Hard Day's Knight (Black Knight Chronicles)

by John G. Hartness

  “Come on, leave the chump here. Anything that’s after him, can have him,” she said to the guard. They passed by the open door of the room I was mopping without a glance, and headed for the elevator. The woman led the parade, followed by two uniforms. She was a striking woman more than really pretty, a little too sharp in the face for most guys’ comfort. Tall, with ass-kicking boots on, she was almost six feet, her dark brown hair tied into a messy ponytail. She wore a tailored jacket open to show her badge and gun, and a cross around her neck. I notice the little things, like crosses. They get to be important. I counted to a hundred twice and then wheeled my bucket into Tommy’s room. He was fiddling with the bed when I closed the door behind me and moved a chair under the knob.

  “Holy crap! I almost peed the bed! I thought you guys had left me here to die!” I crossed to the bed as quickly as I could, which is pretty damned quick, and put my hand over his mouth.

  “You want to yell that a little louder? I’m not sure every brat in the nursery heard you.” I whispered into his face. His eyes got big as he noticed the pointy teeth, and I backed off a little. “How long were they here? What did they tell you?”

  “They were here when I woke up. That chick cop was a real bitch. She was all about wanting to know how my arm got broke, but I didn’t tell her anything, I swear.” He flopped back onto his pillows looking proud of himself.

  “Except the absolute truth, you mean. Good thing for all of us she’s a civilian and doesn’t believe in anything having to do with our world.” Tommy looked a lot less smug, and I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Vamp senses are ridiculously good. I listened through the wall. Now what was she talking about with little kids being kidnapped?” I pulled a chair over to the window and looked down. The detective was standing by her car looking up at me. I sat down hoping that she was nearsighted. Somehow I knew she was going to be someone I had to deal with before this mess was over.

  “Dude, don’t you, like read the paper?” Tommy used the remote to elevate bed so he could see me better while I took the chair.

  “My morning delivery leaves a little to be desired. Enlighten me.”

  “There’s been, like, ten or eleven kids go missing in the last month, dude. There’s talk of not letting anybody go out for Halloween or nothing unless they catch the dude.” That would suck; Halloween is one of best nights of the year. It’s like a Vegas buffet, only everyone you nibble on has had so much candy they all taste like dessert.

  I poked around at the leftovers on his tray, hoping for a little Jell-O. “Go on.”

  “What are you doing? I thought you couldn’t eat.”

  “Old habits. Now about the kids?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, the first couple were no big deal, their parents were all over each other about custody anyway, so most folks figured one or the other was lying and had swiped the kid. But then a pair of twins vanished out of like a day care or something like that, and people started to get worried. By that time, everybody was making a huge deal about the cops not caring because the first kids were black, and the latest kids were white, and it got to be a whole big thing. So they made a whole task force thing and press conferences, and a big news thing out of everything. But while the cops were conferencing, kids kept disappearing. Hey, can you hand my that ginger ale?” He took a drink while I looked at him.

  “Is that all?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

  “What do you mean? I guess. That’s what I know, anyway.” Sometimes I wonder if everybody in the world is brutally stupid, or if it’s just my clients.

  “Did you think that maybe a bunch of kids disappearing might have something to do with the super-brat that mopped the floor with us last night?” I kept my voice down, but it was starting to be a bit of a stretch. This kid would have given me high blood pressure if I still had blood pressure.

  “No, man. That was, like, a demon or something. This is just some kids going missing. Oh! I get it! You think the demon might be taking the kids, right?” It’s almost cute how excited stupid people get when they figure something out. Like Christmas for morons.

  “I was thinking that maybe the people calling the demon might have something to do with the vanishing children, yes. How many did you say were gone?”

  “I don’t know, man. They were all little kids, like middle school. I didn’t know any of them, so I didn’t really pay attention. But I did kinda know this girl whose little sister was one that got kidnapped. I think they said she was number eight or something like that.”

  “Does your friend have a name?” I had the beginnings of a plan, but I needed to be able to leave Tommy alone and know he was safe. He was a moron, but he was my moron for the moment.

  “Dude, she’s not my friend, I barely know her.” I motioned for his to go on, because I didn’t care. “Janice Reynolds. My buddy Rick used to go out with her or something. Or maybe hooked up with her at a party. I can’t remember. But she lives in that new development over by the high school. What are you gonna do?” He held out his ginger ale, and I put it back on the tray for him. I hate invalids. They always want somebody to do things for them just because they can’t possibly do it for themselves. Pansies.

  “Alright. I’m going to go talk to your friend Janice. But I’ve got a couple of other stops to make first, and I need to make a little noise so your guard will come back, so try to make this convincing.”

  “Make what convincing?” I didn’t answer; I just put a pillow over his head and counted to twenty. He thrashed around pretty well, but wasn’t anywhere near smart enough to press the call button for the nurse. So after he passed out I checked that he was still breathing, pressed the call button myself, and threw a chair out the window. I figured that would be enough to draw attention even at a hospital, so I ducked out into the hall and headed for the elevator.

  Chapter 9

  I walked past the crowd of people looking at the armchair that had crushed the hood of a police car in front of the hospital and headed toward the bus stop. The cop car was a nice touch, if I do say so myself. I thought my luck was finally starting to look up as I got to the bus stop, when my phone rang and proved me wrong again.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Dude, you gotta get over here!’ Greg sounded more than a little freaked out, but since Greg freaks out when he burns a Pop-Tart it didn’t give me much to go on.

  “One, where are you? And two, what’s up?”

  “I’m at Tommy’s house and the cops are here! They’re talking to his parents about a string of kidnappings. They think Tommy might be involved, and they’re talking about taking him out of the hospital and arresting him!”

  Great. I thought. “Is there a woman detective there? Tall, ponytail, boots, attitude?”

  “Yeah! She’s a real ball-buster, man. She’s got Tommy’s mom in tears and his dad all freaked out about college scholarships and lawyers and that crap.”

  “Don’t sweat it. She’ll be leaving any second.”

  “What are you talking about? Wait, there she goes. How did you…?” Greg trailed off and I just jumped in.

  “I’ll explain later. Now here’s the plan – go knock on the door, and when Tommy’s dad answers, mojo him into not seeing you, then deck him. Leave him out cold in the doorway, and then break a couple of windows. Get the hell out of there and meet me at home. We’ve got work to do.” I looked up and down the street, really wanting a bus to arrive before Detective Kickass got back to the hospital.

  “What?!?” I held the phone away from my head as Greg started to freak out. I counted to ten, and when he paused for breath I put the phone back to my head.

  “Shut up. Do it, and meet me at home. I’ll see you in half an hour.” I hung up, and when I didn’t see a bus anywhere, stepped out into the street in front of an oncoming car. The poor yuppie slammed on the brakes, and I pulled him out of the car. He started to say something, but then took a look in my eyes and fell silent, like a rabbit staring at a wolf.

  I didn’t plan to snack
on him, but it had been a long night, and I was still really hungry. And that deer-in-headlights look gets me every time. So I grabbed him by the tie and pulled him to me. I spoke to him, not really saying words, just noises meant to calm the prey while I sniffed the side of his neck, smelling the fear-sweat and listening to the blood pulse in his carotid. I took a quick glance around, and decided this would really have to wait. I looked into his eyes and whispered, “sleep.” He sagged like a sack of slightly overweight potatoes, and I tossed him into the back seat of his BMW SUV. I hopped in the driver’s seat and headed off towards home with a plan in my mind and dinner in the back seat.

  I didn’t go all the way home, obviously. It’s not a good idea to eat delivery for dinner when you’re a vampire. I drove to an alley behind a biker bar a couple miles west of our place and got into the back seat behind my meal. He was still out cold, so I grabbed his left hand and brought the wrist to my mouth.

  I suppose this is where I’m supposed to give you all these androgynous and mildly homoerotic adjectives for feeding, but let’s face it; a man’s gotta eat. And what this man has to eat is human blood. I normally would have raided the blood supply at the hospital, but all the police presence tonight made that a little too high profile for my tastes.

  So I pulled his wrist to my mouth and licked the place just at the bottom of his forearms where the veins run closest to the skin. My canines extended into razor-sharp points, and I tore as small a hole as I could while still letting the blood flow. It splashed against the back of my throat all hot and coppery, and the thick syrupy liquid went down as smooth as twenty-year old scotch. And as a matter of fact, I could taste a little hint of scotch. Somebody had been driving while intoxicated – bad boy. I used the left wrist because between the rapid healing inherent to vampire bites and the fact that this yuppie wore an expensive watch, I figured there were better than even odds that he would never notice he’d been snacked upon. Not that anyone would believe him, but I tried to keep things neat when I could.

  It had been a while since I drank from the source, and it was good. Greg doesn’t approve, so whenever we’re together I drink from the bag, but man, there’s just nothing like the taste of fresh blood right from the vein. It’s hot, with that metallic and salty taste that’s like nothing else in the world. We can live on blood bank supplies, but it’s the difference between a really good rare filet mignon and a frozen hamburger patty. I drank for a couple of minutes, just a couple of pints, and then leaned back next to the yuppie, who was still out like a light.

  “Was it good for you?” I asked my sleeping dinner. He was as silent as I had expected him to be, which was good for both of us. I probably would have flipped out had he woken up at that exact moment, and it’s usually not a good idea to be the human in the back seat of a car with a freaked-out vamp. I took a minute to make sure I hadn’t dripped anything on my shirt, stole the snack’s wallet and left him behind the bar. I stuck a twenty under a windshield wiper and trusted the baser nature of bikers to take the cash and leave the sleeping yuppie unmolested.

  We were still alone in the alley, so I tossed his wallet minus the cash and credit cards in a dumpster and headed home. A few blocks later I pitched his plastic into a storm drain and tucked the cash into a pocket of my jeans. Just because I’m a creature of the night doesn’t mean I don’t need money. And it’s not like Tommy was rolling in the dough to pay our fee. Plus I’m an alpha predator; it’s what we do.

  Greg was waiting for me when I got home, and he was practically bouncing around the apartment, he was so anxious. Apartment is a generous term I suppose. We live in the basement of a caretaker’s house in a local municipal cemetery. Municipal cemeteries work best for our brand of lurking, because they’re not consecrated ground, and we can hang out there. Greg and I keep recycling through as the “caretaker” every dozen years or so, just to keep the folks that own the cemetery from getting suspicious about the fact that we don’t age. We built a basement apartment with a couple of hidden entrances, and outfitted it the way we wanted. The caretaker’s cottage is decorated in vintage redneck, so anyone stopping by gets exactly what they expect to see, without getting in our way.

  I made up some story for the cemetery owners about being an insomniac writer with an online poker addiction, and they leave me alone when I never go outside in the daytime and am up all night. They don’t really care, as long as the graves stay mowed and clean, and I subcontract that work. As long as we don’t charge anything for our “maintenance services,” they don’t charge us anything to live there. It’s a pretty sweet deal, if I do say so myself.

  “Dude, what the hell took you so long? I’ve been going nuts here waiting for you!” He was sitting on the couch racking up an incredibly unimpressive video game score, which was testament to how distracted he was. Greg usually crushes the games, but obviously tonight he was more interested in what I had to tell him.

  “Sorry, had to stop for take-out on the way.” I sat beside him on the couch and picked up the second controller. “What are we playing?”

  Greg was having none of that, and grabbed the controller out of my hands. “No frickin’ way, man! What is the deal, and what are we going to do about that man-eating detective?”

  “I don’t know what the deal is yet, but I’m starting to get the idea that our little demon chasing Tommy is just the tip of the iceberg. And I’m pretty sure that our distractions will keep the detective out of our hair for a little while. Hopefully she’ll be busy chasing after whoever busted up Tommy’s house and jumped out the window of his hospital room long enough for us to get to the bottom of all this.”

  “But I busted up his house, and I guess you broke his hospital window…” Greg trailed off as understanding dawned on him. My partner’s book smart, not street smart but he’s damn loyal, and has super-powers, so I keep him around. Besides, he’s been my best friend since sixth grade. We met getting stuffed into adjacent lockers in gym class. Even then, his was a tight fit.

  “Now you get it. So we need to find out everything we can about these kids that have gone missing. Tommy said there were ten or eleven of them, and that’s why the cops were after him so quickly. You get online and see what you can dig up, and I’m going to go interview the sister of one of the earlier kidnap victims. Then we crash for a little while and try to catch up with Dad early tomorrow night. Sound good?”

  “Works for me. Hey, did you bring any leftovers with you? I’m getting a little peckish.” Greg headed over to his desk, with a brand new Macbook, external monitor setup and a ridiculously large array of external hard drives. Greg’s on a mission to collect every vampire movie ever made, so he’s got bit torrents running 24/7. He uses more bandwidth in a week than most of Nebraska uses in a year, so it’s a damn good thing he figured out how to piggyback onto the network of the bank headquarters down the block.

  “Sorry dude, not even a drop to spare.” And it was true. My donor would probably have felt really crappy when he woke up if I had drank any more. So I wasn’t lying to Greg exactly, just avoiding a repeat of the fight we always have when I drink straight from a human.

  He barely even looked up from his keyboard as he muttered “Pig” at me. By the time I’d gotten to my closet he had four Firefox windows open with a different Google search running on each one. I swear I think instead of super vamp-speed he got super-fast typing when we got turned.

  I went over to my closet and started loading up for bear. I usually only carry one good knife tucked into the back of my belt, but this gig had been anything but usual so far. I put on my shoulder holster and grabbed my Glock 17. I checked that it was loaded with silver bullets, and put a spare magazine of silver ammo in my back pocket. I loaded the holster with two spare magazine with regular ammunition, and strapped my backup to my right ankle. I carry a Ruger LCP for a backup when I think things could go really bad, and everything I’d seen so far told me things could go from “peachy” to “holy crap” in the blink of an eye. I put another kni
fe on the other ankle, rolled my jeans down to cover all the hardware, and straightened up, reaching for my black hoodie. Greg had turned away from the computer and was sitting still, staring at me.

  “How bad do you think this is going to get?” He looked as worried as I’d seen him in a long time, and I sat on an arm of the couch and looked at him.

  “Bad. I don’t know what we’re up against, but if what was in that little girl isn’t the boss, and I don’t think it is, then whatever is running this operation is even meaner.”

  Greg sat back in the chair and sipped on a juice box. I don’t know where he picked up that habit, because all it did was make him pee purple half an hour later, but he was hooked on the silly things. “Then guns and knives aren’t going to be a whole lot of help, are they?”