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

by John G. Hartness

  “Unless we try to hide it. All we have to do to make everyone forget about this whole mess is write up a fake news story about a pyro accident and an actor going on a coke-fueled rampage while playing the Devil in Faust, and it all blows over in one news cycle. If we spin it right, they all just ran out into the night the screaming victims of the biggest prank since Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. But if we try to hide it, then it becomes a cover-up, a conspiracy, and every nutbar with a Fangoria subscription and a masked IP address will start spouting off about it on the Internet. Then we have a problem.”

  Paulson glared at me for a second, then said, “Americans are very strange.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, pal. One of these days I’ll try to explain pro wrestling to you.”

  Chapter 14

  WE ROLLED UP TO Owen’s million-dollar Dilworth bungalow in my decrepit Honda, the usually nondescript car noteworthy in a neighborhood more used to Audis and BMWs than dependable sedans with good safety ratings. Owen’s house was an expansive ranch set back off Queens Road, near the intersection of Queens and Queens Road. Yeah, trying to figure out Charlotte civil engineers has driven better men than I to drink.

  I pulled in behind the second-most out of place car in the ’hood, an unmarked police car that I assumed was McDaniel’s. The blackwalled Ford sat in line behind half a million dollars’ worth of sports cars, and I felt like we were lowering Owen’s property value just by touching the driveway.

  “Nice ride,” I said in a low voice as we passed a jet-black Tesla Roadster plugged into a charging station by the front door. It’s always good to know when the criminal element wants to save the planet for future generations of thieves and murderers.

  “Why do you drive such a miserable automobile?” Paulson asked from behind me. “I was given to understand that you Americans place quite the value on your autos, and yet with all of Tiram’s motor pool at your disposal, you still drive this . . . thing.”

  “That thing is my car, pal. I love my car. I’ve had that car since I first found a dealership with late-night hours. That car has been with me through some serious shit. I’ve got an emotional bond with that car, plus after all we’ve been through the last few years I’ve finally gotten the seat and the mirrors adjusted just the way I like them. That’s not something you throw away lightly.”

  “So you have no good reason?”

  “None,” I admitted. “I just like my car.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?” I stopped on the porch and turned to look at Paulson.

  “I come from a country that still attends cricket matches. I know a thing or two about irrational loves.”

  I turned and rang the doorbell, feeling strangely as though I’d just created a very real, personal connection with the vampire that was sent to this country to kill me. That could make it more difficult to rip his heart out later. Nah, not really. It would take more than a couple of bro moments to make me forget what was at stake. My life was only one small part of the equation.

  A mountain of humanity answered the door in a black suit. This guy was all of six foot eight and nearly four hundred pounds of scowling baldness. “What do you want?”

  “McDaniel called us,” I said, stepping forward.

  “I’ll check. Wait here,” he replied, putting a hand on my chest. I was tired, grumpy, and feeling short for the second time in one evening. That’s my excuse for what happened next. Well, mostly the grumpy, but also a little bit of being tired of people putting their hands on me without asking nicely first. So I took his hand off my chest and twisted it a little. Okay, I twisted it a lot, right at the wrist, and as his wrist rotated, I put a hand behind his elbow and pushed a little there, too. I then used his arm as a lever to collapse his whole big, giant body face-first onto the foyer tile. I kept moving, driving him to the ground as I walked past. I let go of his arm as I moved past him and continued into the house.

  “Don’t mind me, I know the way,” I said over my shoulder as Paulson and I headed toward the office. The telltale sound of a pistol slide racking made me stop in my tracks.

  “Stop,” came the superfluous order from behind me, since I was already stopped.

  I turned and walked the four steps back to where the goon had gotten to his feet, a 9mm looking tiny in his massive paws. He had the gun leveled at me and a glare on his face. “I said, ‘wait here,’” he said.

  That was it. It all boiled over, right there in Owen’s foyer. Being told I wasn’t fit to carry Tiram’s jock by a biker-trash vampire, putting up with Paulson’s “evaluation” and waiting for his eventual attack. Hell, even the snake-dude had problems buying me as Master of the City! I snapped a little and decided to show this gorilla who was boss.

  I wrapped my right hand around the barrel of his gun and slowly forced his grip to bend until it pointed at the ceiling. “I don’t like people pointing guns at me. It makes me cranky.” Then I stiffened the fingers on my left hand and drove my hand into his solar plexus, knifelike. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. I pulled the pistol out of his hand and pressed it to his temple.

  “Understand something, you overgrown ball of testosterone. I am the baddest mother you have ever let through that door, and if you think for a second that I need this gun to take you out, then you are sadly mistaken. Now I’m going to keep your pistol, and I’m going to go see your boss. You’re going to stand here like a good door guy and pretend none of this ever happened. And whenever you get a desire to even the score with me, you’re going to remember this image.” I stared at him, then dropped my fangs. He pulled back, and I grinned to make sure he got my point.

  I retracted my elongated incisors, then said, “Now do you see what I mean?”

  He nodded, and I gave him a condescending pat on the head, then slid his pistol in the back waistband of my jeans. I turned and walked into the house, heading for Owen’s office. Paulson fell into step behind me, disapproval writ large across his face.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Spill it.”

  It was almost like he’d been waiting for permission. “Well, again, your choice in leaving him alive seems foolhardy, but I understand not killing off your ally’s employees.”

  “Especially not in your ally’s foyer,” I added.

  “But revealing your vampiric nature to him seems foolhardy in the extreme.”

  “I can see that,” I conceded. “But to people that are used to seeing the worst that humanity can offer, I’m not very frightening without the fangs. Sure, I just proved that I can kick his ass, but what’s to keep him from trying to take me out from a hundred yards away with a hunting rifle? Nothing. But if I’m a supernatural monster that can’t die, then I’ve got a lot more intimidation on my side.”

  Paulson looked thoughtful, but instead of hanging around to discuss the world with him, I turned and walked into Owen’s office. McDaniel was there, seated on a chair facing Owen’s desk. Nester stood behind the lieutenant, a dark look on his face. Two of Owen’s goons stood by the door, and there was one empty chair at the desk, presumably for me. I ignored everything and everyone and walked straight to the wet bar set into the far wall. Owen and his goons stared at me as I took down a highball glass and poured two fingers of Macallan 18 into it. I took a pair of tongs off the handle of the gold-plated ice bucket, lifted the lid, and extracted one ice cube, which I deposited into my drink. I looked back at Paulson with a raised eyebrow, but he shook his head.

  Then I walked over to a pair of couches facing each other across a low coffee table and sat on one, legs crossed like I hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Oh good, the real super-cops are here!” Owen called out to me in a fake, hearty greeting. “Who’s next? Barney Fife? The Keystone Cops?”

  “Good to see you, too, Mr. Owen. Sorry about your guard,” I said with as pleasant a smile as I could manage.

  “What about my guard?”

  “I might have broken the big bald one making my way back here,
” I said, sipping my scotch. Scotch is nasty, by the way. It tastes like fermented peat bogs and the sweat of Scottish sharecroppers. I never understood how Mike liked that swill. Owen’s other guards took an involuntary step forward, but I was on my feet and staring the first one straight in the eye before his foot ever came down.

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret, big guy, because I can kill you before you blink twice, and I’ll barely have to set down my drink to do it.”

  I heard the click as the other goon released the safety strap on his shoulder holster and said, “You’re not as stealthy as you think you are, friend, and you’re about to make a career-ending mistake. So to keep everybody’s insides where they need to be, why don’t you two muscleheads head out into the hallway while the grown-ups discuss business?”

  “Mr. Black, you’re not seriously suggesting that I take a meeting with you without my security, are you?” Owen laughed from behind his desk.

  “Why don’t we count on the police presence to keep my baser instincts in check?”

  “I’ll keep him covered, sir,” Nester chimed in. I glared at him, and he blushed a little. Poor kid, he just wanted to help, but I needed to drive this meeting or I was never going to get Owen’s trust. There was a niggling feeling in the back of my head that all this crap was connected, from Owen to the sewer’s snake-dudes, to the demon, and circling all the way back to Lilith. But before I confronted a woman that remembered Moses’ first birthday, I needed to know beyond a shadow that I was right, and that meant I needed Owen to trust me, or at least believe in my competence.

  “Fine,” Owen said. “You guys go take a break while I discuss business with these gentlemen.” The goons looked at each other, as if unsure whether Owen meant it or if he was testing them.

  “Uhhh, are you sure, boss?” The one nearest me asked.

  I reached out and pulled him very close to my face, then dropped my fangs. “Go,” I hissed.

  He went. He went like the fires of Hell were chasing him. The other goon followed, and I went back to sit on the couch. “Why don’t we move the conversation over here, where we’ll all be more comfortable?” I said, crossing my legs at the knee.

  Owen scowled but moved over to the opposite sofa. McDaniel sat next to me, keeping his eyes on both the door and Owen. Nester and Paulson stayed near the door, out of the way.

  “You said there were new developments in the case?” McDaniel asked.

  “I got another ransom call. A video, actually.” Owen opened his tablet computer and tapped on the screen for a second, then turned the image to us.

  We saw an image of a pretty girl in what looked like a basement or storage room. A generic concrete wall was behind her, and she sat on a generic, tan metal folding chair like you’d find in thousands of church family-life centers all over the South. She held a current copy of the Charlotte Observer, with an article about how terrible the Panthers’ receiving corps looked in preseason.

  The girl looked to be eighteen, which meant anywhere from sixteen to twenty-five, in my experience. She wore nice clothes, but nothing too fancy. Basic twenty-something casual wear—jeans, tennis shoes, a lightweight hoodie, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. There were no apparent bruises or injuries, and she didn’t look at all dirty or hungry. For whatever reason—a big payday or simple (and reasonable) fear of her father and what he would do to them if she were harmed, the kidnappers had cleaned her up since the first picture. I opened my mouth to say something to McDaniel, but she started to speak, so I refrained. For once.

  “Daddy, please do what they say,” the girl on the screen said. Her voice was strong and clear, and something about the whole thing started to ring wrong for me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was definitely something fishy going on with this kidnapping.

  “They want four million in cash, and they say they’ll give you forty-eight hours to get it. Deliver it to the center of the field at Panthers stadium at midnight two nights from tonight, and they’ll let me go.” For the first time in the recording, she started to look a little nervous. “If you don’t, they say they’ll hurt me. I don’t know what they’re planning, but it doesn’t sound good. Please do what they want, Daddy. Please!” Her voice went up into a shaky whine at the end, but she still never got quite scared enough for me. Were we watching some kind of Stockholm syndrome?

  “Mr. Owen, I guarantee you the entire Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department will focus our resources on getting your daughter back. We will—”

  Owen cut McDaniel off with a wave of his hand. “Stay out of it,” he said.

  “Mr. Owen . . .”

  “You think I don’t remember the clusterfuck that happened the other night? What makes you think I’d let either of you idiots anywhere near my daughter after that? You gotta be out of your minds!”

  “Then why are we here, Owen?” I asked.

  “I don’t know why you’re here, but I need the cops to do whatever tech things they do with video to make sure it’s real and look at all the crap in the background and tell me where the building is so I can go get my daughter back.”

  “You watch too much TV, Owen,” McDaniel said. “People can’t look at a building on a video and immediately recognize it, unless there’s some kind of distinctive feature in the shot. This video shows nothing but your daughter, a folding chair, and a cinder block wall. That doesn’t give us very much to go on. But, if you’ll make me a copy of the tape, I’ll take it back to my office and have my tech people work on it. Maybe there’s something about the bricks or paint they can pick up that we can’t see.”

  “Fine,” he said, and tossed over a USB thumb drive. “Here. This was taped to my front door this morning. I made a copy. See what you can find out about this bastard. But stay the hell away from my ransom drop, you understand me?” He gave me a sharp look, then nodded his head very slowly. I got the message, or thought I did. He wants us there, but thinks his house is bugged.

  I nodded. “Got it. We’ll stay clear, but I still think you’re being an idiot.” I pointed to the image on the screen and raised my eyebrows. Is she involved? Owen didn’t answer immediately, then shrugged, indicating he didn’t know. But his hesitation gave him away. He knew, he just couldn’t admit it yet.

  “As long as I’m an idiot with my daughter back, I don’t care. Now get the hell out of here, both of you.”

  McDaniel and I walked in silence out of the house, Paulson and Nester trailing close behind. I stopped and sat on the hood of a Jaguar in the driveway, putting my feet on the bumper and my elbows up on my knees. An alarm started to blare from under the hood, but the guard that stuck his head out the front door recognized me and clicked it off.

  “Now what the hell was all that about?” I asked McDaniel.

  “Not just that, but what’s this I hear about an accident with a prop monster in the middle of Faust at CPCC tonight?” Nester asked.

  I waved Nester off, downplaying the whole thing. “Nah, that’s just the story that’s gonna go around so people don’t have to believe in monsters. Truth is, some jackass summoned a fortunately-for-me very weak demon in the middle of Act One and brought the show to a screeching halt. My guess is they’re going to get a great review for special effects, but lousy marks for the audience participation section. Some people really don’t go in for being eaten at the theatre.”

  “How many audience members were killed?” McDaniel asked.

  “No audience members, but the actor who performed the ritual was a snack,” I replied. “The other actors and stagehands managed to avoid getting eaten before I got there, so only one died. We pretty much wrecked the set and scared one poor backstage guy so bad he really needed to be wearing his brown pants instead of stage blacks, but that’s about it.”

  “Nice!” Nester said, holding out his fist. I pounded it, and for a second I remembered that I was supposed to be one of the good guys, the ones celebrating when the monster gets its ass kicked. It was kinda nice to walk on the side of the
angels again.

  “Sorry to interrupt the celebration, but do we have any idea what’s causing all this?” McDaniel asked.

  “All what?” I put on my best confused face, because I was. Didn’t we just cover this?

  “Well, it seems like ever since you’ve taken over Tiram’s throne, there’s been an outbreak of supernatural badness going around town. First there was the vampire at the dance club—”

  “Still needs a punchline,” I said.

  McDaniel sighed, something I’ve noticed people who are accustomed to being in authority do a lot around me. Then he continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “There were the monsters in the sewers, then the demon in the theatre, and I just got a report of a string of jewelry store robberies that were apparently committed by invisible perpetrators. There’s no way that doesn’t fall into your domain, too.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” I said, scratching my chin. I didn’t bother telling McDaniel about the shadows that sprang from each of the bodies I’d killed during these little encounters, Lily the helpful dramaturge, or about Kalim’s mention of a “mistress.” All that pointed to one person, and there was no way in hell I was ready to take her on.

  “Somebody’s testing you, Black, poking at your empire, trying to find the weak spots. My only question is who. And why?”

  “That’s two questions,” I replied. “Look, Lieutenant, it’s like I said on the phone. I don’t know yet. I’m working on it, and as soon as I have something, if it’s relevant, I’ll share it with you. But let’s be clear here—I don’t work for you, and I sure as hell don’t answer to you. I’m the friggin’ Master of the City, and I don’t give a damn who likes it or doesn’t like it. If I need to square off against you, Lilith, or the whole cast of Vampire Diaries to protect my city, I will.”