The Black Knight Chronicles (Omnibus Edition)

by John G. Hartness

  I stayed to make sure Tivernius finished the job. The last thing we needed was Lenny getting away and going after his victims all over again. Plus, he’d shot me.

  Tivernius was fast, almost faster than me, but he wasn’t quite as ruthless as Lenny. The dark-haired faerie took every cheap shot he could, kicking, gouging, throwing random troll bits into the dragon’s eyes, whatever he could think of to gain any advantage. It became clear after a few seconds that the combatants were pretty evenly matched, and it was all going to come down to who made the first mistake.

  I couldn’t get involved, because I was afraid of distracting Tivernius and getting him killed. Greg couldn’t do anything, because as soon as he got everybody out of the cage, Mike and Stephen started working on his head injury. Sabrina stood beside me, coming back into the cage after reclaiming her gun. She handed me my sword belt, and I strapped on Milandra’s sword. I felt a little ridiculous, but she didn’t bring me my Glock.

  The mistake was small when it came, just a tiny slip of a foot in a pool of blood, but it was Tivernius who made it. He lunged at Lenny after a blinding parry, and his front foot slid just a little. But that overbalanced him, and he couldn’t get back in time to get his guard set.

  The faerie saw it and launched a whirling counterattack that kept Tivernius off balance and backpedaling. I saw what was happening too late to do anything, as Lenny steered the dragon into the center of the cage, right where Gorton and I had finished our first scuffle.

  Tivernius stepped back to avoid a slash at his throat, and put his foot right in the hole that I had made in the ring’s floor. He went down clutching his knee, and his sword went flying across the cage. Lenny smiled a wicked smile and leapt up into the air, both swords flashing as he came down in a deadly strike aimed at Tivernius’ sprawled form.

  He never got there. As soon as I saw the opening, I launched myself at the flying faerie. Like I said, I’m fast. I was never going to make the varsity football team when I was alive, but add my vamp-strength to my ridiculous speed, and I hit Lenny in the midsection like an NFL linebacker with a bad attitude. We flew across the cage to crash into the wall, and I heard Lenny’s swords clatter to the floor well behind us.

  I hopped up to see the faerie already on his feet, and quickly got my head out of the way of his oncoming fist. I grabbed that wrist with one hand and threw a series of fast punches into his ribs with the other. He took my best punches without flinching, and I knew I was in trouble.

  Okay, I knew I was in trouble when he took out the thousand-year-old dragon and conjured swords out of thin air, but I knew I was in real trouble when I didn’t even faze him with my body shots. He did wobble a little when Sabrina put three rounds in the center of his back, but even that didn’t slow him down. He quickly regained his focus. I heard Sabrina swearing from all the way across the cage. I understood the feeling.

  Lenny backed away from me and squared himself up. I could almost see the wheels turning in his devious little head, and the second his hands started to wave I lashed out with a spinning kick at his head. He ducked easily, but I had disrupted his spell, so all I had to worry about was the counterattack. That was a punch to the groin that I blocked because, knowing what a dirty fighter he was, I expected the low blow. I didn’t expect his other hand to stab at my eyes, but I managed to dodge back quickly enough to save my sight and my jewels.

  “Nice shot. You learn to fight like that in the faerie prison?” I snarled.

  He just smirked at me and flung himself at my knees. I jumped over his dive easily, and then cursed my stupidity as I saw him come out of a forward roll with a sword in his hand.

  “I am the greatest swordsman the House Armelion has ever produced, vampire. You cannot best me in single combat. I will take your head, slaughter your scaled friend and your human allies and return to my homeland to wrest the throne from that lizard-loving bitch!” He advanced, his sword moving so fast the blade became a black blur whirling at my face.

  “Wow, you’ve got some serious anger management issues. Good thing I brought backup,” I said, and dove to one side.

  Sabrina emptied her clip into the pissed-off faerie, which only served to distract him for a second. But a second was all I needed to come up with my sword drawn and set myself for the fight of my life.

  I became a lot less set for the fight when Lenny turned to face me. His eyes were completely black, and the smile across his face was colder and crueler than anything I’d ever seen. The voice that came from his mouth was pure evil, a slithering, writhing sound that swirled around my ears and sent icicles down my spine.

  “You expect to defeat me, little vampire? Do you really think you can best the greatest of the Fae? You can’t touch me, fool. I was drinking babies’ blood when your ancestors were crawling out of the mud and growing legs. I have waded through the gore of a thousand battles and eaten the hearts of kings. I have destroyed entire civilizations and crushed the souls of generations of men. What are you to me?”

  “Well, I beat Call of Duty 3 on Veteran. Does that count for anything? Oh yeah, and I once helped banish an Archduke of Hell. But enough about me.” I lunged at him, a clumsy strike that he easily parried into a wicked slice towards my eyes.

  The fight escalated into a blindingly fast exchange of thrusts, parries, slashes, dodges and curses as we both tried to grab any advantage. Sweat poured off my forehead after just a couple of minutes, and then I had the added irritation of blood in my eyes on top of fighting a more skilled opponent possessed by an undying evil spirit too evil for Hell. I called on the memory of every Saturday afternoon kung-fu triple feature just to stay alive.

  After a series of whirling slashes, I saw out of the corner of my eye what Lenny was doing. He was trying his best to steer me over to the same hole he had dropped Tivernius in. The wounded dragon had managed to drag himself over to one side of the cage, leaving the hole conveniently vacant.

  I spun sideways around a savage thrust and rolled forward, getting us turned around so Lenny’s back was to the hole, and by the ferocity that he thrust and slashed to get us turned back around, I could tell that I was right. But try as I might to stop him, he maneuvered me around again.

  If I went into the hole, nobody was left to bail me out. Sabrina was out of ammo, and everybody else was either human or injured, so I was on my own this time. I looked from side to side, frantically trying to find a way out, when Lenny caught me with a kick high in the midsection.

  I screamed from the pain in my already broken ribs, and flailed my arms around like pinwheels as I stepped into the hole in the ring and went down on my back, just like Tivernius had.

  Lenny grinned an evil grin and leapt into the air, just like he had over the fallen dragon. He came down with his sword ready to remove my head from my shoulders with extreme prejudice.

  Except for the part where I wasn’t lying there anymore. Since I knew what he was doing, I never put any weight on the leg in the hole. Instead I lowered myself backward onto the canvas in a fake fall worthy of any WrestleMania main event. When Lenny jumped, so did I, and by the time he came back down, his sword hit nothing but canvas and wood, burying itself a good foot into the floor of the ring.

  Lenny looked around, startled, and his eyes got huge for a split second before I buried my fangs in the side of his neck. His blood spurted cleanly into my mouth, and I drank deep. The coppery taste of blood was mixed with the earthy taste of moss, pine trees, fresh-cut grass and late night rain in a spring wood. There was even a hint of something like mesquite before I got down to the nasty bits of Lenny, the hot anger that tasted like burned meat, spoiled cheese and a touch of churned grave dirt and tears.

  I drank, and felt his hands hammer on my head and shoulders. He pounded on me like they were sledgehammers, but the more I drank, the stronger I got. His blows grew weaker and weaker. My cuts and bruises faded, and I felt my ribs begin to knit back together. Just before I took the last of his blood and turned him, I found the willpower to pull awa
y from him, and that was the hardest thing I’d done in a long time.

  I pulled back and he fell to his knees in front of me in the cage. And with him looking up at me from the brink of death and possible rebirth, I took my sword and cut his head off with one big looping stroke.

  Lenny’s head hit the canvas, and a black cloud of smoke billowed forth from his neck, shrieking loud enough to drive me to my knees. When I was able to open my eyes again, the body was nothing but a desiccated husk, a mummy in the middle of the cage.

  Chapter 32

  I closed my eyes for a long moment and let the blood flow through me, healing the hurts of my body and leaving a few more unpleasant scars on my soul. Taking in the dirtier pieces of Lenny’s life force literally left a bad taste in my mouth to counterbalance the flush of healing energy I got from his faerie blood.

  Sometimes I understand why Greg doesn’t drink from the source anymore. Not often, but sometimes.

  I looked around at the carnage and counted better than a dozen dead trolls, an unconscious vampire, a dragon with a broken leg, a bloodstained blonde faerie, a decapitated brown-haired bad guy faerie and about a dozen wary and blood-soaked humans.

  Then there was me, a freshly fed monster with my opponent’s blood dripping off my chin and fangs overlapping my bottom lip. The crowd stood frozen in silence for just a second after Lenny’s corpse hit the canvas, then erupted in wild cheers like they had all hit the lottery.

  In a way, I suppose they had, since they stormed the two trolls manning (trolling?) the betting windows and beat them with chairs, purses and whatever else they could find until the less-than-jolly green giants just threw all the money into the crowd and slunk off into the night.

  I limped over to Sabrina and the others and slid down to sit in the cage with my back to the chain link. “That sucked,” I said.

  “Didn’t look like much fun from here,” she replied.

  “Good. Wouldn’t want you to romanticize it or anything.”

  “Don’t worry, Jimmy. When I watch you fight, romance is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Yeah? Well, what does come to mind when you watch me fight, Detective?”

  “The scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz on crystal meth,” Greg said from where he lay on the canvas with a black bandage wrapped around his head.

  “Nice. Where’d the bandage come from?” I asked.

  “That would be me, James.”

  I looked over at Mike, who had on his priest’s collar, but was now lacking the shirt that usually went with it. I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. Mike looked down at where his belly was poking out over his belt, and he laughed too. Then we were all laughing, slapping legs and the whole bit.

  After a few minutes of silliness we calmed down, and looked around the empty warehouse. A few scattered dollar bills were all that was left of the cash wagered on the fight, and I swore loudly.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sabrina asked.

  “Lenny owed us fifty large for the first fight,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “I don’t think there’s that much lying around.”

  “That’s why I was cussing,” I said, holding my not-quite healed ribs.

  “Dude,” Greg said from behind us. “I got it covered.”

  “How do you have it covered?” I asked.

  “Lenny didn’t trust all his money to the betting windows. I just grabbed about thirty grand off his dead body.”

  That’s my partner. He might claim that I’m the money-grubber, but he’s the one that’ll bleed you dry. Figuratively, of course.

  “Nice work, bro.”

  I turned to head for the exit, but stopped as the roll-up door slowly rose and a figure on a sleek black motorcycle rode in. The bike rolled up to us almost silently, and the rider pulled off her helmet as she got off and strode over to Greg.

  Lilith, one-time mate to Adam the Father of Man, one-time outcast from the Garden of Eden, one-time servant to the fallen angel Zepheril and current proprietrix of the biggest and fanciest topless bar in North Carolina, strutted across the concrete like she owned the place. She was pure sex on two legs, with her leather jacket unzipped enough to make you wonder if there was anything under there, and leather pants tight enough to let you know there wasn’t anything on under there.

  “I’ll take that.” Lilith held out one hand for the cash.

  “And why exactly would we give you my money?” I stepped in front of her. “And what are you doing here?”

  “The answer to those questions should be obvious, little vampire. I’m here because this is my establishment. You’ll give me the money because I now have a great deal of cleanup to do, not to mention more trolls to recruit after this debacle. Besides, you trashed my club. The money will cancel your debts to me.” The immortal strip club owner held out her hand again, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What ever happened to ‘I don’t know anything about the attacks you’re investigating?’”

  “I lied. As the scorpion said to the turtle, ‘it’s in my nature.’”

  I got my laughter under control and said “Let me explain a couple of things, Lilith. One—we are not giving you any money. Greg won a bet, and your guys lost a fight. When that happens, you don’t get paid.”

  She started to say something, but I reached out and put one finger across her delicious-looking lips. Lilith’s lips are the reason mortal women take Botox—they’re trying to catch up to what she has naturally. Too bad she knows it.

  “Two—you’re closed. For good. And three—”

  I stopped talking because she had grabbed my finger and slid up against me, pressing herself along my body and looking up at me with a heat that I felt even without a heartbeat. She ran a finger over my lips, and I forgot how to breathe for a minute. Good thing for me it’s more a force of habit than anything that keeps me alive.

  Lilith looked up at me and purred “But Jimmy, I don’t want to close. That would make me unhappy.” She gave a little pout that made me want to give her my firstborn, my kidneys, Greg—anything to make her smile again. “And you’d much rather make me happy, wouldn’t you?”

  She stood up on tiptoes and licked along my jawline. I could almost feel my IQ drop into the single digits.

  Suddenly Lilith flew backward and landed on her leather-clad rump, kicking up a little poof of concrete dust. I shook my head to clear it and saw a very angry Sabrina standing over Lilith with her finger in the immortal woman’s face. “Look here, slut. In case you’re hard of hearing as well as low on morals, the man said ‘you’re closed.’ And I’m saying it again. You’re. Closed. Any questions?”

  “Oh, I understand you perfectly, Detective. But do you understand yourself?”

  I’ve never seen anyone slink to their feet before, but Lilith moved with a liquid grace that was at the same time seductive and unnerving. Watching her walk made me wonder who was really the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

  “I understand all I need to, you antique hag.”

  Lilith spun on her heel and stared at Sabrina like she’d been slapped.

  “Yeah, I know who you are,” Sabrina said. “And I know another thing—if you ever lay a finger on my cousin, or any other person in this city under my protection, I will personally end your ridiculously long life.” Sabrina stood with her arms folded across her chest, almost daring Lilith to make a move.

  “You can’t kill me, Detective. Better women than you have tried.” She turned those lethal eyelashes on me and batted them slowly. “Well, Jimmy, I could use a vampire like you. You have potential. What do you think? Money, power, and all the me you can drink? Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds yummy, except for the part where your last employee had an immortal hitchhiker wrapped around his soul. I think I’ll keep my free will free, thanks. Besides, I don’t go for older women,” I said, stepping back from her.

  I didn’t know if she had anything to do with the sluagh infecting Lenny or not, but she didn’
t look surprised at the news.

  Keeping Lilith at greater than arm’s length was looking like a very good idea.

  “Now get out of here, Lilith, and keep your nose clean. I owe you for helping us with the Belial thing, but after this, we’re square. Your little fight club is out of business. Go back to running a strip bar. It’s legal at least.”

  “Little vampire, you have no idea what forces you are setting in motion against you.” Lilith stood ramrod straight, fire spitting from her eyes.

  Obviously this was a woman unaccustomed to rejection. Especially from dead video game nerds.

  “I do not take this insolence lightly. You will pay for the damages done here, one way or another. And you’ll find that I collect my interest with extreme prejudice.” Then she hopped on her bike and roared out into the night, her raven hair flying out behind her.

  I heard Greg let out a long breath behind me and realized that I was holding mine as well.

  “That is one scary chick,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “You think she knows helmets aren’t optional in North Carolina?”

  Chapter 33

  An hour later, I was sitting on the floor of my den, leaning against a wall with a beer in my hand, looking at my friends scattered around the room and smiling. Sabrina was sitting on the floor next to me, her shoulder warm against mine. I could feel her heartbeat through her skin, pulsing along merrily. She was wearing another one of my T-shirts, her clothes having been splattered with troll blood. I was in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, my hair still damp from a shower. I’d been covered with so much gore that I almost had to ride on the roof of my own car to get home.

  Greg was in a chair pulled in from the kitchen, sipping a bag of blood from the crisper and looking better every minute. He hadn’t bothered to change yet, since he was still a little dizzy from his head injury, and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he fell in the shower, he was just going to have to lay there naked until he healed, water bill be damned.