Chapter 24: THE BOY WHO WOULD BE KING

XXIV

Some time later, as they sit close, Bealz can't help but wonder and ask, “Why ain't you just, I don't know, like mama did? Just make you a sword or a gun or something?”

“I wish you woulda killed they ass!” he then says vehemently.

“Watch your language, son,” Askauri chides. “And I told you, I'm not your mother. Her psychic steels are forged from willful magics unique to her bloodline. I have to prepare, gather my strength.”

“Your mother will be fine,” he says. “And by now she shouldn't be alone.”

For nearly an hour they had sat amongst the flowers. Bealz had a million questions. He was uncertain how to even ask them. His mind reeled. He didn't think he had ever been this happy in his entire life.

Just about every kid that he knew had a story to tell about their dad, and more often their moms, being locked up, gone from their lives for long stretches of time. 

 Some came back. The hopeful reality of this was often just as hard to handle, though, because not many had much to come back to. It was too easy to find themselves spiraling back down into the same old cycles. Forced into the same old patterns by the same unchanging conditions.

So a success story, every once in a while, was nice to hear. It was a pleasant and unexpected dream, a wish fulfilled, giving the other kids hope that they too could some day welcome home a superhero instead of an ex-con stamped with a scarlet letter.

“How do you know mama's alright? What you need to do?” Bealz demands to know. He can't help but feel just a bit disillusioned by his own superhero.

“I thought you were magic, too? Can't you do none of that stuff mama was doin?”

Askauri wasn't sure whether to be impressed or perturbed. “I know she's alright because I'm pretty sure I'd feel it if she weren't. You would know it even before me,” he says.

“And I told you, son, what your mother does is specific to her. We can't do that. At least, I can't. Our family line has evolved to access the Source in a different way.”

Considering a different analogy, Askauri says, “It's like using a different set of muscles, except I haven't worked mine out for ten years. You understand?”

“I guess so,” Bealz says thoughtfully.

“Well, what you gotta do then? What, you need to go work out or some shit?” he asks, envisioning his dad pumping iron.

Askauri, raised in the formal courts, is disappointed in his son's rough language. He makes note to get him into the Academy Cities as soon as things had settled down. The boy would have to be polished up, prepared for his introduction before the Royal Courts.

Askauri thought of Monique's disastrous introduction and shudders slightly.

“There are things and allies on Earth that I need. We have to get back to Chicago,” he explains.

“Uh, uh. I wanna stay here!” Bealz says. He is adamant. He never wanted to go back to Chicago.

“We can't, son. Things are happening, will be happening fast. As much as I want to just be here with you, this will only get worse until we end it.”

Bealz doesn't know how to take this. He wasn't used to having a man set the agenda and wasn't particularly fond of the idea. “I just wanna find my mama. I don't want to go back there. Ain't nothing there no more.”

“Well,” Askauri says patiently, “I believe your mother is there. I can't feel her around here at all. If she were close, I'd know. You would, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should be able to sense your mother's presence. It should be easier for you, since you share her blood. Close your eyes, think about her. Reach out for her...”

Bealz closes his eyes and tilts his head back and to the side, peering into himself, searching for his mother. He acts instinctively, impressing Askauri with his innate abilities. Bealz would grow to become frighteningly powerful some day. He'd inherited a potent mix of bloodlines and Askauri could see for the first time what a new thing his child in fact was.

The boy who would be King.

“I can see where she was,” Bealz says. “She moved through that dark place, that nowhere place we just came through to get here. It ain't the same, though. It looks different. If feels different."  

"It's like she did something different to get there.”

“Is she still in that dark place?”

“No. She moved through. I don't know where she is now,” Bealz says, opening his eyes, growing more concerned. “Where'd she go? What's on the other side of that, that black place?”

“Earth, son. Always Earth. It's what lies in-between, what is in that black place that should worry you. If she moved on through, she's on Earth and she should be OK until we can reach her.”

“Alright,” Bealz says, still not looking forward to seeing Chicago again.

“We have to see an old friend of mine,” Askauri tells him. “He's got something I need, if he hasn't pawned it off by now. But first, we have to find somewhere to lay low. I still need to rest up and I know just the place."  

"Been fucking dreaming about it for ten years and a wake up!” he says, slipping into his own bit of prison parlance.

“Uh, OK,” Bealz says. “But...before we go, I got a question...”

“Anything, son. What is it?”

Taking a moment, Bealz asks sheepishly, “Why did Dakari call you the King?”

“Well, my young Prince, I'll tell you...”