3MA

3MA | Chapter 30

30
BLOODY

After walking for fifteen minutes in the direction of the Pendragon Bridge, I decide that when I return to the apartment later tonight, I'm going to have to kill Mag in a slow and painful way.

It seems that every major building, billboard, delivery truck, dumpster, handball court wall and cobblestone underpass in Trudge has been transformed into a canvas, each location featuring the brooding face of yours truly.

Emblazoned across the side of the old Trudge Beer Factory is a dynamic, spotlit painting of me standing with my arms crossed and legs splayed, an army of eight other Marlons standing obediently behind me; WE BELIEVE IN CAMELOT stenciled across the central figure's chest.

A group of elderly admirers stand in front of that particular painting, chatting enthusiastically. "Kids got the old magic in him," one says. The gray-haired group grumbles in unanimous agreement.

A dozen other stunning portraits pepper the city in high traffic areas. But it isn't until I reach the Pendragon Bridge that I realize the scope of Mag's dangerous lunacy. I gawk up at the side of the gargantuan, centuries-old landmark, staring open-mouthed at a painting of me raising a burning fist in the air. CAMELOT! AWAKEN! is written above my head like a legion of hurling comets. A massive horde of young purple-shirted onlookers light candles at the base of the painting, sitting Indian style and singing Inka's song.

My very own groupies.

On the opposite end of the bridge, Downtown Camelot glitters in the tangerine dusk. I walk toward the pulsing spike, looming above it all; tonight the King's Spire burns the same color as dried blood.

Twenty minute later, I walk up to the heavily guarded main entrance with my hands tucked casually in my pockets. One cop steps forward.

"Can I help you son," McNair asks.

"Not really," I say.

McNair's eyes swell. "I didn't recognize you without all the blood and dirt."

I shrug. "Everyone has more than one look. Except you. You always look like someone's errand boy."

McNair's face boils. "I'm the Captain of the--

"Just take me to my dinner, McNair. I'm hungry."

"Follow me," McNair moans, spinning on his heels and pushing through the King's Spire's automatic sliding doors. Our footsteps echo through the vast, vacant lobby, a glacial expanse of white marble, at the center of which stands a monument hewn from the same silver-veined rock; a single jagged bolt of static being gripped from every angle by a flurry of groping fists. A quote by LeMorte is chiseled into the base: "POWER COMES FROM THE HEART."

A part of me can't help but think about the Hearthstone, and just how close to the truth that statement is. Another part of me wonders if LeMorte is aware of the double-meaning.

We slip into a cylindrical elevator with glass walls and a riot of glowing buttons decorating a control pad. McNair stabs the top button labeled Observatory and we shoot up like a champagne cork. Ruby streaks of static lick at the rising walls around us as the elevator cuts through the core of the King's Spire with nauseating speed. McNair grins when he sees the sweat beading across my upper lip. I give him a quivering, unconvincing smile. Heights have never been my thing.

The elevator jolts to a halt and the doors hiss open.

"Have an explosive night," McNair says, the elevators closing on his sinister grin.

I turn around and step into a circular room floating in the star-strewn heart of outer space. I cautiously tiptoe across the smooth onyx floor, marveling at the construction of the Observatory; a vast, pristine curve of glass walls with a matching translucent spiked roof, the inky black floor polished to a mirror-finish, creating the thrilling illusion of walking upside down across the galaxy.