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

by John G. Hartness

He dropped his pistol and jumped backward into a back handspring, a gymnastic move I didn’t expect out of the Lynyrd Skynyrd reject. He landed upright and grinned at me, then held out his hands and made a “come at me” gesture. I looked around the room at the assembled vampires, and saw four pairs of fangs grinning back at me. The two I’d shot were already on their feet, back in the fight quicker than I expected.

  “Get him,” Gator said in a low growl, and that’s when I realized his “come and get me” gesture had really been for the four big vampires charging me.

  I counted on them not fighting together very often, or in tight spaces, to be in my favor, and I stepped into the charge of the lead vampire. I ducked under his haymaker and gave him a hip toss into one of the other vampires. They both went down in a heap, and I turned my attention to the other two for a second. Punches flickered at my face almost faster than the human eye could see, and I blocked every one. I had a grimy little vamp of about a hundred sixty pounds to my left and a much bigger biker, at least six feet tall and two hundred twenty, on my right. I tried to steer the big guy into the little guy but finally just bull-rushed the smaller vampire, knocking him to the floor. I picked him up and threw him like a lawn dart at the big vampire, but since his head was too blunt, I didn’t do any real damage.

  I did knock the two of them to the ground just in time to turn my attention to the other two vampires, who were struggling to their feet. First to come at me was a tall Latino vampire with a shaved head and goatee, plus a pair of brass knuckles on each fist. Brass knuckles are a good way to break your hand if you don’t know how to use them, but put them on a vampire, and you’ve got a skull fracture with legs. Knucks took a big swing at me, which I dropped to one knee to avoid. That put me in the perfect vantage point to draw my KA-BAR from my boot and stab him. In the junk. He let out a high-pitched shriek as I buried seven inches of U.S.-made steel in his crotch.

  I stood up, knife dripping blood, and locked eyes with my last standing attacker. “You still want some?” I asked.

  He didn’t speak, just lunged at me. I took that as a yes then ducked under his outstretched arms, spun around him to the left, and wrapped my arm around his throat. I drew the KA-BAR across his throat with enough force to sever his head and let his body drop lifeless to the floor next to his newly castrated friend. I held the head by its blonde ponytail and swung it at the smaller vampire, who had recovered from being tossed at his buddy and was trying to sneak up on me to plant a stake in my ribs. The disembodied head impacted the still-embodied head on the left temple, and the living vampire’s eyes rolled back in his head as he slumped to the ground, out cold. I spun the head around by the ponytail a couple times and flung it at the bigger vampire, who had just regained his feet.

  He caught the head, then realized what he was holding and dropped it like a hot potato. That second’s distraction was all I needed to get in front of him and bury a stake in his chest. He slumped to the ground, and I turned back to Gator.

  “You got two guys left, Gator. Y’all want to keep dying, or you want to face justice like a man?”

  “I’m nothing like a man, you idiot. That’s always been your problem—you’re still too much like them. You don’t get it. We’re not human. We’re the next level. Humans are just there for food and to run our daytime errands. We rule the night!”

  “You think you rule the night?” came a new voice from the garage door. Marcus Owen stood there, eight or so thugs standing beside him, all holding various assault rifles and submachine guns. Owen had a shotgun on his shoulder, balanced with the careful ease of a man who’s seen more than his fair share of violence.

  “And you, Black. You think you rule this city? Let me tell you a few things.” Owen stepped into the room, his men fanning out to cover all the vampires. I felt a little flattered that he put two goons on me until I realized that meant he put me in the same category as the Bloods, who he was probably here to kill.

  “This is my city, you bloodsucking pieces of shit,” Owen looked even larger with the shotgun held in one massive hand. He moved through the wreckage of the Bloods’ clubhouse like a monarch, untouched by the dust and rubble around him, to stop in front of me. “I don’t know who really took out Gordon Tiram, but you aren’t man enough to run a tenth of his empire. I’ve watched you, Black. You bumble through and try to coast on smart remarks and a goofy smile, but that doesn’t cut it where I live. I deal with real money and real dangerous people. The kind of stuff you wouldn’t understand even if I thought you were worth explaining it to.”

  I thought for a minute about asking Owen how many demons he’d faced or how many times he’d saved the world from going to hell, literally, but thought better of it. I’m pretty sure he still didn’t believe in vampires, bloodsucker comments aside.

  Owen went on, turning his attention to Gator. “And you. I don’t know who that woman with the hardware store was, but I don’t know anything about her. And for something more than twenty years ago, you killed my daughter. My sweet baby girl, who never hurt another soul, and you cut her open like she was a side of meat!” He was in front of Gator now, screaming. One tear rolled down the big man’s face, and I almost felt bad for him.

  Until Gator opened his mouth and took us from “bad” to “worse.”

  Chapter 26

  “DON’T FORGET THE month I was banging her before I cut your little whore daughter’s throat. And then there’s the money she helped me steal from you. I wouldn’t want you to forget about that.”

  Owen’s knuckles turned white on the shotgun, and I thought he was going to blow Gator’s head off right then, but he just jabbed the barrel into Gator’s scrawny midsection, then when the biker doubled over, Owen cracked him across the skull with the butt of the gun. Gator dropped to the floor, and Owen spent the next two minutes stomping a mudhole in his ass and then walking it dry.

  By the time the crime boss had tired of kicking, stomping, and swearing at Gator, his Italian shoes were covered in blood, as were his suit pants. A few drops spattered his shirt and tie, but it mostly stopped below the waist, where it barely registered on his charcoal pants.

  Owen turned back to me. “Now, what are we going to do about you?”

  “Buy me a drink and send me on my merry way?” I quipped.

  Owen didn’t seem amused. I had all but decided his sense of humor was surgically removed, when he said something hilarious. “Why don’t you come work for me?” he asked, standing right in front of me. That was a mistake, because when I brayed with laughter, I spit on him just a little. It was totally unintentional, but I think that coupled with the whole laughing in his face thing, it might have ticked him off.

  Owen turned more shades of red than Crayola ever imagined and drew back his shotgun to start beating me into pudding, but I had no intention of letting that happen. I stepped right, grabbed the nearest thug, and tossed him into the goon who was standing on my left. They were decent security, I’m sure—big guys, black suits with conspicuous bulges under their arms, shaved heads, goatees, the whole uniform. Problem is, they were human. I haven’t been human for decades, and I’m fast. They had about as much chance of keeping me in place as the little dude trying to bail out the Titanic.

  Owen turned his shotgun on me, and I reached deep into my reserves to get out of the way in time. Usually, when I try to pour on extra speed, it’s just like when I was human—I dig a little deeper, push my muscles a little harder, force myself that last inch to my natural limit. Not this time. This was different.

  This time, when I reached for more power, more speed, I reached past myself. I felt my consciousness stretch outside my body and tap into the energy all around me. Suddenly there was a reservoir of power for me to draw on that I’d never known about before. In an instant I was faster than I’d ever dreamed I could be, my senses sharpened past even the supernatural vamp-senses I was used to, and my strength was doubled, tripled even. I was the best me I had ever imagined, and there was more power to pull from if
I needed it, like I was surrounded by energy that was mine for the taking.

  I poured on my newfound speed and stepped up beside Owen before he could pull the trigger. I snatched the shotgun out of his hand but might have used a little more force than I expected, because the ring on his trigger finger caught on the guard, and when I yanked the gun from his hand, the finger came with it. I didn’t mind. He’d been a little too quick to use that finger over the years anyway.

  The second I moved and distracted Owen’s goons, the rest of the Bloods took that as a signal to do the same. Except instead of “distracted” substitute the word “eat.” The bikers disarmed the human thugs in less than a second and turned the clubhouse into an all-you-can-eat Bad Guy Buffet quicker than a cop responds to a holdup at a doughnut shop. I watched Owen drop to his knees, clutching the stump of his index finger, then looked back at his two nearest henchmen. They were struggling to their feet, drawing pistols and looking around for something to shoot.

  “That’s probably a terrible idea,” I said. “You should take your boss to the hospital so he can get that finger looked at. Then leave him there before the police arrive. Because they’re all looking for him, and he’s a lot safer with them than he is here. Don’t you think? I mean, you can give it a shot if you like. There’s two of you, and what, a fistful of vampires? Shouldn’t be a problem, except they’ve all fed recently, so they’re super-strong. And they just killed six of your friends, so they’re obviously capable. But you be you, boo-boo. Make your own decisions. Go for it.”

  The smaller of the two thugs, the one nearer to two-fifty than three hundred pounds of muscle, nodded to me and scurried over to where Owen knelt on the floor.

  “We’re gonna get you out of here, boss. Don’t you worry none.”

  Owen let the thug guide him by his elbow to the door, where he turned and glared at me. He opened his mouth to say something, but I blurred into motion and crossed the room to stand right in front of him in between the time he drew breath and he could get a word out.

  “If so much as a syllable comes out of your mouth, I will rip off your head and piss down your neck. I’m giving you one chance to see the sun come up, and if you’re too stupid to take it, that’s on you. So what’s it gonna be, Owen? You gonna threaten me, or you gonna live out the night?” I stood there, inches away from his face, with my fangs fully extended and my eyes never wavering from his. I wasn’t bluffing. I wasn’t joking. I wasn’t even the tiniest bit uncertain. At that moment, I was 100 percent the Master of the City, and Owen could see it in my eyes.

  He held my gaze for countless seconds, then I watched all the fight go out of him. He sagged in the arms of his goons and let them half carry him to the door and whatever vehicle they had waiting outside. I turned to the remnants of the Stanleyville Bloods, once a rockin’ and rollin’ bunch of badass biker-vampires, now three guys who looked like burned-out refugees from a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, and Gator, who was busy pulling himself back together, literally, on the concrete floor.

  I was actually a little happy to see that two of the surviving vampires were Jacob with No Nickname and Stuart, the Biker Formerly Known as Grizzly. The third one standing was skinny, with a long handlebar mustache, tattered jeans, and blond hair that might have last been clean when he rode through a rainstorm six months ago. I walked over to Mustache Guy and looked him up and down.

  “Looks like you’re one of the last surviving members of the Stanleyville Bloods,” I said.

  “Yup,” he replied in the tone of the perpetually baked.

  “You gonna give me any trouble?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he drawled.

  “So you three swear fealty to me as Master of the City and promise to honor whatever agreements we set in place and not be a pain in my ass?” Mustache, Stuart, and Jacob all nodded and made the appropriate noises of agreement.

  “Good,” I said. I walked to the wall, pulled a pool cue off the rack that hung there, and turned to Gator. He’d managed to make it up on his knees but still looked like ten miles of bad road from the beating Owen gave him.

  “Gator, as Master of the City, I can’t have vampires openly killing humans. That’s bad for business and bad for all our continued survival. So, sorry, but there’s only one penalty for this.” I snapped the pool cue in half and shoved one end through Gator’s heart. He dropped onto his side, true-dead.

  As the stake pierced his heart, a grey mist issued from his eyes and mouth, vanishing almost before I could be sure I saw it. But I did, and that’s when a lot of things clicked into place. The sluagh possessing Gator had led him to cause as much havoc as possible—the personal beef with Owen was just a bonus. Seemed like a lot of the things causing me problems since I’d become Master had those nasty grey ghosts riding around in their heads, and that made everything point back to one person with a grudge against me and a ton of mystical power at her disposal.

  I filed that away in my “deal with it after sunset” file and turned my attention back to Jacob, my newly appointed gang leader.

  “You guys figure out how to get this place cleaned up and all the dead disposed of. Do not let any of Owen’s thugs wake up as vampires. Everyone that’s dead in here tonight stays dead. I know there are a lot more bikes than biker-vampires right now, but they are not what I am looking for to fill our numbers, do you understand that?”

  Jacob nodded, and we shook hands. I walked out the building and across the street to my car. I slid in behind the wheel and looked at the clock. I had about twenty minutes to make the drive home before I burst into flames. Just another normal night, I guess. I put the car in drive and headed north, racing the sun.

  Chapter 27

  “CUTTING IT PRETTY close there, boss,” Abby said as I stepped into the basement. Then she got a good look at me and said, “Holy shit, Jimmy, what happened to you?”

  I was a little confused, then I looked down at my clothes. In all the fracas at the Bloods’ clubhouse I didn’t notice exactly what kind of havoc was wreaked upon my wardrobe. My shirt was stiff with dried blood, a fair bit of it not my own, but some of it definitely corresponded to rips and holes in my jacket, shirt, and chest. I poked my index finger through a couple of holes in my duster and wiggled them at her.

  “I guess I got shot at a lot,” I said. I stripped off the duster and my T-shirt and tossed them into a nearby garbage can. “Anything clean in here?” I asked as I walked toward the small laundry room.

  “There are clean shirts and pants in the dryer, sir. I’m sorry, if I’d known you were in need of clothing I would have had a change waiting for you at the door. If you’ll tell me what you need, I’ll get it from your room right away,” William said as he came in from the small kitchenette with a bag of blood and a Miller Lite on a tray.

  I took the beer from him and drained it in one long pull, then cocked an eye at the blood. “Is that for me?” He nodded, and I tore into it, feeling the rejuvenating qualities warring with the natural sleepiness sunrise was bringing on.

  “Thanks,” I said, dropping the empty on the tray next to the empty Miller bottle. “I’m good with just a fresh T-shirt and maybe a towel to sit on so I don’t wreck the upholstery.”

  “Again,” Abby added from her place on the couch. She was tapping away at her tablet computer like her life depended on it, so either she was researching the hell out of something, or there was an update to Plants vs. Zombies.

  “Again,” I agreed. I went into the laundry room and pulled out a vintage Ricky Steamboat T-shirt and grabbed a towel. I spread the towel on the couch and sat down, motioning William to sit. “Chill out, buddy. You don’t have to wait on me hand and foot. You’re a little more important to this operation than just stepping and fetching.”

  “Thank you, sir. But exactly what happened? You were going to deal with Gator, but first you said you were going to . . . church?” William asked.

  “Yeah, I meant to ask about that. Is the church still standing?” Abby looked at me over her tablet.<
br />
  “You knew he’d be there?” My voice was flat, but I wasn’t really pissed. Much.

  “I knew there was a good chance. My sources say he goes there at least every other night. I didn’t know what time, but I figured there was a better than even chance you two would run into each other.”

  “And you didn’t think that was important enough to tell me?”

  “Sure I did, but I thought if I told you, you might be an idiot and not go. And you needed to go talk to Mike.” Abby put her tablet down and sat up on the couch. She put her elbows on her knees and leaned forward, looking me straight in the eye.

  “Mike’s dead,” I said, very much not looking her in the eye.

  “Changes nothing,” she replied. “Everybody in this room is dead, but it doesn’t mean we’re not useful.”

  “Mike’s not like us. He’s really dead.”

  “You never said gone.” She pointed out.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, leaning back. “I talked to Mike, who didn’t talk back, and it was still helpful. And I saw Greg, and we didn’t try to kill each other, so that was good.”

  “So then how did you get all the blood all over you?” Abby asked.

  I looked over at William, who shrugged. “You didn’t tell her?” I asked.

  “You didn’t tell me to tell her, so I didn’t tell her,” he pointed out.

  I looked back at Abby. “I settled accounts with the Bloods. And with Owen.” William’s eyes widened at that last part.

  Abby was motionless for a few seconds then stood up, walked over to the fridge, grabbed three beers, and came back to the couch. She handed out the beers, took a long sip of hers, and then sat.

  “Let’s revisit this. You went after the Bloods and Owen by yourself?” she asked.

  “Technically, I just went after the Bloods by myself. Owen showed up later of his own accord. But since he was there, I dealt with him, too.”

  “And you’re not dead?” Abby asked.