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

by John G. Hartness

  “Of course.” I could see on his face that he thought he understood what I was saying, but it was just as clear that he didn’t get it. He still thought this was some kind of capes and spandex superhero comic, but it was a lot more Watchmen than Justice League, and not all the bad guys wore black costumes and had oily mustaches.

  “Look, I try to do the right thing. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes I fall flat on my face. But I keep trying, every day, to be a better person than I was the day before. An old friend taught me that. He’s gone now, but I feel like as long as I hold on to that piece of advice, I’m keeping him alive.”

  “I think I understand,” Nester said. “I guess I just didn’t expect . . .” I waved him off.

  “I’m not just a pretty face, kid. Don’t discount my stunning good looks, but I really am more than that.” We pulled the golf cart into the entrance tunnel, where McDaniel stood shouting into a cell phone.

  “I don’t care what it costs, you get every son of a bitch with a badge on the streets tonight, or we aren’t going to have a city to patrol in the morning!” He pressed a button on the screen and turned to us. “So what the hell is this all about?”

  “All I know is what we all just saw on the monitors and scoreboard. Gator’s got a grudge against Owen, and just killed his daughter over it.”

  “Who is this Gator, and why haven’t I ever heard of him?” McDaniel asked.

  “The Bloods have always been more of a nuisance than anything else. A little weed, a few guns here and there, maybe a little fighting, but nothing really serious. It looks like Gator flew under the radar until he could get close enough to Owen to take him down,” I said.

  “How do you know so much about this gang that I’ve never heard of?” McDaniel, trained investigator, put two and two together and didn’t arrive at five.

  “They might or might not have been under my purview,” I hedged.

  “So they’re vampires? Sonofabitch!” McDaniel kicked a discarded water bottle.

  “Not only are they vampires”—Paulson’s voice came from the shadows—“but Mr. Black in his oh-so-finite wisdom had a meeting with Gator mere days ago where he had an opportunity to kill the gang leader and prevent this entire situation from coming to pass.” He stepped out and walked over to where McDaniel, Nester, and I stood. “This is the final straw, Mr. Black. As Evaluator for the High Council of Vampires, I hereby strip you of your title of Master of the City for overwhelming ineptitude. I have recommended that the Council place me in your position until such time as a suitable replacement candidate can be located.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll look real hard,” I spat. “Lieutenant, you’re going to want to get yourself and all your men out of here, real fast.”

  “What’s going on here, Black?” McDaniel asked.

  “Mr. Paulson was sent here to see if I was tough enough to be the Boss Vampire. He’s decided that I’m not, so we’re going to fight it out. Winner takes Charlotte. Loser gets a set of steak knives. No, wait. That’s wrong. But it is something to do with steak. Oh, right. Loser gets staked.”

  “We’ll stay here and help you,” Nester said. “You’re our guy, no matter what some council thinks.”

  “Thanks, Mikey, but I either fight this fight here and now, or I keep fighting it every time somebody thinks I’m weak enough to overthrow. Now get out of here, all of you!” To their credit, they got out. Every cop in the staging area of the stadium was gone in less than two minutes.

  I turned back to Paulson, who was watching the humans’ departure with a thin smile on his face. “Bring it, nancy-boy.”

  “In accordance with our rules and tradition, the dismissed Master may choose to meet the sun rather than fight. That would give you time to say your good-byes.”

  “Let’s see, I can walk off into the sunrise and turn into a pile of dust, or I can do what I’ve been dying to since you first stepped your perfect wing tips into my life, and I can kick your ass back across the pond? Yeah, I’ll take the part where I get to kill you.”

  “I have to admit, I hoped you would say that,” the pompous little vampire said. “I’ve wanted to pound your teeth down your throat since the second I first laid eyes on you.”

  “Well, holy shit, Paulson, you may have finally found the one thing we agree on, because I’ve wanted to break you into little pieces since the first time you opened your mouth.” I cracked my knuckles and rolled my head from side to side to loosen up the muscles there.

  “Tradition dictates that I have the privilege of selecting both the weapons we shall use and the location of our duel. I believe that your provincial—”

  I’d had enough. In the past couple of weeks I’d seen an entire group of relatively innocent vampires slaughtered as pawns in a giant game of metaphysical chess, taken out the master vampire of a city, managed to alienate my best friend and my girlfriend, buried another one of my very few friends, taken over a job I felt unsuited for every minute of every night, botched a ransom drop, battled a demon, killed a bunch of giant snake-men, opened up a can of whoop-ass on a werewolf, and thrown down with a bunch of renegade biker-trash vampires who supposedly worked for me. Listening to one more word from the arrogant little shitbird with perfect hair and an attitude the size of Cleveland was just beyond the pale for me.

  So I hit him. I drew back and nailed him in the mouth with a right hook that came from somewhere around Florida. My fist smashed his lips so flat against his fangs that his teeth cut clean through his upper lip and sliced my knuckles open. He flew back a good six feet and crashed against a concrete wall, sliding down to sit on the floor, shaking his head like he saw little cartoon birdies circling.

  I charged after him, striking with a knee hard enough to pulverize his skull, but instead turning a cinder block to dust when Paulson moved. I turned to the right, and Paulson stood there, a little wobbly, but still managing to look like he had a stick up his ass. He spat a huge gobbet of blood onto the floor, then turned to me.

  Shit, he’s fast. I did a quick mental inventory. Pistol—gave it to Nester. KA-BAR—stuck between the ribs of a dead vampire. Silver stakes—one lodged in the skull of a vampire and the other knocked loose in the scrap. So inventory—zero. Good times.

  “If that is your preference, unarmed combat will be perfectly acceptable.” He took off his suit coat, but when he went to remove his tie, I grabbed the end of it.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” I said, and jerked him forward, pulling down as I did so. His face cracked into my upswinging knee with a crunch, and I let go of his tie. His head snapped back, he staggered a step backward, and I caught him on the point of the jaw with a front kick that could have landed me a spot on the Rockettes.

  He left his feet again, and once again his rearward progress was halted by a concrete wall. This time I stayed on him, knowing that if I let up for even a second, it would probably be my last. I caught him before he fell and pinned him to the wall with a series of heavy body blows. The noises coming from his ribcage sounded more like a bag of microwave popcorn going nuts than anything that should emanate from a person, but I kept swinging. I put all my pent-up frustration, all my anger at Greg for walking away, all my pain at Mike’s death and Sabrina’s departure—I put it all into my punches and didn’t stop hitting Paulson until my arms got tired.

  I stepped back, looking around for something to use to finish the battered vampire off. Paulson opened his eyes, reached down, and with a sound like a bag of ice hitting a cement floor, pushed all his broken pieces of ribs back into place. Then he gave me a cockeyed grin and said, in a thick accent that sounded a lot more Oliver Twist than Downton Abbey, “That all you got, Yank?”

  With that, he uncorked an uppercut that slammed my jaws together and laid me flat on my back on the concrete. My head hit the floor hard, and my vision blurred. I didn’t know where the next attack was coming from, but knew I didn’t want to be there when it landed, so I flipped up onto my feet only to put my face right where Paulson’
s foot wanted to go. His heel met my cheek bone in a spinning kick, and I went down again, landing on one rubbery knee.

  I caught the next kick under my arm, trapping his ankle against my side. Then I stood up, flinging his leg high and tossing the prissy little vampire into the air. He managed to land on his feet, but this time I was the one throwing kicks. I caught him in the gut with one foot, then stepped in and threw a right hook for his temple. Paulson ducked my punch and landed three quick body blows in succession, each one doing a fair amount of damage. I did plenty of harm of my own, though, pounding on the back of his head and neck while he was hitting me in the ribs.

  We broke apart again, each spitting out blood and pushing broken pieces back into place so our supernatural healing could mend us. I was hurting pretty bad, and if I didn’t feed soon, I wasn’t walking out of that stadium. Paulson didn’t look much better, but he did look better, which worried me.

  “Ready to surrender yet?” I asked through a mouthful of blood.

  He grinned at me across the hall and showed me a face full of red-stained teeth. “I’m just getting started, sonny. How you feelin’?”

  “Like beating an Englishman’s ass would be the best thing I’ve done all week.” I gathered my strength into my legs and dove at Paulson, catching him around the waist in a tackle that would at least get me a second look by the coaches that worked in the building most days. We went down in a heap, and I rained blows on any exposed part of Paulson that I could get a fist or knee on. I got him down into a full mount position and started a ground and pound for real. He covered up his head the best he could, and wriggled around enough that only about a third of my punches connected worth a damn, but that was still enough to pulverize cheekbones and make his orbital sockets into ovals.

  After several seconds and probably a dozen solid head punches, he fell still. I reared back for a coup de grâce, stretching up to my full height for a double-fisted punch guaranteed to turn his brain to jelly, but the second I shifted my weight backward, Paulson sprang to life. He bowed his back into the concrete and snapped both feet forward, locking his legs around my neck and pulling me backward against his knees. I felt every muscle and tendon in my neck stretch as I arched back, back, back in a demented yoga pose destined to pull my head right off my shoulders if I didn’t come up with something creative.

  I started to see spots in front of my eyes from the pain and flailed about with my arms like a drowning man. I felt my left hand brush something, then I realized what it was. I didn’t take time to think about it. I just reached forward and grabbed Paulson’s left ankle with my right hand. Then I reached over the back of my ear and wrapped my fingers around his left kneecap with my left hand. I dug in with every ounce of strength I could muster through the darkness descending on my vision, and I pulled.

  I pulled on his kneecap, and Paulson squeezed all the harder. I yanked, twisting at the same time with my skinny fingers lodged underneath his kneecap, my digits buried in the ligaments that attach the patella to everything around it, and Paulson let out a shriek that I swear broke glass a mile away. He squeezed, and my neck stretched right to the breaking point. He pulled on my neck with his leg lock, and I dug down deep, long past what I thought was the limit of my strength and endurance. He squeezed, and I spent my last burst of energy in one great, twisting yank.

  His kneecap came off in my hand. With a wet ripping sound, I pulled his patella right out through the skin, ligaments and bits of muscle trailing behind like jellyfish legs. Paulson’s legs immediately went slack around my neck, and he shrieked again, rolling away from me and clutching his left leg and screaming.

  I heaved myself to my feet, tossed the fistful of bone and flesh to the side, and staggered over to Paulson. He was rolling around on the floor, screaming and cursing in agony and rage. I knelt down beside his head.

  “That really looks like it hurts. You should get that looked at.” He stopped screaming and just looked at me, his eyes wide with fear. Like I said earlier, I prefer respect, but if I have to rule through fear, I can live with that.

  I went on. “Now I’m going to give you a choice. You can die right here, and I can send you back to the Council in a pizza box, or you can be my messenger boy. Which is it?”

  Paulson glared up at me, still every bit the arrogant bastard he’d been the whole time, and spit right in my face. I didn’t blink, didn’t wipe my face, I just reached down and snapped his neck. His eyes went vacant, and I summoned up the last dregs of my strength, ripping his head from his shoulders with a terrible wet sound. Then I sat back against a wall and called William to pick me up.

  Chapter 21

  “WHAT DO YOU intend to tell the Council?” William asked after he got me settled on a couch in my basement with a six-pack of Miller Lite and a six-pack of O-negative.

  “I think I’m going to tell them to kiss my ass,” I said, punching a straw into a blood bag then twisting the top off a beer. In my battered state, I’m not sure which one tasted better, but the blood certainly had more recuperative qualities. “As a matter of fact, why don’t we call the Council now?”

  William looked shocked, but I waved a hand at him. “Just make the call, William, and when they come on, make sure the camera is tight on Paulson over there.” I pointed to the coffee table, where Paulson’s head was sitting on a platter. I quickly came to understand why people served heads on platters once I brought Paulson home. Heads are messy. There’s all sorts of shit that leaks out of them. None of those leaky bits are good for the upholstery. Thus, the platter.

  “Did you really do what I think you—never mind, I see that you did.” Abby burst into the room through the secret tunnel and came to a halt when she saw Paulson’s head sitting on the platter. “Is that one of the good platters? Because I am totally never eating off that thing again.”

  I didn’t bother reminding her that she was never eating again, because she dissolved into a fit of giggles right at that moment. “What’s funny?” I asked.

  “You put his tie back on!” She said through her laughter. “You beat the shit out of him, cut his head off, and then you put his necktie back on!”

  She was right. I’d combed his hair, too. Except for the heavy reconstruction I’d performed on the bones of his face, Paulson looked just as well-coiffed and pompous as a disembodied head on my coffee table as he had in unlife. Come to think of it, he managed to somehow look condescending in death.

  “I have the Council assembling on a Skype call, sir. Would you like to take it from your desk, or would you like to—”

  “I’ll stay right here, William, thanks,” I said. I didn’t mention that I wasn’t sure I could stand unassisted yet, so I’d better make use of the headrest the couch provided.

  “Abby, since you’re here, I can have a live cameraperson for the first part of this. Would you?” I asked.

  “Sure, what do you want me to do?”

  I explained, and she shook her head at my immaturity, but she also giggled, so I called it a win.

  The Council came on the screen of my tablet, and Abby pointed the screen at the platter holding Paulson’s head, working hard to keep the severed neck out of the shot. As soon as I heard the first mutterings from the assembled elder vampires, I started talking in my worst British accent, which fell somewhere between a drunken Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and a parody of every Coldplay song ever.

  “Good day, lords and ladies,” I chirped. “Pip-pip, cheerio, and all those things us pompous Euro-vamps like to say. I just wanted to call and let you know that I have completed my assessment and not only is James Black a fit Master Vampire for Charlotte, but he’s also the coolest pimp hustler daddy-o I’ve ever encountered, and I want to be just like him when I grow up.”

  I switched to my normal voice. “Oh wait, I can’t grow up, as a matter of fact, I can’t do anything, because I’m just a head on a plate. A head on a plate with perfect hair, but still just a head on a plate.” I motioned for Abby to turn the tablet my way, and I t
ook no small bit of joy from seeing the revulsion on the faces of the Council.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty nasty. You should have seen him before I cleaned him up. Hi, kids, Jimmy Black here, Master Vampire of Charlotte.” I took a swig of beer, then a long sip of blood, then chased that with more beer. “I’m just chilling in my lair after ripping pieces off your pet evaluator until he quit yapping at me. You see, here’s the thing. He didn’t like the way I run things in my city. So he lodged a formal complaint. I took it under advisement, then I dealt with his issues. By ripping his damn head off. Which I will do to every son of a bitch who challenges me, whether it comes from you or from within. Are we clear?”

  “Mr. Black, you must understand that this is—” A vampire I vaguely remembered as Karl started talking, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

  “I don’t have to understand shit. You have to understand two things. One, this is my damn city now, whether you like it or not. Two, I will defend her from any threats, internal or external, with extreme prejudice. Now Paulson was fine as long as he was just being a mouthy, judgmental prick. But when he decided that he needed to be the mouthy judgmental prick in charge, that was when he got put down. So y’all can stay over in Europe, Asia, and wherever the hell else you are and have your little meetings and talk about what a provincial idiot I am and how y’all would handle things much better than I ever will. And that’s fine. I give absolutely zero shits what a bunch of prissy bloodsuckers from across the pond think of me. But hear this, and understand this: anyone or anything that you send against me will come back to you, freight collect, in a series of very small boxes. Are we clear?”

  The vampires all looked uneasy, but no one spoke. Finally a small Asian woman spoke, and I remembered her as Chanchira, basically the boss vamp of all Southeast Asia. “Mr. Black, we at the Council would like to congratulate you on a successful defense of your territory of the Carolinas, North and South. We shall inscribe your name on the rolls of City Masters with all the ceremony due your position. Please repeat after me—”