The Black Knight Chronicles (Omnibus Edition)

by John G. Hartness

  dissing the service I provide and taking your meals on the hoof these days, I

  don’t hold with killing. Especially not with killing cute chicks.” Sabrina arched an eyebrow. “But it’s okay to kill ugly girls?” “There’s a surplus of ugly in the world, Detective, but a finite number

  of hotties. It doesn’t do to be taking them out of circulation.” I jumped in before things went from absurd to downright bloody.

  “Okay, Bobby, I get your point. But we’ve got two problems here. One, I

  didn’t kill that girl. So get off your high horse. That means there’s another

  vampire in town that none of us knew about before tonight.” At my mention of another vampire, Bobby suddenly looked a lot less

  sure of himself. “What’s the second problem?”

  “Your cargo was drained completely. That means she’s going to wake

  up a vampire. A very hungry vampire. I don’t think you want to be the first

  thing she lays eyes on when that happens.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “Oh, crap is right. Now get in the car with Sabrina. And find some way

  to bloody your nose.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Because I’m going to take care of this, and that means you need to get

  hijacked. This is just more guessing on my part, but I don’t think you want

  me punching you in the face any more than you want to be

  Blood-Bank-Barbie’s first meal.” And of course, I heard it—the unmistakable sound of an industrial-strength zipper opening inside the

  ambulance.

  “Bobby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You want to be running now.” I grabbed his arm and spun him toward

  Sabrina. She shot me a startled look, but I just growled, “Get out of here. I

  can’t deal with her and keep you safe.”

  Sabrina and Bobby ran for her car just as the ambulance’s rear door

  flew open from the inside.

  Bobby was right. The girl had been beautiful in life. She was blonde,

  looked to be about twenty, and built to break hearts. She wore a

  bloodstained UNCC 49ers sweatshirt and strategically torn blue jeans, with a

  pair of boots that should have been registered as lethal weapons. She dragged pieces of the body bag behind her as she came out of the

  ambulance, and her face showed nothing more than hunger and insanity. It

  had been a long time since I’d seen a newly awakened vampire, and while she

  was cuter than Greg at his coming-out party, she was no less raving. Her

  fangs were fully extended, and her eyes rolled in their sockets, as if they

  wouldn’t focus. Then, suddenly, they did. She locked her eyes onto me like a

  pit bull on a sirloin and leapt out of the ambulance.

  If I’d still been alive, I would have died. Since I’d been dead a lot longer

  than she had, and had taken a few judo classes, I was able to roll with her and

  throw her to the pavement. I glanced up to see Sabrina’s taillights peeling

  back into traffic and caught a fist right on the chin for my trouble. “Ow!” I yelled. “Cut that out!”

  The newly dead vamp didn’t answer, just jumped at me again, jaws

  snapping on air as I spun out of her path. I had a flashback to Greg’s first

  morning as a vampire, and that memory didn’t help me focus on the fight.

  Not to mention, the chick was super-fast. Like faster than me fast, and I was

  no slouch in the speed department. She must have been in really good shape

  when she was alive or something.

  Fortunately for me she was completely, animal-growling, bite-the-dirt

  insane, or I would have been toast. Since she couldn’t focus on anything for

  more than a couple of seconds, I was able to come up with a plan that

  seemed only somewhat ridiculous. The next time she lunged, I grabbed her

  arm and flung her back into the ambulance. As she crashed into the meat

  wagon, I reached to the side to slam the door shut on her.

  Except . . . she bent the door beyond repair when she kicked it open. I

  still held the half-closed door when the new vampire launched herself out of

  the back of the ambulance once more, taking me down and latching her

  teeth onto my shoulder. Between banging my head on the asphalt and

  getting holes in my favorite Spider Jerusalem T-shirt, it was not shaping up

  to be a very good night.

  I grabbed her by the hair and tried to pull her off me, but she was stuck

  tighter than a tick in July. I lurched to my feet, but she just wrapped her legs

  around my middle and kept drinking. Was this what the folks in Alien felt

  when the face-huggers got them? I felt my strength start to fade. The more

  she drank, the stronger she got. The stronger she got, the weaker I got. I was

  really starting to hate the merry-go-round.

  I knew I had to do something fast, so I rammed her into the back

  bumper of the ambulance. I heard ribs crack, and she opened her mouth to

  scream. The second her teeth pulled out of my flesh, I shoved my left arm

  under her chin to keep those teeth at bay while I punched her in the side of

  the head with my right fist. After three or four solid shots to the temple, her

  legs relaxed from around my waist, and she slumped to the ground. I sagged

  down to sit on the bumper and drew my Glock, leveling it at her forehead. The Glock was loaded with hollow points, so I was pretty sure I could

  decapitate her, or at least do enough damage to keep her dead, but

  something froze me before I pulled the trigger. I thought back to Greg on

  his first night as a vampire, how out of control he had been. This kid was just

  like that, probably just like I had been when I attacked my best friend and

  accidentally turned him. My finger tightened on the trigger again, but I

  couldn’t do it.

  It wasn’t my fault she had been turned, but it wasn’t my place to kill her,

  either. As of this moment, she was innocent. She hadn’t hurt anyone, at least

  not anyone alive, and she didn’t deserve to die because of what had been

  done to her. If I ever found out who turned her, that would be a different

  story. I put the Glock back in my shoulder holster and reached out to touch

  her shoulder.

  She shook her head and growled as her eyes came into focus. “Who the

  hell are you?” she asked, wiping my blood off her lips with the back of one

  hand. “And where am I?”

  “I think you’re going to have a lot more questions in about an hour, but,

  for now, let me give you the basics. My name is Jimmy Black, and I’m a

  private investigator. I work with the police on some . . . special cases. You’re

  on the side of North Tryon Street at almost six in the morning. You’ve been

  turned into a vampire. I’m one, too, and we have about half an hour to get

  inside before we both end up like my last attempt at a Thanksgiving turkey.

  And trust me, that wasn’t pretty.”

  “Are you high or something?”

  “Or something. For now, like they say in the movies, ‘come with me if

  you want to live.’” I limped around to the front of the ambulance, got in and

  started the engine.

  The girl sat on the pavement looking confused. And bloody. And cute.

  Which made for a terrible combination, especially since it was my blood. I rolled down the passenger window. “You coming? Or dying?” “Why should I believe you? What if you’re a nutjob serial killer?” She

  reached
into her pocket, where she probably carried pepper spray before the

  world and a hungry vamp made sure she’d never need pepper spray again. “I haven’t killed you yet, have I? And I’m the one with the gun. If I

  wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” A little stretch on my part, because she

  was already dead, and I hadn’t wanted it. I hadn’t really wanted her to wake

  up, either. But I couldn’t change that, so I had to be responsible for her.

  Greg was going to love this. He’d wanted a puppy for years, and I kept

  saying no. Now I was going to bring home a pet vampire.

  She stared at me distrustfully.

  I looked at the brightening horizon, and said, “Look, Pumpkin, time’s

  a-wasting. You can either come with me and maybe die, or stay here and

  definitely die. But I’m leaving. Now.”

  She stared at me for a second or two longer, then got up in a

  ridiculously fluid motion and was at the passenger door in less time than it

  took me to blink twice. She got in and buckled up, and I headed off into the

  sunrise, trying the whole way to figure out where I was going to park an

  ambulance in our cemetery.

  Yeah, Greg was gonna love this.

  Chapter 3

  “You did what?” Greg stood gaping in the middle of our den, a forgotten game of Left 4 Dead 2 on the big screen behind him.

  “Are you insane?” Sabrina demanded from where she stood, back to a wall and service pistol pointed at the girl’s head.

  “What was I supposed to do?” I shielded the girl from Sabrina’s aim with my body. “She bit me and drank enough to become aware. I couldn’t kill her then.”

  “Wait a minute!” The girl stepped out from behind me. “You were going to kill me? And now you say you were rescuing me? What the hell? I’m out of here.”

  She turned on her heel and headed toward the stairs, only to run into my oldest living friend Mike Maloney, who was on the way down to our apartment. I hadn’t seen Mike in a couple of weeks, but I called him in to help calm down our new addition.

  “James, why is there an ambulance under a blue tarp in your front yard? And where might you be going, my child?” Mike put out an arm to stop her, but she brushed past him with ease. A little too much ease, in fact, since Mike went flying across the room. I intercepted him before he crashed into anything structural and put him down gently.

  “Sorry, Dad. She doesn’t know her own strength yet,” I said.

  “Obviously.” Mike’s hands shook as he made his way to the armchair and sat down heavily.

  He looked thin, and he smelled funny. Not funny ha-ha, but bad funny. Humans wouldn’t be able to smell it, but it was obvious to me. I filed it away to ask him about later and turned my attention to the crisis at hand.

  The girl made it to the top of the stairs. I heard the front door open, then slam shut an instant later. Just as quick, it opened again, and she dashed back down the stairs, smoke pouring from her clothes, her skin flaking like the worst sunburn you’ve ever seen.

  Greg and I shared a look and both shrugged. I headed to the fridge. I reached into the crisper, got four of our last five bags of blood and a couple of beers, then walked over to where the girl paced and cursed around at the bottom of the stairs.

  I handed her a bag of blood. “Drink this.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” She threw it back at me, obviously disgusted.

  “Shut up and drink it. It’ll heal the burns, and you didn’t drink much from me. You need to feed, and there aren’t any willing donors here.” I threw it back at her and sank my teeth into a bag of my own.

  She watched me drink for a few seconds, then turned around and tore open her bag. I heard weird slurping sounds, then realized that she didn’t know how to use her fangs yet.

  “You know you’ve got fangs, right? They make that a lot easier. It’s kinda like a juice box, only you carry your straw with you.”

  She flipped me off over her shoulder, and I watched the skin on her hand return to a more normal deathly pallor. She finished her bag quickly, and I handed her another as soon as she turned around. I dove into my own second bag, trying to replace what she’d taken from me, and handed her a Miller Lite when she was finished.

  “You trying to get me drunk?” she asked with a saucy little smirk. Her burns were already healing, so the blood was working.

  This one was going to be trouble. I could tell. The last thing I needed in my life was a sex-kitten vampire half my age running around my apartment. I glanced over at Sabrina to try to gauge her reaction to this new development, but got nothing.

  “I couldn’t get you drunk if I wanted to. Not with beer, anyway. It just cuts the aftertaste of the anticoagulants. Now, why don’t we start with the easy stuff. What’s your name?”

  “Abigail Lahey. Pleased to meet you.”

  She held out her hand, and I stared at it for a minute before I burst out laughing. The ridiculousness of the whole night caught up with me right there. I had gone from a very promising date with a very intriguing detective to becoming the adoptive undead father figure to a coed vampire. It was a lot to take in. I had to reach for a barstool to hold myself up, and that got Greg going, which got Sabrina going, which got Abigail going, until the only one not rolling with laughter was Mike, who looked at us like we’d all been possessed or finally gone insane. Either option was about equally likely, I supposed.

  After a few minutes of hysterical laughter, we all settled down in the den. Mike, ever the gentleman, gave up the comfy armchair to Abigail. I grabbed a few more beers for everybody, and a Scotch for Mike, then sat on the couch. Sabrina gave a little shrug and sat beside me. Mike brought a straight chair in from the kitchen, while Greg lounged in his bizarre purple beanbag game chair with speakers in the butt region. When everyone was seated, I looked Abigail in the eyes. She had pretty eyes. They were a very deep blue. I felt a pang of regret at all the things she was going to miss out on.

  “Now do you believe me? About the whole vampire thing?” I asked gently.

  “I think so. I mean, I kinda remember biting you, and I did just drink a couple of pints of blood. That was nasty, by the way.”

  “That’s why I gave you the beer.”

  “Then there was the whole burning in the sunlight thing, so I guess I believe you. I just . . .”

  “Just what, my child?” Mike asked softly.

  He had a way of getting people to talk to him. He would have been a good interrogator, but right now he was a pretty good priest, and that was what we needed.

  “I keep waiting to wake up, you know?”

  “I know,” Greg said, a shadow over his expression that was way too familiar. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Well, unfortunately, you’re not going to wake up. This is the new reality for you, Abby. No more sunbathing, no more silver earrings and a liquid diet forever.” I tried to lighten the maudlin mood falling over everyone, to no avail. “But look on the bright side. You’re stronger, faster and cooler than anyone you’ve ever met. You don’t really turn into a bat, which is good, and you aren’t required to wear all black and lurk in alleys. It’s not all nancy-boy hair gel and soul-searching, no matter what you’ve seen on Angel reruns.”

  I got a little smile in response. “I’ve always kinda liked staying up late,” she said, obviously trying to find a bright side.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said in my best hearty voice. “But you might want to head to the bathroom now.”

  “Why? I feel fine.”

  “That will last for probably another five minutes. Then you’re gonna puke. A lot. I’ll have another beer here waiting for you when you’re done. But we don’t process food anymore, and your body is going to want to be rid of—” I stopped speaking as Abby jumped up off the couch and ran toward the bathroom.

  Greg pointed the way, and she slammed the door shut.

  Sabrina st
ood to go after her, but I grabbed her arm. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not, Jimmy? The poor girl’s obviously in pain.”

  “She is, but not the kind you’re thinking of.”

  “What are you babbling about now?”

  “She’s going to want to be alone for a little while as she finishes shuffling off the mortal coil.”

  “Is there an echo in here? Oh, wait, it’s me. What are you babbling about?”

  “She’s gotta puke. A lot. Among other unpleasantries. We don’t eat. We don’t process food. Do you get the rather disgusting picture? She’s barfing up everything she’s eaten in recent memory and, even if you guys were friends, that’s not something you’re going to hold somebody’s hair back for.”

  “Oh.” Sabrina sat back down on the couch, and we waited for Abigail to finish in the bathroom.

  After a few minutes, Sabrina pulled out her cell phone and checked in with the crime scene techs. When she hung up, she looked over at me and said, “The scene has been processed, but I managed to get them to keep it secure until I gave them the word, in case you guys want to get back out there after dark.”

  “Good deal,” I said. “Since I never got to walk the scene, it would be nice to get a little alone time with the murder scene before it gets covered in a few tons of concrete.”

  About ten minutes later, Abby came out of the bathroom, drained her beer in one long swallow and got a glass of water from the kitchen.

  She walked over to stand in front of the armchair, then looked from Greg to me and back again. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears in evidence, and it looked like she might have even touched up her makeup while she was in the bathroom. I noticed the square bulge of an eye shadow in one pocket that confirmed my suspicions.

  “All right, which one of you did this to me? And why? Did you pervs think I’d sleep with you if you made me your little vampire slave? Is that it? Well, let me tell you something, it is not going to be like that. I’m not that kind of girl. Um, vampire. Uh . . . vampiress. You know what I mean. So just fess up so I can kick your ass, and we can settle that once and for all.”

  I looked over at Greg and mouthed “perv”?

  He shrugged and looked over at Abigail. “Yeah, that’s part of the problem. We didn’t turn you. And we don’t know any other vampires in Charlotte. So we don’t know who turned you. Or why. That’s why we were at your murder scene, to investigate. It’s what we do.”