The Black Knight Chronicles (Book 6): Man in Black

by John G. Hartness

  “I consulted with a few of Mr. Tiram’s old resources in the magical community, and explained to them that all fiscal arrangements that they had with Mr. Tiram would be honored by our new Master of the City. Once they understood that, they were perfectly happy to provide me with information.” William said as he settled into a rolling office chair with a wireless keyboard on his lap.

  “Hold on a minute Speed Racer,” I said. “That sounds an awful lot like I’m agreeing to pay black witches for information on magic stuff.”

  “They don’t like the term ‘black witch,’ sir,” William said. “They prefer to simply be called witches or practitioners.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass if they wear tutus and want to be called the Black friggin’ Swans. How much am I paying them?”

  “There is a nominal fee for a magical sweep of each of your residences each month, plus maintenance of your protection wards, plus unlimited access to their scrying capabilities. Mr. Tiram always felt that the benefits far outweighed the monetary costs. Especially after the Atlanta Master tried to add to his territory by hiring a wizard assassin. He couldn’t cross the North Carolina state line, much less get within two miles of Mr. Tiram to complete his assignment. The Master of Atlanta was very put out. Then Mr. Tiram paid him a visit. The new Master of Atlanta understands her northern boundaries very well.” William gave me a steady look, which I returned.

  “How. Much?” I asked.

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  “Five thousand dollars once, five thousand dollars a year, a month, a week? What’s the deal, William?”

  “We pay them five thousand dollars every three months, so quarterly. They do their work, stay out of our way, and don’t cause us any problems. It’s a bargain, I promise. And it took three decades of bloodshed to negotiate, so please just go along with it, sir.”

  I looked around the room. Abby shrugged, Nester’s eyes were so wide from the mention of five thousand dollars that I knew he wasn’t going to have an opinion, so I turned to McDaniel.

  The dapper lieutenant gave a little chuckle. “Son, I’m going to tell you something that my captain told me on my first morning as a lieutenant. He took me aside and said, ‘son, you’ve got all the talent in the world. But you got to trust the people that work for you. If you can’t trust them to do their jobs, then you’re gonna spend all your time doing their work, and yours ain’t gonna get done. ’Cause I damn sure ain’t gonna do it.’ So, Jimmy, do you trust this little dude with his manicure and penny loafers?”

  “William? With my life,” I said without a second’s pause.

  “Then let him do his job,” McDaniel said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Okay, thanks, William. I’ll trust you to keep the lights on and the rent paid, and it sounds like you were absolutely correct in keeping our deal with the witches intact.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He sat there for a minute before asking, “Was there something else?”

  “Yes. What did they tell you?”

  “Oh! My apologies, sir. I get distracted when discussing finance. I find it fascinating.” He tapped on the keyboard and a map of the United States appeared on the screen. He pressed a few more buttons, and a network of lines overlaid onto the map in blue.

  “What do you know about ley lines, sir?” William asked.

  “Let’s pretend the answer is ‘absolutely nothing,’ William,” I replied. Mostly because the answer was “absolutely nothing.”

  “Fair enough. Anyone else know any more?” He looked from Abby to McDaniel to Nester, all of whom shook their heads.

  “I think I saw something about them on a TV show, maybe,” Abby said.

  “Well, as long as it was on SyFy, you might be okay. But we’ll assume no prior knowledge for our purposes today. Ley lines are like magical rivers, they are natural lines of force all over the world where magic flows naturally. The more ley lines in an area, the more magically charged it is. Places where multiple ley lines converge are particularly strong in magic. Places like Stonehenge, the Parthenon, the Washington Monument—these are a few examples of places where these ley lines converge. They’re called nodes, and if you can touch the magical energy of the Earth at a ley line or a node, you can access incredible power.”

  “Power you can use to do what, exactly?” I asked.

  “Almost anything,” William replied. “The ancient druids used Stonehenge to talk to their gods and manipulate weather and crops for the next harvest. The Greeks used the Parthenon node to see the future. The founding fathers channeled power from the node where the Washington Monument now stands to defeat the British in several key battles.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “You’re saying that the founders of our country built Washington, DC, on one of these nodes and used its power to defeat the British?”

  “Not exactly in that order, but yes,” William said. “They discovered the node, and the lines that run from it all across Virginia, the Carolinas, and up into Pennsylvania and Maryland. They used the lines to channel power to their forces near the lines, and set their battle plans to take place near smaller nodes, where they could use the magic to defeat the British. It wasn’t until well after the war was won that they decided to construct the new country’s capital atop the node.”

  “Okay, so there are ley lines, and there are nodes. What does this have to do with Lilith?” Abby asked.

  “It seems that she is only in Charlotte because of two things—the high concentration of ley lines and the weakness of Mr. Tiram in the magical realm,” William explained.

  “So she came here because she could use the lines without Tiram interfering, because Tiram—”

  William finished what I started, “—was heavily focused on his mundane businesses and had no skill in manipulating magical energy. Nor was he likely to have given any instruction to the witches to watch them.” He nodded.

  “What is she planning on using the lines to do?” I asked.

  William’s face fell. “I honestly have no idea. There are an almost infinite number of things that she could use the lines for, particularly on a night of power like the solstice. But I can guess where she’ll be.”

  “And how do you know that?” McDaniel asked.

  “Because there is only one place big enough to house the kind of army your information indicates she’s been building that also happens to sit on top of the largest node in the area.” William pointed to the map. “Memorial Stadium,” he said.

  “So whatever she’s going to do, it’s going to be tonight, and it’s going to be at Memorial Stadium,” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” William said. “The stadium sits on four major lines and at least a dozen minor ones. They form the largest node within a hundred miles. That kind of power would be irresistible to a creature like Lilith.”

  A creature like Lilith? I made a mental note to ask William later exactly how much he knew about what kind of creature Lilith was, if I lived to see the morning.

  “Okay, then,” I said, standing. “We’ve got a solid eight hours before sundown, when some of us get to be useful outside of our basement. So we need a plan. Lieutenant, go to the cop shop and line up as many tactical units as you can get us. Be discreet, but try to only request men or women without families.”

  “You don’t think anybody’s coming back from this, do you?” McDaniel asked.

  “I don’t know what Lilith has planned, but if she’s called in reinforcements, it’s going to be a pretty serious throwdown. So no, I don’t know if anyone who comes with me is ever coming back. Make sure they know that before they gear up. This is an all-volunteer takedown, no exceptions.”

  “Got it.” McDaniel gave me a half salute and headed for the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and turned back to me. “Do you want me to—”

  “No,” I said. “The further she stays away from all this the better. I’m going to have the fight of my life on my hands. I can’t be worried about her safety.” As I spoke, I took all t
he feelings roiling around my head and tucked them deep down inside, trying to not think about how much I wanted Sabrina and Greg beside me in this fight. I turned to Abby and William and laid out the rest of my plan, wondering not for the first time if I was about to get us all killed.

  Chapter 30

  I GAVE LILITH AN hour after the sun set before I walked through the northwest gates of the Charlotte Memorial Stadium, between the Grady Cole Center and the football field. The playing surface was teeming with monsters, hundreds of vampires, werewolves, ogres, trolls, gargoyles, dark wizards, and a few creatures I didn’t recognize. The stadium wasn’t even close to full, so it was easy to see Lilith standing on a raised platform on the fifty yard line. Her platform was rigged with ten-foot metal poles on each corner, and every few seconds a bolt of lightning flashed from the sky and illuminated Lilith and everything around her.

  Lilith looked like an ancient priestess mixed with a dominatrix—a devastating combination. She wore a long white gown with gold trim around the neck and wrists, and a neckline that plunged to her belly button, showing off a black leather corset underneath. The gown was slit up each leg all the way to her waist, leaving just two panels of fabric covering her lower half, which was clad in a pair of black leather pants and boots that climbed all the way to her knees. To say she was an impressive sight, with the wind whipping her dark brown hair into a tangled halo around her head, would be a serious understatement. Of course, she became exponentially less attractive when I got within a hundred feet of her and could hear what she was spewing.

  “. . . the original woman, not that bitch Eve! Tonight I reclaim what was taken from me, and we reclaim what was taken from you as well! This entire world, which should have been our domain from the very beginning, shall be ours! My army of souls shall give you the power to lay claim to this world and wrest control from the humans, the daywalkers, the fools that have held sway over you for far too long! Tonight, we take back what is ours!” She raised her hands, and lightning flashed down to her platform, lighting up the area for yards around.

  I elbowed my way through the crowd and started the slow clap. Lilith’s eyes locked on mine, and her mouth dropped open.

  “Black? How did you . . .” She raised her hands again, and this time the lightning flashed down, collected at the tips of her metal poles, and with the flick of her wrist, she sent a blue-white bolt arcing through my body into the dirt.

  Or she would have, if I were still there. But I wasn’t. I’d counted on this, on being able to distract her, focus her on me, so the second we locked eyes, I reached outside myself, into my city, and felt the energy of all the lives of my people, my charges, flow through me. I felt a deeper connection to the City herself than I ever had before, and I knew that Lilith was no longer just trying to kill Jimmy Black, vampire detective, but now she faced Jimmy Black, Master Vampire. I was stronger, faster, more aware of everything. The scales might not have been even, but they were a little more balanced.

  I poured on my newly increased speed and sprinted up the stadium steps to the press box. I clicked on the mic, broadcasting my voice across the stadium.

  “Nice try, Lil, but you’re just too slow. Now, are you going to shut this shindig down, or am I going to kick your ass?”

  “You and what army, little vampire?”

  “This one,” I said, and pressed a button on my cell. Through the gate at the far end zone came the local coven leader Anna, clad all in white and surrounded by a dozen witches in various colors, all carrying glowing staves. From the parking lot where I entered came the roaring of a diesel engine, as Greg and the Guys came roaring in driving a CMPD mobile command unit, four dozen tactical police officers with riot gear, shields, and MP5 submachine guns hot on their heels.

  The assault vehicle, which looked more like a tank than anything I ever wanted to be in the same area as, parked on the field sideways, and legs extended from the sides to anchor the vehicle in place. A hatch atop the thing opened up, and out popped Trey, the comic-book store manager turned scourge of evil, with an M-60 machine gun that he slapped into a mount on the roof. There was a shimmer of golden light beside them, and Milandra appeared, riding the gold dragon that was her husband Tivernius’s true form. She had a couple dozen heavily armed faerie soldiers surrounding her, interspersed between the SWAT officers.

  “An impressive little band, Black, but hardly an army,” Lilith said.

  “Bitch, please.” I said. I probably could have found a better way to phrase my insult to the OG original feminist, but given the week I’d been through, I figured I could be a little non-PC. Besides, Lilith was planning to kill me anyway. Antagonizing her wasn’t going to make anything worse.

  I went on, my voice rising to match my temper. “In case you forgot, thanks to you, I’m the goddamned Master Vampire of this city, and I command every bloodsucker, shapeshifter, and monster under the bed in Charlotte!” I pressed another button on my cell, and dozens of vampires, with Abby front and center beside the remaining members of the Stanleyville Bloods, appeared atop the home stands on either side of my position in the press box. Across the stadium from them was a homegrown pack of werewolves mean enough to eat grizzly bears and spit out rugs for your fireplace, with my old bounty hunter buddy Kyle King leading the charge. The weres were all shifted to their really scary half-man, half-wolf, seven-foot-tall ass-kicker personified versions, and they all carried baseball bats, axes, or just random lumber and pipes they picked up from the construction across the parking lot. That’s one of the great things about throwing a rumble in Charlotte—no matter where you go, you’ll always be close to a construction site, so there’s plenty of heavy pointy things to hit people with.

  “You surrender yet?” I asked. I believe in second chances. And apparently infinity-second chances.

  “Never!”

  “Oh well, I tried,” I said. “Kick their asses, gang!”

  I jumped through the front window of the press box, shattering glass with my feet and hitting the stands at a dead run. I held my hand over my head, and felt the comforting slap of leather as Abby threw my sword and belt to me. I slowed down enough to buckle on my sword and scabbard, then I hit the grass and was surrounded by pissed-off vampires.

  Something was definitely different since I fully accepted the mantle of Master of the City. I felt more in tune, more in touch with my surroundings than ever before, and it felt like I was drawing power from the City herself, from the very essence of Charlotte. I could feel her red clay, the power in the rivers and lakes flanking the city to the north and the south, the strength in the centuries-old trees in Myers Park, the passion and fury of decades of fans’ cheers soaking the stones of the stadium around me. Every bit of my city opened herself to me, and I reached into that strength with both hands. Energy poured into me, and it filled me with strength and speed beyond anything I’d ever experienced.

  I drew my sword, and for the first time I knew that the blade in my hand really was Excalibur, the blade of legend. I could feel the age in the sword, sense the power it held, ready to focus itself against my enemies. I drew the blade from the scabbard and swung my body around in an arc. Three vampire heads dropped to the turf as I whirled, quicker than the eye could follow. I focused my attention on Lilith, and charged her. I cut a swath through her vampire army, sending arms and heads flying as I waded through a sea of bodies to get to her platform.

  Other parts of my little army weren’t doing nearly as well. Kyle King and his weres crashed into the Charlotte werewolf pack, all of whom were more than a little pissed at me. Kyle was the better fighter, but a lot of his troops were green, and all the Charlotte weres had experience. Devon was still smarting from the ass-kicking I gave him a couple days ago, and he knew that his only chance to stay Alpha was to get me out of the picture, so he was properly motivated.

  Anna and her witches basically fought the bad witches to a standstill, and their vulnerability while casting tied up a lot of ground troops on both sides, because so
mebody had to protect the witches from little things like knives and bullets while they were flinging fireballs and weather spells around. Abby and her vampires had their hands full with Lilith’s other monsters, which left Greg driving a tank through one flank of vampires, with Nester leading a vanguard of tactical cops at his back.

  The other flank of vampires was all mine, and I was carving them up like Christmas turkey, moving closer to Lilith and her platform with every slice. I looked up at her and saw her waving her hands over her head, a ball of glowing red light forming between them. I dropped a few more vampires, kicked a couple more back, then leapt for Lilith and her stage.

  I landed on one side of Lilith just as a giant shadow blotted out the feeble streetlights. Tivernius flew down to within a few yards of the platform, and Milandra vaulted from his back to land on the other side of Lilith.

  “Shut it down, Lilith,” I said, my sword leveled at her waist.

  “Go to hell, vampire. Literally.” Lilith said with a smile, and shoved her hands up into the air. The glowing red ball of magic flew straight up, and lightning streaked down from the clouds to strike the orb again and again. Then energy started to flow upward to the sphere of magic from the Earth surrounding us. The orb spun faster and faster in midair, then it exploded with a blinding flash that knocked everyone within twenty yards to the ground, except for Lilith.

  “Now we strike, my children!” I looked up, and Lilith was standing proud atop the platform, her hands held high above her head. Floating ten feet above Lilith was a portal, a grey opening spinning fifteen feet over her head. I lay on my back on the grass, staring up at the culmination of Lilith’s plan.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked. Then, as grey shadows began to flow out of the portal and streak across the field, I amended it to “And what the hell are those?”

  “That is a portal to the deepest pit of Hell, and those, my dear bloodsucker, are the sluagh.”