Marcus Williams

Concept: Precognitive Drug Dealer

AKA: Those who know him on the streets call him “Ghost”

Desc: Tall African American male. Short dreadlocks. He’s got good teeth although he rarely smiles. Has the kind of build you get when you’ve played B-ball on the corner every day since you could stand. Sadly. he’s not exactly tall enough and wasn’t scholarship-crazy good. And by the time it would have mattered he already had a non-trivial rap sheet. Does not smoke or drink or use. He has a sprinkling of tear shaped tattoos on his face.  Goes in for the track suit look, but without the flashy jewelry. Tends towards dark colors.

History: You could say that Marcus’s abilities are a natural outgrowth of his upbringing. He grew up dirt poor in the worst part of the city. His pop was killed in a gang throw down, and his step-father drank and beat him and his siblings. Like a lot of kids with that sort of problem. Marcus got real good at reading people and fast.  He also spent a lot of time away from home especially as he was catching his growth spurt and his stepfather seemed intent on beating him into submission each time he saw him.

    Well when you spend a lot of time away from home, you need money to survive. So Marcus got himself on as a lookout and then as a runner for a crack and freebase dealer.  He was a good enough earner that eventually Leroy took him under his wing and started teaching him the business end. Eventually, one evening, Leroy and Marcus and the rest of the crew went around to Marcus’s house and put Marcus’s stepfather into the hospital. Never had no more trouble out of him no more, and he was so fucked up, Marcus’s mom couldn’t stand to look at him no more.

     Marcus is good at the game. Real good. In fact, he’s so good, Leroy started to get jealous and decided that he might have to take Marcus down a peg or two. It never really came together though. It seemed like Marcus was always two steps ahead of him. The one time Leroy and his boys finally caught up to him, the police turned up at the exact same time, and Marcus was able to bolt, and Leroy got caught with his gun on him.  Bye, bye, Leroy.

      There’s a reason. Leroy catches visions of things to come. Most of the time they come to him in lucid dreams. He’s also really good at spotting ambushes and telling when someone is lying to him. Not that those skills are supernatural, but taken together they have combined to make Marcus damn near untouchable. he always knows when the cops are coming. He always knows when someone is coming to fuck him up and most of the time, he calls the cops himself and makes sure they turn up right when those dudes turn up. While this sort of invincibility does not extend to the crew, it does mean that they HAVE been able to up their game considerably. They were even able to go independent and secure another distributor when their old guy got popped. Can’t imagine how that could have happened... They make more money now than they EVER made under Leroy and if he got out of jail tomorrow, they wouldn’t back his play to get back.

    Marcus occasionally still catches flashes of the first vision he ever had. Him. Sitting on a golden throne counting his blood-stained money as all around him drowns in darkness...Whenever he has this dream. He knows tomorrow is going to be a good day. Sometimes, he almost smiles.

Attitude: “You want to make it in this game son, You got to be hungry. And me, I’ma bout starving.”

Skills: Physically, Marcus is talented. Built more for speed and stamina than strength. he’ll have fast reflexes and fleet of foot. His Wits are likewise somewhat fast. he’s really good in any situation that can turn on a dime. He’s good with a gun, less so with a knife, and not hopeless with his fists. He knows he’s nothing special in combat. He does, however, have a knack for knowing when to hit someone when they are most helpless and unable to defend themselves. He doesn’t have any problem leaning into that.

Intellectually, He thinks real fast, but for a guy who can see the future, he doesn’t really do a lot of thinking about it. He doesn’t have much education or any interest in any of that really. Spends much of his leisure time on his X-box.  He DOES know the streets like the back of his hand. 

Socially, Most people who know him are scared of him. His boys, His mama, and his sibs are the only ones that he seems to give two shits about. He’s developed a reputation for being the guy who is always two steps ahead of everybody and for being willing to do horrifying shit to protect his little empire. He knows how to read people and situations almost subliminally fast. And he doesn’t rattle. Like at all.

Shit, he may realize that you’re an undercover cop and know it fast enough to take you into the heart of his operation, throwing open the doors and let you see it all...Right before he nails you with the stun gun.

   At least 3 undercover narcotics cops have just gone completely missing.

His Precognition is not something that there is a mechanic for. Mostly he has dreams that he remembers when he wakes up. (he keeps a little journal by his bedside.) if he’s trying to figure a way out in the middle of a firefight or something stressful, he can still do so if he spends a point of willpower.

Gear: it pretty much goes without saying that Marcus never goes anywhere unstrapped. He favors Mac10’s and also carries a very pretty silver chased straight razor. He also has a couple of burner phones on him at any given time. He almost never carries product on his person any more

Home: Owns mama’s home. Swears if she so much as LOOKS at a cop, that he’ll make sure it burns down with her in it.  He never goes there. Too many ugly memories. They can’t hurt him anymore, but why give them any purchase, right?  Has a few places that he moves around to from time to time. Little studio apartments with little more than a futon. He’s got three of these and he’s been thinking about supplementing them with Airbnb. Normally carries a big travel suitcase in the car with all his necessities. The bolt holes also have caches of weapons, product, and cash.

He drives a black Lincoln town car which is just old enough and conservative enough that he rarely gets looked at twice in his apartment complex parking lot. Also, it’s got a boxy frame, so that it can be armored without looking freakish.

He’s also got a deal with a guy who runs a little bar in the neighborhood. in exchange for a taste of the crack, and a slice of the traffic in the place, Marcus and his boys can essentially use the place as their personal living room. This is the sort of bar in the sort of neighborhood where they have bars on the windows. As far as anybody outside can tell, the place is called “BAR”.

Circle: Puts money in the hands of his siblings, usually in exchange for little favors. Nothing that’s liable to get them sent to jail or to the graveyard, but not always pleasant things...that’s for sure.  His boys are true blue and while the people he WANTS to have contact with are a short list, anybody he WANTS to know about, he ends up finding out about. Nobody has figured out how he does this yet. Keeps his ear to the ground and anytime it seems like there’s a new player, he makes time to go meet the new guy and get him straight.

Story Uses:

“I don’t run these streets. Not yet.”

While a drug dealer you can’t get close to could be bad enough, it may be that this may be just a stepping stone in some horrifying saga.  Marcus might undergo some transformative event and become some other kind of supernatural creature. (Vampire, wolf blooded, or Beast seems likely.) It might mean the loss of his visions, but open up more serious power to him...And he wants his golden throne.

The Problem is, what he doesn't know yet is that some types of supernatural creatures may be shielded from his visions.

“Dude, this is my city. It don’t belong to some freaky...whatever the fuck that is. *blamblamblamblam*”

Weirdly enough, he might also find himself nominally on the side of the angels if he feels like there’s an angle to be worked. He could end up as a Vigil Hunter, or a Hero. Maybe he’s been one all along. could have killed a kid who was a Beast himself while still in Juvie and never connected that that’s where the visions came from.  Give him an excuse to kill a monster, like say, gain more powers, and he’ll be all over that like cheap on a K-mart.

Connections:

* Detective Nell Wesley Nell was SO close. In fact, when she figured out who she was dealing with she could barely contain her excitement. She had the drugs in her hands almost when a whole other set of cops turned up and fucked the whole thing up and in the ensuing confusion the dude managed to get away. Later, Nell found a note inside the package of what turned out to be rock candy. It read, "If I see you again Bitch. I will kill you and your family."

* Blaise Newkirk  "No idea how this dude found me. But he keeps me like, "on retainer" like a lawyer or some shit. Pays good though."

* Rick Deluca "Ricky's okay. I can say that because he and I don't really work in the same circles. If we did. I'd have to kill him probably."

* Jamal Cooper " That motherfucker thinks he's going to roll it all up. he ain't got half what I got and he thinks he gonna own it all. He ain't takin my throne. Bitch-ass bullshit Muslim motherfucker...You can tell him said so!"

* Grace Cook "Yeah. I used to know her back in the day. She was aight. The kinda girl nobody got a hate on for."

* Tyronne "Tiberius" Glover "I'm not interested in going to back to the way it used to be when I worked for someone else. T-dog made an approach. I said I wasn't interested. He was cool with that and we parted without a problem. I tell you though, that if I had to throw in with someone, it'd be him. He knows how to do it right."

* Dr. Ronnette Franklin "I don't know what I said to piss her off. She fixed up one of my boys, and I, just bein neighborly, offer her a taste...Bitch gets all up in my grill!"