The Black Knight Chronicles

by John G. Hartness

  “Nice trick,” I said, jumping down to land beside her in a puff of gray concrete dust. The others joined us, Sabrina leading the way. Lilith acknowledged her arrival with a nod, the way two gunfighters nod at each other in old western movies. I knew they’d rather throw down than talk, but they put that aside for the moment.

  “Okay,” I went on. “Let’s move on from what you know. I’ll settle for what you sense. Or even guess.”

  Lilith walked up to Abigail and sniffed around her for a few seconds, looking carefully at the scars on her throat. She even leaned in and licked the side of the girl’s neck, which I was sure sent Greg to a happy place, but it just creeped me out a little.

  “I sense nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. “I know nothing about the vampire who made this new one at all, except that she made both of you.”

  I didn’t give her the satisfaction of asking her how she knew. I just nodded for her to go on.

  “In the ancient days when monsters were entering the territory of another, stronger beast they would leave a peace offering where it would be easy to find. A sacrifice, if you will, to request safe passage. Perhaps that is what you were, my dear.”

  “I was an offering?” Abigail sputtered, outraged.

  “Looks like it, kiddo. Now we need to find out to who,” I said.

  “To whom, little vampire, to whom. And while I would normally suggest that I would be the logical choice, this is not the place to make a sacrifice to my authority. And I have little use for the Sanguine. So I suspect that you are looking for someone else as the intended recipient of your lovely sister.”

  “Don’t you mean we are looking for someone else, Lilith?” I asked.

  “Oh no, little vampire. There is no we, royal or otherwise, in this equation. Now that I am fairly certain that this involved me not at all, I shall remove myself from the fray. If you require my assistance at any point, you know where to find me. You’ll find my prices very reasonable.” Lilith stroked a hand down my chest, grinned at Sabrina, then floated back up to the lip of the construction site and walked away. A few seconds later, I heard a motorcycle rev up and drive off.

  I wondered for a second why I hadn’t heard her drive up until Greg said, “She was waiting for us, bro.”

  “Huh?” I grunted, studiously not looking at where Lilith had just gone and even more studiously trying not to think about how warm her hand had been on my chest. That woman made me more uncomfortable than most, and that’s saying something.

  “I didn’t hear her drive up, and I was paying attention. She was waiting for us. I’d guess she came out here during the day, got whatever information she was going to get, and waited for us to show up to tell us it wasn’t her deal.”

  Abigail actually raised her hand. “Um . . . for the new kid, who was that?”

  Greg put on his best professor tone for his answer, and I could have sworn he actually got a little taller while pontificating. “That was Lilith. Rumored to be the first wife of Adam. Yeah, that Adam. She was banished for wanting to be on top, and Eve came along afterward. Theoretically, she was made from the same dirt Adam was, thus had the silly idea that men and women should be equals. That led to the whole thing about creating Eve from a rib so women would forever be subservient to men, and we see how well that’s worked out for everyone. So Lilith is an immortal, and there are rumors about her being a succubus, a demoness, and a host of other unpleasant things. And she’s kinda the Kingpin of Charlotte, if you’ve read enough Daredevil comics to get the reference.”

  “I saw that really crappy movie with Ben Affleck, if that’s what you mean,” Abby said. “But I get it. What does she do?”

  “Owns a strip club, launders money, runs hookers, kidnaps innocent people and forces them to fight to the death in underground cage matches, disposes of stolen ambulances, whatever pays the bills,” Sabrina added, distaste dripping off her tongue.

  “And you guys don’t like her?” Abigail asked.

  “Despise is a better word,” Sabrina answered.

  “Yeah, despise works,” Greg said quickly.

  “Not me, I’m just afraid of her,” I said. Abigail looked at me until I clarified. “I’m afraid of anyone and anything I can’t kill. And Lilith tops the list in Charlotte, so I’m scared shitless by her. I try not to let it get in the way of occasionally having to work with her, though.”

  “She tried to have us all killed a few months ago for interfering with one of her illegal operations. That’s not something I’ve managed to forgive yet,” Sabrina said.

  “And the lovely Detective Law has been looking for an excuse to try out Lilith’s famed immortality ever since,” I added.

  “I don’t get it,” Abigail went on. “Why did she come out here just to tell us that she wasn’t responsible for . . . turning me?”

  Greg ticked off the points on his fingers as he spoke. “Lilith is above all else a businesswoman. She loves few things in this world, but money is high on the list. And if we go in and start wrecking her club again, that costs her money. She knows we’ll probably believe her if she tells us the truth, so that saves her money and saves us time. It’s a win-win. And I did just give her ten grand for a five grand disposal job, so she probably looks at this little info-dump as keeping her books square.”

  I looked at my conniving little partner with respect.

  “Well, if Abby wasn’t a sacrifice to Lilith, then to whom?” Sabrina asked.

  “That’s why we’re detectives, I guess. Our job to find out. I lost the scent of the vamp when she got into a car at the top of the pit, but I caught something else odd up there. Greg, come with me. You two keep checking for physical evidence. Abby, this will be a good test for your vamp-vision.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Sabrina asked.

  “I dunno, Detective. Teach her to detect?” With that, I turned around and bounded up the side of the pit in a couple of jumps, my pudgy partner right on my heels.

  Chapter 7

  “What are we looking for?” Greg asked at the top of the hole.

  “Take a good whiff.” I gestured to the woods near the site.

  Greg walked over to the trees separating the stadium site from the apartments just off campus and took a deep breath. He doubled over, coughing with the intensity of the smell. Sometimes I forgot that Greg’s sense of smell was much stronger than mine. This wasn’t one of those times. I’d just really wanted to hit him over the head with my discovery.

  “Holy crap!” he gasped when he was able to speak again.

  “Yeah. Now what is it?”

  “What are they, to be precise. There are two distinct scents here, both from last night.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to keep my patience. “What. Are. They?”

  “Well, there’s the scent of vamp, a bunch of them, and at least one of them is really old.”

  “How can you tell?” I sniffed the air experimentally, but couldn’t find anything that told me if any vamp was old or young.

  “You know how blood smells after it’s been sitting on the counter for a few days?”

  “Boy, do I, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about taking out the trash a little quicker.”

  Greg cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Later. Well, this is the same thing. Abby smells like fresh blood because she’s a new vamp. You and I don’t. Lilith smells way older, even though she’s not a vamp. I think it’s got something to do with the tissue, or how we maintain our life force or something.”

  “Anyway,” I threw in quickly before Greg got too far down the rabbit hole with his theorizing. “So several vamps, at least one old one. What’s the other thing? That thing that smells like a cross between cheap cigars and wet dog?”

  “I have no idea, man. I’ve never smelled anything like it.” He edged further into the woods and sniffed deeply.

  “Like what?” Sabrina asked from behind me.

  I jumped about seven feet in the air and whirled around on her. “I swear I’m goin
g to put a bell on your neck.”

  “Try it. We’ll see where that bell ends up. Never smelled anything like what?”

  “We don’t know,” Greg said from the woods.

  “Well, what about all these vampires I smell?” Abigail asked, causing me to jump again.

  “Dammit, would you two cut that out!” After I calmed down, I said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the vamps, but we can’t do it tonight.”

  “Why not?” Sabrina asked.

  “Not enough guns and too many potential appetizers in the party.” I gave her my best don’t-argue-with-me look. She took the hint, which kind of amazed me.

  “Fine,” she said. “Then you should at least reconnoiter their location so we can get back there when we’re better prepared. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and that’ll wash away any scents they’ve left behind.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. “It’s not like you have a super-sniffer of your own.” Of course, with her being mojo-proof and able to sneak up on a vampire, I shouldn’t be surprised if she did turn out to have some kind of super-powers.

  “There are these miraculous creatures, Jimmy, called dogs. We in the police department sometimes work with these creatures to apprehend bad people called criminals. So we spend a lot of time in a great place of learning called the Academy, so we can study these creatures and how best to use them.” She spoke very slowly, as if to a particularly stupid child, which I supposed was somewhat fair.

  Abigail covered her mouth with one hand, but Greg didn’t even bother to hide his belly laughs. I shot them both the finger and walked off into the woods to follow the vamps’ scent.

  I motioned for Greg to stay behind because he’s about as stealthy as an epileptic rhinoceros. I also hoped that he’d be able to keep Abigail back there as well. If I was going to go stalking a nest of vampires, I didn’t need a rookie looking over my shoulder. I lost the scent a couple of times, but had watched enough bad survival movies to track in concentric circles until I picked it up again.

  The UNCC campus was built on the outskirts of Charlotte, and over the years the city has grown out to meet the college, creating a whole suburb in the area. Developers hadn’t gotten to everything, though, so there were big chunks of wooded land surrounding the campus. I was traipsing through one of those in a general northwesterly direction, my less stealthy tendencies masked by the carpet of pine needles on the ground. The scent of honeysuckle was heavy as the undergrowth thickened, slowing my progress and reminding me that spring was definitely in the air.

  After sneaking through the woods for about half an hour, I came to a tall fence around a Victorian-style house complete with porch pillars. It looked like a cross between The Amityville Horror and the frat house from Animal House, with peeling paint, loose shutters and a parking lot full of stereotypical college beaters in the front. The scent trails ran up to and over the fence line, so the vampires must have gone into the house. I had to admit, if I wanted to prey on college kids, this would be about the perfect place to live. Isolated, secure, and by the looks of the overgrown driveway, largely forgotten. Between the scents and the footprints, I figured there had to be at least a dozen vamps in there. I decided I didn’t want to take on that many vampires by myself, so I settled for watching the house instead.

  I eyeballed the place for about fifteen minutes and saw no hint of movement inside. Nothing flickering past a window, no glow of a TV, no sounds of rampant teenage fornication, nothing. What I did see was a lot of windows with heavy curtains to block light, bars to keep out unwanted visitors, and the telltale extra wire running along the top of the fence that told me it could be electrified with the flip of a switch. Pretty heavy security for a frat house.

  I marked the house’s location on my phone’s GPS, took a couple of grainy pictures and crept back to the others.

  “Well?” Sabrina asked. They’d finished up their crime scene investigation and were waiting on me at the car.

  “Deep subject,” I replied. “Let’s go get something to eat, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “You don’t eat,” she shot back.

  “Yeah, I do, and the cupboard’s pretty bare. So let’s go visit Bobby and do a little grocery shopping. I’ll fill you in on the way to the hospital.”

  “Bobby’s out sick today. Stress from last night’s attack and all. What’s your Plan B for dinner? Because I am not interested in donating.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask. Take Greg home. Abby and I will catch a ride.” I got out of the car.

  “Oh, no,” Greg said. “She comes with me. I am not going to have you teaching her how to hunt. Not this early. So we need a better plan.”

  “We don’t have a choice. She hunts, or you do. The fridge is empty. Miss Impetuous here drank us dry after her little trip outside this morning. Now you can keep your morality, or you can keep Abby all lily-white, but you can’t do both. Abby, how do you feel about takeout?”

  Greg wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I am not okay with this. We don’t have to be monsters, Abby. We can find another way. There’s a guy in the ER down at Mercy South that I’ve used once or twice. We can call him.”

  I took a deep breath, counted to ten, then counted to ten again in Spanish. Then I spoke. “Greg, that dude knows about you. And he’s only ever been able to come up with three or four pints at a time. It’s going to take double that to keep all three of us moving and sane until we can hook up with Bobby tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call him. I’ll see what he can come up with. Maybe he can do better,” Greg said.

  I took another breath. “Call him. Then go see him. Get as much blood as he can give you. We’ll meet you back at the house in an hour.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Abby.” Greg wasn’t quite pleading with the girl, but he was close.

  “Well . . .” The girl looked down at her feet for a second, then back up at me with a grin. “We are the top of the food chain, right? I guess I should learn to act like it.”

  “Exactly.” I looked at Greg and Sabrina, who looked respectively disappointed and disturbed.

  “Fine, but while you’re off raiding the campus buffet, I’m going to grab a computer and look up property records on that house you found. We do have a murder to solve, remember?” Sabrina said.

  “I think I’ll remember,” Abby replied. “After all, it’s my murder.”

  I moved closer to Sabrina, and said quietly, “I’ll see you at our place. Okay?”

  She gave me a long, steady look, but finally nodded.

  “Don’t worry. He knows how much this means to you. He’ll take care of her,” I heard Sabrina say to my partner as they walked to his car. She looked over her shoulder at me, and I nodded to let her know I’d gotten the message.

  I looked at Abigail, the very image of youth and innocence, and actually felt a twinge of guilt before I put my conscience back into its lead-lined box and said, “All right, kiddo. You ready to learn how to be a vampire? The best thing about a college campus is the variety. It’s like a buffet for vampires, if you look at it in the right way. You’ve got young, old, boy, girl, all the ethnicities and dietary preferences. And all of those things affect the taste of the blood,” I explained in a whisper as we walked. We weren’t even walking together, more like twenty feet apart but, thanks to our vamp senses, Abigail had no trouble hearing me. “Personally, I prefer my snacks to be a little on the heavy side, because they seem to have a shorter recovery time, and over legal drinking age because I don’t like biting children. I also shoot for the healthy-looking meals, but nothing that smells like a vegan. I didn’t care much for carrot juice when I was alive, so it’s not really on my menu nowadays. Now I’ll feed first, and you can watch how it’s done. Then, it’ll be your turn.”

  “O-okay,” Abigail whispered.

  “I usually use a little mojo first. It takes away the normal fight or flight instinct. It’s really hard to enjoy a meal when your entrée is fighting you every step
of the way. So first we lock eyes with our target and push our will out at them. You overwhelm their mind with yours, and then you’re in the driver’s seat.”

  I felt the tension coming off of her even from a few yards away. I thought back to my early days as a vampire. It sure would’ve been nice to have had somebody with a little experience to show me the ropes, instead of having to figure it all out with Greg, who only had his Anne Rice library and a string of bad movies to draw from. There had been a lot of mistakes along the way, ranging from hilarious to downright terrifying, and I was determined to make things a little easier on Abby.

  I realized with a start that I was beginning to feel protective of her, like she really was my little sister, even though I was technically old enough to be her father. I shuddered and pushed that thought way, way down in the dark recesses of my mind.

  I spotted my dinner coming out of the theatre building, one of my favorite spots on any college campus. The tech students were generally there until all hours. They usually started off pretty pale and had a predilection for turtlenecks that made my life a lot simpler. I picked a girl of about twenty with long, dark hair and blue eyes. She was tapping away on her iPhone when I stepped out of the shadows. She whipped up her little can of pepper spray lightning-quick, but locked eyes with me before she started spraying. That was her last mistake of the night.

  “Put that away.” I put the force of my will behind my words. Her eyes glazed over, and the pepper spray went back into her purse.

  “Come with me,” I continued, and she followed me into the woods between the theatre building and the visitors parking deck.

  I led her off the path a couple of yards and had her sit with her back to a tree. She wasn’t beautiful by any stretch, but had a striking air about her. I sat next to her and chatted idly about the weather for a moment before I leaned into her and bit deeply into her carotid artery. Hot blood splashed the back of my throat, and my eyes rolled back in my head. The coppery taste was so much better from the source than from a bag, but it was the sensation of life pouring down my throat that I’d never been able to explain.