. “Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but it’s King Arthur on the line.”

That got the attention of all three men, and Villagrana exchanged a look with Sanders.

“See what he wants,” the council president said with a shrug.

Villagrana picked up his phone and went instantly into his PR voice. “King Arthur, what a pleasant surprise,” he schmoozed. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Murphy shook his head in disgust, but Villagrana ignored it.

“I don’t understand,” he said into the phone, his face clouding with puzzlement. “The mural unveiling is tomorrow, so what’s happening tonight?” He listened a moment, frowned, and then looked disgusted. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s rather short notice.” He listened again and sighed heavily. “Very well. I’ll contact the council. Good-bye.”

He hung up and sneered at the phone in contempt.

“What was that all about?” Sanders asked, twiddling his tie as he spoke.

“He said for all of us, including the whole city council, to gather here tonight at dusk.”

“For what?” Sanders asked. “It’s enough of a bitch to get ’em all here tomorrow night.”

The mayor glared fiercely. “I don’t know. The damnable man wouldn’t say. He just said for us to be here and we would witness ‘the true power of Arthur’s Round Table’.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Chief Murphy exclaimed.

“As though I know?” Villagrana snapped in return. “You better have your men on high alert.”

Murphy shrugged. “You got it.”

Villagrana stood and gazed out the window, his eyes falling on the massive sheet just across the street. “I don’t like this. Whatever he does, I’m sure it’ll make me look bad.”

Sanders smirked. “You do that well enough on your own, Mr. Mayor.”

The mayor turned and flashed an icy scowl. “Feel free to leave any time.”

Sanders rose and slipped his tie beneath his dark gray jacket and buttoned the top button. “My pleasure.”

He exited the office without another word.

Villagrana glowered at Murphy. “You got any smart-ass comments to make?”

The chief just shrugged again. “This whole thing gets crazier by the minute. I gotta go get my men set up. See ya tonight.”

The mayor grunted in reply, his mind already turned toward tonight’s uncertainty. What could this king be up to now? What did he mean by power? He heard his door open and close as the chief left, but his gaze remained riveted to the enormous, billowing sheet across the way. He was losing control of his city.

R. had promised to take care of it, but did the man know about this latest development? Villagrana turned and unlocked a drawer of his desk, slipping out a prepaid, cheap and disposable cell phone. It only had one number in its phone book, a number without a name attached. He dialed that number.

Lance dreamed.

The X Games were in full swing, and he was in the lead. One more event to clinch—the Big Air Final—and the gold would be his to claim. Arthur stood below, and Jack and Chris and Mark. Mark? Yes, his first friend stood grinning with the others, big blue eyes brimming with excitement, offering him that shy little smile and a big thumbs-up sign.

And Reyna was there too. Reyna? Yep, there she was, cheering him on, louder than the rest. Arthur’s face reflected nothing but love and pride, and he raised Excalibur in salute. Jack grinned and flexed, causing him to laugh. Chris waved a small flag with “Team Lance” emblazoned across it. The small boy cheered and pumped his fist, calling out, “Lance! Lance! Lance!” Amazingly, many in the crowd echoed the chant.

He waved down at them from ninety-plus feet in the air as he stood poised at the top of the steepest ramp in the games. Not only did he need to descend clean and fast, he had to jump a sixty-five foot gap, land it, then scale the twenty- seven foot quarter pipe, gain substantial air, grab his board, and land clean. Piece of cake.

He waited.

He breathed.

And then he dropped.

Whhooooosssshhh!

Down he flew, faster than his earlier run, faster and faster and faster, and then he was up, up, up and out over the abyss. He gently and smoothly turned 180 degrees, sailed high and true and landed on the other side with a light clunk of wheels, and then soared up again, up and up and cleared the ramp, did a forward- to-fakie grab 720 off the twenty-seven footer, spun three times in midair, and then landed on all four wheels as smoothly as if he’d ollied over a speed bump.

The crowd went wild, and Lance pumped both arms into the air in unabashed triumph. He stood atop the smaller ramp, board in hand and gazed down at his fans. They cheered and fist pumped with abandon. But his gaze sought out only one face—that of Arthur. The man who’d given him a new life, who meant more to him than anyone in the world, was shedding tears of joy as he gazed upward, waving Excalibur excitedly.

Lance’s score was announced, a 96.3, and the crowd let out another deafening roar. Lance beamed with pride.

He’d done it!

He’d won the gold.

He barely felt the elevator ride to the ground, but immediately saw Arthur approaching, a huge grin on his face. Warmth enveloped Lance as he welcomed the crushing hug to come, but instead shook with astonishment to feel a hand slap his face. Hard. And then again.

And then he woke up.

His face burned. From humiliation? No, it hurt! He really had been slapped. Groggily, his vision began to clear.

“That’s enough,” he heard a cold, vaguely familiar voice intone as though from far away. “We don’t want to damage that pretty face, now do we?”

His vision cleared. A young Asian guy with close-cropped hair, wearing black pants and a black turtleneck shirt stood before him, hand poised as though to strike again. Lance flinched back, but the hand lowered, and the young man stepped away out of his field of vision, somewhere behind him.

And then Lance felt the pressure on his arms and hands, and a new wave of panic assailed him. He was tied to a chair! A stiff, wooden, straight-backed chair. What the…? Wait a minute…. He and Jack had been wrestling… then there was something over his mouth and nose, and a weird, sickly kind of smell….

He looked around frantically, struggling against the bonds that held him. He was in some kind of office, and Jack was similarly tied to a chair in front of him, regaining consciousness. The bigger boy’s eyes opened wide when he saw Lance tied up, and he, too, struggled to escape, but even his well-muscled arms were no match for the restraints.

“It took you two long enough to wake up” came that cold, steely voice to Lance’s right.

He whipped his head around, groaning in fear as he saw Mr. R. seated at a large, expensive-looking desk, with a small Asian guy beside him.

“What the hell is this?” he shouted, his breath raspy from the chloroform.

R. shook his head in mock offense. “Such language from a knight of the Round Table. We can’t have that, can we?”

He nodded to the young Asian standing behind Jack, dressed exactly the same as the one who’d slapped Lance. The Asian stepped around Jack and without warning hauled off to plant a pile-driving fist hard into the boy’s gut. Jack grunted in pain, and doubled over in the chair, gagging and spluttering.

Lance blanched with fury. “Leave him alone!”

“You don’t learn very fast, do you, Pretty Boy?”

The young Asian slugged Jack hard to the jaw, snapping his head back and causing it to strike the back of his chair with