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

by John G. Hartness

  Cassandra Owen had changed her look since the photo the kidnappers showed as proof of life on Day One of what I was coming to think of as “the Lindbergh baby meets Patty Hearst.” The cute little private-school girl of just a few days ago was gone, replaced by a gum-smacking teen with badly dyed black and blue hair, wearing a leather corset under her leather jacket over her leather pants, with her hair teased out and more makeup than a Lady Gaga impersonator. A stud sparkled in her nose, and a couple of rings glittered in her eyebrow. If it weren’t for her eyes and the same gold cross around her neck, I don’t know that I would have recognized her.

  The voice that came over the stadium speakers was light, airy, and 100 percent cruelty. “Hi, Daddy! It’s me, your darling little Cassie. I just wanted to tell you thank you sooooo much for the wedding present. I really appreciate it. Oh, you didn’t mean for that big bag full of money to be for me? Well, just like so many things, Daddy dearest, I knew more about it than you gave me credit for. Just like I knew about all the ‘business’ you were doing when you didn’t quite have the office door closed.”

  The younger, and perhaps more dangerous, member of the Owen clan went silent, and we watched as she just sat grinning into the camera. After a few seconds, her father’s voice came over the sound system. “I don’t care how much it costs, I want that building to pass inspection tomorrow. Are we clear? Do I have to remind you where that boat in your yard came from? Do I have to mention how expensive tuition is at that private school your son loves so much?”

  Another voice came on, “No. Mr. Owen. That won’t be necessary.”

  “Son of a bitch,” McDaniel said. “That’s the chief building inspector for the city.”

  Owen’s voice came back on. “Good. Then take your money and get out, you useless sack of shit.”

  “How’d you like that one, Daddy? You thought I was in the dining room doing my calculus, when I was sitting right outside your office with my phone under the door. Sometimes I even got video of your meetings, like this one where you had to replace the carpets the next day.”

  I reached for McDaniel’s walkie. “Nester, have your Taser in one hand and cuffs in the other. I think you’re about to make an arrest.”

  A grainy cell-phone video replaced the image of Cassandra on the screen, and we were treated to an image of Owen and his chief of security flanking a small bald man. There was no talking on this one, just a little bit of crying before Owen wrapped his hands around the little man’s neck and started to squeeze. The security chief stepped forward and held the man’s arms while Owen choked him to death, and Cassandra recorded every second of it.

  “He was a bad man, Daddy, but I don’t think you should kill people. That’s pretty bad, too. As a matter of fact, you did a lot of bad things to a lot of people, and I don’t think I want to live with you anymore. That’s why my new boyfriend and I are going to fly to Las Vegas tonight with your money, and we’re going to get married!”

  I could see Owen crumple from my spot in the tunnel, and Nester’s knees almost buckled trying to steer the big man into a seat on the cart. He didn’t quite manage, just helped Owen to a kneeling position beside the cart. He took a second to secure Owen’s left wrist to the roll cage of the cart with his handcuffs, then stepped back as the big man started to cuss and thrash about.

  A new face appeared on the screen and any hopes I had of it being a mundane police problem went right out the window. A greasy-haired rocker who looked about twenty-five and stuck in an Allman Brothers concert came into the shot, and my heart sank. Cassandra Owen’s boyfriend was none other than my old buddy Gator, leader of the Stanleyville Bloods and about as likely to marry little Cassandra as I was to join the Olympic beach volleyball team.

  Chapter 19

  “WELL, HEY THERE, Pops. Is it okay if I call you Pops, since we’re going to be related pretty soon? Or should I call you Dad? You like Dad better? How about murderer, you like murderer? ’Cause that’s what you are, you fat sack of shit. You’re a murdering bastard, and tonight’s the night you pay.”

  “What have I ever done to you, you piece of trash?” Owen’s bellow could be heard all over the stadium.

  “You don’t even remember the woman who owned a hardware store about where one of those end zones sits now, do you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned to Cassie and said, “See, your dad got wind of the location for this beautiful football stadium, and he started buying up businesses around the site. But this one lady, she didn’t want to sell. The little hardware store had been her grandfather’s, then her dad’s, then she was going to run it with her husband, and raise kids to run it when they were gone.

  “But your daddy decided he wanted to make a lot of money selling the land her store was on, so he tried to buy it from her. And when she didn’t sell, he tried to scare her. And when she didn’t scare, he started breaking things. And when she still wouldn’t, he burned the store to the ground, with her inside. And her husband, he never really got over it. So when a monster came to him in the dark one night and offered him strength, and money, and enough power to get his revenge if he was patient, he took the monster’s deal. So he became a monster, and he was patient, and finally, thanks to a stupid girl with bad taste in men wanting to walk on the wild side, he found his chance.” Gator smiled at the camera and held up a cell phone. He pushed a couple of buttons, then looked up again.

  “You took my world from me a long time ago, Owen, and starting tonight I’m going to take yours.”

  A series of explosions sounded from the blocks around the stadium, and the radios of every cop in the building went off simultaneously. Owen’s cell phone rang, and every one of his goons in the stadium entrance around me grabbed their phones and started texting frantically.

  “Those explosions? Those are your cars in the parking lot. And a couple of warehouses down on Mint Street where you ran underground casinos. They’re nothing but rubble now, fat man, just like you’re gonna be when I’m through with you. I’ve been a patient man, Owen, but I will have justice. I’ve waited for this night for a long time, Owen, and I’m not just going to send you to prison for what’s on these videos in the press box, I’m going to send you to prison a broken man, with nothing left to live for.”

  “Gator, baby, what are you talking about? What are you saying? This whole thing—”

  “Has been nothing but me using you to get back at your daddy? Yeah, that’s it, sweetheart. You’re nothing more than a means to an end. A really nice means, but all that’s over now. Say good night to daddy, little girl.” He turned Cassie to face the camera, pulled a knife from his belt, and cut her throat from ear to ear. His vampire strength meant that he went deep, too. She didn’t have a chance. Gator sliced through both carotid arteries and her jugular. Cassandra Owen was dead before she hit the floor.

  “Now that the messy part is out of the way, my boys are headed to pick you up and bring you to me. Officer, I wouldn’t suggest that you interfere. I’ve got no gripe with you, but I will kill you deader than yesterday’s lunch if you get in our way.”

  I watched as a half dozen vampires in jean jacket vests with “Stanleyville Bloods” rocker panels on the back and fanged skull logos in the center ran into the bowl of the stadium. A pickup truck with another pair of vampires roared onto the field from the side opposite me and McDaniel, and I took off to intercept the bad guys before Nester came down with a bad case of dead. I’d spent too much time housebreaking that kid for him to play hero against a bunch of vampires on account of a shitbag like Owen and an inflated sense of duty.

  I keyed my radio. “McDaniel, if your guys can shoot a few of those new arrivals, it would be very much appreciated.” I knew the snipers probably wouldn’t kill a vampire, but they should slow them down a lot, and maybe I’d get lucky and one of them would blow a biker-vamp’s head off.

  I was about halfway to the golf cart when I heard an engine roaring up behind me. I veered off to the right as a white-and-blue Fo
rd Escape with “CMPD” on the side roared past and pulled between the pickup truck and the golf cart. Three giant men in tailored suits poured out with MP5 submachine guns in hand. Looked like Owen’s men had commandeered a cop car when their Suburbans got turned into recycling. The driver made a beeline for Owen, a pair of bolt cutters in his hands instead of a gun. He stopped with Nester’s gun in his face, and I poured on the speed before bad things happened. More bad things, that is.

  “I can’t let you take this prisoner, sir.” Nester said, his voice flat and his hand steady. The boy had spine, I’ll give him that, if maybe not a ton of brains.

  “Yeah, you can,” I said, coming up behind Nester and moving his arm to point at the oncoming pickup. “Shoot those guys. These guys are lower on the priority list for the moment.”

  Nester turned to me, his brows knit. “What are you talking about? He’s a murderer. You saw the video!”

  “Detective, everybody on this football field, with the probable exception of you, is a murderer. Between the two of us, we can either take out the human murderers and thereby help the vampire murderers, or we can let the human murderers go and fight the vampire murderers, hoping that we can use our advanced technology to track down the humans later. Not to mention the fact that we know where the humans’ head honcho lives.”

  “What about you?” Nester asked.

  “What about me?”

  “You said everybody here but me was a murderer. Does that include you?” Shit. I hate smart humans. It’s like having your lunch talk back to you, just damned unnerving. I tried not to think about the morning I woke up dead and sated my first vampire thirst by killing my roommate and best friend.

  “Undead soul-sucking creature of the night, remember? I’m no saint. Mikey, but I’m the best option you’ve got right now.” I motioned for the thug with the bolt cutters to get to work, and he freed Owen from the cart.

  Owen stood and stepped up until our chests were almost touching. “That was my little girl, Black. My little girl, that your vampire just killed. Your man did me a great wrong tonight, and you have forty-eight hours to bring me his head or I will declare war on the supernatural beings of this city. You make this right, Master, or I will.”

  We were so close our noses almost touched. It would have been funny if there hadn’t been so many people around that wanted to kill me. “Understand one thing, you stupid bastard. I had nothing to do with that Joe Dirt lookalike killing your daughter, and if you try to come after me or anyone I care about for this, I will rain hell down upon you the likes of which you have only dreamed about. You’re right, I am the Master of this city, and I will deal with Gator. Now go hide somewhere while the grown-ups clean up your mess.” I shoved him toward the Ford Escape, and his men bundled him into the SUV and roared off back the way they came. They passed a couple of police cruisers headed our way, but there was no way they were getting to us in time.

  I flipped the golf cart on its side and spun it around to face the oncoming vampires. They had slowed considerably when I hit the field, and the police snipers and small arms fire from Owen’s men had knocked a few of them down and taken out the pickup, but they were all up and headed our way again. I handed my Glock to Nester and said, “Aim for the head or heart if you can.”

  “I have my service weapon, sir.”

  “Yeah, but unless the department has started issuing silver-tipped hollowpoints, mine will do better.” I handed him two spare magazines and drew my KA-BAR. I counted nine vampires in varying degrees of well-being, and figured I could take out at least six before they overwhelmed me.

  The first three hit us in a wave, switching from normal speed to vamp-speed and suddenly appearing right in front of us. Nester started, and his first couple of shots went high, but I was able to keep an eye on them and shook a stake loose under my left sleeve, giving the first one to arrive an unpleasant welcome. I left the silver stake smoking in his chest as he dropped to the turf, true-dead. My knife cut almost all the way through the second one’s neck, and a quick two shots to the forehead from Nester ended his night.

  The third one hung back, then vaulted the golf cart and tackled me while we were still dealing with his second buddy. I hit the turf, but I was ready for it and rolled backward, using one leg to propel the vampire high over my head. He flipped a good twenty feet and landed on all fours, sprinting back at me like an Olympic track star, only way faster. I met his charge with a foot to the chest, and his head and neck slammed into the turf. I jabbed down with my KA-BAR, hoping to pulp his heart with the blade and do a reasonable imitation of a stake, but he rolled out of the way and hopped to his feet.

  He rushed me again, and I heard shots from beside me, so no help was coming from Nester. Rifle fire boomed out across the stadium from the snipers, their rolling thunder a contrast to the flat crack of small arms fire. An arm across my throat brought my attention rushing back to the issue at hand, and I looked front. My assailant was turned young, and he fought like he hadn’t been a vampire long enough to lose the muscle memory of his human body. Human reaction was slow, so I thought I might be able to turn that to my advantage. He loomed, or tried to loom over me, fangs bared like he wanted to bite me.

  “Did you miss the strength, speed, and milky-white complexion?” I asked him. He started, and pulled back a hair, looking at me in confusion. “I’m a vampire, you idiot, my blood is poison to you!” It’s not, but we don’t go around biting one another, so I was counting on him not knowing that. Sure enough, he pulled back even more, and I had room to get my KA-BAR between us. I jabbed it in under his jaw, aiming straight up, and saw the light go out of his eyes when I hit brain, and spun the blade around like an eggbeater before I pulled it out.

  I grabbed the collapsing vampire by the back of the head and point of the jaw and gave a hard twist while pulling up. The head came off in my hands with a sickening, wet crunch, like someone mashing a fistful of wet cereal. I grabbed the head by its ponytail and swung it around a couple times, then let it go. The dead vampire’s head hit a gang member sneaking up on Nester and knocked him to the ground. I stomped his melon flat and turned to find our next attacker. Nester was pouring bullets into the chest of a huge vampire standing just on the opposite side of the golf cart. The bullets were having no effect, and the vampire was just standing there, laughing.

  “Stupid human, we can wear Kevlar, too,” the vampire said, pounding his chest. I put my hands on the roof of the overturned golf cart, vaulted up like I saw an Olympic gymnast do on a pommel horse, but with far less grace, and planted both feet in the vampire’s jaw. He went down, and I hit the ground next to him, stabbing sideways with my KA-BAR. The knife hit nothing but turf, as the vampire rolled out of the way and got to his feet first, giving me a brutal kick to the ribs as I tried to stand.

  “That was stupid, skinny man. Now Bear’s gonna have to break you.” I glanced up at the giant of a vampire reaching down for me and decided he certainly earned the moniker. Bear was a solid six and a half feet tall and well on the road to three hundred pounds, if he wasn’t already there. He wore jeans, engineer boots, and a sleeveless T-shirt. It had probably started life with sleeves, but he flexed once, and they just evaporated or something. He was also rocking the biker beard and ponytail, and there were enough tufts of hair poking out of his T-shirt to knit socks with. In short, he deserved to be called Bear. He’d probably been a pretty formidable human, and then he got turned into a vampire, which made him ridiculously strong.

  He picked me up by one leg, and my neck and was half a second from snapping me into multiple pieces over his knee when his head jerked back, and he froze. I looked down and saw a hole appear over his left eye, and then the back of his head disappeared. Half a heartbeat later, a boom echoed through the stadium. This wasn’t the little thunder of a cop’s .308 rifle; this was the shock and awe of a long-range rifle taking out a target from a very long way away. The light winked out in Bear’s eyes, and the giant vampire fell to the turf. With me on top of h
im.

  I’m pretty sure my knee landed in a puddle of Bear-brain, but I didn’t care. My mystery sniper had come through again, and I was still alive. Well, relatively speaking. I got to my feet and looked around.

  “Who’s next, bitches?” I said, all bravado now that I knew I had fifty-caliber backup.

  Chapter 20

  I LOOKED AROUND the stadium, but the only things moving were human. The rest of the Bloods had either fled or fallen to Nester, me, the sniper, or McDaniel’s SWAT team. “It looks like they’re gone,” I said into my walkie-talkie.

  “Yeah, they all bolted. Get back here. We’ve got to distribute assets and deal with this shit.” McDaniel said.

  I flipped the golf cart back onto its wheels and sat in the passenger seat.

  “Home, James.” I waved a hand toward the tunnel we’d come out of.

  Nester stood by the cart for a second, then got in and turned the key. The little electric motor hummed to life. “Ummm, Jimmy?”

  “Go ahead, kid. Ask.”

  “That whole thing about being a murderer earlier, that was just to look tough in front of the bad guys, right?”

  “Look, Mike, I’m gonna be straight with you. I’ve killed people. A fair number of people, starting with Greg.”

  “Yeah, but that was—”

  “It doesn’t matter that killing Greg was an accident. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know that fat guy in Spartanburg had a heart condition and would drop dead in his tracks the second he saw my fangs. It doesn’t matter that most of the people I’ve killed were already dead when they started the fight or they weren’t human or they were trying to kill me. What matters is that every life you take, no matter how nasty somebody is, that affects you. So a lot of days I don’t think there’s all that much difference between me and Owen.”