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

by John G. Hartness

  “Hold on for just a second. And you probably don’t want to look.” She closed her eyes and stood still as I poured her a glass, then pricked my index finger on a fang. I squeezed out a few drops of my blood, then shook the glass to stir it as well as I could. I handed the glass to Sabrina, who drained half the glass in one gulp.

  “What is this? I thought you were bringing me grape juice. Are grapes different in Faerieland?” she asked the servant.

  I coughed and raised my hand. “I added a little restorative agent to the juice. It’ll help the hangover heal a lot faster.”

  Sabrina’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of restorative agent? The kind that comes from that flask in your jacket pocket?”

  “No, honest. There’s no alcohol involved.” I checked for my flask and realized it was still there. Good thing, too. If I’d really swapped jackets with that dream-Van Helsing I’d have been upset about losing the flask. And my car keys.

  “So what is it? I know there was something more than grape juice in there?” Sabrina’s eyes were starting to flash, and I knew it was about to get loud.

  “Blood. I put a few drops of my blood in the juice. It’ll help you heal faster.”

  She went pale and very, very still. She looked up at me, and her eyes were very wide. “What else will it do?” Her voice was low and a little shaky.

  “Nothing. I put like three drops in there. Not enough to do anything but provide a healing boost. For it to have any effect on you other than healing you’d have to be almost dead yourself, and drink me almost dry. The drops will just help you heal and give you a little extra pep in your step. That’s all, I promise.”

  “Are you sure? I’m not suddenly going to have to have all my steak tartare, am I?”

  I pulled back, offended that she thought I’d turn her against her will, and barely caught sight of Greg out of the corner of my eye.

  “I’d never do that. Not again. Not now that I know what it means,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice under control. The idea that she thought I wanted to turn her hit me in the gut, and left me wondering how good an idea this whole “try to date a human” thing really was.

  “No, don’t worry, Sabrina. He only condemns people to eternal darkness and a limited diet when he’s ignorant and really hungry.” Greg picked the wrong moment to add in his two cents.

  “You wanna go, partner? I’ve just spent the last half a day battling a guy who turned my head inside out and showed me my psyche, while you’ve been lounging around here snacking on faerie neck and laughing it up in the lap of luxury. I’m not exactly in the mood to have my motives questioned, especially from the guy who used to list his biggest goal in life as ‘develop super-powers.’ Well, I gave you everything you ever dreamed of, pal. So back off.”

  Greg and I had moved to where we were facing off just a few feet from each other. There was a wide circle around us, like a playground when a fight was about to break out. I took one step in, and then Abby was between us.

  “God, I hate it when Dad and Dad fight!” she said, putting a hand on each of our chests. “This isn’t the time. We’ve got to get these humans home and find the kidnapper before he grabs another pair, remember?”

  I nodded and stepped back, turning to Sabrina. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She didn’t look in my eyes, just said, “I’m sorry, too. It’s been a tough week.”

  “Tell me about it. I had a goblin eating my arms, remember?”

  “You’ve got a point there. And my head really does feel a lot better. Thanks.”

  “Anytime, babe. Anytime.”

  I turned to Greg. “Can this be over?” I asked.

  “No, but it can be over enough for now.”

  “I’ll take it. Here’s what we’ve got so far. We beat the bad guy here, but I’m afraid there’s at least one more guy back in our world that needs an extra-large can of whoop-ass opened on his head,” I said, cracking my knuckles.

  “I can do that. I’ve really wanted to hit something ever since we got out of the chef’s tent.”

  “I’m pretty sure we can arrange that. So what are we looking at?” I asked, trying to get a good look at the paper he held.

  Abby stepped forward and grabbed the page. “Well, I’m no Picasso, but I came up with a rough sketch of our bad guy based on Mr. Carmichael’s description.” She turned the picture around, and I immediately disagreed with her. It might have been a Picasso. From the cubist period. Or a Dali. Or a Pollock. What it was not, was a useful sketch that we could compare to the features of any living human being, unless their face was first run through a meat grinder and then spit out the ass end of a wood chipper. I tried to hide my reaction, but I was all out of subtle for the day, apparently, because Abby’s face fell to somewhere around her kneecaps.

  “Why not simply pluck the image from his mind and transfer it to the page?” Milandra asked from behind me. I jumped a little and whirled around.

  “How did you get there?” I asked. “Nobody should be able to sneak up on me!”

  “I’m the Queen of Faerie, James. This is my realm, and I get to do whatever I please. Including mask my approach from the legendary senses of the Sanguine.”

  “One of these days I’m going to get you to explain that whole Sanguine thing. Seems to be a little bit more than a title around here,” I grumbled at her.

  “One day I shall. Now back to the matter at hand. You have a powerful witch with you, why not simply transfer the image from Mr. Carmichael’s mind onto the page. And welcome to Faerie, Mr. Carmichael. I apologize for the wrong done to you by the denizen of the Market, and promise you and your wife the protection of my consort Tivernius and all the legions of the Fae while you are here.” She gave him a courtly curtsey, and David stood up to offer the best bow he could manage, which was good for a guy raised in contemporary America.

  Anna stepped forward and curtseyed to Milandra. “Thank you for the kind assessment of my meager abilities, Your Majesty, but I have no idea how to do this thing of which you speak. I fear Mrs. Carmichael is far too fragile to attempt any tampering with her mind at this time, and I would hesitate to put Mr. Carmichael’s mind in jeopardy by attempting an unfamiliar spell.”

  “A wise response, Madame Witch. I believe Tivernius may be of assistance. Dear?” she called, and Tivernius came over. He was less terrifying in human form than when he was a twenty-foot-tall dragon, but he was still better than six and a half feet of pure muscle and chiseled jaw. I reflexively tightened my grip on Sabrina’s hand when the paragon of manliness strode over to us. I noticed that Tivernius never walked, he always strode. I wondered a little if I could stride, then remembered that I tended to trip over things when I took long steps. I sighed a little and focused on what the magic-users discussed.

  “I believe I can help. Mr. Carmichael, did you get a good look at the man who abducted you?”

  “Yes, I’ll never forget his face.”

  “If you concentrate on that image to the exclusion of anything else, I should be able to peer into your mind and transfer that image from your mind to paper by magical means.” Tivernius snapped his fingers and a servant ran over to him. “Paper, please.”

  The servant returned moments later with a sheaf of thick paper, and Tivernius led David over to a small round table with two chairs. He sat opposite David, and instructed him to lean forward with his elbows on the table and head in his hands. “There should be no discomfort associated with this spell, but I cannot promise it. I do not completely understand the magic of this so-called Dream King, so there may be damage to your brain of which we are not currently aware. I can only assure you that I will attempt to cause you no undue pain, and that this is the most accurate method for creating the sketch that could bring your abductor to justice.”

  David nodded, then assumed the position. Tivernius mirrored his posture, and leaned forward until their heads were almost touching. The dragon-man shifted until his head was supported by one hand, with the other
hand touching the stack of papers. He closed his eyes, and the pair were enveloped in a warm yellow glow that flowed from Tivernius across the air to David, and down over the man’s head and shoulders.

  Sabrina leaned over and asked me, “Do you know what he’s doing?”

  “I have no idea. I can’t even program my DVR, much less do magic on this scale.”

  She grinned at me. “Yeah, good point. You’re more the hit-things-until-they-work guy. Anna?”

  The witch turned from where she had been closely studying the process. “It seems that there are two spells layered on top of each other, maybe even more. The first spell allows Tivernius to see an image that David has fixed firmly in his mind’s eye, a type of magical clairvoyance, if you will. Then there seems to be another spell on top of that one which gives Tivernius significantly increased artistic ability, to let him draw anything that he holds firmly in his mind.”

  “So it’s using magic to create psychic abilities?” Greg asked. “Because I’ve heard of people doing that before. Drawing things they’ve never seen.”

  “Automatic writing, I chimed in. Everyone turned to look at me like I had three heads. “What? I read.”

  Anna continued. “He’s right, for a change. It’s also called psychography, and it’s the principle on which a Ouija board works. Something outside the person holding the pen, or planchette, takes control of their body and writes, draws or moves a pointer through them. That’s what Tivernius is doing—he’s using magic to move the pencil and create a drawing based on what he sees in David’s mind.”

  After a few minutes, Tivernius’ hand started to move across the page. I tried to peek at what he was drawing, but his hand was moving too fast for me to get a good glimpse. It took him another five minutes or so, then he leaned back in his chair and the glow faded from around the two men. I walked over and picked up the paper.

  I showed it to David, and asked “Is this the man that kidnapped you?”

  He gasped and nodded. “That’s him. That’s him exactly.”

  I walked over to where Elizabeth was sitting and showed her the picture. “Is this the guy? Take your time, we want you to be sure.”

  She didn’t take any time. “That’s him. That’s the bastard. He pulled out of a parking space right in front of us, and when we stopped, he jumped out of his car with a gun in his hand. He pointed the gun right at David’s face and made us get in his van. When I tried to go back to Andrew, he grabbed me by the hair and threw me in the back of the van. David tried to fight him, but he sprayed something in his face.”

  “Probably mace or pepper spray,” Sabrina said, her tone now back to business. “Traces of capsicum spray were found at the scene. We figured that was what he used to subdue his victims. Can you describe the van for me?” This was the first we’d heard from Elizabeth since we got her free of the Dream King, and she was proving a lot more helpful than I’d hoped.

  “It was white, with a rack on top, like the ones that carry ladders? There was nothing in the back, no windows, no seats, just a big empty space with a cage between the back and the front seats. We tried to get out, but there weren’t any door handles on the inside.”

  “He modified a normal work van into a kidnap vehicle,” I muttered.

  “Makes you wonder how often he did this kind of thing,” Greg added.

  “I’ll put that on the list of things I need to ask our friend when we find him,” I said.

  “What if he doesn’t feel like talking?” Greg asked.

  I smiled at him and said very quietly, “He will.”

  Tivernius stood and turned to us. “I hope that drawing will be of assistance. I am afraid that I will not be able to travel with you and provide direct aid in apprehending this foul villain. We have much work to do in restoring the Goblin Market to normal business conditions after your . . . visit.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. Maybe someday we’ll come to visit and not start half a dozen inter-dimensional wars.” I gave Milandra a sheepish grin. “Thanks for not killing us, Your Majesty. It was good to see you again.”

  “And you as well, James. Now it is time for you to return home, and finish this unpleasant business once and for all.” She waved a hand, and a golden circle of light opened up in front of us. I had just enough time to wonder if it was daytime back in our world before the circle passed over me and I was home.

  Chapter 24

  FORTUNATELY FOR MY lily-white complexion, I was really home. As in, in our basement den, right where Anna said we’d reappear. Even better, it was just about sunset. The room was pretty full with me, Greg, Abby, Anna, Sabrina, Stephen, and the Carmichaels, but as soon as we all realized where we were, people jumped into action. Sabrina whipped out her cell phone and called into her boss, Lieutenant McDaniel, telling him that we had recovered the Carmichaels safe and sound, then asking him to send a couple of patrol cars over to our place to take them home and to bring her cruiser to her from Anna’s. McDaniel didn’t ask any questions, just went along with it and sent the cars. That worried me a little. I didn’t want to think too much on what Sabrina’s boss did or didn’t know about the help we gave Sabrina from time to time.

  She got off the phone and turned back to the rest of us. “There have been no other reported missing persons since the Carmichaels, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Yeah, it’s the weekend. He could have grabbed a couple of kids from the college and nobody would know they hadn’t gone to visit their parents or just gone off on a bender.”

  “I don’t think they call them benders anymore, bro,” Greg said. He seemed to have decided to let me off the hook, at least for now.

  “Regardless, Jimmy’s right for a change. We have to assume that he has hostages until we know different, regardless of the police reports. He could have taken a couple that lives alone, people vacationing, or any number of people that wouldn’t be missed quickly. When I get back to the station I’ll go over any reports that may have come in and not been filed yet because of the forty-eight hour limit.” Technically, people weren’t declared missing until they’d been gone two full days, but with our timeline that could be way, way too long for safety.

  Greg hopped on the computer and scanned the sketch into his hard drive, then started poking around databases to see if he could pull a facial match off the drawing. I wandered over to where he was working, but he waved me off. Abby settled in beside him at the big monitor and started surfing social networks, posting the sketch as a “possible sexual predator—call police immediately” alert on every website she had access to.

  Anna took a look around the room and shrugged, then pulled out her own cell phone and called a cab. “I’ve done all I can do here. My magic is down to normal levels now that we’re back in the mundane world, so I won’t be any good in a fight. And I do not want to be here when the police start asking questions about how you found these two.”

  “Can I catch a ride back to your place?” Stephen asked. “I’m in the same boat. I don’t think the Scoobys need me to take down one human, and I’d really like to go home and cuddle on the couch with my husband. It’s been a long day. Or week. Or however long we were gone.” I thanked both of them and led them upstairs to wait on the cab. After they were gone, I went back downstairs to see Sabrina talking seriously with the Carmichaels.

  “No, there is absolutely no reason for this man to ever come after you again.” Sabrina was saying in a low, reassuring voice. “He thinks the Dream King killed you. And besides, we have no reason to believe that you were anything more than a crime of opportunity to him. We know that he always took people in pairs, and the pairs were married couples, friends, co-workers, any kind of pairing of people that happened to be together.”

  “Besides,” I chimed in, “I’m going to kill him tonight. So you won’t have anything to worry about.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Elizabeth asked. “You don’t have any idea where he is.”

  “I have a few resources the poli
ce typically don’t have,” I replied.

  “Like what?”

  “Like my enhanced senses. I visited the abduction site before we went to Faerieland, and I took a good look around and catalogued the scents of the crime scene. Now that I’ve been around you two for a while, I know which scents are yours, and which ones belong to your kidnapper. We can use that to track him, and when we find him, I’m going to kill him.” That was complete BS. I was counting on Greg’s computer-fu to find the guy, but no point in making myself seem less mysterious and omnipotent to the mortals.

  “Enhanced senses help with the police work. I can see that,” David said. “That’s really handy, I bet.”

  I stared at him for a second, but he gave no indication that he understood. “Absolutely handy. I hunt by scent, David.”

  He went a little pale when he realized that I meant hunting people, but I couldn’t afford to sugarcoat anything for him. “Yes, I hunt people. Nowadays I do it for my job, not for my dinner, but the principles are the same. So I’m going to use the abilities that nature has given me to track my prey to track the man who abducted you.”

  “And kill him,” David said, looking me firmly in the eye.

  “Yes, and kill him,” I confirmed.

  Sabrina stood up and said, “Can I talk to you for a moment?” She grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me off to a corner of the room.

  “Are you crazy? Telling these people that you’re going to kill the man who kidnapped them? At first I thought you were just grandstanding, but now I think you mean it.”

  “I am going to kill him.”

  “Jimmy, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m a cop. We don’t kill the bad guys, we turn them over to the courts and let them do their job. That’s the way the justice system works.”

  “Not this time. This time we know who the bad guy is, and exactly what he is doing. We’re not going to trust your so-called justice system to make sure he never, ever gets out of the hole he deserves to be planted in. So we’re going to take care of that for them.”