The Black Knight Chronicles (Book 6): Man in Black

by John G. Hartness

  “A lot better now, Mike. A lot better now.” I said, walking to the front of the van. The head and shoulders of my would-be-killer still stuck out from under the front bumper. I knelt down beside the vampire, picked up his head, and looked him in the eye.

  “I am Master of this city, you little son of a bitch. I would tell you to remember that, but why waste advice?” Then I drew my KA-BAR and jammed it into the back of his neck, severing his spine and sending him to real-death.

  Chapter 7

  I LOOKED AROUND for the vamp I’d left staked to the wall, but he was gone. The only thing left of him was a torn scrap of denim and a little splash of blood where he tore the stake out and ran. The wound from that silver stake wasn’t going to heal anytime soon, but then I noticed one more missing item. He took off with the ransom.

  “Sonofabitch!” I shouted, and kicked a nearby crate that turned out to be full of very heavy automobile parts. I grabbed my foot and jumped around, cussing a little more, until it suddenly dawned on me that the room around me was very quiet. I heard the dripping of coolant from the van’s busted radiator, and the tick-tick of the cooling engine, and if I listened very closely I could hear Nester’s racing heartbeat, but none of the normal sounds of people poking around a crime scene. Or in this case, a bloodbath. Silence—in my line of work it seems to be the number one indication that the next thing that happens is going to be very, very bad.

  I turned around to where I’d left Nester standing by the front of the van and saw just how right I was. I’d just managed to take out half a dozen vampires at peak strength with only a little backup. It cost me all but two magazines of ammunition, two of my four silver-tipped stakes with wooden handles, and a pretty expensive van that I was very happy belonged to the police department and not me. In that fight, all I had to do was kick ass and chew bubble gum. I hadn’t had to worry about witty repartee, property damage, or getting anyone else killed.

  The giant vampire holding Nester off the ground by his throat was the first indication that this fight would go a little differently. The presence of a solid dozen vampires and four unconscious SWAT officers was the second. Third was the sheer size of this mega-vampire currently choking the life out of Nester, his cohorts notwithstanding.

  This goon was bigger than any human or former human I’d ever seen, the kind of giant that caused mini-eclipses whenever he entered a room or passed in front of a lamp. He stood easily six eight or six ten, several inches taller than me, and had muscles in places I didn’t even think I had places. He was a tough-looking SOB, with a scruffy black beard and long black hair making him look like Danny Trejo’s much larger and scarier brother. And he had Nester.

  His goons spread out behind him in a big half circle, all dressed in the same motorcycle gang-chic worn by the vamps I killed moments before. They carried a mix of chains, bats, pool cues, and other scrounged weapons, but the only gun I saw was on the hip of their leader, and it was an enormous hand-cannon that made a Desert Eagle look like a .22. A couple of the vampires grinned at me like I was the chocolate fountain at the end of their buffet, and a couple of the others just looked a little bored, like one vampire and one human weren’t worth their time.

  “Drop him,” I said, momentarily proud that I got the words out without a stammer or my voice cracking.

  “Why?” The giant asked.

  “Because that’s the only thing you can do that gets you another moonrise, jackass. Or did you miss the part where I took out the last six of your goons with nothing more than my wit and this little pocketknife?” I threw my KA-BAR at his chest to punctuate my order, put he knocked it aside with a hand the size of a ping-pong paddle.

  He looked at me, turning his head from one side to the other like a dog that finally caught the car he’s been chasing, and set Nester down. He patted the cop on the head, knocking him almost unconscious, and stomped over to where I stood trying my best to show no fear.

  “You’re either brave or really, really stupid,” King Kong said as he loomed over me.

  “Maybe I just needed you close so I could attack,” I said, making absolutely zero moves to attack.

  “Maybe you’re stalling until more backup gets here.”

  “Maybe your breath smells like rhinoceros rectum.”

  “What?”

  “Seriously, dude, what did you eat? You smell like rotted butthole. How the hell do you guys even stand this?” I looked around at the other vampires. “I mean, for real, y’all are just as sensitive to smell as I am, right? Have you not noticed that every time he speaks, it’s like a decaying funk-zombie crawls out his mouth and barfs in front of you?”

  A couple of the vampires looked away, a couple looked at their feet, and one said “You kinda get used to it after a while . . .” Dedicated minions, these were not.

  Gargantua shook his head and glared at me, “What the holy hell are you—Owgoddammit!”

  I cut off his question by doing my level best to kick his head clean off his shoulders. Sparring with Sabrina, back when we were on better terms, had upped my close-quarters combat game a lot, so when I threw a side kick at the giant’s jaw, there was some power behind it. I caught him square on the point of his jaw, and he toppled backward like a redwood, only more dangerous. I stepped over to him and pulled the pistol from his belt.

  “You don’t need this right now, do you? Didn’t think so, thanks,” I said, turning on the other vampires. I raised the borrowed pistol, a Magnum Research .45/70 if I could believe what was written on the barrel, and said “Who wants to have their bits blown off?”

  Much to my chagrin, these were a higher class of thugs than I usually faced, and they all understood that if they rushed me twelve on one, I wouldn’t be able to kill them all. They charged, and I fired. The gun went off, and the recoil went through my arm like a jackhammer. It would have dislocated my arm if I’d still been human, but I wasn’t, so I blew a hole the size of a pie plate through one of the vampires, then turned another one’s head to red mist and bone splinters before the rest were on me.

  I took a chain to the right arm, blocked a baseball bat with my left arm, and looked down to see a switchblade sticking out of my gut. I dropped the pistol and grabbed the chain, pulling that vampire into the one who stabbed me and then pushing them both to the ground. I dropped to one knee to get under the next swing from the guy with the baseball bat, and pulled the knife out of my gut. That was a lot less fun than it sounds, and it doesn’t sound like fun at all. I didn’t bother looking around, just jabbed the knife upward until I felt resistance, then left it there. I heard someone curse above me, so I figured the knife was doing me more good there than it was in my belly.

  I drew my Ruger LCP and sprang upright, pressing the pistol underneath the chin of the vampire in front of me. His eyes went wide, then dim as I pulled the trigger and sent a silver 9mm hollowpoint tipped with holy water through his frontal lobe. I spun around in a tight circle, pulling the trigger as I went. Six rounds spat out of the pistol, and three vampires dropped, a bullet hole where each eye used to be. That left only Knife Guy, who I cracked between the eyes with the butt of the pistol. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped like a sack of scruffy, leather-clad potatoes. I tossed the gun to the side and pulled my last two silver-tipped stakes from a holster on my left arm.

  I turned to face the rest of the vampires who’d hung back, expecting their chums would get the job done, and now looked clearly surprised that they were up. The six or so angry bloodsuckers were also armed to the teeth and now glaring at me like I was the only Democrat at a Ted Nugent concert. I glanced back and saw Nester struggle to his feet, using the bumper of the van for support as he drew his sidearm with one hand and gave me a shaky thumbs-up with the other. Not a lot of help coming from there.

  I took stock of the remaining pissed-off biker-vamps, and saw the same assortment of blades, bats, and chains that I’d faced earlier, but knowing what to expect didn’t make my bruised wrist feel any better. Missing the
gun in my ankle holster didn’t help my prospects any, either.

  The vampire on the far right loosed his chain and stepped forward to charge, and I readied my stakes to fend him off. He took one step, and his head snapped back like someone had jerked his leash. He fell flat on his back and hit the concrete floor with a splat. The crack rang through the warehouse a second later, followed by two more as the next pair of vamps in line dropped like their strings were cut. I looked around, but saw nothing. The shots were from outside. One more shot rang out, another vampire fell to the floor, and the last two turned and ran in opposite directions.

  “This isn’t over, asshole,” the giant leader growled at me as he regained his feet and limped past. “We’re not through with you, ‘Master.’”

  “You know where to find me, dickweed. I’ll be the one at the top of the skyscraper, sitting in the big chair.” One of the other vampires ran back, grabbing one of the big vamp’s arms, dragging it over his shoulders, and then helped him out the back door of the building. A few seconds later I heard the sound of motorcycles roaring to life and peeling out of the back parking lot.

  “Nester, you okay back there?” I called over my shoulder.

  “I’m fine, boss. Just a little bruised around the throat is all.”

  I walked over to the four most recently dead vampires and stared down at them. Most of their heads were gone, the result of a high-caliber bullet introducing itself to a skull with extreme prejudice. I stood where the first one’s feet had been and stared out the door into the night. I couldn’t see anything nearby that would provide a decent vantage point for a sniper, but as I narrowed my eyes, I thought I saw a glint of metal from the top of a building in the distance. I was pretty sure that if the sniper wanted me dead, my head would have exploded just like everybody else, but I ducked behind the nearest wall just the same.

  “Hey, Nester?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Is that the water tower in South End I see?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of the flash of light I’d seen.

  “The one where the Spaghetti Factory used to be?” He stepped out into the open, and I pulled him back by the collar.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

  “I think that’s where our sniper made his nest,” I said.

  “That’s at least half a mile away,” Nester said, poking his head out a little bit.

  “I know, but it’s the only thing that gives the right angle to make these shots.”

  “Somebody’s a hell of a shot,” Nester nudged the nearest body with his foot. “One shot, one kill.”

  “This is probably one of those things that I should spend time figuring out, but it’s going to fall down on the list below the Council of Vampires that pretty much wants me dead, the crime boss who’s going to want me dead when we come back with neither his money nor his daughter, the police lieutenant who’s going to want me dead because the crime boss is going to start a war in the city, the Vamp Council evaluator who wants me dead because he wants my chair, and every other vampire in town who wants me dead because of my winning personality and the chance to take over as Master.”

  “And Lilith,” Nester said. “I’m pretty sure she still wants you dead.”

  “Oh yeah, and the immortal crime boss who wants me dead, not to be confused with the mortal one that wants me dead. Thanks, Nester.”

  “Well, it looks like there’s at least one person out there who wants you alive,” Nester said, gesturing out into the night where the sniper nest was. “That oughta count for something, right?”

  “Yeah, and I bet it’s the one person in North Carolina who wears a utility belt when it isn’t Halloween. And that counts for a lot.” I said, looking across the distance, trying to catch a glimpse of black spandex.

  Chapter 8

  “GEE, JIMMY, CAN’T understand why you’re having woman troubles,” Abby said as Nester and I pushed through the doors into the morgue. She was sitting cross-legged on an exam table, playing a game on her tablet computer. I heard the electronic squeaks and blips as soon as I got off the elevator and knew she’d beaten me there. She swept her hand around the room. “I mean, after all, you take a girl to the nicest places.”

  I gave her a lopsided grin. “I love the smell of formaldehyde in the morning. Smells like victory.”

  Nester laughed, then gasped at the pain in his throat.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  “I don’t heal as fast as a lot of your sidekicks,” the young detective replied.

  “And what exactly is he doing here?” Came a cultured voice from the shadows.

  “I’d ask you the same thing, douchenozzle, but I already know the answer,” I replied as Paulson stepped out of the shadow he’d used to conceal his presence. Nester jumped, and his hand grazed the Smith & Wesson on his hip. Paulson immediately bared his fangs, and I held up a hand.

  “Chill, you two. Detective Nester, this is Clive Paulson. He’s dead. Paulson, this is Detective Michael Nester, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. He’s not dead, and for the purposes of our work here, it’s pretty important that we maintain that status quo. So you kids play nice or I’m going to have to give you a time-out.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Paulson said.

  “I expect it’s going to come to that eventually no matter what, but let’s keep going through the motions for a little while, shall we?” I looked at Paulson, and he met my gaze without blinking. We stared at each other for a long moment, the look of two predators weighing each other. Finally, Paulson gave me a little nod, and stepped back into the shadows.

  I turned to Bobby, who was a little grey after witnessing a staredown between two vampires from ten feet away. “What have we got, Bobby?”

  “I’ve got another bunch of damn dead sonsabitches stinking up my nice, clean exam room and a bad case of the heebie-jeebies on account of those nasty bastards you’re using as a disposal service nowadays, that’s what I got.”

  I laughed. I wasn’t surprised to hear Bobby didn’t like the ghouls William sent over to clean up the crime scene and transport the dead vampires to the morgue. Smarter than zombies, ghouls were still pretty rudimentary assistants, but they worked for peanuts. “Other than that, I got jack shit. The bodies are all vampires, which you knew. And they’re all real-dead, which I assume you were responsible for. But I’ve got nothing useful except their cuts.”

  “Their what?” I asked.

  “Actually, cut,” Bobby explained. “The big patch on the back of their jackets that indicates membership in a motorcycle club.” He held up a leather vest one of the dead vamps used to own. “This rocker up top gives the name of the club, the Bloods.”

  “Like the Crips and the Bloods?” Abby asked.

  “Nah,” Bob said, pointing to a curved panel at the bottom of the vest. “This bottom rocker gives their location, Stanleyville.”

  “Isn’t that what they used to call the neighborhood around Seventh and Monroe?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “So these boys are definitely homegrown, probably nothing to do with the Bloods you’ve heard of.”

  “And more a play on the whole vampire thing,” Abby said.

  “Ooh, yeah,” Bobby agreed. “Bad puns are kinda a thing in the vampire world, right?”

  “Nah, that’s just Greg,” I said, and looked around for my partner before I realized he wouldn’t be there. I ignored the awkwardness in the room and turned back to the dead vampire. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, here’s something to pay attention to—this one percent symbol. That means this is an outlaw motorcycle club, more interested in having fun than living by anybody’s rules, or laws. Most of them fund their operations from drugs or guns. Could be dangerous.”

  “How does an ex-football player turned coroner know so much about motorcycle gangs?” Abby asked.

  “Would you believe Sons of Anarchy reruns?” Bobby asked. Nobody answered. “Yeah, I thought not.
It’s a long story about my misspent youth. A long story from a long time ago. Just keep on your toes. These guys can be bad news.”

  “We noticed,” Nester croaked.

  “Anything else?” I asked. “Anything on who could be running this kidnapping?”

  “Nothing,” Bobby said. “There’s forensic evidence all over these jerks, but I can’t send any of it to the lab without raising a bunch of red flags about their blood and other stuff that you really don’t want raised. You never know who’s got access to the police computers these days, and there are a lot of people who wouldn’t look kindly on a vampire in the middle of a police investigation.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right, we need to keep as low a profile as possible. Thanks, Bobby, you’ve been a big help,” I said. I turned to Abby. “Let’s get back to our place and see what we can figure out. Nester, you go turn in the van and get some rest.”

  “Rest?” He chuckled, then winced. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork I’m going to have to fill out on that van? I drove it into a building, boss. That doesn’t just go away.”

  “And who’s going to take care of these vampires?” Bobby asked.

  “Don’t sweat it, pal. I’ll have William send over the cleaners in a little bit.”

  “I hate those ghouls, man. Ain’t you got nobody else on the payroll that can clean up after your messes?”

  “Not without bitching, and that’s worth a little bit of uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

  “I just don’t like the way they look at me, like any minute they’re going to decide to eat my brains.”

  “Don’t worry, Bobby, ghouls don’t eat brains. They’re more flesh-eating undead. Besides, they are all under strict orders—no snacking.” I stepped out into the hallway and turned to the elevator with Paulson, Nester, and Abby in tow. We got to the lobby, and Nester headed off to go back to the station and start his paperwork. Abby and I got in her Escalade, Paulson a few steps behind us, looking around like his head was on a swivel.