Dark and Stormy Knights

by P. N. Elord

  I dropped like a bag of sand, nerve and muscle in shock from the bullets’ passage. The lead shattered bone, seared flesh, and I’d have screamed had there been breath. Instead, I made an ugly choking sound down in my throat and thrashed like a fish. I should have vanished, but something short-circuited things. Blood flowed out front and back, weakening me. I had to vanish to heal or—

  Damned wood.

  The door was made of pine panels, soft, splintery pine.

  My fingers raked over the holes in my chest, clawing for the slivers that had to be there. I pulled one clear but remained solid, still bleeding.

  How many more?

  They were like little daggers. I had to get them all, but if they were too small or if fragments had tattooed themselves under my hide . . .

  Desanctis hauled open the door. I frantically rolled out of the way of his next shot.

  It was nearly pitch dark for him. I could use that—

  He flicked on the light, revealing the whole appalling mess of what seemed like gallons of blood smearing the black and white tiles, Foxtrot Joe helpless on his back over there, me fumbling desperately to get one slick hand on the gun in my pants pocket, knowing I’d be too late.

  Desanctis showed teeth in the bright, ferocious grin of a man who’s won everything—

  Then one of the heavy chrome bar stools slammed into his shoulders and head like a cannonball.

  It knocked him sideways with swift and hard and decisive force. The grin was still on his mug as he hit the inside wall and slithered down, stunned.

  The stool clattered metallically on the hall floor, and the door closed again.

  I scrambled over to get his gun, but he was in no shape to notice.

  My panic-driven strength fled, leaving behind a terrible and mounting exhaustion. I pulled more damned splinters from my skin. Daggers, hell, they were like hot needles, or maybe it was the damned bullet holes that tore another breathless scream from me.

  But the instant I dragged a finger-long shard clear, that comforting gray nothingness swept me into a soft, painless haven.

  It takes only a moment to heal, and then I’m all right.

  Physically.

  The rest of it, the recovery that may or may not come when you have to face the ghastly fact that another two-legged predator has tried to remove you from life, takes longer. Much longer. You wonder what’s worse, someone murdering you in the heat of rage or coldly blotting you out simply because it makes things easier for his own nonstop and futile strivings to continue.

  And I was no better; I had murdered as well. My reasons seemed good enough at the time, but it is a certainty none of them would have convinced my victims.

  Maybe it’s the ones who don’t have a reason that sickens you the most. They carry a darkness that no one can understand. You ask why and get a shrug, and it is the truth. They don’t know themselves.

  Desanctis, though, knew exactly what he was doing.

  Bastards like him leave behind damage that can’t be stitched up by a doctor or even a supernatural edge. Parts of my soul were still in tatters from my murder two years ago.

  But I can forget that when I’m like this, a ghost but not a ghost.

  It is so good to be free of a solid body, free of gravity, free of outraged nerve endings, responsibilities, homicidal lunatics, dames in distress, and all the other insane annoyances associated with the farce of living. One of these nights I would vanish and never come back.

  But not tonight. I had to get help for Foxtrot. The men who came with Desanctis might be in on things with him. Emma had to be taken somewhere safe. . . .

  Solid again and on my feet, I started for the door, but it was yanked open, and by great good fortune for us both, I did not blow a hole in Shamus Riordan’s head.

  He gaped and pulled back, startled by something other than the gun I’d taken, probably the look on my face. It could not have been reassuring.

  Thankfully he was at the wrong angle to see the mirrors, though he did finally become aware of Desanctis and Foxtrot.

  “What a riot you’ve had, Jacky-lad. Where’d they get you?”

  “It’s not my blood.” I could hear the fast pounding of his heart. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that, but hunger sharpened my already excellent senses. Lingering adrenaline would keep me going for a little while, but I’d have to replace what the bullets had taken, and soon. Tunnel vision would come next, then— “What’d you say?”

  “Are they dead?” Riordan asked, his voice louder.

  “Not yet.”

  “Where’s that girl?”

  “Emma’s gone?” I asked stupidly.

  “She’s with me mates. I meant the other girl.”

  My brain began working. I was in a mood to accept the uncanny. “You didn’t throw that bar stool, did you?”

  “Now why would I bother when I’ve a perfectly good shooter?”

  True. He held a pipsqueak .22 semiauto, the kind that requires good aim and doesn’t make a lot of noise.

  “You saw a girl?”

  “Just a glimpse when I rounded the corner. Me an’ the lads heard shots. I told ’em to get Emma out of sight, then came runnin’. A bit late, it seems.”

  “What’d she look like?”

  “Little thing, didn’t seem big enough to be throwin’ furniture about.”

  “You’ve no idea.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Look after Foxtrot. I’ll call a doctor and get Gordy over here.”

  The bar in the main room was also equipped with a fancy phone, this one functioning. I hit the button for the outside line, dialed with a shaking and bloodstained finger, and had a quick, urgent chat with Gordy at the Nightcrawler Club. I told him a doctor was required and why, and that bringing along armed muscle would be a good idea and not to trust anything Gino Desanctis said.

  “No problem,” Gordy replied, and hung up.

  My friend was not much for words, but an expert at getting things moving. He knew I’d answer his questions when the time was right.

  Before distractions started piling up, I ducked into the storage area under the main room’s tiered seating. It held bar supplies and other odds and ends, and set in the back wall was a hidden door only I knew about. I vanished and reappeared on the other side, fumbling for the light switch.

  Sometimes I’d spend the day in this lightproof sanctuary. It had the necessary comforts: an army cot with an oilcloth liner holding my home earth, spare clothes, emergency cash, and books to read in the last hour before the rising sun shut my body down.

  I’d recently added a small refrigerator and blessed my extravagant foresight.

  Inside were beer bottles with cork stoppers, not the usual caps. Some months ago I’d cut down my trips to the Stockyards by siphoning cattle blood into bottles and keeping them cold. It didn’t taste as good or last long, but it was a godsend now.

  Two bottles left, both at the foul edge of drinkability. I downed them like an alkie just in from Death Valley. If the need got bad enough, I’d have lapped the leavings on the washroom floor. As the cold red stuff flowed sluggishly through my starved body, I was glad not to have been reduced to that humiliation. Still, it was better than assaulting any of the hapless humans under my roof.

  All right, with Desanctis I’d have made an exception.

  Considering what was in store, he might prefer having his blood drained by a starved vampire than to face Northside Gordy.

  I shed my punctured and alarmingly blemished shirt, got a replacement, and emerged from the storage room. One of the two men who had come in with Desanctis was behind the bar and gave a guilty start. He’d been examining the beer taps.

  “Where’s the boss?” he wanted to know.

  “That crazy Irishman’s looking after him. Where’s Miss Dorsey?”

  “She’s hiding in the basement with my pal. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing much. Gordy’s on his way over with the cavalry. We’re to sit tight.”
>
  He looked relieved, and I liked his reaction. It saved me from punching him flat again. I switched on the tap pump and invited him to serve himself. His mood improved. I could sympathize; nothing like a drink to make you feel better.

  I cleaned up in the deep sink behind the bar and pulled on the shirt.

  At the basement door, I called down, and the second guy came out with Emma. She was pasty and frightened. I invited the other man to join his partner for beery refreshment and walked her around to the lounge. Riordan had its door propped open with the bar stool. Desanctis, who was still not fully awake, was trussed hand and foot with cut-up towels.

  Emma stopped short. “What’s happened?”

  “Your fiancé’s off the hook,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t leave you the grenade. Gino Desanctis did.”

  “He—” Unlooked-for hope flooded her face. “Joe didn’t . . . ?”

  “Maybe Joe skimmed money to buy you a nice ring, and maybe that’s what gave Gino the idea to use him to take the fall for a bigger theft. Joe didn’t try to kill you. He’s been trying to save you.”

  “That’s exactly it, missy,” Riordan called from the lounge. He sounded cheerful.

  We looked in. Riordan knelt over Foxtrot Joe, pressing a towel to the wound.

  Emma gave an alarmed cry and rushed over. Joe was just this side of consciousness and feebly took her hand. She stroked his hair and whispered to him, tears running down her face.

  Riordan grinned up at me. “All the world loves a lover, right, Jacky-lad?”

  “Looks it.”

  “Help him!” she shouted at us. “Can’t you help him?”

  “A doctor’s on the way,” I said. “Any minute now.”

  “He’ll be fine, missy,” Riordan assured her. “I’ve seen worse that got better. Give him a week and you’ll be dancin’ at your weddin’, sure enough.”

  She moaned and kissed Joe’s forehead, murmuring to him. He smiled at her, and I recognized the look that transformed his hard face: true love. Who’d have thought it?

  Riordan continued keeping pressure on the damage as he spoke to me. “Oh, the things I’ve learned from this patient, y’wouldn’t believe, Jacky-lad. Seems our Gino shot this fine fella, an’ let on he was goin’ to do away with the lovely Emma, too. That didn’t sit well with Foxtrot. He played dead, then somehow got himself out of wherever it was Gino stashed him to rot in peace. Poor Joe was supposed to disappear for good, y’see.”

  “Taking eight hundred grand with him,” I said. “Gino gets it all and keeps his spot as collector. He should have stopped there and not gotten cute with the grenade. With Gordy dead he must have thought he could move up to the big office.”

  “The threat to his lady love kept our Foxtrot goin’. He cabbed over to our Emma’s, an’ followed Gino following her. Poor lad was on his last legs. Lucky for him you twigged to Gino’s game. Just how did that come about?”

  “If Foxtrot was guilty of the theft, he had no reason to be here. Gino looked pretty damned surprised about it. He wasn’t concerned about you getting near the cash, either. Wrong reaction.”

  Riordan snorted. “A sad underestimation of my talents.”

  “It makes sense if Gino’s the only one who knows where the money is. Gino had to kill Foxtrot, and then kill me to shut me up about it. The money stays missing for good.”

  “Lucky for you that little slip of a thing lent a hand. Who is she? Where is she?”

  “Her name’s Myrna, and she’s shy. I wouldn’t go—”

  The lobby door opened and a skinny guy with a doctor’s bag hurried in. He had two other guys with him and a stretcher. They started for the man I’d dragged in earlier, but I called them toward the ladies’ lounge.

  Without fuss they went to work and shoveled Foxtrot into a beat-up panel truck. It had the name DUCKY DIAPER SERVICE in faded letters on the sides, along with a winking cartoon duck wearing a diaper. Maybe it was someone’s humor at work, it being a not-too-subtle reference to cleaning up other people’s crap.

  Emma Dorsey climbed in the back to take over pressure duty and to hold Foxtrot’s hand. As an afterthought they packed in the guy he had coshed, then drove quickly away.

  Just as their taillights winked around the corner, twin beams from another large vehicle swung into the street, followed by three more large cars. I recognized Gordy’s new armored Cadillac in the lead. Things were about to get much, much worse for Gino Desanctis.

  “What a night,” I muttered.

  The small light behind the bar, the one Myrna liked having on all the time, flickered as though in agreement.

  A week later, in my refurbished office, I finished attaching the antenna to Myrna’s new toy. Fifty feet of wire had been strung across the roof of my building by a guy who knew how to do that kind of work. The end of it snaked in through special holes drilled down through the ceiling—elaborate, but the reception would be outstanding.

  I’d promised her a radio, said that it was hers and hers alone, and she could play whatever she liked whenever she liked.

  I was still humbly grateful about the timing of that thrown bar stool.

  She had the best Zenith floor model I could find, guaranteed to pick up foreign broadcasts on its shortwave band. The wood cabinet had a rich, honey-smooth finish, and the speaker was larger than any other in the shop. Open the back and you’d see a cone-shaped covering around the speaker itself, sort of like a lumpy bullhorn. You adjusted it to fix the bass sound to fit the size of the room, or something like that. I’d read the directions some other time.

  I plugged it in.

  The thing came to life with an enthusiastic hum. After it warmed up, I fiddled with the dial and put it on a station playing dance music. It sounded damned good, almost as though you were there.

  Gordy had been generous. For saving his life, since I’d been careless enough to explode a grenade meant for him, he sent over an army of carpenters and janitors to clean up my club and restore the office. A friendly guy from a furniture store called me one night and said I was to come over to take my pick of his stock; any friend of Gordy’s was his friend, too. He even sounded glad about it.

  I didn’t protest, accepting it all as Gordy’s version of a modest thank-you gesture.

  Foxtrot Joe, since he had tried to stop Desanctis, albeit for his own reasons, got to keep the money he’d skimmed but was told to quietly leave town and not come back. Emma wanted him to meet her parents; her dad had a tailor shop down in Springfield, and he was not averse to offering a job to his future son-in-law. Foxtrot was not averse to accepting it. He knew a little about bookkeeping.

  Riordan slipped away when no one was looking, which was no surprise. The fact that Desanctis was missing his watch, wallet, and car keys might have had something to do with it. At some point, the flat tire on the snazzy Hudson had gotten fixed, for the car vanished from my parking lot, never to be seen again. Riordan continued driving a battered Ford, claiming with a grin to know nothing about the theft. He stopped by once to ask after Myrna, but I put him off.

  He said he couldn’t fault me for keeping her to myself, describing her as a darlin’ little thing with dark hair. That’s all the detail I got, and I couldn’t ask for more or I’d have to tell him she was a ghost, and that was none of his business.

  How was it that he’d seen her and I’d never had a glimpse? I’d done reading on the subject. Some people could see ghosts and others could not, and the ones who do don’t always know it isn’t a living person. Riordan might be psychically sensitive and unaware of it. There’s plenty of stories about the Irish having the inside track on that stuff.

  Or maybe when it came to the psychical I was just color-blind. Or ghost-blind. Being a vampire gave me no edge, apparently, but it didn’t bother me much.

  Desanctis . . . I never found out what happened to him, and that was fine with me. Gordy ran the dark side of his operation with an arctic-cold efficiency. There are
aspects of it I did not need or want to know about, which he respected. The missing money turned up, and how they got Desanctis to talk I also did not need or want to know about.

  I sat behind my new desk, looked over the substantial receipt for the radio, and wondered if there was a way I could put it down as a business expense.

  Just as I dropped the receipt into the file, the dance music ceased, there was a hiss of static, and then the voice of an announcer reading sports scores filled the air.

  “Myrna,” I said to the apparently empty room, “you are the pip.”

  P. N. Elrod has sold more than twenty novels and at least as many short stories, scripted comic books, and edited several collections, including My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding and Strange Brew. She’s best known for the Vampire Files series, featuring undead gumshoe Jack Fleming, and would write books more quickly but for being hampered by an incurable chocolate addiction. More about her toothy titles may be found at www.vampwriter.com.

  BEKNIGHTED

  by DEIDRE KNIGHT

  She’d nearly freed him on three separate occasions, coming so close that she could practically touch the mail of his armor. Even now, her fingertips trembled with the eager compulsion to feel its burnished surface. To see the gleam and shine of it as she sliced her knight free from the puzzle’s complex design.

  A poor cut had ruined the piece’s geometry on the first occasion; a wrongly mounted image had felled them on the second. Most recently, he’d vanished from beneath her paintbrush as if never existing within the scene at all, victim of some misapplied hue or ill-timed flick of her artist’s hand.

  Amateur mistakes, all.

  That was before she’d solved her own riddle: that real gold was necessary for creating the intricate puzzle box this task required. Such rare, liquefied bullion wasn’t available on the open market, not without a permit from the Artistry Union. (And they couldn’t have just any puzzle maker freeing immortal captives, now, could they? Imagine the dangers to organized society!)