“Where did you learn to drive again? The NASCAR Training Institute?”
“Oh, bite me, Jimmy. Nobody died.”
“Probably because we’re already dead,” I replied.
Paulson got out of the backseat, and I could tell the brief ride, with Abby’s unorthodox driving style, which included a lot of aggressive passing and several moments of driving in the wrong lane, all in a three-minute commute, had an impact on the evaluator. He had a hair out of place, and I swear the crease in his jeans wasn’t as razor-sharp as it had been when we left the office. For Paulson, that was practically disheveled.
“You okay, pal?” I asked the smaller vampire. “Looks like the ride was a little rougher in the backseat. Sorry, I should have warned you—Abby has decided that since we can’t really die in a car crash, unless there’s a decapitation or we get all blown up, that she can drive however she wants.”
Abby gave a cute little shrug, the kind of thing where she batted her eyelashes and got out of a lot of trouble when she was alive. It still worked.
We went into the hospital and trooped down the halls, into the elevator, and down a couple of floors to the morgue. Bobby was waiting for us at the door. The former Arena Football League quarterback-turned-coroner’s-assistant had a scowl on his usually smiling face, and I got a hint of the kind of competitor he must have been before he blew out his knees.
“Let’s be real clear, Jimmy. I did this one time for a favor, but I do not want a bunch of dead vampires stinking up my office.”
“Not a problem, Bobby. This will not become a regular thing, I promise,” I said. I was just happy to have Bobby still speaking to me. When Greg and I stopped being partners, I was afraid I’d lost Bobby in the divorce, and that would have meant the loss of my blood supplier as well as my hookup in the morgue. Not to mention a friend, and I was running perilously short on those.
“Why are you letting this meat sack speak to you like this? If I were—” Paulson started, but I turned and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
I pulled him up onto his tiptoes and leaned down so we were almost nose to nose. “I know you think you’re going to spend a few days following me around, then turn in your report to the Council and take over my city, but you better remember one thing, you pretentious little shitball. Until such a time as you can take my head or put a stake through my heart, I am the Master of the City, and you will respect the office, if not the man. And as long as I am Master, you will treat my friends and associates with respect, or I will pull out your spine and beat you to death with it. Do I make myself clear?”
I actually saw a flicker of fear in his eyes as he looked up at me, but it was gone just as quickly, replaced by the sullen detachment popular with hipsters and teenagers. “Yes, Master.”
I let go of his shirt and patted him on the top of his head. “Good boy. Now go stand over in the corner out of the way and play dead for a little while. I’ve got grown-up business to take care of, and I don’t have time to keep you occupied.” He glared at me, but went over and sat at Bobby’s desk. He pulled out a cell phone and started tapping the screen. I didn’t care if he was checking emails or playing video games, as long as he left me alone for a little while.
“Sorry about Mr. Hair Gel, Bobby,” I said, turning my attention back to the medical examiner. “What have we got?”
Bobby pulled a fresh pair of black exam gloves onto his gigantic hands with a snap. The ex-quarterback turned the dead vamp’s head to the side and pointed out a small tattoo behind his ear. “Take a look at this,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This is the MS-13 logo, one of the country’s most vicious Latino gangs. He was obviously a ’banger before he was turned, and he probably wasn’t turned too long ago, ’cause the style of this tat looks like some I’ve seen come through here fresh.”
“So he was a baby,” I said.
“I wouldn’t feel too much sympathy, Jimmy. MS-13 is a bad bunch, so this hombre was liable to have hurt a whole lot of people even before he got all vamped up.”
“I’m not sympathetic, Bobby. Baby vampires are the most dangerous, at least to their surroundings. When we first wake up, all we know is the hunger, and nothing can fight it. He was almost out of his mind when I got to the club, which means he was either just turned, or he had been held captive and not fed since he was made, and just released into the club to cause as much chaos as possible. Either way, this attack seems like it was aimed at me more than any civilians,” I said.
“That’s a little self-centered, don’t you think?” Abby asked.
“Not really,” I replied. “I don’t think it was a coincidence that the same night I get handed a critically important case by Lieutenant McDaniel, we get the first rogue vampire sighting in Charlotte in a couple of years. No, somebody set me up, and I need to know who.”
I leaned over closer to the body and took a deep whiff. Aside from the unpleasant smells associated with a newly-turned vampire, and the heady scent of fresh blood, a smorgasbord of scents bombarded my nostrils. I picked up hints of women’s perfume, three different brands that I could differentiate. There was smoke, some tobacco and not a little marijuana, and sweat, both his own and human. There was beer on his breath and his clothes, and a flash of something heavier, smoky with a hint of peat bog to it. Our gang banger had knocked back a glass of expensive scotch at some point before going to the club.
“Bobby, can you pull out the drawers for the female victims?” I asked.
“Don’t have to. They’re still on gurneys.” He rolled two body-bagged forms over to me, and I unzipped them. One woman was missing her throat, but the other had been drained completely, and her head looked too far off to the left. She was one of the victims I’d finished off by breaking her neck.
I sniffed the corpses and turned to Abby. “Come here, I need to smell you.”
She raised an eyebrow but did as I asked. I sniffed her neck, then looked down into her eyes.
“Where did you get your perfume?”
“Lilith gave it to me for Christmas. It’s Reckless by Roja. Pretty expensive, I think.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said. “It’s what she wears, too, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why, do you smell it on one of those women?”
“No, I smell it on the vamp. He smelled like three different perfumes—one from each of his female victims, and yours. Or Lilith’s, I should say.”
“So you think Lilith set you up?” Abby asked.
“She’s got all the ingredients—power, money, opportunity, and a desire to see my head on a stake.” I said. “So yeah, when in doubt, I blame Lilith.”
I started for the door but paused as Bobby cleared his throat. He had his arms crossed and was giving me that “we need to talk” eyeball that only your close friends and wives can effectively throw down. I waved the others on and went back to his desk. “What’s up, Bob?”
“I just . . . figured you might want an update.” He didn’t have to say “on Greg,” that part was understood.
“I do, but I wasn’t gonna push. I don’t want to make you betray any confidences, or anything like that.”
“Nah, it’s good. I’ve only seen him a couple times since y’all had your big fight. Most of the time he’s been hanging out at that comic-book store playing too much Magic: The Gathering.”
“Well, he’s always loved that game,” I said.
“Yeah, but now it’s like all he does. He plays video games, comes by here for a blood hookup, then goes to play Magic. It ain’t healthy, man. I’m worried about him.”
I looked at Bobby, his handsome features pale and washed out in the greenish fluorescent lighting of the morgue. “Don’t sweat it, Bobs. When you’re dead, it’s perfectly reasonable to do unhealthy stuff.” Like take over criminal empires and work with mob bosses on their personal tragedies.
Chapter 6
THAT VERY TOLERANCE and willingness to do unhealthy stuff is exac
tly how I came to be in Marcus Owen’s living room just after sundown the next night, arguing in a loud voice with one of the most powerful gangsters in the Carolinas. My normal nerves about facing a crime lord were somewhat mitigated by the fact that now I was also one of the most powerful gangsters in the Carolinas, a fact I was still working through for myself.
Owen’s living room was massive with floor-to-ceiling windows covering one entire wall. We were standing in his penthouse apartment, yelling at each other like banshees, surrounded by tasteful furniture with clean lines and hardwood floors with strategically placed rugs and bamboo mats in the kitchen. A sixty-something-inch flat-screen TV hung on the wall beside us, and I had an almost overwhelming desire to smash it over Owen’s stubborn head.
“Will you be reasonable? There is only one reason they want our guy to come alone—so he has zero chance of catching the kidnapper!” I pulled back from the edge of shouting, but only just.
“I know I’m not reasonable—the son of a bitch has my daughter! There’s nothing reasonable about it, Black. I’m going to do what he says. I’m gonna put a million bucks in a duffel bag, give it to a cop, and he’s gonna deliver it to the drop point. Then I’m gonna get my little girl back. And you’re gonna stay the hell out of it, do you understand me?”
I took a deep breath, more to center myself than for any of the other therapeutic reasons. I didn’t have a racing heartbeat to slow, or pounding blood pressure to bring under control. I just had a temper, and I had to remind myself that if I smashed Owen’s head in, there would be open war to fill his spot at the top of the criminal food chain, and I didn’t have the resources for a fight.
“Mr. Owen, I understand that the kidnapper said to send one cop, but can’t we at least substitute me for the undercover officer? I would be able to hear the kidnappers coming from farther away, and I can pursue them better than anyone else we have.”
“He said no funny stuff; we do no funny stuff,” Owen said. “No dye packs, no transmitters in the bags, none of that crap they show on TV. We give him the money; he gives me back my little girl.”
“Then what happens the next time some goon decides to threaten your family? You just throw money at every jackass in town?”
“No, I pull out the jar where I keep this asshole’s head, and I show them what happens to people who mess with my family. But the head comes later. Right now, we get my little girl back.”
I had to admit, I didn’t see any holes in his logic.
SO WE DID IT HIS way. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice, really. McDaniel made the decision not to bring in the FBI because of Owen’s ties to local law enforcement and the embarrassment those ties could cause some important people. I didn’t mind, because the last thing I wanted was the FBI snooping around the same case I was working. Waking up in a government testing lab in the middle of Area 51 fit exactly nowhere on any of my bucket lists.
Nester was our chosen pigeon, and despite Owen’s threats and cajoling, I was tucked away in the branches of a nearby tree, using a digital SLR camera with a telephoto lens to keep a close eye on Nester and the duffel bag full of hundreds he carried. Midnight came and went, and I started to be very glad I was outside with Nester, instead of in the surveillance van with an upset Marcus Owen. About two thirty in the morning, a man strolled up to Nester and held out his hand. I was too far away to hear the conversation, even with my bat-ears turned on, but when Nester took the bag off his shoulder and handed it to the other man, I perked up.
With the camera to my eye, I watched the exchange through the telephoto lens. I didn’t recognize the bag man, but even through glass and distance I could tell he was a vampire. The chalky white skin, the preternatural stillness, the slight red tinge in the eyes. Everything about him screamed “bloodsucker.” I dropped from the tree and stashed the camera among the roots and grass, then started jogging toward the park at a normal, human pace. The vampire put the strap of the bag over one shoulder and turned away from Nester, then he was gone. He took off running at top vamp-speed, and I was barely quick enough to see where he was headed. I poured on the speed and was past the spot where Nester stood in seconds.
“Get into the surveillance van and start following us,” I said to him as I ran by. “Track my cell if you need to.”
I followed the vampire for a mile or so, up the hill to Tryon Street and past it down to Graham. He hung a left on Graham and tried to lose me around the stadium, but the Panthers weren’t playing, so it was deserted and easy to keep track of him. He almost lost me in South End thanks to a concert at Amos’s, but I picked up his scent near Price’s Chicken Coop and followed him farther down South Tryon. Never eating Price’s chicken again is one of the worst things about being dead, so I was a little grumpy by the time my quarry finally stopped running and ducked into a warehouse.
I followed him to the door and pressed my ear to the peeling grey paint. The warehouse was in a part of town that was gentrifying quickly, but the building was run-down, with weeds growing through the cracks in the parking lot and more than one broken window scattered around. I wondered for a moment about why the owner didn’t sell, then shoved that thought to the side as I listened to the conversation on the other side of the door.
“. . . fast, faster than me, even. I’m surprised I beat him back here.” I assumed that was our bag man.
“Did you get it?” This from a new voice—another vamp? I listened harder, focused my attention on the smaller sounds in the room. I heard a whirrr of an electric fan, the hum of a refrigerator in the background, and nothing else. No TV, not even a video playing on a tablet computer or phone. And more importantly, no heartbeats. There was no hostage in there, at least no living one.
“Yeah, I got it. Feels about right, too.” I heard a thump of something heavy dropping onto a table, I assumed, and made my move. I kicked in the door and charged the pair of vamps.
Except it wasn’t a pair of vamps. It was a half dozen vamps, two of them standing stock-still against the walls on each side of the door, waiting for me to screw up and run face-first into their trap. Which I did, in glorious fashion.
I looked around the room, grinned my best innocent grin, and said, “Who ordered the pizza?” Then I drew my Glock 17 and put three rounds in the face of the nearest vampire. He went down like a sack of very bloody potatoes, and I dropped to one knee as I spun around and emptied the rest of the magazine into the vamp rushing at my back. A 9mm doesn’t have enough stopping power to knock a charging vampire backward like a Desert Eagle or a bigger gun, and unless you completely destroy the heart or turn the brain to mush, it’s very hard to kill a vampire with even silver bullets. But if you shoot out someone’s kneecaps, they stop running. Hard. A couple of bullets to the knees and half a dozen in the face, and I’d managed to take out a third of the bad guys before they even got a shot off.
I saw the remaining vamps draw guns, and I threw my empty gun at the nearest bad guy. I leapt straight up, grabbing exposed bar joists and swinging like Tarzan to drop onto the table in the middle of the room. I tried a flip backward off the table, and actually landed right behind the vampire who picked up the ransom. He made an excellent shield when the other three opened fire on me. I tucked myself in behind the larger vampire and almost felt bad as a dozen or so bullets shredded his face and chest. He dropped to his knees, and I reached down and snapped his neck. Three down.
The leader, or at least the other vampire at the table with the money on it, raised his reloaded pistol and pointed it at my face. “I didn’t expect it to be this easy to become the new Master,” he said with a smile.
I flipped the metal table into the air and dove under it as he pulled the trigger. I rolled through and came up behind him, drawing a silver stake from the holster on my left arm. I shoved the silver spike through his heart and spun him around to face me.
“It’s harder than it looks,” I said, then dropped his body to the concrete floor. I drew another stake, whirled around, and threw it in one motion, p
inning one of the two remaining vamps to a wall by his shoulder. I heard the telltale click-clack of a slide cycling on a pistol and turned to see the last vamp standing five yards away with a pistol leveled at my nose. I was getting real tired of looking down gun barrels.
“These silver hollowpoints do a pretty good job,” the vamp said. “I put enough of them into your head, and I don’t ever have to listen to your smart mouth again.”
I had nothing. He had me cold, just had to punch enough silver and lead through my body to destroy my heart or sever my spinal cord, and I was done. I couldn’t get to my backup piece in my ankle holster before he could put at least three or four rounds in me, and the KA-BAR on my belt wasn’t going to do me a bit of good.
So I decided to talk him out of it. “Put the gun down and you can see the moon rise tomorrow,” I said in my best “Master of the City” voice. He looked startled, but he didn’t pull the trigger, so I kept going. “You heard me. Put. The. Gun. Down. Or I will end you tonight.”
He kept staring, then he started to laugh. “What the hell are you trying to do? You can’t mesmerize me, you can’t order me around, and you sure can’t make me do anything. In case you missed it, dumbass—I’m the one with the gun.”
That’s when Nester crashed through the wall of the warehouse in the surveillance van, sending a shower of bricks, glass, and drywall through the room and parking a five-ton Sprinter van on top of a very surprised vampire. The sliding door opened up, and four SWAT officers piled out, submachine guns loaded and little red lasers bright in the dust from Nester’s entrance. Owen and McDaniel had obviously given up their seats in the van to a more heavily armed contingent.
I looked down at the vampire wedged under the front bumper of the van and said, “Yeah, but I’m the one with backup.”
“How are we doing, Mr. Black?” Nester called from the driver’s seat.
The Black Knight Chronicles (Book 6): Man in Black Page 4
