“Spirits on the way,” he said, sliding in.
Storm looked at Rev. “So? You were going to tell us a story? About a guy?”
Rev looked around the room knowing that stalling was futile. He’d used every step of the walk between the alley and the bar trying to decide the best way to get the knights to move on to another subject without losing claim to the fine young body he currently occupied. Of course, he knew they’d be pit bulls going for a bone until they were satisfied.
The bartender’s young helper arrived with a tray and began setting glasses in front of them. When he was gone, Storm turned to Rev. “Well?”
Rev looked up, “What was the question?”
Storm narrowed his eyes. “Kay. Weren’t you in my interrogation class?”
“I think so,” Kay said. “We were fifteen maybe? What about it?”
“Do you remember them teaching us that if a subject asked to have the question repeated it meant that they were stalling so they had time to work on the lie that they were about to tell?”
Kay looked at Rev with speculation. “You know, since you mention it, I do remember that.”
Rev took in a big breath and let it out forcefully. “All right, but don’t get bent out of shape about the back story. I have to set the stage.”
“Set the stage,” Storm said drily. Rev nodded. “Rammel. Are you keeping an eye on the patrons sharing this fine establishment?”
“On guard.” Ram’s seat on the end of the booth had the best view of the door and the room in general.
Looking back at Rev, Storm said, “By all means then, set the stage.”
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
Storm and Kay exchanged glances. Ram said, “Great Paddy.”
Rev looked at Ram with lines formed between his brows. “Is that an answer?”
“Aye. O’course.”
“Okay. I’ll play along,” Storm said. “I wouldn’t say I ‘believe’, but I would say I’m keeping an open mind.”
Rev looked at Kay who said, “No. I think Elora’s fairy stories are likelier.”
“Elftales,” Ram corrected Kay with a small scowl forming between his brows. There might be a new politically correct way to think of his brother-in-law’s people, but old bias dies hard.
“Whatever,” Kay said. “We’re just a walking mass of electrical impulses. When the plug is pulled, we’re done.”
“Kind of a bleak outlook.” Rev was looking at Kay like he was surprised to hear that view coming from the big berserker.
“Works for me. So we’re really going to debate mythology?”
“One person’s mythology is somebody else’s religion.”
Kay opened his mouth to respond, but Storm cut him off. “Enough. Let’s get to the story. About a guy? Remember?”
“Yes. It’s related. So here goes.
“There was a guy who died and went to the, uh, afterlife. And it was nice enough, but he couldn’t enjoy it because he’d left unfinished business. Serious unfinished business.” Rev paused for a minute for that to soak in. “So he started kicking up a fuss. At first the people in charge ignored him, told him to take another hit of feel good and try to relax into the new digs. They said he’d adjust soon enough and everything would be hunky dory.”
Rev looked around the table. The knights were focused on what he was saying and waiting for him to get to the part where he started to either make sense or relate to any situation they could imagine.
“Here’s the thing though. Time went by and he didn’t adjust or relax. Just the opposite, in fact. The people who were trying to enjoy their ‘reward’, ” he put the word ‘reward’ in air quotes, “started complaining that he was disturbing them.”
Rev rolled his eyes like he was experiencing a memory. “Well, how many times can you do the hokey pokey? Really!”
He looked around the other three knights and noticed they were looking wary.
“Okay. Let’s just say that this guy didn’t fit in. At all. And he was getting a reputation as a troublemaker, which was fine with him because that was his plan. He hoped that, if he raised enough stink, they’d send him back where he belonged.” Rev looked around the table. “And that’s what happened. End of story.”
Storm, Ram, and Kay looked back and forth between themselves for a minute.
“End of story?” Storm asked.
“Yes.”
“But you said he died.”
“Yes.” Rev looked straight into Storm’s eyes like he was trying to will him to understand.
Ram shook his head, said, “Fuck,” then followed a big swallow of whiskey with an exaggerated hiss.
“Look. I’m trying to work with you here, but you’re not giving us much. How is this guy going to be sent back if his body is…” Storm stopped midsentence. His eyes widened momentarily and then he started shaking his head.
“What?” Ram asked. Storm continued to stare at Rev like he’d seen a ghost. Ram turned to Kay. “What?”
Kay downed his whiskey in one drink and said, “If I’m following, I think the implication is that an old Sovereign might occupy a new Sovereign’s body if he went to heaven and raised hel.”
Ram’s head jerked to Rev and his eyes flicked over the part of his body that could be seen above the table.
Storm put his elbows on the table and leaned in. “That’s some story.” Rev nodded. “I guess the guy was told the deal came with conditions?”
“Yes.” A single blink was the only movement in Rev’s face.
“And I’m going to hazard a guess that one of those conditions was that the guy wasn’t to tell anybody.”
Rev shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”
Kay looked at Storm with open-mouthed astonishment. “You’re not buying this. It’s preposterous!”
Storm studied Kay for a minute, then lowered his voice. “That word isn’t in Black Swan vocabulary.” Kay pulled back and frowned. “And you know it.”
“So,” Ram started, “would that guy be wearin’ flesh belongin’ to some other poor bastard?”
Rev looked up and met Ram’s gaze. “The other poor bastard was done with the mortal coil, but it was fresh enough to be reparable by the powers that be.”
“Great Fuckin’ Paddy,” Ram said under his breath while looking a little horrified. “You mean they can just hand your body off like a used car?”
Storm’s shoulders were raised by the big breath he inhaled and let out. “There’s no rule against answering questions is there?”
“Not if they’re not specific,” Rev answered.
“I was picked up at my parents’ house and driven to the San Francisco unit. You know what kind of car I arrived in?”
As Rev listened to the question, his face softened. He smiled at Storm with a fondness that made him seem so familiar. “I’ll make a guess and say it was a sedan.”
The tension that Ram and Kay had been holding dissolved into laughter and comfortable slumping into the leather seat.
Ram looked at Kay and repeated, “A sedan!” through chuckles.
As Storm watched Rev slowly rotate the whiskey tumbler on the table in front of him, he felt a twinge of disappointment grip his heart. He realized that, on some unconscious level, he’d been hoping that the answer would be the opposite of Occam’s Razor. That, instead of the simplest explanation being the right one, the most farfetched and wholly unbelievable explanation would be the truth of it.
Rev didn’t react to Ram’s and Kay’s ridicule. He just continued to stare at the glass he was turning. Almost too quietly to be heard, he said, “Yeah. I’m guessing sedan. A navy blue DeSoto.” He raised his eyes to Storm, who didn’t have enough warning to stop the emotions that rushed forward. Before he could shut it down, his eyes had started to water.
Kay and Ram, whose ridicule had stopped abruptly with the very specific naming of the vehicle, both looked away from Storm to save him the embarrassment of being caught misting. Storm swiped at his eyes and sucked it
up. “Wow.”
Some of the rigidity left Rev’s expression when he smiled and nodded. “The best education money can buy and that’s the best you have to offer?”
Kay looked at Storm. “You believe him?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
Storm ignored Kay. “Does Farnsworth know?”
Rev grinned so big it made Storm have second thoughts about his conclusion. “Let me put it this way. We’re engaged.”
“Great Fuckin’ Paddy.” Remembering that he was the designated watcher, Ram looked toward the door and made direct eye contact with one of two vampire, who had been scanning the room while deciding whether or not to stay. He forced himself to look away and pretend to be casual, but the vampire had detected the subtle way Ram’s body came to attention. That and the fact that the men occupying the corner booth fit the profile to a tee.
If he’d been a new vampire, the eye lock wouldn’t have been accidental. All the reports that had come in made it clear that the mutated virus had created much more aggressive behavior. In the past, when given a choice of fight or flight, vampire almost always chose flight. Not anymore.
The vamp who had caught Ram’s eye was seventy-five years old and had a strong preference for flight. Knowing how to recognize knights of the Black Swan was undoubtedly one of the reasons why he’d lived so long. Every vamp who made it to a one year anniversary had heard the stories, the legends, and been admonished with a list of things to look for, but some were able to control blood lust well enough to pay attention to surroundings. And some weren’t.
Black Swan Knights travel in packs of four. Sometimes they separate into pairs, but one pair will never be very far away from the other – usually within earshot. They tend to stand out from the larger population, partly because they are at the peak of physical perfection and fitness, but also because they cannot help but exude an air of danger or warning.
As Ram turned back to the group, he picked up his whiskey glass and tapped it lightly on the table three times to get the attention of the others. He lowered his voice.
“Do no’ look at the door. Two biters on the premises and I’m thinkin’ one has made us. Get ready for a run down. If they go they’re goin’ to have a jump on us.”
Storm casually leaned over to remove his wallet from his pocket. He withdrew a large bill, but barely had time to throw it on the table when the vamps bolted. Ram and Kay were on the outer edges of the booth. They both moved fast, but Ram, being smaller and lighter, was faster.
As it happened, four blocks away at 42nd and 7th, three trainees were enjoying a rec night away from Jefferson Unit. Kristoph Falcon, Rolfe Wakenmann, and new transferee, Sinclair Harvest, were sitting at a deli window table, eating sandwiches piled outrageously high with meat, enough for a small, normal family to make a meal of.
Falcon was getting more satisfaction than he should out of telling Sin all about Wakey having to read romantic poems to half the trainees as part of a punishment for disrespecting someone’s sexual preference. Out loud.
During a break in the conversation, Falcon happened to be looking out the window and thinking that punishment isn’t always bad. He and Wakey had impressed the shit out of Sin when the Whister pilots had taken a back seat and let the two of them fly the trip to Manhattan.
Anybody who doesn’t believe in fate either isn’t very old or hasn’t been paying attention. Because it was at that moment, when Falcon had looked away from the other boys, that he saw two figures run past on the sidewalk just on the other side of the glass. That alone may not have been extraordinary or remarkable for midtown Manhattan. What credited the incident with the hand of fate was the fact that one of the vampire looked straight into Kris Falcon’s eyes during the split second they ran past. It took less time than that for Falcon to register what he’d seen. Some classes were more worthy of his attention than others.
He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. Sin and Wakey looked at him like he was possessed until he said the word vampire without moving his lips, like a ventriloquist.
Who knows what would have happened had it not been for the history of knights that came before? Perhaps things would have gone differently, but the fact was that every trainee had heard the story of how Elora Laiken had slain a vampire with a toothpick. Perhaps that story sat on the edge of every trainee’s consciousness. No one can ever know for sure.
All we do know is that, on the way to the exit that night, Falcon reached out and grabbed the table’s wooden plaque holder that told the wait staff what number had been assigned to a diner’s order. It had a round base and a dowel extending straight up from the center like a flag pole.
Being a potential knight meant that Wakey was pretty fast on the uptake. He must have thought it was a pretty good idea because he grabbed another from the table by the door. The deli manager came out onto the sidewalk to yell after them about not paying the bill, but the boys’ focus had turned very single-minded.
Being young, conditioned like Olympic athletes, and without the muscular bulk of knights a decade older, they were lightning fast. Faster than the vampire who had hoped they were out of danger after they’d managed to lose two braces of Black Swan knights.
The vampire knew there were three kids running behind them, but never suspected they might be the goal because they knew the score. Hunters come in groups of two or four grown men, not three kids. So they ducked into an alley, as vampire so often do.
“How could we just lose them into thin air? Are we losin’ our touch then?” Ram was a little exasperated because he wasn’t used to letting prey get away. “Great Paddy. We’ve turned into heavy-hooved has-beens.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Rammel. Everybody loses vamps now and then.”
“Noooooo. They do no’. ‘Tis ne’er happened to us before.”
Storm and Kay both gaped at Ram like he was nuts. “It happened the very night your wife did that stupid ass move with the toothpick. Remember? We left her alone to do a rundown and then... We. Lost. Them.”
Ram chewed on his lip. “Paddy! Unbunch the knickers, man. So maybe it happened one time.”
Kay just shook his head. “Nothing changes.”
“Let’s split up and take a look around. Three blocks on either side. What do you think?” Storm was so accustomed to making suggestions as to how B Team should proceed in the field that he didn’t even think about the fact that he was in the presence of an acting Sovereign and seriously outranked.
Before anyone responded, Rev’s phone vibrated against his hip. He looked at it and said, “It’s Mr. Barrock.”
Ram looked at Kay and mouthed, “Who?”
Opening the phone he said, “Farthing here.”
There were several pauses between which Rev alternated between staccato grunts and cursing under his breath. Finally he said, “We’re close by and on our way. Send clean up and we’ll take care of the rest.”
He ended the call, shoved the phone in his pocket and said, “Seems we’ve got a situation.”
Seven minutes later, Rev and three members of B Team arrived at the location where they’d been directed. Storm nodded at Kris and Wakey. He remembered them from the Battle for Jefferson Unit. Given the fact that they’d won medals protecting Elora and flying injured personnel away in a Whister, it would have been impossible to forget them. They nodded back.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, feeling like he was channeling Sol. “What do we have here?”
They stepped away so that he could see the two corpses their bodies had been concealing. Both former vampire had strange sticks coming out of their chests with round wooden blocks on the end. Storm studied the phenomenon as best he could in the dim light.
Ram leaned over and asked with an incredulity thick as syrup. “Are those…?”
Wakey spoke up. “The little flag flyers for your deli order. Sir.”
“Great Paddy.”
Ram looked at Kay who deadpanned, “It seems we’ve stood and talked like this bef
ore.”
“That song is no’ from your era, Danny Disco.”
“It’s Disco Danny. Can you ever get it right, Rammel?”
“Who in Paddy’s name cares whether ‘tis fuckin’ Danny Disco or fuckin’ Disco Danny, berserker?”
“Knock it off,” Storm said before turning back to the boys. “You want to tell us what happened?”
“Aye,” Ram chimed in. “You kiddos got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
“Rammel! I said knock it off!” Storm was getting more insistent.
“Fine. Do no’ be goin’ berserk on us.” Ram smiled at Kay who eased into a wide stance and rolled his eyes.
“Well…” Wakey began.
“Before you start…” Storm glanced at Rev and then waved toward the trainees. “This is Mr. Falcon and Mr. Wakenmann. They won medals for heroism during the assassination attempt that destroyed Jefferson Unit. Or a large part of it.
“Why don’t you introduce your friend?”
Kris and Wakey both looked at Sin like they hadn’t seen him before. Kris finally spoke up. “Sinclair Harvest, sir.”
Kris looked back at Storm. “I think he already knows who all of you are.” Sin’s head nodded up and down. He looked like he was star struck.
Storm looked at Wakey. “Okay. Go on.”
“Well, we were getting a bite at the Koch Deli over on 7th. I got a pastrami on toasted rye with spicy brown mustard that was this tall.” He left a space between his hands. “Falcon had just been sharing with the new guy how Sovereign Nememiah made me read love poems to all the guys and then apologize to Crisp.” When his gaze scanned the older men and stopped on Rev’s glower, Wakey decided to edit the less pertinent details.
“All of a sudden Falcon jumps up and says, ‘Vampire’, like this.” He said it with his lips pulled tight and his tongue held motionless so that the formation of vowels was almost impossible. “We got up to follow him. I noticed he grabbed one of the wooden number holders. I figured out why he did it so I grabbed one, too. You know they’re always talking about resourcefulness in tactics class.
Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3) Page 22
