The Black Knight Chronicles (Omnibus Edition)

by John G. Hartness

  She got up off Phil’s lap and came to sit on mine. She twined herself around me in a remarkable imitation of a wetsuit, and it took everything I had to keep focused. “Little vampire, if you insist on your own self-destruction, you will never be able to taste me again. Is that really what you want?”

  “No,” I said in a small voice as I watched the gleam in her eyes grow into an inferno. “But it’s what I’ve got to do. Sorry, honey.”

  Her gaze turned cold, and I could imagine her ripping my heart out with her bare hands and feeding it to me. My newly tingly nether regions stopped tingling.

  The moment my body’s Fun-O-Meter hit fear instead of interest, she stood up, flounced back over to the corner of Phil’s desk, and sat down in a huff. “So be it,” she said in a voice like a frosty January window.

  Phil leaned forward slowly as if struggling with a decision. Finally, he said, “We are not entirely sure what is coming, but there is a major summoning in process. It requires the exchange of thirteen pure souls for the souls of thirteen of the damned.”

  “Children would qualify,” I said unhappily.

  “Whoever is performing this ritual must have some plan for the thirteen damned souls, and it seems to involve Samhain somehow.”

  “Of course.” I chimed in. “It has to be Halloween, which is in a matter of days. Because it’s not bad enough that there’s a gigantic evil thing about to rise from the Hellmouth and devour us all, there has to be a time limit so we can wrap all this up and go to commercial. I hate Halloween.”

  Phil just stared at me for a moment.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But some days it really feels like I’m trapped in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

  “Your legs aren’t that good,” Phil said. “May I continue?”

  I nodded.

  “There have been eleven kidnapping victims to date, and their bodies have been inhabited by the souls of the damned. Until you interfered and released the latest damned soul into the city.”

  He had me there. I had been the one to ask Father Mike to dispossess the soul with extreme prejudice. “Yeah, that wasn’t exactly my best moment. Do you know what happens to that girl now? Last I heard she was a little freaked out, but in decent shape.”

  Phil steepled his fingers and leaned back. “She will be susceptible to possession unless your friend the priest is able to provide her with some type of shielding. The soul you cast out of her will not be able to return. But she will be more likely to see and hear the presence of souls around her than a normal child.”

  “And if she continues to dabble in the mystic arts?”

  “She will undoubtedly end up dead long before she finishes puberty.”

  I hate how much that bastard knows about everything. Or maybe it’s that I hate having to drag it out of him. He’s a bazillion years old, tied to all the bad guys in town and has ridiculously high-speed Internet. The least he could do is not make me beg for scraps. It’s a game with him. I’d better know the right questions, or he won’t play.

  “And the soul?” I asked.

  “The soul will look for a host. Typically it will inhabit an empty body, but if one is not available, it will attempt to possess one weaker than itself.”

  Lilith looked like she might jump into the conversation, but a glance from Phil shut her up. Then we were back to playing Phil’s little game. It was time to see if I’d asked enough of the right questions, and if I could be trusted with the answer to the big question. “And how do I stop who—or whatever is behind this whole mess?”

  “I don’t know. To know that, one would have to uncover exactly who is performing the ritual and what they expect to gain. With that knowledge, then you might be able to stop them.”

  Phil stood, and gestured toward a door that I was pretty sure hadn’t existed until that very moment. “But you will, as I said, have to accomplish that without my help. For I have given you all the aid I am interested in giving you, and now you must go.”

  One day I’ll figure out what powers the fallen have and how much of their power is mojo like mine, but this obviously wasn’t going to be that day. I’d pushed as much as I dared. Gotten as much as I could.

  Lilith opened the door, and stood very close as I made my exit. “Farewell, little vampire. I do hope you enjoyed my . . . hospitality.”

  I blushed again as I went through the door and found myself in an alley behind the club. I felt a little dirty, like I’d been caught drinking the Communion wine or something. I hadn’t, for once, but my Catholic upbringing always left me a little self-conscious about anything that felt that good.

  Chapter 12

  I took a moment to regroup, which wasn’t easy. I was outside a high-class strip club with a tummy full of immortal hottie blood and a killer buzz. My to-do list now included figuring out what the hell an XYZ ritual was, did, or caused, and of course now I knew that I was on a tight deadline. Halloween was looming just a few days away, and I couldn’t exactly go to the cops for help.

  Interviewing the family of the victims seemed easier, and probably safer. I decided to do that first. Tommy had given me the address for Janice Reynolds, the older sister of Victim Number Eight, before I left the hospital. I didn’t mind the drive. It was all the way south of town in the ritzy Ballantyne area. Ballantyne was a new development built around a golf course nobody could afford to play on and a resort hotel nobody could afford to stay in.

  The houses were typical Charlotte pre-recession McMansions with postage-stamp yards and more room in the garage than Greg and I had in our whole basement apartment. The whole neighborhood was pretty boring, except for the token over-decorated holiday house on the corner, with ghosts in the trees and an eight-foot-tall inflatable pumpkin in the front yard. When I found my particular McMansion, I took a quick lap around the house to make sure there was no private security. There were no cops still hanging out, so I knocked on the front door, pointedly ignoring the cardboard Dracula hanging over the peephole.

  A fiftyish man answered, and by the way he stood halfway behind the door, I was pretty sure he had a gun in the hand I couldn’t see. I didn’t blame him. His youngest kid was missing, presumed dead, and the bad guy hadn’t been caught. I guess if I was still alive and in his shoes, I’d be a little jumpy, too.

  “Mr. Reynolds?” I asked.

  “Yes. Can I help you?” He didn’t open the door any wider. I stayed a few feet back from the door on the porch, trying to look as

  innocent as possible while keeping a little in the shadows just in case this guy was perceptive enough to see through my youthful appearance to the experience behind it. I hoped this would be one of the times that being turned at an early age was an asset. I got mistaken for a high-school kid more often than I enjoyed. Tonight I’d play the high-school kid for all it was worth.

  “I’m Tommy Harris. I go to school with Janice, and I wanted to stop by and see how she was doing, what with everything that’s happened to you guys and all.” I must have nailed my impression of a living high-school senior, because he stepped back and held the door open for me.

  “Come on in, son. I’ll get Janice.” I stepped across the threshold and felt the familiar tingle that I get whenever I go into someone’s home. I’ve never understood the invitation requirement, but it’s as true as sunlight and stakes. We can’t enter a private residence unless we’re invited, which means Greg and I don’t make many house calls. We try to meet our clients in public places so we don’t run into any uncomfortable situations. But since Mr. Reynolds had issued the invite, even under false pretense, I was in.

  “That’s okay, sir. Can I go up?” I could hear the girl open a door upstairs and didn’t need her coming down to blow my cover. Dad had tucked his gun away somewhere, but I wasn’t certain I could get it away from him before he did enough damage to ruin my night.

  “Sure. How did you—” I left him there asking questions as I took the stairs two at a time. I saw a slim blonde girl at the top of the stairs wearing a
pink T-shirt and sweatpants. She took one look at me and got a very confused look on her face.

  “You’re not—” I put my hand over her mouth and moved her backward toward her room. I had crossed the last few feet between us with super-human speed, because, well, I’m not human. She hadn’t expected that, which actually shut her up a fraction of a second before my hand landed.

  “Don’t say a word. I’m here to get your sister back,” I whispered in her ear as I steered us into her bedroom.

  The décor screamed twenty-first-century teen girl chic, with a poster of Lady Gaga over her computer desk and a picture of Edward Cullen over her bed. I have to give Team Edward credit. Despite his sparkling, the Twilight kid has done wonders for vampire public image.

  “Can you keep quiet? Because I’d like to let you go, but if you scream, I’m going to have to jump out your window, and I ruin a lot of jackets that way.”

  She nodded, and I took my hand off her mouth. Of course, she instantly opened her mouth to scream. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down to the bed. All the air went out of her in a whoosh, and she sat there gasping, eyes wide. I sat in the computer chair and quickly shut down the machine. The last thing I needed was some webcam running or IM client popping up in the middle of our conversation.

  “Now will you be quiet? I could have hurt you there, but I didn’t. And I won’t. My name is Jimmy, and I’m a private investigator. Here’s my card. I’m working on the kidnappings, and I’m trying to get as much information as I can to help bring everyone home safely. I’m not a cop, and I don’t work for your dad, so nothing you say will get you in any trouble. I just want to help you get your sister back.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  I didn’t expect that. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that ever since Lauren went missing we’ve had private eyes camped out on our front porch, promising to find my sister for money. We’ve had psychics, drug dealers, snitches, bounty hunters and every other kind of asshole you can think of beating down our door. And now I’m supposed to believe that you want to help because it’s the right thing? Bullshit.”

  This was a cynical kid. I guess I understood where she was coming from, though. I took a deep breath, put on my best I-shouldn’t-be-telling-you-this face and gave her my best answer. “I’m not doing this for free. Don’t worry, I’m getting paid. By whom is none of your business. Maybe one of the other families is loaded and they want their daughter back. I need to know everything about every abduction to get their kid back, and if I rescue a few extras and get my picture in the paper, all the better. So I get paid, you get your sister back, and everybody’s happy. But I can’t help your sister if you draw attention to us. Deal?”

  She croaked out “Deal,” and we bumped fists. I might be old, but I have a television, so I know Howie Mandel’s shtick as well as anyone.

  “Now, what do you know about who took your sister?”

  “N-nothing. She went to school like normal, and never came home.”

  “She made it to school that day, stayed the whole day, left on time, and never made it home, that’s the deal?”

  “Yeah, from what we can find out. The cops aren’t telling my parents much, and they won’t tell me anything. I’ve had to eavesdrop and snoop around to find out anything at all. It sounds like she left school like every other day, and somewhere between school and here, just vanished. I don’t know who would want to steal Lauren. She’s just a little kid. She’s kind of obnoxious sometimes, but she’s a sweet kid, and I don’t know why anybody would want to hurt her.”

  She started to sniffle, and I sat down next to her on the bed. I’m not exactly good with crying girls, so I put one arm around her shoulders and kinda hugged her like that for a minute until she seemed to get herself together.

  Sitting there with her reminded me of going to Greg’s house for Thanksgiving and hanging out with his baby sister. She was younger than Janice, but she always loved her big brother, and was pretty wild about her “Uncle Jimmy,” too. I sat there holding the crying girl and thinking about what I’d lost all those years ago, and it became very important to get her sister back.

  “Are you okay?” I asked after a minute. I really hoped she didn’t get any snot on my jacket. It was my favorite one.

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t think they took your sister for anything she specifically did. I think she was taken for what she is. All the kidnapped children have been around the same age, between nine and thirteen.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “Some religions have something they call the age of innocence, where children are still free from sin. Some folks believe that young kids are inherently innocent, and innocence is valued in some rituals. I don’t understand it all, but it’s a theory we’re working with.”

  “Do you think my little sister was kidnapped by Satanists?!?” Her voice went up a little, and I put my hand over her mouth for a second. I really, really didn’t want her dad coming in just then.

  She was freaking out, and I was worried that any more noise and he’d do exactly that. Time for Plan B. I had all the information I was going to get from her, anyway.

  “Sleep.” I made my voice very heavy and looked deep into her eyes as I said it. She shook her head once, as if to shake the cobwebs loose. Then her eyelids fluttered once, twice, and closed. I laid her down on the bed before she could fall off, and made my exit. I closed her door quietly and got almost to the front door before her father’s voice stopped me cold.

  “Tommy?” he called from the den.

  Crap. I held my ground in the entrance hall. “Yes sir?”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yes, sir. I could tell Janice is still really upset about Lauren. I decided to head on home.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around. Come in here.”

  Double crap. I could smell the whiskey from my spot by the front door. He was hammered and his oldest daughter was sleeping off a dose of vamp mojo. His youngest child was missing, and God only knew where his wife was. I owed him the simple courtesy of listening, if nothing else. I might be dead, but I remember how to be a decent human being.

  Mr. Reynolds was sitting in a well-worn tan easy chair with a bottle of Wild Turkey on the end table beside him. The Kickin’ Chicken was a serious step down from Phil’s Glenlivet, but I was pretty sure I was going to find a way to accept a highball glass of rotgut sometime in the next three minutes if it were offered. “Are you all right, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Call me Bob. And no, I’m not. Sit down.” He waved towards the couch.

  I studied him as I took a seat. I only needed a second for the once over. He screamed past-his-prime-bank-vice-president, which sounded like half the over-forty population of Charlotte. Thinning hair, going grey at the temples even though he was barely into his fifties Casual clothes for a night at home, a polo shirt and crisp khakis rather than old jeans and a faded T-shirt.

  He was pudgy, but looked like he exercised a bit, maybe tennis and golf to try and keep the bulge away. He’d missed a spot while shaving that morning, and that little chink in his armor, coupled with the Wild Turkey, told me he was falling apart fast.

  And, why not? He’d had his soul ripped out and stomped on right in front of him.

  “Can I do anything to help, sir? Should I maybe call Mrs. Reynolds?” I couldn’t stop the question even though the last thing a smart vampire would do is waste time playing nursemaid and/or father confessor.

  “You could bring back my baby girl, that would help.” His dry laugh was a lot closer to a sob than any sound of mirth. “And as for Mrs. Reynolds, well, I don’t know if she’ll be any easier to find than Lauren. She said she was going to her mother’s, but I haven’t heard from her in two days.”

  “I’m sure she’s just trying to get her head on straight, sir.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it is.”

  “Look, Mr. . . . um . . . Bob, I’ve got to get goi
ng. I’ve got school tomorrow and—”

  He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t bother. I know Tommy Harris, and I know you’re not him. I suppose you’re a reporter or something?”

  “No sir, I’m a private investigator. I’ve been retained by . . .” I trailed off, trying to come up with one of the other victim’s names, but it had been a long night. I came up blank.

  “ . . . one of the other families. I’d hoped that your daughter could remember some additional facts to help my investigation.”

  “Son, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’m in sales, and I can smell BS a mile away, and let me tell you, what you’re spreading will make the roses grow but it won’t help bring my little girl back. Now, I want to tell you one thing. Whatever you want to write about me, go ahead. I’m not the world’s best dad, no matter what my coffee mug says, but you write one word about my little girl and I will absolutely destroy you.” He leaned forward for emphasis and almost fell out of his chair.

  Usually I don’t react well to being threatened by anything lower than me on the food chain, but I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. I said “Yes, sir. I will keep that in mind,” and headed out the front door. I felt an unfamiliar sense of responsibility. These people’s pain was real to me now, and I had to do something. So I started walking to where it all began.

  Chapter 13

  It only took me a few minutes to walk to Lauren’s school. Going to the last place she was seen made sense. I could try to pick up any bad vibes, or smells, or even maybe a clue. Ballantyne Elementary School was a sprawling brick building with a cute little portico in front, where parents dropped their kids off when it rained.

  I poked around the campus for about half an hour, hoping a heretofore unknown special magic-detecting sense would kick in or that there’d be a huge pentagram drawn on the roof of the building. Instead I found a whole pile of nothing and was about ready to trek back to the main road to hail a cab or unsuspecting solo driver when inspiration struck.