The Black Knight Chronicles

by John G. Hartness

  I leaned over to study the bite marks on her neck. Those marks were the last scars she’d ever get. I had found out the hard way that anything up to and including a bullet through the heart would heal without a mark, but the scars that turned us were a reminder of what we used to be. I slid in to within a hair’s breadth of her neck and inhaled deeply, trying to get all of her scent into my nostrils.

  Greg usually had the stronger sniffer, but not for this. Not this scent. I breathed in rose-tinged perfume, a hint of my blood, a little sour smell of vomit, the three beers she’d had since waking and the deep rich smell of the blood I’d given her to feed on. But underneath all those smells, woven into the complex scent of Abby, was another smell, darker, older and somehow warmer than the others. I knew it was the scent of the vampire who had turned her, and that I’d be able to follow that scent anywhere.

  I took a step back, fulfilling my evening’s destiny and falling over the coffee table onto my butt. As I lay sprawled over the table, I flashed back to the last time I’d smelled that very same vampire’s scent—the night she had turned me.

  I met her at a bar, and she laughed at my jokes. That didn’t happen much in the ’90s, so I bought her a drink. Then, I bought her another drink. Then, she bought me a drink. Then we danced, which went better than normal. Better than normal meant that I didn’t step on her toes too often or fall down on the dance floor. A slow song came on, and the world went away as I buried my face in her neck. I nibbled her earlobe, kissed the side of her neck and closed my eyes as the scent of fresh flowers filled my nose. She smelled like all the greatest things in the world, all layered over with a hint of sweat and promise.

  We left the bar and made our drunken way back to my apartment. The den was in its normal state of disaster, but she ignored all that. She just stood there between the thrift-store sofa and the cheap Zenith television and kissed me.

  When her lips touched mine for the first time, I felt it all the way down to my toes. I heard trumpets, saw fireworks and lost control of my extremities. She followed me down as I collapsed on the couch, and we made love right there on the living room sofa. She sank her fangs into me as we joined together and she killed me with my pants around my ankles and a Rolling Stone magazine stuck to my butt.

  Her scent charged out of the past and knocked me nearly unconscious fifteen years later in the middle of another messy living room.

  We had a problem.

  Chapter 4

  “What is it?” Sabrina asked, reaching to help me up.

  I shook my head and marched over to the liquor shelf in the kitchenette. I poured a double scotch into a tumbler, looked at it, and turned up the bottle. The peaty amber liquid burned as it went down, and tears sprang to my eyes. I grabbed two beers from the fridge and downed one of them in a long pull. I held the other one to my forehead for a second as I leaned back against the refrigerator. I wasn’t flushed. That hadn’t happened since Clinton was President but, in times of stress, I sometimes flash back to reflexes from when I was alive.

  When I felt I could move without stumbling or twitching like a junkie on day three of withdrawal, I went back over to where the others alternated between aiming panicked looks at me and throwing threatening glares at Abigail. “It’s not her,” I said, drawing a shaky breath. “Or more to the point, it’s not anything she knows about.”

  “Then what is it, bro?” Greg sounded as solemn as I’d ever heard him and, when I looked, all hints of my dorky, harmless roommate were gone. He had a KA-BAR knife in one hand and a Glock in the other. He didn’t turn his attention to Abigail when he spoke to me, and I noticed for the first time how scary Greg could be when he wanted to be.

  “It’s her sire. Or dam, or whatever the right word is. It’s the scent of the vamp that turned her. I recognize it.”

  “But you’ve only ever met two other vamps before tonight, and I’m one of them. And if I didn’t turn her . . . sonofabitch.” Greg turned away from me and crossed to the door at the bottom of the stairs. He threw the heavy steel door closed and dropped an iron bar across it. Mike and Sabrina shared a concerned look, but said nothing.

  “I don’t know that we need all that, buddy, but it’s not a bad idea.” I sat back down on the couch, took a swig of my fresh beer, and put my head in my hands.

  “You want to clue the rest of us in on what’s got you so freaked out, Jimmy?” Sabrina asked softly. She leaned away a little, as if afraid I might not be in control of myself. That was probably a pretty good guess.

  “The vamp that turned Abigail. She was the vamp that turned me,” I said, looking at the floor.

  My mind kept going back to that night, a girl way out of my league wanting to dance with me, wanting to leave with me, wanting to go back to my apartment. It was one of the high points of my less than illustrious post-college life, and it ended with her killing me on my couch, and me murdering my best friend.

  “I’ll never forget the smell of her. She smelled like magnolias, and incense and just a little bit of sweat. It was the best thing I’d ever smelled in my life . . .” Then, I was off the couch and headed for the bathroom. I crouched in front of the toilet and noisily revisited the beer, scotch and a couple of pints of blood. I sat on the tiles retching for a long minute or two before a hand reached in and passed me a glass of water.

  I looked up at Mike’s face, the face I’d known since we were in elementary school, and wondered where all that gray hair had come from. I took a good look at my friend for the first time in months and saw the yellow tint around his eyes, the sunken cheeks and the clean-shaven look so different from the neat beard he’d sported since our senior year of high school. Suddenly, everything clicked into place as I sat with the linoleum making flower patterns on my butt and the cool porcelain pressed against my side.

  “Were you planning on telling me anytime soon?” I whispered low enough that not even Greg could eavesdrop.

  Mike twitched a wry smile, and his lips barely moved as he breathed his answer. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right time.”

  “What is it? Lung? I know it’s not brain. You lack the requisite organ.”

  He punched me lightly on the arm. “Esophagus. I thought it was acid reflux brought on by chasing you two idiots around all night but, apparently, it was a tumor. The radiation finished up last week, and I’m scheduled for surgery tomorrow. I was actually coming over here to tell you both about it.”

  “I would hope so,” Greg interjected from the doorway, “because I was not looking forward to outing you.” I looked up at Greg, his face solemn. When I gazed pointedly at the living room, he said, “Don’t worry, I told the girls it was a private discussion, and I don’t think Abigail has figured out that she has bat-ears yet.”

  “How long have you known?” Mike asked him.

  “Since your first treatment. I do the cancer ward thing, remember?”

  “What cancer ward thing?” I asked. Apparently, there were all sorts of things going on with my friends that I wasn’t aware of.

  “I volunteer a couple nights a week hanging with the cancer kids. It’s something The Guys got me into.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought those dorks would know there was a world outside their comic shop.” I didn’t have a very high opinion of the comic shop nerds Greg called The Guys, but they had been useful on a couple of occasions in the past.

  “Well, you know Mark, the owner of the shop?” he asked. After my nod, he went on, “Mark’s kid brother had leukemia, so I got to know some of the nurses. It was kind of a crappy place, so I took in some games, got them a decent TV, and I go in sometimes and play Xbox with them. You know, let the kids feel like kids for a little while instead of pincushions.”

  “Wow, Greg. That’s . . . amazing. I didn’t know anything about it. You never said.”

  “I dunno why. It’s just something I do.”

  I looked at my best friend, trying to think of something to say. A therapist would probably say something about him trying to
compensate for having to drink life by helping the sick or something like that. But I had bailed on the only psychology class I ever took, and Greg looked embarrassed, so I decided to let it drop.

  Mike reached over and put a hand on Greg’s arm. “I’m sure it helps them quite a bit, my friend. Quite a bit. Now, before the obvious questions arise about a Catholic priest and two vampires in one small room, shall we rejoin the ladies?” We all laughed, and just for a second, it was like we were kids again. Then reality came back.

  I grabbed Mike’s hand for help getting off the bathroom floor. “We’ll talk about this a little more, right?” I didn’t really mean it as a question.

  “Yes. I’ll give you all the gory details. And when this is all over, I’ll have a nice set of neck scars all my own.” He grinned lopsidedly and almost managed to hide the fear in his eyes.

  I looked at Greg and could almost read the thoughts printed across his face. Mike was our oldest friend, our Third Musketeer, and neither of us wanted to know what the world was like without Mike in it. I’d already watched from the trees, smoldering through my jacket as I watched them lower my dad into the ground, and learned firsthand how hard it was to lose someone you couldn’t say good-bye to properly. I knew if anything happened to Mike we wouldn’t be able to attend any of the services. Even if they were evening visitations, it wouldn’t do for the deceased two best friends to suddenly come back from the dead to give him a good send-off. Sometimes being dead sucks.

  I turned away, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Greg wiping away a pale pink tear when he thought I couldn’t see. I knew exactly how he felt.

  Chapter 5

  Sabrina and Abigail were watching the news when we made our way back to the den. Abigail’s face smiled down larger than life from the flat screen on the wall.

  “Looks like the news has broken,” I said, taking my spot on the sofa next to Sabrina.

  “Yeah, what are we going to do about it?” Abigail asked. “My parents think I’m dead! They’ve already been interviewed about finding my body. I want to call them, but she took my cell phone.” She glared at Sabrina, who looked pretty unfazed by the girl’s anger.

  “Good move,” I told Sabrina. “Look, pumpkin, I’ve got a news flash you’re not gonna find on WCNC—in every way that matters, you are dead. You can’t call your parents, or your roommate, or your boyfriend, or anyone. They need to move on without you because you’re going to have to move on without them. You’re a vampire. You burn in the sunlight, don’t like silver jewelry, have issues with true believers and have a very, very strict liquid diet. If you don’t get that through that pretty little head of yours, you will be dead again, this time forever. Comprende?” I realized suddenly that I was shouting, and stood there for a minute, working to bring myself back under control.

  Abigail sat there, staring up at me angrily, then threw her beer bottle at my head and made a dash for the door. Fortunately for her, Greg was really fast for a fat vampire, and he grabbed her after about three steps. I could see his eyes go wide as she fought against him, surprise written all over his face at her strength. She almost wriggled free before I stepped between her and the door with my Glock pointed at her head.

  Abigail froze.

  “Behave,” I said. She drew back to hit me, and I pulled the hammer back on the Glock. “Sit. Down. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m not crazy about having another vampire standing in my den, and I’m getting a little testy about the whole night. So if you don’t want to learn the hard way about regenerating from gunshot wounds, I’d really suggest you sit down.”

  She didn’t budge, so I nodded at Greg. He picked her up from behind, and carried her into his bedroom. I motioned for Mike to follow, heard a muffled thump as Greg dropped the girl on the bed and then came out, closing Mike in there with her.

  “Is that safe?” Sabrina asked. “Leaving Mike in there with her? She seemed pretty mad.”

  “Safer than having her out here where Jimmy could stake her,” Greg said, grabbing a beer and picking up the wireless mouse and keyboard he kept on the desk in the den. He switched the TV over to computer monitor mode and started surfing the web. “I’m going to spend a little time trying to track our mystery vamp while you two figure out what to do about the ambulance parked behind our house.”

  I looked over at Sabrina, who looked back at me. “How long do we have before they really start looking for the ambulance? I took off the plates, but I think that might be of limited use, given the conspicuous nature of the vehicle.”

  “The APB went out right after Bobby made it to the hospital with his story of being carjacked. It helps that we’re on the other side of town, and in a cemetery, but we’ve got to make that thing disappear today.”

  “How was Bobby?”

  “A little shaken up, but also pretty excited. He thinks all this crap is cool.”

  “We are cool, babe. You know, studly stalkers of the night, protectors of the innocent, sexy predators that all men want to be and all women want to be with.” I went for my best rakish look, but Sabrina had burst out laughing at “sexy predators.”

  “Yeah, whatever. You got any clients that run chop shops?”

  “No. You got any old informants that owe you a favor?”

  “No. So if we’re out of the stereotypical ideas, what’s next?”

  “I sent her an email,” Greg said over his shoulder. “She’s sending a guy over. I’ll get ten grand out of the safe and put it on the driver’s seat. It’ll be taken care of in an hour.”

  “Uh, two questions, buddy. One, we have a safe? And two, who are you talking about?” I watched as Greg got up from his goofy little game chair and went over to the fridge. He pulled it away from the wall to reveal a safe set into the floor underneath it. He dialed a combination and pulled out a wrapped stack of hundred-dollar bills.

  He shoved the fridge back into place, dropped the cash in a paper bag and handed it to Sabrina. “Now, do you really have to ask that second question? Who is the one person we know with fingers into almost every illegal pie in Charlotte?”

  Sabrina and I looked at each other and said, “Lilith.”

  The immortal seductress had insinuated herself into all sorts of unsavory operations since coming to town as an indentured servant to a fallen angel. When the angel had suddenly became un-fallen, Lilith was stuck here running his operation, and she was not happy about it. She was pretty pissed off at us the last time I saw her, but apparently ten grand bought a lot of tolerance these days.

  “So where the hell did you get ten grand?” I asked.

  Greg looked at Sabrina, then back at me, then shrugged. “I play a lot of online poker.”

  “I thought that was illegal.” I clapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I said it, but the damage was done.

  Greg glared at me. “Actually, playing poker on the Internet is perfectly legal. It’s against the law to process payment transactions, or to accept wagers from American players.”

  “Do I even want to know?” I asked.

  “Probably not, but since we’re this far in I may as well finish. The server in the coat closet is mirrored with one I own in Costa Rica, and I bounce my signal between them to play.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” I admitted.

  “It means that the poker site thinks I’m in Costa Rica, so it’s legal for me to play.”

  “I was right. I didn’t want to know.”

  Sabrina took the cash upstairs and deposited it on the seat of the ambulance. While she took care of that, I cleaned my guns while Greg started his online investigation. The vampiric blast from my past had kicked my normal paranoia into high gear, and I wanted to make sure all my weapons were in tip-top shape. A few minutes later Greg called me over to the computer.

  “Check this out,” he whispered, clicking through a series of web pages faster than I could see them, much less read anything. Ten seconds of that, and I snatched the mouse away from him. I clicked through the tabs more slowly and s
aw that he’d called up the Charlotte Observer online archives as well as somehow gotten into the paper’s internal document storage. I looked through the articles on missing students, then swung Greg’s other monitor over. On that screen, he’d hacked into the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department case file database, and he had called up a good dozen or more missing persons cases.

  “Anything look familiar?” he whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” Sabrina asked from over my shoulder, making us both jump.

  “Look at this.” Greg pointed, drawing our attention to the screens. “Fifteen students missing over the past eighty years. All seniors or juniors ready to graduate early. All missing after a night class, and no bodies ever found. Sound familiar?”

  “Yeah, it sounds like Little Mary Sunshine in there is just the latest in a whole string of vampire kills on campus.” I pointed to the case file screen again. “But something’s wrong. The last missing person was just six months ago. None of the other attacks have happened within three years of each other.”

  “So our vampire got careless,” Sabrina said.

  “Careless vampires don’t live very long. And they certainly don’t live most of a century in one location and then make a stupid mistake like turning someone too close to the last victim. Besides, look at this case.” I clicked on one of the older files and pointed at the date.

  “What about it?” she asked.

  “I know two things for a fact. One, the vampire that turned Abby was the same vampire that turned me. I’d know that smell anywhere. And two, I know that she was not in Charlotte when this murder was reported.”

  “What makes you so sure? I mean, I believe that it smelled like her, but don’t some people smell alike?”

  Greg and I didn’t even hesitate, we both just said, “No.”

  My partner, ever the more educational type, explained a little. “Scents are like fingerprints, at least in our experience. No one smells just like someone else. There are a lot of things that go into a person’s scent—their ethnicity, their blood type, their geography, their occupation, their diet, their drug uses and abuses, even whether or not they drink regular coffee or decaf. The odds of two people having the exact same scent is so astronomical as to be impossible.”