The Black Knight Chronicles

by John G. Hartness

  His empty plate. His clean, fresh-from-the-kitchen empty plate. What made the scene so bizarre was that there was no food anywhere. The plates were all empty, not a crumb or splash of sauce dirtying up the joint. And all the customers seemed full, or at least seemed to think they were full. I made my way over to where Tiram stood at the host stand near the front door, greeting people and telling them that the restaurant unfortunately was fully committed for the weekend.

  “And honestly, we are booked solid for the rest of the month. If you would like to make a reservation for a weekday evening, I believe we have some openings next month. Our weekends are committed until summer, I hate to say.” He wore a look that told everyone he didn’t really hate to say it at all.

  “And how hungry will your clientele be by then?” I mused as I stood next to him.

  “If someone hadn’t terrorized my entire kitchen staff, tonight’s guests would be dining on grand American cuisine rather than simply thinking they were getting their money’s worth,” he replied, shooting me a dirty look. “Now, please leave my restaurant. You don’t meet the dress code.”

  “Good point. Since I don’t meet the dress code, and the amount of human blood in your wine doesn’t meet the health code, why don’t you loan me an American Express card or two so Greg and I can replenish our wardrobes?” I held out my hand.

  The Master of the City gave me a condescending look, then broke into peals of laughter. “You idiot. You actually pay for things? Just take whatever you want, then tell the cashier you’ve paid for it. I haven’t dealt with currency in three hundred years. We don’t need money, child, we have power. Now, shoo.” He waved us out into the night with a peremptory gesture, and we left.

  Greg and I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Apparently, we’d covered a couple of miles underground because the restaurant was in an upscale retail development south of the college, complete with high-rise condos, a man-made lake and a towering Hilton hotel.

  I looked over at Greg, and said, “Okay, then. Plan stays the same. You go talk with the Wicked Witch of the New South, and I’ll meet you at the comic shop.”

  “How am I supposed to get there?” Greg asked.

  “Well, you can either eat a cabbie or steal a car. I’m going to steal a car. Over there.” I pointed toward the hotel parking lot. “You steal yours somewhere else.”

  “When did we become thieves?” Greg asked, a little whiny.

  “I became a thief shortly after I became dead. You became a thief when the really bad guys burned down our house with all the money in it, kidnapped our friend and blew up our cars.” I was getting tired of explaining things as I felt the seconds tick by. Even if Sabrina had made it through the night alive, there was no guarantee that she’d survive another one. We had to find the Professor and his students, and soon.

  “What do you mean blew up our cars?” Greg was pretty attached to his car, so I’d been holding that tidbit back until he regained a little more strength.

  “Yeah, when they burned up our place, they torched the garage, too. Your ride is a goner. Sorry.” I shrugged.

  “Now, I’m pissed. Your car?”

  “My car was a piece of crap. Of course, it melted. But I didn’t have a decent ride, anyway. I plan to correct that in the immediate future.” I started walking toward the Hilton lot.

  “Hey, Jimmy?” Greg called after me.

  “What?”

  “What are we gonna do about King’s truck? He’d be pretty pissed if you left it there.”

  All visions of swiping a nice Mercedes or Lexus faded from my mind. “I’ll get a cab back to the truck.”

  The night was getting nothing but worse. Not only did I have to drive a pickup full of guns to a comic-book store, I still had no idea where Sabrina was being held. But I was damn sure about to find out, if I had to eat every comic-book nerd in Charlotte to do it.

  Chapter 22

  I pulled into the parking lot beside the comic shop a little after eleven o’clock, and found Greg leaning on the hood of a Porsche convertible. He’d obviously taken the MoC’s advice about upgrading his ride to heart, but he didn’t seem proud of his wheels. When I got closer, I could tell by the look on his face that Anna had told him about Mike’s prognosis, so I did something I never, ever did. I walked up to him, didn’t say a word and gave him a big hug. He and I held each other for a long moment before he pulled away, and we stood there wiping at our eyes.

  “If I hear a single gay vampire joke out of you right now, I swear to God, I’ll stake you in your sleep,” I said once we had our crap relatively together.

  “Deal.” Greg’s voice was still a little thick with emotion.

  I gestured to the back door of the comic shop. “How do you want to do this?”

  “Dude, we’re not talking about a SWAT entry. We’re going into a comic-book store on all-night Game Night to talk to some nerds who happen to be friends of mine. I think we can just walk in.”

  Then, he did just that, pulling the door open and walking in to thunderous cries of nerd appreciation. It was kinda like when Norm walked into the bar on Cheers, only with no beer and lots of Red Bull. I followed him into the brightly lit back room, where about a dozen folding tables were spread out with all kinds of table, role-playing and collectible games in progress. There were nerds of all shapes and sizes scattered around the room, from your classic forty-year-old Star Trek geek who lived in his mother’s basement to the preteen nerdlets playing Yu-Gi-Oh! or some other unpronounceable card game.

  The three guys we needed to talk to were at the head table, moving little lead figurines around in a complicated-looking game. My particular nerddom was always focused in a different genre, so I had no idea what they were up to, but Greg fit right in. He was almost a hero to some of the youngest dorklings, having once won the weekly Magic: The Gathering tournament for four months straight. His streak probably would never have been broken, but we had a zombie thing come up one night, and he missed that week’s game. I wasn’t sure he’d forgiven me for that yet.

  Nick, the shop owner, sat at the head of the table surrounded by books, dice and a laminated, colorful dungeon master’s screen. His screen looked like it was from the original ’70s set, and knowing Nick, it might have been. Nick was pushing fifty, having started the shop back in the eighties in a desperate attempt to avoid getting a real job. Now, thirty years later, the guy with the ponytail and a T-shirt with D&D dice on the front was a successful businessman, although much of that credit belonged to the clean-cut guy beside him.

  Trey was the business guy of the operation, and the one who looked the most out of place in a comic shop. He actually wore shirts with collars most days, but he’d succumbed to the casual-Friday atmosphere and wore a Naval Academy T-shirt.

  Dusty was . . . well, Dusty was an institution more than an employee. He was that skinny guy with the cactus-looking chin beard and an encyclopedic knowledge of comics that was a little creepy in the depth and breadth of it. He knew as much about R. Crumb and Maus as he did about Captain America and Green Lantern, and would happily go for hours on the difference in artistic styles between John Byrne and Neal Adams. Dusty was always working on a project of his own, talking about leaving the store to make his own art, but he still showed up for work every day.

  These were the guys on whom we had pinned our hopes of finding Sabrina. I felt the ball of dread in my stomach grow with every step closer to their gaming table, and it didn’t shrink at all when Nick looked up over his DM screen and shouted, “Greg! Come for my rematch? We’re in the middle of an adventure right now, but go ahead and warm up on the vermin, and I’ll get to you in a couple hours.”

  I was pretty sure he included me in the “vermin” remark, but he’d waved his arm over to where a bunch of kids were playing cards.

  “Nick, I need your help,” Greg said quietly, and the buzz of conversation halted immediately.

  Every head in the place turned to Greg and Nick, as the two superstars of this little univer
se got ready for a team-up. It was like a real-life crossover issue for Charlotte’s nerd set.

  Nick leaned back in his chair, affecting a Godfather posture, and said, “What can I do for you, Greg? Whatever it is, I’m sure we can come to some sort of an . . . arrangement.” He smiled a slow smile, and I remembered Greg mentioning that Nick had been after a few of his more prized comics for the last few years.

  “We don’t have time for this,” I muttered to Greg, keeping my voice out of the range of human hearing.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I did notice one teenager jump a little at the words he shouldn’t have been able to hear. I looked at him, and he ducked his head and started throwing decks of cards into a backpack. Wonder what he is? I thought, and filed his face away for future reference.

  “Be cool. If it looks like he’s going to be a real ass about helping us, you can eat him. But let me try to talk first,” Greg whispered back.

  “Fine, but talk fast. We’re running out of moonlight, and I’m finishing this tonight no matter who I have to kill to do it.”

  “So what do you need, Gregory? I’m in the middle of a new Rogue Mage campaign here.” Nick always used full names when he was being a jerk. I never got it.

  “Is there somewhere we can speak privately?” I asked.

  Nick turned on me what he obviously thought of as his best demeaning stare, the kind of look that made preteen boys quail with fear when questioning the valuation of a comic. It didn’t have a lot of effect on me. Face certain death enough times, especially if you really did end up dead, and normal mortal intimidation techniques just don’t work like they used to.

  “Anything you have to say to me, you may say in front of my minions and my legions of adoring admirers.” Nick made what I was sure looked like a grand gesture in the movie in his mind, but in real life looked like he swung a scrawny arm around his head in a spastic flurry of motion.

  “We’d really rather do this in private,” I insisted.

  “Greg, tell your rude friend that I’m not leaving my game.” Nick folded his arms in front of his equally skinny chest.

  “Okay, pal. Your disaster.” I moved to the front of the room where everyone could see me clearly. “Hey, everybody!” I clapped my hands.

  Every head in the place swiveled around, and all eyes were on me. Über-geeks weren’t that accustomed to being addressed, so when given the opportunity for some attention, they got a little deer-in-the-headlights look about them. I noticed that I felt stronger, like it was less of a strain to mojo that many people. Hmmm, maybe eating faeries and immortal succubi has its privileges.

  When I had everyone’s attention, I said, “You will sleep for the next thirty minutes. You will not notice the loss of time. When you wake up, you will swear off chocolate and drink lots of water for the next six months. Soda will taste like cardboard, and you will have no appetite for sweets or fried food. Except for you three.” I waved my arm at Dusty, Trey and Nick. “You three are off the hook. Now sleep.”

  Every head except for the Three Stooges dropped to the gaming tables with a sound like so many unripe watermelons dropped from a bridge onto a passing truck. I actually knew exactly what that sounded like from a past experience.

  Nick and his cohorts were still awake and aware, and a little freaked out.

  “What was that, some kind of mass hypnosis?” Trey asked.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said.

  “What was the bit about chocolate and fried food?” Dusty asked.

  “I figured if I had the chance to help these poor schmucks get a date for once in their lives, may as well take it,” I replied. “Now, guys, we need your help. I don’t know exactly what Greg has told you about us, and I don’t care. For tonight, we’re in a hurry. An actual life is at risk.”

  They looked back at me blankly, giving me their best ignorant stares, so I knew Greg had spilled the beans.

  “Go ahead, fellas, he knows the deal,” Greg said, and the nerd brigade sprang into their own strange brand of action.

  Nick ran into the store and came back with a backpack and a huge flashlight. Trey whipped out a laptop and fired up a browser window, while Dusty just sat there looking a little confused.

  “I’m ready, team!” Nick announced, brandishing his flashlight like a lightsaber.

  “I think right now we need a little more of Trey’s kind of help and a little less charging blindly into the fight,” Greg said gently.

  Nick looked crestfallen and put his flashlight through his belt.

  I patted Nick on a shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. That’s my first instinct, too. Unfortunately, that’s kinda what got us into this mess.”

  “What am I looking for?” Trey asked, fingers twitching over the keys.

  “We’re looking for a vampire who calls himself Professor Wideham and his gang of bloodsuckers over by the college. We went to their main lair tonight, but it was abandoned. So we need to figure out this guy’s identity and where he might be hiding out,” Greg said, leaning over Trey’s shoulder.

  “Oh, is that all?” Dusty said, coming out of his semi-trance and looking around.

  “What do you mean, is that all?” I asked him. Talking to Dusty was always a little like talking to Rain Man. I never knew whether what came out was going to be pure gold or pure crap, and it usually took a long time to figure out which.

  “I know Dr. Wideham. That guy’s got one of the best Gold and Silver Age collections in the state. He used to come in here all the time on Game Night, but he never played anything, just looked through the back issues for hours. Said it was the only time he could make it into the store. He knows everything there is to know about Silver Age Justice League, and Flash in particular.” Dusty looked pleased with himself, kind of like the look a cat would have when he dropped a dead mouse at his owner’s feet.

  “That’s great, D. But do you know where to find him? Like we said, the frat house was empty.” Greg spoke softly, so as not to spook the savant.

  “Yeah, man. He hasn’t lived there in years, since one of the guys messed up his Justice League Number 77. Took him like three years to replace that book, so he took all his stuff and moved into a place of his own.” Dusty’s gaze fogged with recollections of Silver Age Justice League issues, and Greg had to snap his fingers to bring him back.

  “Sorry, man,” Dusty apologized.

  “It’s okay, D. Where does he live now?” I asked.

  “Who?” Dusty looked confused again, and I was afraid I was going to eat him if we didn’t get to the point sometime soon.

  “Dr. Wideham. Where does the Professor live, Dusty?” I spoke slowly, using small words.

  “Oh, I don’t know off the top of my head, man. Somewhere up near the university, but not with the other guys anymore. Not since they—”

  I cut him off. “Ruined his Justice League Number 77, we know. But how would you get in touch with him if you found a rare comic that you thought he’d want to see or maybe buy?” I thought if I used his terms, maybe that would get Dusty down out of the clouds for a couple of precious seconds.

  “Oh. I’ve got his address in the computer, man. Why didn’t you ask?” He wandered off toward the computer at the front of the store, shaking his head.

  “Go with him. Make sure he doesn’t get lost,” I told Greg with my face in my palm. He came back a few minutes later with a slip of paper.

  “Got it. Two known addresses for Dr. Wideham, who sometimes uses the name John Jones for anonymous auction-type stuff.” He grinned when he said the name, like I should recognize it.

  “I give up. Who is John Jones?”

  “The secret identity of The Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onnz, dude! This guy is a total Justice League nerd.” Greg used a tone that said I needed to turn in my nerd card for not knowing that one.

  I still didn’t get it, but I nodded enough to get him to leave. We were almost to the back door of the shop when I heard Dusty’s voice coming from the cash register. “Hey, man, if
you like, exterminate him, can I have his comics?”

  Chapter 23

  I grabbed the scrap of paper with Wideham’s addresses on it from Greg as we walked to the car. Then I stopped cold.

  He kept going for a couple of seconds before he noticed I wasn’t with him anymore. “What’s up?” he asked, jogging back to where I stood.

  “Well, we don’t have to worry about which address he’ll be at.” I pointed to the paper.

  “Why’s that?” Greg asked.

  “Nothing about this address looks familiar to you?” I asked, waving the paper in front of his face.

  “Not at that speed, no.” He grabbed it from me and looked closely at the numbers Dusty had scrawled. After a couple of seconds, it hit him. “Oh, crap.”

  “Yeah. Oh, crap is right. Think it’s a coincidence that this Professor character has an apartment in the same building the Master of the City has a fancy restaurant?” I took the paper from him and threw it over my shoulder.

  “Not so much. So, what do we do?” Greg didn’t look too keen on any more run-ins with the Master, and truth be told, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea either. But Sabrina needed my help, so I swallowed hard, got in the truck and cranked the engine.

  “We don’t do anything tonight. We’ve only got a couple hours left until dawn, and I’d bet anything that Tiram has told Professor Wideham all about our little visit by now. We need to hole up someplace and make a plan. And I know just the place.” I pulled the truck into traffic and started back toward the campus. Greg looked at me quizzically, but I just smiled and dug out the phone I’d swiped from Tiny back at the pawn shop.

  King answered after a couple of rings. “I almost didn’t answer, but I figured not knowing the number doesn’t mean much around here.”