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

by John G. Hartness

  Chapter 19

  I BLINKED, AND we were back in the Market. I looked around for Tivernius, but the dragon was gone. There was no evidence that we had gone anywhere, except for the marked lack of Market guards milling around wanting to poke holes in us. I looked around, and Anna and Abby were there with me. Abby was scanning her surroundings for threats, while Anna was gaping at all the different types of creatures strolling through the Market.

  I waved Abby over and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you guys connect with Marty anyway?”

  “I approached them, Sir Sanguine. More mundane, searching humans at the Market? They had to be your people. I found them. Led them to you. How else would they have found their way to you?” I turned at the familiar voice and saw Marty leaning by a tent pole.

  “Marty!” I exclaimed, holding my arms out. The little lizard ran to me and jumped into my arms. I gave him a hug, then promptly dropped him on his back in the dirt when he licked the side of my face. “Too much, dude. Too much,” I said as I reached down to help him stand.

  “My apologies, sirrah. I was overcome with the moment. I feared that I would never see you again once you were taken by the dragon.”

  “Yeah, I had a moment or two of concern myself. Wait a minute. How did you know it was me?”

  “Your voice, sirrah, and your scent. Your appearance has been altered, but not the most important aspect of yourself.”

  “Yeah, most folks only use their eyes. So you led my friends to us?” I waved at the women.

  “Yes, but there were more humans then. The dragon didn’t eat your friends, did he?” The little lizard actually looked concerned.

  I patted him on top of the head and smiled. “No. Tivernius is a friend. Most days, anyway. He wouldn’t eat any of us. Greg was too injured to fight, and the others had things to discuss with the Queen.”

  “Oh, they must be important nobles, then.”

  “No, just a cop and a dancer. And I’ll let you figure out which is which. Thanks for bringing them to our rescue. But how did you find them?”

  “When I saw you were captured, I returned to the entrance to the Market, where we first met. I thought that eventually someone would come looking for you, and that would be the best place for me to find them. I knew the chef wouldn’t kill you, because he wanted to use your regenerative powers for a never-ending food supply. I’m sorry it took so long, but I brought them as soon as I could.”

  Anna chimed in, “If I had my way, we’d still be on our side of the universe, but Sabrina and Stephen finally convinced me that you were worth coming after. Creating a portal from scratch is difficult, so we needed Stephen’s blood to open a gate to Faerie.” At the look on my face, she held out her hands. “No, no, we didn’t spill his blood to open the gate, we just had to have a native of Faerie with us. Otherwise the gate wouldn’t open where we wanted it to.”

  “And where did you open this gate? And is it still open?”

  “In your living room. And no, we closed it behind us. But I can take us home easily enough, and anywhere I open a gate to from this side will tie to the gate in your house. As long as Stephen is with us.”

  “Okay then, so we can get home. Good. Now let’s get this rescue underway. We need to find the chef’s supplier and get to him, preferably unseen. I don’t have my heavy hitters with me, so going in guns blazing is a bad idea.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Jimmy? We’re just as capable as Greg and Sabrina.” An indignant Anna stepped in front of me holding her hands in front of my face. Her argument was made more persuasive by the fact that her hands were glowing with a nimbus of blue fire.

  “Point taken,” I said, taking a step back. “And what exactly is that, anyway?”

  “I have no idea,” she admitted. “As soon as I set foot in Faerie I felt my powers grow exponentially. I can do things here that I only dreamed about in the mundane world.”

  “Beware, human witch,” Marty said, tugging on her belt loop. “That is the temptation that leads many of your kind to forsake your world entirely.”

  “Is that really so bad, Marty?” Anna asked him. “It might be nice to live somewhere that my people are respected, instead of ridiculed or feared.”

  “That may be true, miss, but there are many things in Faerie that feed on magical energy, and not all of them are content to take that energy from willing or inanimate donors. And while you are more powerful here than in your world, so are the dangers you face.”

  Anna’s face betrayed her emotions, and I watched her struggle with those ideas for a few seconds. Then she sighed, extinguished her hands, and straightened her shoulders. Apparently a decision had been reached, and I wouldn’t have to tell Mike that I’d left his kinda-girlfriend witch in the Magic Kingdom.

  “Let’s chat about Anna’s relocation another time. When lives aren’t at stake. Marty, do you know where this is?” I asked, handing him the ledger Sabrina swiped from the chef.

  The lizard shuddered and looked up at me. His head-ridge was standing straight up and quivering, and his eyes were wide. “Are you sure this is where the chef gets his humans from?”

  “Why? Is it another bad neighborhood?”

  “No, Sir James, I know this address. It is the home of the Dream King. He is a very powerful wizard, and one that doesn’t like outworlders at all. I have never known him to allow a human to leave his shop alive, but I have never heard of him trafficking in human meat, either.”

  “Why do they call him the Dream King?” Abby asked.

  “He sells dreams, lovely Sanguine. He takes dreams from other creatures and sells them in his store. He is one of the strangest creatures I have ever encountered, and I admit to having no little fear of him.”

  “A four-foot-tall talking lizard thinks something is weird. Now this I gotta see,” I said. “Lead on, Macduff!” I gestured as grandly as I could in the crowded thoroughfare.

  “It’s ‘lay on, Macduff,’ moron,” Anna grumbled at me, but I would almost swear there was a teensy bit less hatred in her voice than normal. Maybe my charm was starting to have an effect on her. Or maybe she just couldn’t be bothered to think as much about me. Either way, I’d take an early thaw any day.

  Marty turned left down a less crowded alley, and we were off to see the Dream King.

  Chapter 20

  THE DREAM KING had a full building with real stone walls rather than a stall. His shop was smaller than the chef’s serving tent, but larger than his prep area, so maybe the size of the living room in our new house. There were no other vendors around the shop. No stalls, no carts, no vendors hawking the wares on their backs. The King’s establishment butted up against the hedge that formed the outer wall of the Market. A sense of isolation loomed over the whole place, made deeper by the run-down outer facade. There were no windows, and only one door on the front, with a sign hanging by it that read “DREAM KING—APPOINTMENT ONLY—GO AWAY!” The door had no knob, no knocker, no doorbell, or anything designed to welcome guests and facilitate entrance.

  Fortunately, I excel at announcing myself with authority. I walked right up to the panel and knocked. I got no response, so I knocked again. The door opened a crack and a skinny white hand crept out and extended an index finger to the sign, tapping on the “Go Away!” part, then withdrew back into the murk of the building. I knocked a third time, but the hand didn’t reappear. Nothing happened.

  “It appears as though no one is home,” Marty announced. “Perhaps this would be a good time to return to my other business endeavors. I have led you this far—I’m sure you can find a way in to see the Dream King without my assistance.” The little lizard turned to head back into the Market, but I put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “Hold up a second, Marty. What about getting out of Faerie? Seeing a little mundane world lizard loving? What about all that, pal?”

  “Honestly, Sir Sanguine, I might not have been completely honest with you regarding my motives in leaving the Market, and Faerie
altogether.”

  “Color me shocked, the lizard lies,” muttered Abby.

  “What do you mean, Marty?” I asked.

  “Well, it might be that my debts to Lord Buterin Great-Teeth had more to do with my desire for relocation than an actual—ahem—desire to relocation, if you understand me. And since you have asserted such an authoritative protection of mine person on Lord Buterin’s enforcer, I have no doubts that I shall now be able to refinance and repay my debts in a reasonable fashion.”

  “So now you don’t want to leave?” I asked.

  “Leave all this? Why ever would I?” Marty gestured around him.

  I looked at the dirty stalls, the monstrous beings wandering the aisles, listened to the bellowing shopkeepers, and tried very hard to ignore the stench of various animals and other unidentifiable things that wafted through the air. “Why, indeed. Well, then, Martifluousyntherianthemum Gregorovichinglingaringdingdingdong, I hereby release you from my service, and give you this token of my appreciation for your deeds.” I reached in my pocket and handed him my pocketknife. “Take this blade as my gift to you, Marty. Use it well, but use it only in the cause of justice. And try not to lose it in a card game.”

  “Thank you, great Sanguine, for everything. You shall always have a friend in the Market.” With that, the little lizard tucked my pocketknife into his belt like a sword, then turned and ran off into the Market.

  I looked at Anna and Abby and said, “I guess his work here was done.”

  “Or he’d seen what kind of trouble you caused with a guy called Chef and was terrified what would happen when you messed around with a King, even a Dream King,” Abby said.

  “Point,” I replied. I poked around at the door again, trying the knob and checking the solidity of the frame. Everything looked pretty solid, which was to say not vampire-proof.

  I turned back to the others and in a spectacularly loud voice said, “Doesn’t look like anybody’s home. I suppose I’ll just have to see if I can pick the lock on the front door.” I leaned in next to the door when I almost shouted that last bit. Then I reared back and kicked the door in.

  The door was stronger than it looked, but so am I. It flew into the room and fell flat, kicking up an enormous cloud of dust. Abby and I stepped in first, since we didn’t need to wait for the dust to settle for the sake of our tender lungs. Apparently the Dream King ran enough business out of his home for it to count as a public place, because I could enter without being invited. Or maybe that was just another rule that didn’t exist in Faerieland. If I could actually eat food here, I’d consider relocating.

  I drew my Glock and looked over to the right of the door and tried to get my eyes to adjust to the gloom as quick as possible. I should have done that trick where you close your eyes for a couple of minutes before you rush into a dark place with things that might try to kill you, but I’m impatient. And a slow learner judging by the times screwed-up night vision had cost me a half step on my opponent. Today wasn’t going to be one of those lessons. I could see nothing threatening in the gloom, so I called out “Clear!” over my shoulder.

  “Clear!” Abby’s voice came back, and Anna came through the door, hands lighting up the room with their blue glow. She was getting creepier by the hour in Faerieland, but I had to admit she made a great flashlight. And target, apparently, because something came barreling out of the darkness, heading straight for her, the second she crossed the threshold. I couldn’t get a good look at it because it was dark, and the bundle of fur and claws was moving crazy fast. I stepped between Anna and the whatever-it-was.

  It hit me high in the chest, knocking me off-balance and tumbling me to the floor. I wrestled with the thing, trying to keep its jaws from my throat even as I felt its claws pressing into my chest. Not ripping, just looking for purchase in my leather jacket. I wrestled with the thing for several long seconds before I felt something warm and wet on the side of my face. I squeezed one eye shut to try to see what I was dealing with, when the other side of my face was covered in moisture. Suddenly images from my childhood flashed into my head, moments of summer break and tennis balls before I ever knew what it was like to be trapped in the night forever. With a rush I recognized the deep, earthy, musky smell of a dog that hasn’t been bathed in a long time. That’s when I realized that I was lying underneath a very large, very happy Labrador that was trying its best to lick me to death.

  “I think it likes you!” Abby said with a laugh.

  “No accounting for taste,” Anna added.

  “Shut up and get this mutt off me,” I snapped, rolling over and trying to get out from under the dramatically overweight dog. “Hasn’t your master ever heard of taking you for a walk?” I muttered, ruffling the fur behind the dog’s ears. It gave me one last lick and backed up a few steps, allowing me to scramble to my feet. I backed up and straightened myself the best I could.

  I looked over at Anna, who was still standing by the door. “You okay?”

  “Oh yeah. My hero. Saving me from the vicious licking Lab. If not for you I could possibly be writhing on the floor being loved to death.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything, lady.” I reached down and patted the dog’s head. “Where’s your master, puppy? We need to see this Dream King and have a little chat with him about some people he’s kidnapped.”

  “That won’t happen. You should just leave now while you still can, vampire,” said the dog, tongue still lolling out one side of its mouth.

  I jumped back several feet and looked around at the others. They were staring at me with big eyes and dropped jaws. “Did everybody just hear the dog tell us to leave while we still can?” Everyone nodded. The Labrador looked offended.

  “With all the weird shit you run into every day, a talking dog has you hung up? Get over yourself, vampire. Now get out of my house. My master isn’t interested in dealing with you.” The dog turned and walked away, his tail wagging happily like a flag in a strong breeze.

  “Seems the Dream King has interesting taste in butlers,” Anna said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I had one just like it when I was a kid.” That led me to a chilling thought. I had one just like that when I was a kid, down to the splash of white on his front left paw and his big belly. Somehow whoever lived here had plucked that dog right out of my memories.

  I looked at the others and said, “Let’s go find this so-called Dream King and convince him that kidnapping humans and selling them for soup stock could be bad for his health.” Not to mention how unhealthy it was to poke around in the childhood memories of a heavily armed vampire.

  I stepped farther into the house and started looking around. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom by that point, so I could really see what was around me. It looked like something out of a remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or maybe Saw 27. The walls were grey with grime, and the wallpaper was peeling all over the place. Squares of slightly brighter dirt outlined where pictures once hung on the walls, and the house seemed to go on forever. It was definitely bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside, reminding me again how much I hate magic.

  I stepped through the foyer into a formal parlor, complete with tea service set for two. I lifted the lid of the teapot, then danced back as a spider the size of my fist crawled out. The spider reached up, grabbed the lid from my hand, and pulled it back into place. I gave the tea service (and anything else with a lid) a wide berth after that. There was a fireplace that looked like it hadn’t seen use in centuries, and a layer of dust an inch thick on the sofa and two armchairs. I kept expecting Norman Bates or a random lunatic to burst out from behind the heavy curtains swinging a knife at my face.

  I turned to say something snide to Abby, then saw that I was alone in the room. I walked back to the foyer, but no one was there. Even stranger, the door was back on its hinges. I grabbed the knob and turned, but the door didn’t budge. I pulled harder, with no luck. I put one foot on the jamb and pulled on the door with all my strength, and the doorknob c
ame off in my hand.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Hey! Where did everybody go? Abby? Anna? Come on guys, this isn’t funny!” I yelled into the apparently empty house. “Come on guys, we’ve got a job to do! We need to find this Dream King, kick his ass, and get those people back to their kid safely! We don’t have time to dick around!”

  Nothing. For all I could tell, I was completely alone in this apparently abandoned house.

  “Okay, then. Something has snatched my friends and is now currently screwing with me. Probably something that calls itself the Dream King. So something is going to get the ass-whooping of its life when I find it.” I stomped back into the parlor, looking for some hint that might get me out of this mess.

  “Come on, Black. You are a detective, right? Then detect something.” I scanned the room for anything that had changed since the last time I was in there. Everything looked the same. Same dusty pictures on the coffee table, same peeling wallpaper, same blank spots on the walls where pictures used to be. I turned in circles, looking for any clue to the whereabouts of the others, then sighed and moved on. Whatever had taken them, I was going to have to kick this Dream King’s ass to get them back. As I walked through the parlor toward the back of the house, my knee bumped the tray holding the tea set.

  When I did, the lid of the teapot rattled off, and I shuddered, remembering the giant hairy spider that was in there. My shudder shifted to a choked scream when dozens of big-ass spiders started crawling out. They boiled over the lip of the silver teapot like lava, a grotesque tide of legs and fangs. I jumped back halfway across the room, barely avoiding tripping over an ottoman that I swear hadn’t been there before, and slammed my back into the wall. I felt the whole house shake with the impact, and something landed on my shoulder with a soft thump.

  I turned my head to the side very, very slowly and saw out of the corner of my eye the biggest damn tarantula/black widow/brown recluse thing I’d ever seen. It was the size of a dinner plate. A dinner plate with fangs as long as my thumb. I screamed like a girl and swatted at the thing, spinning back into the room and hearing nasty crunching sounds as spiders exploded under my boots. I windmilled my arms and managed not to fall on my ass in the middle of the swarm of arachnids, but just barely. I put my arms out and steadied myself on an end table and three of the buggers ran up my sleeve quick as lightning, obviously aiming for my face. Any veneer of calm I had vanished at that point, and I sprinted further into the house, dashing into a formal dining room and slamming the door behind me. I brushed the spiders off my jacket and stomped them into paste, then dragged a heavy chair away from the table and used it to block the door shut. I could hear the scritch-scratching of thousands of little legs against the wood, but all of the spiders were too big to make it under the door. And that’s officially the first and last time in my life I’ve ever been happy that a spider was big.