Hard Day's Knight (Black Knight Chronicles)

by John G. Hartness

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

  She got a very, very cold look in her eyes and I had a mental picture of her ripping my heart out with her bare hands and feeding it to me before 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. “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. Whoever is performing this ritual must have some plan for the thirteen damned souls, and it seems to involve Samhain somehow. There have been eleven kidnapping victims so far, and their bodies have been inhabited by the souls of the damned. Until you interfered and released the latest damned soul into the city.”

  “Yeah, that wasn’t exactly my best moment. What’s going to happen to the girl who was possessed? Last I heard she was a little freaked out, but in decent shape.”

  Phil chimed in, “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. It’s not fair that he’s a bazillion years old and is tied in to all the bad guys in town. That plus high-speed internet access gives him way more information than I think is fair. But as usual, nobody asked the vampire.

  “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 knew more than she was saying, but a glance from Phil shut her up.

  “And how do I stop who- or whatever is behind this whole mess?” I finally got to the big question, and of course my host picked that moment to go all evasive.

  “I don’t know. First you must uncover exactly who is performing the ritual and what they intend to gain, then you may be able to stop them. 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.” Phil stood, and gestured towards a door that I was pretty sure hadn’t existed until that very moment. One day I’ll figure out what powers the fallen have and how much of their power is just mojo like mine, but this obviously wasn’t going to be that day.

  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. Somehow I felt a little dirty, like I’d done something inappropriate. I hadn’t, but my Catholic upbringing always left me a little self-conscious about anything that felt that good.

  Chapter 12

  So there I was outside a high-class strip club with a tummy full of angel blood, a killer buzz, and no real information on the big bad that was about to take Charlotte, North Carolina over if I didn’t stop it. Well, at least I had a buzz.

  Tommy had given me the address for Janice Reynolds, the older sister of Victim Number Eight before I left the hospital, so that’s where I headed next. It was all the way south of town in the ritzy Ballantyne area, 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. I took a quick lap around the house to make sure there were no cops hanging out, and then knocked on the front door.

  A fifty-ish 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, I suppose. 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, and I stayed a few feet back from the door on the porch, trying to look as innocent as possible, and trying to keep a little in the shadows just in case this guy was more perceptive than most people. This might be one of the few times that being turned at an early age would come in handy, as I got mistaken for a high school kid more often than I usually enjoyed. But tonight I decided to use it to my advantage.

  “I’m Tommy Harris. I go to school with Janice, and I just wanted to stop by and see how she was doing, what with everything that’s happened to you guys and all.” I must have done a pretty good impression of someone in high school, and alive, 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 thing, but it’s as true as sunlight and stakes. We can’t enter a private residence unless we’re invited. So Greg and I don’t do much in the way of house calls. We try to meet our clients in public places, so we don’t run into any uncomfortable situations. But Mr. Reynolds had issued the invite, no matter how false the pretenses, and I was in.

  “That’s okay, sir. I can go up. It’s the third door on the left, right?” I could hear the girl open the door upstairs and didn’t need her coming down and blowing my cover. Dad had tucked his gun away somewhere, but I wasn’t willing to bet that I could get it away from him before he did enough damage to really ruin my night.

  “Yes, it is. How did you…” I left him there asking questions to the back of my head as I took the stairs two at a time on my way up. I saw a slim blonde girl at the top of the stairs wearing a pink t-shirt and sweat pants, and assumed this was Janice. For her part, she took one look at me and got a very confused look in her eyes.

  “You’re not…” she started, but I crossed the last few feet to her with superhuman speed, because, well, I’m not human. I put my hand over her mouth and moved her backwards toward her room.

  “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. It was decorated in typical 21st-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 the Twilight kids credit, they’ve done wonders for vampires’ public image, even if the books do kinda suck. “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, and I poked her in the belly with two fingers. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she needed some idea of my strength. All the air went out of her in a whoosh! and she sat down hard on her bed. 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. But I can’t help you 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 your who took your sister?”

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

  “So she made it to school that day, stayed the whole day, left on time, and just 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, so I’ve had to eavesdrop and snoop around to find out anything at all. It sounds like she left school just 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 pretty 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’ve never been what anybody would call smooth, and turning into a vampire, much to my disappointment, didn’t turn me into some super-suave sex machine, so I’m not so good with crying girls. I put one arm around her shoulders and just kinda hugged her like that for a minute until she seemed to get herself together.

  “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.”

  “Alright. 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?”

  “I don’t really know, honestly. Some religions have something they call the age of innocence, where children are still free from sin. Some folks just 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, so I put my hand over her mouth for a second. I really, really didn’t want her dad coming in just then.

  “I don’t really know who has your sister, but this is one theory we’re working on.” I said.

  “Who’s we?” I had really been hoping she wasn’t going to ask that. So naturally she did.

  “I’m part of a firm of private investigators, and we’re looking into some of these disappearances. We think they might all be connected, and this is one angle we’re pursuing.” I was pretty proud of that line of BS. I’d worked on it the whole way over here until it sounded almost realistic even to my ears.

  “Let me see your license.” She scooted away from me on the bed and I started to wonder when this had all gotten screwed up.

  “Huh?” I can go from eloquent BS-artist to inarticulate drooling moron in less than four seconds on a bad day. And this was just another in a string of bad days.

  “If you’re a P.I., let me see your license. How do I know you’re not with the bastards who took my sister? How do I know you’re not here to kidnap me? Why shouldn’t I scream for my father right now?” She was getting a little deer-in-headlights look about her, and I was worried she would do exactly that, so I had to shift over to Plan B.

  “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 started to make my exit. I closed her door quietly and made it almost to the front door before her father’s voice stopped me cold.

  “Tommy?” He called from the den. Crap.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yes, sir. Janice got upset about Lauren and 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 the front door. He was hammered, his daughter was sleeping off a dose of vamp mojo, his youngest child was missing and God only knew where his wife was. I did the only thing I could think of, I went into the den.

  Mr. Reynolds was sitting in a well-worn tan easy chair with a bottle of Wild Turkey on the end table beside him. This was a serious step down from Phil’s Glenlivet, but I was pretty sure I was going to end up with a highball glass of rotgut sometime in the next three minutes. “Are you okay, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Call me Bob. And no, I’m not. Sit down.” He waved towards the couch and I took a seat. I took a second to look him over, and he screamed Charlotte yuppie to me. Thinning hair, going grey at the temples even though he was barely into his forties. He’d changed into casual clothes when he got home from the office, which to him meant a polo shirt and khakis rather than the suit he was locked into all day.

  He was pudgy, but looked like he exercised a bit. Maybe tennis and golf, to try and keep the bulge away. He also looked like a man who had his soul ripped out and stomped on right in front of him. He’d missed a spot while shaving that morning, and that little chink in his armor, coupled with the Wild Turkey, told me that this guy was falling apart fast.

  “Can I do anything to help, sir? Should I maybe call Mrs. Reynolds?” The last thing I wanted to do was waste time I didn’t have playing nursemaid and/or father confessor to a drunken dad with a suburban inferiority complex.

  “You could bring back my baby girl, that would help.” He barked a dry laugh that 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 going. 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 was trying to think fast, but it had been a long night and I was coming up a blank on any of the other victims’ names. “One of the other families, and I was just talking with your daughter to try and get 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 just 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 he was such a sad old man that I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. I just said “Yes, sir. I will keep that in mind,” and headed out the front door. I stood on their porch for a few minutes trying to decide where to go, and finally just started walking in the direction that felt right.

  Chapter 13

  I’ll admit that I’m not even the least bit psychic, but the subconscious mind is usually the smarter part of me, so I wasn’t really surprised when I ended up at Lauren’s school. It only made sense to go to the last place she was seen and try to pick up any bad vibes, or smells, or even maybe a clue. Ballantyne Elementary School looked like the typical all-American 21st-century school, a sprawling brick building with a cute little portico in front for parents to deposit their over-privileged spawn under so the little snot factories didn’t get a drop of rain on their little heads. Yeah, I might have a little class prejudice going on.

  I poked around the campus for about half an hour or so, trying to see anything out of the ordinary and failing spectacularly. I don’t have any kind of special magic-detecting sense, and there weren’t any huge pentagrams drawn on the roof of the building or anything like that. I don’t really know what I was looking for, but I found a whole pile of nothing and was getting ready to head back to the main road and see about finding a cab or unsuspecting solo driver when inspiration struck.

  I whipped out the new phone Greg had given me and dialed him up. He answered after the second ring. “Hey, come get me, bro.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Ballantyne Elementary, down south.”

  “What are you doing, looking for a date?”

  “Classy. Just come get me, I’ll explain on the way home.”

  “Alright. It’ll
take me like half an hour to get there, so sit tight.”

  “Will do.” I hung up the phone and sat on the roof of the portico to wait. About twenty minutes passed before headlights turned into the drive. I stood up on the roof and started to wave when I realized that the headlights didn’t belong to Greg’s car, or to mine. I dropped flat to the roof as the police cruiser pulled into the drive and parked in front of the school.

  Great, I thought to myself. I pick the one school in the district with enough money for motion sensors on the roof. I laid there as still as I could while the cop got out of the cruiser and did a lap around the building, shining his flashlight into the windows and generally looking like a cop doing a routine patrol. I grabbed my phone and shot Greg a quick “stay away, cops are here” text before switching the phone to silent and returning it to my pocket.