Children of the Knight (44 page)

“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 and began to enjoy himself. He had two great friends seated beside him, and he was moping about something that could never be. 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 you know? 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. “Thou doth all know thine instructions. Alert the others and position thyselves.”

Without hesitation, everyone was up and out of the restaurant within seconds, 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 within the chamber 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 and was gone. 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, lest a police roadblock 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. This was what they’d trained for all those past weeks.

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 apparently 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.

G
IBSON
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 were 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 suddenly 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 and twisted themselves into a black and white pretzel within a matter of seconds. 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 momentarily enveloped the area.

Cops of varying ages and gender 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, wondering where the arrows had come from. 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.

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

Ryan eyed Gibson in surprise, since Gibson almost never cursed. He must be
really
rattled, the older man knew, and turned his attention back to Arthur. The king and his kids stood rock solid and resolute, even the tiny little boy. Ryan just shook his head in astonishment.

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 noted the arrow protruding from the left rear tire and waved at her cameraman to film it.

Ryan cursed loudly. “The clowns just arrived.”

Glancing at the scrambling camera operators pointing their cameras toward himself and Ryan, Gibson sighed heavily. “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 yer 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 doth wage war against us. We have no quarrel with thee.”

Ryan raised the bullhorn again. “You, sir, are wanted for questioning for 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’d been well versed in police tactics by his young charges. The police, he had been told, would lie or do whatever it took to make themselves, or an arrest, look good.

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. Wouldst thou this day use such weapons against children, in full view of this city?”

He pointed to an area outside the parking lot 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?”

Gibson shrugged. “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?”

“Canst 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 exchanged a look with Gibson, who just shrugged again and said, “Your call, Ry.”

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 sighed and handed Gibson the bullhorn.

“Are you sure?” Gibson asked, though he’d more or less reached the same conclusion.
But what about the kids? Especially the gangbangers
?
Arthur might not be dangerous, but they sure as hell were!
But he didn’t voice these thoughts.

Ryan shrugged and nodded. “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, he 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?”