“Okay, okay, no need to get riled up,” McDaniel said, hands up in supplication. “I emailed you the details on the robberies. Check it out when you get a chance. I’m going to bed before my night gets any worse.”
Chapter 15
PAULSON AND I headed back to my place to work on figuring out who was trying to sabotage my reign as Master of the City. The list would probably be shorter if I tried to figure out who wasn’t trying to get me to quit, leave, or just plain die, but there was one name at the top of the list—Lilith—and I was going to have to figure out how to deal with her soon. I asked McDaniel if I could borrow Nester for a few days, so he put the green detective on “special assignment.” Then I called Abby and William and had them meet me at the house. I walked down the steps to find William seated at the computer table and Abby sulking on a couch. She was dressed to kill in club clothes that included a sparkly Little Black Dress that put the emphasis on “little.” Nester almost tripped on the bottom step coming into the room—or it might have been his tongue—and I watched Abby brighten a little at his reaction.
“Don’t worry, kid. You’ve still got it,” I said as I went to the minifridge and grabbed a couple of cold Miller Lites. Then I remembered that Greg wasn’t around, and I put one back. I twisted off the top of my beer and drained a third of it in one swallow.
I looked around the room at the people assembled and thought about the ones not there. No Greg, my best friend, tech expert, and über-nerd. No Sabrina, my I-guess-ex-girlfriend and strategical genius. No Anna, who hated me anyway, but had enough witchy power to make a demon give pause. And most importantly, no Mike, my moral compass and reminder of who we were fighting for. I didn’t quite see their ghosts in a flickering blue light, since most of them weren’t dead, just too pissed off to speak to me, but I definitely felt their absence.
Dude, they’re not here, so focus on the ones who are and the job at hand. I set my beer down on the table and said, “What do we know?”
I know that my beer never made it to the table before William slid a coaster under it. The diminutive vampire stood and tapped the computer table, then slid a PowerPoint slide up from the tabletop onto the monitor Greg had hanging on the wall. “First, we know that the vampire in the nightclub was no psychotic youngling. From what Jimmy has told us, the vampire was alert and aware, and knew of his position of power within the vampire community. That rules out a fledgling and puts the attack squarely in the category of an attack on Jimmy’s leadership.”
“So give me your list of who would want to do that,” I ordered. “Present company excluded, of course.” I nodded to Paulson, who touched his forehead in a sketchy salute.
William cleared his throat. “Gordon had no records of any vampires that he considered a threat to his rule. Of course, he never saw you as a threat, either, until you were manipulated by—”
“Lilith,” Abby and I said simultaneously.
“She does seem to be the logical choice for an adversary,” William agreed. “She has all the mundane resources to destroy us on the material plane, and all the paranormal abilities to destroy us magically, as well.”
“And let’s not forget that she hates me,” I added.
“You have such a charming tendency of making enemies of people who can destroy you, Black. It makes one wonder how exactly you’ve survived all these years,” Paulson said.
“By killing off a lot of people who expected me to be easy to kill,” I said with a vicious grin. But after the recent body count I’d amassed, those days were likely over. I turned to the rest of the group. “Do we have any other ideas about who could be behind this? Lilith is the logical choice, but I’d hate to go toe-to-toe with her if I don’t have to. I was hoping for some other answer, maybe someone I could beat the crap out of with a fang tied behind my back.”
“Morlocks looking for revenge for Alexis’s death?” Abby offered.
“Nah, I ran into a couple of them when I was down in the sewers fighting the snake-men. They’re just trying to rebuild and be left alone,” I said.
“What about any of the evil faeries you told me about fighting?” Nester asked.
“They don’t have a good path to our world,” I said. “Without Milandra or some other heavy mojo, they’re stuck in Faerie. Which is good for us, trust me.”
There was a long pause while everybody racked their brains for other options.
“So it’s Lilith,” Nester said, breaking the heavy silence.
“Yeah, it’s Lilith,” I agreed.
“She’s the only one with the power and the influence over all sorts of supernatural beings to get them to throw down with the Master of the City,” Abby said.
“Even a weak and relatively untried Master such as yourself,” Paulson added.
“You are getting on my last nerve, Paulson,” I said.
“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Jimmy. I meant from the standpoint of a writer and observer. You Yanks love an underdog, and you’re a classic! Brand-new vamp by many standards, in a backwoods town struggling against immortal powers of darkness! If this wasn’t such a boring town, your story would be the kind of things legends are written about. If you survive, of course.”
“Of course,” I grumbled. “Okay, so we’re pretty sure Lilith is behind these attacks. Is there anything linking her to the Owen kidnapping or the Stanleyville Bloods?”
“Nothing at all,” William said. “Apparently there was a meeting between Lilith and the Bloods when she first arrived in town. They must have come to some agreement about territory, but I have no record of them ever interacting again.”
“Probably best for the Bloods. I’ve found that too much interaction with Lilith can be hazardous to one’s health,” I said.
“So what do we do? We know she’s behind these attacks, but we don’t know why, or when the next one will come,” Abby said.
“Well, we put someone on the Angel to keep an eye on the place, and unfortunately it can’t be you anymore,” I said.
“Yeah, I think that ship has sailed. So who?” Abby replied.
“Nester,” I volunteered, aiming a thumb at the young detective. His eyes brightened at the idea of staking out Fallen Angel’s, one of the city’s swankiest and most exclusive strip clubs, which also happened to serve as Lilith’s base of operations.
“Nester?” William asked.
“Me?” Nester echoed. “I mean, not that I mind hanging out at a strip club, but I usually try to frequent the ones where the drink specials don’t include virgin’s blood.”
“That’s not on the menu anymore,” Abby chimed in. “Not enough qualified donors.”
“You’re the only logical choice,” I said. “I can’t go because I’m the one she’s trying to kill. Abby’s probably Number Two with a bullet on her hit list. Paulson is glued to my left butt cheek waiting for me to screw up enough for him to try to depose me, and William runs all my business crap, so I can’t risk him getting killed. You have the right blend of skills and disposability, sorry to say.”
“Okay, then. Good to know where I stand,” Nester said. “I’ll be getting a lap dance if anybody needs me.”
“Actually, you probably want to watch the place from outside. Just keep an eye on any suspicious comings and goings, but don’t actually go inside. The last thing we need is you in there getting mojo’d, turned, or eaten,” Abby said. “Don’t worry about what the skinny one says. I don’t think you’re expendable, Mikey.” Then she ruffled his hair, and just like that, he was eating out of her palm.
“Fine, I’m gonna go get some sleep so I can spend all night tomorrow night outside the swankiest strip club in three states.” Nester headed up the stairs. Abby caught him at the foot of the steps, and the two of them had a muted conversation that of course everyone else in the room heard perfectly, thanks to vamp-hearing, but it gave Nester an illusion of privacy.
“You should get a few days’ worth of clothes and come back here,” Abby told him. “Just until all thi
s is finished, we should circle the wagons a little bit and keep all our allies close.”
“All our allies? Abby, I don’t know if you noticed, but all our allies could fit in a mid-sized SUV these days. But I’ll crash here. Thanks for the sentiment.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Nester. You’re one of the good ones. The kind of human that reminds us that your race is good for something other than dinner.” She stood up on tiptoes and gave Nester a kiss on the cheek. He blushed furiously, then looked around to see if we saw him. We were all staring right at them, so it was pretty obvious that we did. He turned and beat feet up the stairs, and a few seconds later we heard his car head down the driveway.
“That was very sweet, Abby,” I said when she came back to the table.
“And also very true, in case you’ve forgotten. We’re not in this out of some macho desire to beat people up, or some other stupid penis-measuring contest you’ve got going with the Vampire Council. We’re in this because there are people who need our help, people who can’t stand up to the monsters under their beds. That’s what we’re here for, to fight for people who can’t fight for themselves. And Nester is one of the good ones—a human who knows what we are and doesn’t judge by our diet, but by our actions. So we need to back him up, and make sure he doesn’t get killed. I don’t know if it’s any better keeping him here than keeping his distance, but at least we’ll be able to watch his back while he sleeps.”
“Keeping an eye on the cute young detective’s back is all you, kiddo,” I said. “But I see your point. And it’s not like we don’t have the room. We’ve got what, eight bedrooms upstairs, and we’re using half of them? Yeah, let him stay here where we can keep an eye on him. Keep him close.”
“He’s going to need to pack for a longer stay, then,” said Paulson from his seat, “if you plan to keep him close until it’s safe and no one’s trying to kill you.”
Chapter 16
I SLEPT THROUGH most of the day after working almost right up to sunrise on how to observe Lilith without making Nester stand out like a cop in a topless bar. With no brilliant ideas forthcoming, I crashed and slept until it was dark again, a pleasant, mostly dreamless sleep with only two or three moments of night sweats. A good night for me lately.
I showered and threw on clean jeans, a Sex Criminals T-shirt I’d picked up at my last trip to the comic shop, and my Doc Martens. I brushed my teeth and tried to shape my hair into something resembling “styled” with about four different types of hair product that really just made the spiky mass of fluff on top of my head stick out in different directions from the directions it was sticking out in when I started. I shrugged into the mirror, took a moment to be happy that I didn’t have to shave anymore, and headed down to the basement.
Paulson was there, already dressed in a suit and looking like an ad for a Fortune 100 company. I had to admit, if only to myself, that he looked a lot more like a Master of the City than I did, and if retirement didn’t include getting my head chopped off, I’d probably give him the job.
“What’s on the agenda tonight, Master?” The posh accent was bad enough, but the sheer level of disdain that he looked down on everyone around him with made me want to choke him. Which wouldn’t do any good, since he didn’t need to breathe. I took back all the nice things I’d thought about the snotty little asshat.
“Remember McDaniel’s invisible robbers? We’re going to figure out where McDaniel’s band of rogues are going to strike next, then we’re going to stop their robbery and convince them to go elsewhere for their criminal activities.”
“And if they refuse to leave?”
I walked over to the gun cabinet and pulled out my Judge revolver. I loaded the pistol with .410 shotgun shells and turned back to Paulson. “Then I use my alternative methods of persuasion. Either way, this little crime spree ends tonight. It’s only a matter of time before these light-fingered Houdinis slip up and hurt someone. And that would be bad.”
“How do you plan to persuade them from robbing stores? Appeal to their sense of decency and community?”
“I thought I’d appeal to their sense of fear and self-preservation.” I showed him the pistol again as I set it down to strap on Excalibur. Once armed, I walked over to the computer, tapping the screen to wake up the machine. William, ever the helpful assistant, left me a folder on the computer desktop labeled “Robberies,” so I clicked there first. A series of police reports filled the screen, along with crime-scene photos of shattered glass display cases and spreadsheets of inventory reports.
I started reading the reports, occasionally pulling a photo over to take a closer look. Paulson moved closer and peered at the screen. “What are you looking for, exactly?”
“There are a lot of jewelry stores in town. I’m looking for similarities in their previous jobs to try and predict where they’ll go next. That way we can be waiting.”
“What have you found so far?”
I turned to him, one eyebrow climbing. If anything about my association with Paulson could be said to be good, it was that I was finally learning how to raise just one eyebrow, a skill I’ve always coveted.
He shrugged and said, “It’s fascinating to me, all this detective work that you insist on doing while your minion takes on the actual duties that the Master of the City should attend to. But if you insist on performing these tasks that are below your station, I may as well understand them.”
I thought about that for a second, then decided it would just be easier to take him at face value. I knew he was a pompous little douche with a vested interest in my failure, but this time he seemed to be telling the truth.
I pointed to the screen. “Look at these storefronts. The past three stores hit were all in strip malls. That means that the robbers had easy access to the front and back of the stores, with plenty of parking that wouldn’t draw suspicion. All these malls were on major thoroughfares with twenty-four hour drugstores and drive-thru restaurants in the parking lots, so another car or van in the lot in the middle of the night wouldn’t have been noticed. They came in through the employee entrance in back, and disabled the cameras ”
I pulled up another image and continued. “This map shows all the targets are within a six-mile radius, so we can run a search for jewelry stores in strip malls in that area, and see how many potential targets pop up.” I touched some virtual buttons on the screen, and a very short list of stores appeared.
“That narrows our list down to three potential targets, and one of them I can pretty well toss out immediately.”
“Why is that?” Paulson asked, leaning forward, palms down on the table, his normal reserve completely gone.
“This store, Perry’s, deals almost exclusively in estate and antique jewelry, so their inventory is likely to be more unique and easier to trace than the stuff in a chain shop. So now we only have to have eyes on two stores, half a mile away from each other. And that’s a lot easier.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I’ll sit on one store and stick William outside the other one with strict orders not to engage if he sees the bad guys. Unlike Abby or Nester, he’s more inclined to stick to a plan than try to be a hero, so if the robbers try to hit the store he’s watching, I run over there and stop them. If they try to rob my store, I do the same thing, just without the running.”
“I must admit, it does make a certain amount of sense. Have you spoken to William about his part in all this?”
“I don’t have to,” I said with a smile. “William’s bugged my entire life. I don’t have to worry about needing to tell him things. It’s another of the reasons if I was going to let anyone other than me be Master of the City, it would be William, not you. No offense, he just already knows the city and the people.”
“None taken,” Paulson replied. “Frankly, if William had challenged Tiram and emerged victorious, the Council likely would have accepted his transition to Master without the need of an evaluation.”
“Tha
nks,” I said, my tone dry like the Sahara.
“No need to take offense,” Paulson said. “Almost all ascensions require an evaluation, and only about a third of the prospective Masters survive the test.”
“So I’m supposed to feel like I’m in good company having a walking Sword of Damocles following me around?”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to even know what that was,” Paulson admitted.
“Classic Comix, buddy. All the education a poor Clemson boy needs. Sun’s down, let’s roll.”
And that’s how I found myself on a stakeout with a vampire, who wanted to kill me, looking out for a group of invisible thieves hell-bent on stealing every piece of shiny in the greater Charlotte metro area. And to make matters worse, Paulson was in the middle of a chatty spell, so I couldn’t even use all my bad “stake” puns.
“Do all your cases involve supernatural crimes?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had to do something exciting during a case, like a car chase?”
“I fought a twelve-person SWAT team to get to Tiram. Does that count?”
“No, I meant something really exciting.”
“Like battling an archduke of Hell with a fallen angel at my side?”
“Now you’re just making things up.”
“I am not! That was the first case we worked with Sabrina, and we fought a legit archduke of Hell and sent him packing.”
“Impressive. Now, what’s the plan for the robbers again?”
“Well, first we need to find them, then I’ll talk to them. I’ll only shoot them if there’s no other way,” I said. “Why? I thought we were clear on that.”
“I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing, because a trio of faeries just opened the back door to the jewelry store.” Paulson pointed to where I could just see the door hanging open.
“Sonofabitch. Faeries. I should have known,” I said, getting out of the car. While a lot of the Fae were law-abiding folk who stayed out of our world, there were plenty of mischievous little faeries running around, and they all just looove shiny things. I ran into the jewelry store, and sure enough, there were three faeries smashing cases and filling up sacks with diamonds and gold.
The Black Knight Chronicles (Book 6): Man in Black Page 11