The Black Knight Chronicles (Book 4): Paint it Black

by John G. Hartness

  By the time Sabrina and I had gone upstairs, dressed, and come back down to the den, Abby was back to her normal super-pale complexion and had stopped swearing like a sailor. She’d even managed to put her underpants back on, or at least they weren’t lying in the foyer anymore, and from the less-than-ladylike way she was sitting curled up in an armchair, she was apparently wearing something under my T-shirt. If all the women in the house were going to keep wearing my shirts, I was going to have to do laundry more often.

  “Would you like to explain what all that was about, now that bursting into flames is no longer imminent?” I asked, sitting on the couch. Sabrina curled up beside me, and I put my arm around her shoulders. Her hair smelled good, but I tried not to get distracted or dwell too much on how easily we had settled against each other. As if we were good at this relationship business.

  “I thought if I wore non-porous synthetic materials that I might be okay with limited exposure to the sun. So I tried it.”

  “Where did you get that idea?” I continued. She didn’t answer. I opened my mouth to press her, then caught her glance and turned my attention to my partner. Greg was making a valiant effort at sinking through his chair into the floor, but that’s a lot of mass to sink, and we don’t have that power, so he wasn’t getting anywhere. “Knightwood? What the hell did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything, bro! I promise! I might have mentioned a theory to Abby, but that’s really all it is—a theory. We’re nowhere close to human trials yet.”

  “Human trials aren’t the issue. Humans don’t get flash-fried when they try to get a little tan. I’m more concerned with this vampire trial.” I glared at both of them.

  “Greg didn’t have anything to do with this! I decided that it sounded like a good idea, so I gave it a shot! Don’t yell at him for what I did! And, anyway, what gives you the right to yell at anybody? You’re not my dad, so don’t try to act like it.” She got right up in my face and shoved me backward.

  I decided to try a little diplomacy for a change. Diplomacy wasn’t my strong suit, but I didn’t feel like repairing the walls if Abby and I really decided to argue vamp-style. I spread my hands and put on my best “calm face.” “Abby, I don’t want to yell at anybody, but I don’t want you getting hurt. If you guys had just asked, I could have told you that this was what would happen. I tried it already.”

  “Yeah?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah, in 1998. It might work with a hazmat suit, or even with leather, I haven’t tried that. But even synthetic materials like spandex have to breathe. And they’re not treated to repel UV rays. Plus we don’t even know why sunlight hurts us. For all we know it could be some magical thing, and no matter what we do, we get crisped if we go outside during daylight hours. All I know is that the effect lessens over time, so after a decade or so you can get from the car to the house without dying. But in the first few years, everything you remember about Count Chocula is pretty much gospel.”

  “Why couldn’t we just sparkle like the cool kids out West?” Abby moped, flopping down in her armchair and doing unsettling things with the hem of my T-shirt, which made only the most meager attempt at covering her long legs.

  “Because we’re real, and we’re not that pretty,” I said with a grin.

  “Speak for yourself, beanstalk. I’m a total babe.” I couldn’t disagree with her there. She was absolutely worthy of being a basic-cable vampire, even if Greg and I looked more like walk-ons.

  “So . . . where you been?” I asked innocently, not really ready to start another fight but knowing that a discussion was needed. Sabrina, helpful as ever, made some noise about showering and working and got out of the line of fire as quickly as possible. Greg didn’t even speak, just bolted for the stairs, leaving me alone with Abby for our little “chat.”

  She looked at the pair of them leaving then sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Where’s the camera crew?”

  “Huh?”

  “If this is an intervention, shouldn’t there be somebody taping it for later broadcast? I mean, this oughta be a ratings blockbuster—Vampire Intervention—When Bloodsuckers Go Bad or some crap like that. Go ahead, tell me how bad I am for eating takeout all the time. Tell me how it opens us up for exposure and makes everything more dangerous for everybody. Tell me how we’re the top of the food chain, but with great power comes great responsibility. Or are you going to quote Batman instead of Spider-Man this time?”

  “Well, if you know everything I’m going to say, why should I bother?” I asked calmly. Maybe if I kept cool, this wouldn’t turn into another yelling match. We’d had those already, and nothing had changed. I figured giving the reasoned approach a shot might not be terrible.

  “I don’t know, Jimmy. Why should you bother? What does it matter that I hunt? It’s what we’re supposed to do! We drink blood. Humans make blood. Obviously they exist to feed us, right? And I know what I’m doing.” She started to tick off points on her fingers. “I never drink from the same human twice. I never hunt in the same place twice in a week. I never go to the same place looking the same. I always mojo the snack into going home and sleeping it off. I always make them think they hooked up with a chick at the bar who looks nothing like me. Come on man, I’m careful.”

  “Careful isn’t what it’s all about, Abby. I mean, look, I’m not the poster boy for abstinence here. I enjoy the occasional Meal on Wheels too, but every night is too risky. That’s why we cut our blood deal with Bobby. It’s why Greg is doing IT work for the Master of the City to get access to his blood wine cellar. So we don’t have to be out there every single night. Every time we take a victim, it exponentially increases the chance of someone catching on to us. So we have to be judicious about things, and only eat takeout when we have to.”

  “But it’s so good.” She writhed a little her chair, and the hem of the T-shirt inched up to show off even more distracting young leg.

  Worse, I had no argument for her.

  “I know. You’re right. It’s way better straight from the tap. Just like draft beer is better than bottled beer. And steak is better than hamburger. But we have to suck it up and eat hot dogs sometimes so we can afford to eat steak for special occasions. You get it?”

  “No. That’s a stupid analogy. We’re rich. Or at least we can get all the money we want by mojo’ing a bank teller. So we don’t have to eat hot dogs. Come on, Mr. Apex Predator. Mr. Top of the Food Chain. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go out and hunt every night whenever I get hungry.”

  “Because I said so, that’s why.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, my eyes went wide. I felt like the stupidest asshat in the world, and the look on Abby’s face told me she agreed.

  She let out a peal of laughter and then flipped me off. Then she leaned forward and said, “Look, Jimmy. I like hanging with you and Greg. I really do. And I appreciate the whole keeping me from dying a couple times thing. But let’s be clear here—I am not your bitch. I am not your little sister, your daughter, your protégé, or any damn thing else. And if I want to go out and be the Big Bad and drink from the puny mortals, I will. And if you try to stop me, we’ll throw down. Are we clear?”

  There was a cold look in her blue eyes. I knew she was serious. I didn’t have much in the way of an answer.

  “So if you want me to leave, I’ll pack my shit and be gone come nightfall. Or if you want me to stay, I’ll be happy to hang around and play Scooby Gang with you and Sabrina and Greg. I like you guys, I really do. But this is who I am now. This is who you helped make me. And that’s just the deal. So can you live with it, or do I leave?”

  I thought for a long moment, then looked her in the eyes. “You’re discreet?”

  “Like a ninja.”

  “You’re careful.”

  “Like a bomb tech.”

  “You really want to stay and help us fight the bad guys?”

  “Yeah, it’s fun.”

  “Then we’d like for you to stay.” She squealed a little and clapped
her hands, looking even younger than she really was. I held up one finger. “But I do have one request.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Can you at least try to be a little more subtle, sensitive even? It really bugs Greg, so just . . . don’t flaunt the hunting thing, okay?”

  “I’m a hot blonde, Jimmy. Subtle ain’t exactly something we’re taught. Subtle is for brunettes and girls who wait in line at clubs. But I’ll try to be sensitive to Greg’s point of view.”

  “Thanks. I’m gonna get a little more sleep. I think we’re gonna have a busy couple nights. The Scooby Gang may have caught another case.” I got up and started for the stairs.

  “Hey, Jimmy?” I stopped and turned to look at her.

  “Yeah, Abby?”

  “Thanks. I don’t want to leave. I really like it here.”

  “We like you, too.”

  As I went upstairs I couldn’t help but think we weren’t finished having this conversation.

  Chapter 6

  I MADE IT AS far as the first floor, but got detoured on my way back to bed by the smell of bacon cooking. Since there was only one person in the house still capable of digesting solid food, I figured that must mean that Sabrina was up. I’m pretty smart that way. I padded into the kitchen on my tiptoes, hoping to get a good yelp out of her as I snuck up on her, but all I got was a swat on the ass with a spatula when she turned out to be hiding behind the door.

  “You sneak like a spastic hippopotamus,” she said, dumping the spatula in the sink and grabbing her plate. Sabrina was dressed for work in slacks, her boots from the night before, a maroon scoop-neck blouse, and a jacket that I knew was covering a shoulder holster. Her hair was pulled back, and I guessed she had taken a shower while I was having my little “discussion” with Abby. I had a brief, fleeting dream of Sabrina finally taking me up on my long-standing offer to wash her back, and I cursed myself for missing what might have been the perfect opportunity. She looked at me, and it was like she could read my thoughts, because she gave me a little wink that made my heart feel like it was actually pumping blood again.

  We sat across from each other at the small kitchen table. Sabrina tucked into what looked like a delicious helping of bacon and eggs, then slathered butter on a couple of pieces of toast, just to add insult to injury. I lived vicariously through her stomach and drank blood from a bag. I’d tried to come up with ways to flavor blood, but it never worked. Mixing it with various beverages produced fairly disastrous results, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never get the bacon seasoning to come together right. So I smelled the bacon, and drank my O-negative.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “How did your little chat go?”

  “About like you’d expect.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, me too. But she agreed to not be a complete bitch about it in front of Greg, and I agreed not to be a complete tool about it with her, so I think that counts as compromise.”

  “Did you break any furniture reaching this compromise?”

  “No, and there was surprisingly little profanity and yelling.”

  “Good God, Jimmy, I think you might be growing up.”

  “Well, it’s certainly taken me long enough.” Despite my youthful good looks, I’m almost forty. I’ll always look twenty-two, because that’s how old I was when I was turned, but I don’t trust Greg not to throw me a fortieth birthday party anyway.

  Sabrina stood up, scraped the crusts into the garbage, and put her dishes in the sink. “I’ll get those tonight, don’t worry about washing up after me.” I laughed, and she looked at me for a second, then laughed herself. “Oh yeah, forgot who I was talking to. Don’t let Greg worry about washing up after me.”

  “He won’t. He’s been using the dishwasher as a gun cabinet. Don’t ask.”

  She started to say something, then just shook her head, and I walked her to the front door. This was one of the new things in our “relationship,” the whole saying good-bye in the morning thing. I wasn’t very good at this part, so it usually consisted of me stammering and looking at my feet a lot until Sabrina left. This morning felt different, somehow, though. So I just pulled her close to me for a minute, letting her warmth soak into me through my T-shirt, then I stepped back.

  “See you tonight.”

  “Okay. See you tonight.” Then she tilted her head up, and I kissed her good-bye, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And maybe for some guys it would be, but I’m not that kind of vampire. She slipped out the door, careful not to open it too wide and torch me, and I stood in the foyer, smelling her on my clothes.

  Until a sound like a herd of thundering rhinoceroses came barreling down the stairs. I got out of the way before Greg crashed us both through a wall, and put out a hand to steady the rushing ball of pudgy detective. “Where’s the fire, partner?”

  “I remembered the smell!”

  “What smell?”

  “The funky smell on the jawbone, dude. You remember how it was kinda rotten, and kinda damp, and kinda dead, and kinda not, and all gross?”

  All thoughts of the really nice kiss I’d just experienced went swirling around the toilet drain of my memory as the scent of the morgue came back to me. “Yeah, I remember it,” I said sourly.

  “I remembered where I smelled it before!”

  “You wanna share that with the rest of the class, genius?” I was so not thrilled with this abrupt shift from happy boyfriend kissing a hot girl to detective talking about gross stuff.

  “Troll.” Greg beamed at me like the first time he beat Zelda. The second the word crossed his lips, I was bombarded by a ton of sense memory. Green monsters with battle-axes, evil faeries shooting me, cage fighting for ridiculous sums of money, meeting my first dragon, getting beaten to a pulp several times . . . he was right. It smelled like troll.

  “You’re a genius, bro. Now where does that put us?”

  “Well, I guess we’re looking for a troll.” The air went out of Greg like I’d popped a balloon giraffe at a six-year-old’s birthday party. I put my hands on his shoulders, turned him around, and pointed him down the stairs toward the basement.

  “Now, go do your internet magic, Jedi master, and go find us a troll.” I gave him a little shove, and he started toward the stairs. I followed him down and threw myself into a comfy chair while he settled in behind his desk to get sleuthing.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, looking over to where I was curled around the Xbox controller.

  “I’m going to do what I do best during the daylight hours, of course.”

  “Play video games, scratch yourself in inappropriate places, and drink beer?”

  “I might not drink much beer today, but yes to the rest of it.” I fired up Arkham City and commenced to kicking butt Batman-style. We spent most of the day that way, playing video games and researching trolls on the internet, until sunset when we could really start to work. Abby joined us about mid-afternoon, and we worked out an uneasy truce between her and Greg where I pretended to have never spoken about her hunting, and she pretended not to have any issues with either of us.

  Chapter 7

  I WAS DRESSED to go out when Sabrina came over after work. “Dressed to go out” for me meant I had a black sweater pulled over my latest Sandman T-shirt and a black jacket to hide my shoulder holster. I had my Ruger LCP in an ankle holster on my right leg, a Glock 17 under my left arm, and knives tucked into several places around my waist, wrists, and ankles. I decided to leave the sword at home, at least for tonight, but I was loaded for anything short of the zombie apocalypse nonetheless. Come to think of it, we’d dealt with at least one zombie apocalypse with a lot less firepower.

  Sabrina pulled back after giving me hug hello, confusion wrinkling her forehead. “What’s with the artillery? Do you have a lead I don’t know about?”

  “Maybe. Did you get anything at work today?”

  “No. We had four sets of parents to meet with, one from each of the women we
have remains for, and the worst ones were the parents of the ones we haven’t found remains for yet. They still have hope, even Bruce Marvo’s parents, who know in their hearts that he’s dead, but they can’t let him go.”

  I thought back to Greg’s baby sister, and how much it hurt him to cut himself out of her life, and winced a little. I held out my arms to Sabrina again, and she stepped in to me. I hugged her tight and stroked her head for a minute, then she backed off and looked me in the eyes. “So what’s the plan? You must have someplace specific to go, or you wouldn’t be packing all this armament.”

  “Can’t slip anything past you, babe. You ever thought about police work as a career choice?” She laughed, which was one of the hallmarks of our relationship. I tried to keep her laughing. If not with me, I’d settle for at me.

  “We gotta go to the Angel.”

  Sabrina pulled back, her nose wrinkled. “Are you kidding me? You know I hate that place. And that woman.”

  “Yeah, but Greg remembered the smell, and she’s the only one in town that can give us a lead.”

  “What’s the smell?”

  “Troll.”

  “Crap.”

  “No, troll. They smell really similar, but there’s a slight difference. And there’s only one person in Charlotte that keeps trolls around.”

  “Only because you killed the evil faerie prince that ran the cage-fighting outfit.”

  “He needed killin’. So you wanna wear that or you wanna change?”

  “What? You don’t think this is appropriate?” She had on the slacks, jacket, and blouse from this morning, and she looked great. But she might be a little overdressed for where we were headed.

  “I just thought you might want to change is all. It’s kind of a girl thing, isn’t it? Three or four outfits per day?”

  “Bite me, fangboy. The last place I want to go tonight is a strip club run by an immortal criminal godmother, so I’m sure as hell not going to change to fit in.”