The Black Knight Chronicles

by John G. Hartness

  When we had the wounded settled as comfortably as possible, I sagged against the wall furthest from the door and pulled out my cell phone. It was wrecked. The screen was shattered, and all that happened when I pushed the buttons was kind of a sad clicking sound. I rolled Greg over and grabbed his phone. Of course, even after falling off a building, his shock-resistant, water-resistant, fall-proof, titanium-coated cell phone cover kept his smartphone from getting busted. I scrolled through his contact list for a minute until I came to the name I was looking for, then dialed.

  “What do you want?” Anna’s voice crackled across the telephone wires. Anna was a local witch and good friend of Mike’s who had helped us out once or twice in the past. She kinda hated my guts, but I was hoping that she’d do a little tracking spell for me on Sabrina’s behalf. Strong women working together, that kind of thing.

  “Hi Anna, how are you?” I put a fake pleasantness into my voice whenever I spoke to her. I didn’t really have anything against the woman, but she really, really didn’t like vampires.

  “I’m fine, Black. What do you want?” she repeated.

  “I need your help.”

  “No.” She hung up. I stared at the phone for a minute, then dialed her again.

  She answered. “I said no.”

  “Wait! It’s for Sabrina,” I shouted into the phone.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Anna answered in a much more pleasant tone.

  “You didn’t give me a chance. You hung up on me.”

  “I don’t like you. I thought that was a perfectly reasonable response to receiving a phone call from someone I don’t like while sitting in the hospital waiting room as someone I do like is undergoing surgery for a potentially life-threatening cancer. You did remember about that little event, didn’t you?”

  Shit. She was with Mike. Where I should have been, if I wasn’t trapped in a crypt with two vampires and a werewolf waiting for sundown.

  “Yes, Anna, I remember Mike’s surgery, and I will get there to visit him as soon as I can. Please tell him that for me.”

  I guess she heard something in my voice that flipped her bitch switch to the “off” position for a few seconds, because her answer was surprisingly gentle. “I will. I promise. Now what do you need?”

  “Sabrina was kidnapped by vampires. I think they’ve got her at a house near the college, but I need some daytime intelligence gathering. Can you help?”

  “Yes. Do you have anything of hers that I can use for a locator spell?” I did, but it all got burned up with my apartment. Then I remembered, and reached for my wallet. I opened the tattered leather bifold, and there, tucked in the folds behind a couple of twenties and my membership card to an upscale strip joint, was a little white rectangle.

  “I’ve got her business card. Will that work?”

  “That’ll do in a pinch. Mike’s in surgery now, so I’ll come over, do the spell, and be back here before he’s out of recovery. Where are you?”

  I gave her directions, she muttered something about stereotypes, and told me she’d be there in twenty minutes.

  I paced until the knock came at the door, and Anna came through, looking much more civilized than the rest of us. Of course, in our defense, she hadn’t been thrown off a building, fought a couple of über-vampires or spent any time in a burning building in the past twelve hours, so she could still look nice in a long rust-colored pleated skirt and white top. She looked around the crypt like she didn’t want to touch anything, and I didn’t really blame her.

  “Who are all these people? And what the hell happened to that poor child?” She moved toward Abby with an outstretched hand, but I stepped in front of her. Her eyes widened at my speed, and she staggered back a step.

  “Sorry,” I said, taking her arm to steady her. “That’s Abby. She just got turned, then staked to a wall and set on fire. Probably better to let her sleep right now, if you don’t fancy being her breakfast.”

  “I’m Kyle King. I kill vampires,” King said from where he sat on the floor with his back to a wall. He didn’t get up, just offered a lazy wave.

  “A profession I approve of wholeheartedly,” Anna said.

  One of these days I was going to dig into why she hated vamps so much, but this wasn’t it. “Abby got set on fire, King and I got our asses kicked, and Greg got thrown off a building. And Sabrina was kidnapped. So it’s been a night. Can you help us find Sabrina?” I asked.

  Anna held out her hand and I gave her the business card. “Yes, I can feel her. There’s a connection with this. It’s weak, but enough to cast a locator spell and to scry her briefly.”

  “Scry her?” I asked.

  “I can cast a spell that will allow you to see her. You will see her as she is right now, and you will see whatever is happening to her. You will not be able to communicate with her, and there will be no sound, only images.”

  “Do it,” I said. Anna looked at me, not the “look at this idiot” looks she usually gave me, but a sharp look with a little fear in it. I didn’t care. She wasn’t going to be the only person afraid of me before this was through.

  Anna cleared off the top of a big sarcophagus in the center of the room, then drew a circle in the dust on top. Around the inside of the circle she drew symbols, all kinds of squiggly lines and geometric shapes. She set the business card in the center of the circle and murmured an incantation. The business card began to glow, then flared with a bright white light that made me turn away. When I looked back, the card was glowing with a pale blue light.

  Anna reached into the circle and took the card. She handed it to me. “This will lead you to Sabrina. You will feel a tug in the direction you should go. It is not precise, and the object may have formed a stronger bond with other objects in her possession than with the detective herself, but as long as they are together, this should locate her.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I handed the card to King. “Can you take this and go to campus? Between this and your nose, you should be able to pick up her trail. When the sun goes down, we’ll head out there together.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll even wait for you to start the staking party.” King left, and I heard the sound of his big pickup roaring to life.

  I turned back to Anna. “You said something about scrying?”

  “Yes. I can do this, but just for a moment. Stand back.” She waved her hands over the circle again, and murmured more Latin or whatever. The surface of the stone coffin shimmered, then transformed into an image of Sabrina tied to a chair in a lush apartment somewhere. She had a black eye, and a split lip and her clothes were torn, but it looked like no serious damage had been done.

  A big vampire was drinking from her when the image swam into view, and I stood there, frozen. I couldn’t turn away, but I knew there was nothing I could do, either. The vamp, a linebacker-sized white guy with a crew cut, drank a little, then pulled back and waved another vampire over. The next guy came at Sabrina from the front, earning himself a headbutt for his troubles. She hit him square in the face with her forehead, and I laughed a little as he spun back. I could tell he was swearing even without the audio track.

  The big guy cuffed her in the back of the head. I stared hard at the image, fixing him in my mind’s eye. That one dies slow.

  “I can’t hold the image much longer,” Anna said, her voice shaky.

  “It’s fine. She’s okay for now. Thank you, Anna.” I turned away from the scrying and went to the door, taking a self-indulgent moment to kick it and swear before I turned back to the witch.

  “How’s Mike?” I asked when I had myself back under control.

  “Scared. This is a bad type of cancer, James. I don’t know how much he’s told you, but it’s bad.”

  “Are there good kinds?” I asked.

  She gave me a pitying little smile. “There are certainly kinds with higher survival rates.”

  Once again I was forced to think about the possibility of a world without Mike in it. Then the obvious solution came to m
ind, and I shoved it aside. I could no more turn Mike than I could turn Sabrina. Besides, his religion was kinda founded on a resurrection of a different flavor.

  My eyes met Anna’s again. “No,” she said. Her mouth was a tight little line. “Don’t even think it. He’d never let you. And I’d kill you if you tried.”

  I looked down at the witch and said, “Lady, I’ll put up with a lot. Threats are fine. Insults are just peachy. But you try and come between me and my best friend when he’s sick and I will end you. I won’t bother turning you. I’ll just shoot your ass. Mike’s one of my oldest and best friends. I’d do anything for that man. But I am not bringing another vampire into this world, not even for him.” We stared at each other for a long time, almost daring each other to look away.

  Finally Anna nodded once and said, “Good. I believe you. Now what are you going to do about your lady friend?”

  “As soon as King gets back with a location, I’m going to make a plan. Then when the sun goes down, I’m going to get her back and leave a lot of dead vampires in my wake.”

  “Sounds good. I’m going back to the hospital. You can call me later for word on Mike’s condition.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  She left, and I was stuck in a crypt pacing a hole in the floor waiting on King to come back. Greg and Abby were still out cold, and I left them that way. With the injuries they’d sustained, there was nothing I could do for them. Rest was the best solution. Too bad I couldn’t get any.

  Fortunately for my nerves, King got back less than an hour after Anna left.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked as soon as he got the door closed.

  “The little locator thingy led me back to the house, but I couldn’t see anything inside. There were some serious blackout shades over all the windows, and the doors were all locked tight. I decided breaking in was probably not the stealthy approach we were looking for, so I came back here.”

  “So she’s there.” I cracked my knuckles.

  “Or at least her stuff is there. Remember, the witch said—”

  “Yeah, I remember what she said. It’s still the best lead we’ve got.”

  “Now what?” King asked.

  I stared at the light under the crypt door. “Now we wait for the sun to go down, and then we go kill a lot of vampires.”

  Chapter 16

  King sat with his back blocking the door, just in case anyone got too enterprising during the day, and we tried to get a few hours’ rest before I went off to tear a pack of vampires into little bat-shaped pieces.

  That whole thing about us passing out as soon as the sun came up was a myth, like so much of what people had written about us over the years, but the second I sat down, the events of the night caught up with me, and all the anger, fear and pain washed over me like a tidal wave. I went crashing down into a deep sleep for the next three hours or so.

  I woke up with a stiff neck and a bad attitude. Greg and Abby were still out of it, both looking terrible. King’s eyes snapped open the second I stirred, and by the time I had my feet under me, he was standing with a hand under his jacket.

  “Relax,” I said. “Nothing going on, just me.”

  The werewolf relaxed and sat back down against the door. I leaned over to Greg and shook him awake.

  “Where are we?” he asked, rubbing his head and wincing at the new bruises he’d accumulated in his fall. He’d been out cold when I dragged him inside, and he looked around in confusion for a minute.

  “Crypt behind Mike’s place,” I muttered.

  “What’s on fire?” He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to get up, but he was still too beat up to stand for more than a few seconds.

  “Nothing now. The college vamps burned our place down.”

  “Burned?” Greg asked in a small voice.

  I watched him processing the things lost in the fire—his video games, his computers, comic-book collection, probably some exotic porn that I didn’t really want to think about. “Yeah, burned. And they kidnapped Sabrina and tried pretty hard to kill Abby in the process.”

  “And let me tell you, I’m pissed about that,” Abby said in a weak voice. “Now is there anybody to drink in this . . . where are we?” She tried to stand and failed, so she slumped back down on the wall opposite me.

  “Sorry, kiddo. All my reserves went to Captain Sidewalk Pizza over there last night. I got nothing left. And as to where, we’re in a crypt behind a church.”

  “Did you say they kidnapped Sabrina?” Greg interrupted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do we know where they took her?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t quite at the point where I could talk about that in more than one syllable.

  “Are we going to do a lot of shooting and stabbing tonight?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then we’re gonna need dinner. I couldn’t fight my way out of a wet paper bag right now.”

  “Here, take a little. But let go when I tell you to, or I’ll break your fangs off.” King knelt in front of Abby and Greg with his sleeves rolled up. Abby locked onto the proffered arm with gusto, but Greg held back.

  “C’mon, bro, you gotta eat something or you won’t even be able to walk, much less help me find Sabrina,” I cajoled.

  “Just drink, kid. It’s the full moon, so I heal even faster than usual. I’ll be back to normal in a couple of hours, even if you two were to drain me almost dry. And I ain’t letting that happen.” King stuck his arm back under Greg’s nose.

  My vegan partner stared at it for a few seconds, then the pain of his wounds and his hunger won out, and he bit into the werewolf’s arm and started to drink. I sat against the wall, mouthwatering, while my partner and our protégé drank enough from King to heal most of their wounds. It only took a few minutes before he shook them off his wrists and pulled a dirty bandana out of his back pocket.

  I went over to him, tore the rag in half and bound the wounds. “You know they’ll heal almost instantly, right?”

  “Werewolf physiology is a little different. Those wounds will seep longer on me than on a human. Something to do with a symbiotic and subservient relationship weres are supposed to have with vampires.”

  “I’ve never heard anything about that,” I said.

  “I’ve been on the road for a while. I’ve talked to a lot of people about lycanthropy and other critters that go bump in the night. So I’d like to keep any blood covered while the two starved vampires get their wits about them.”

  “You’re pretty smart for a Labrador.” I tied off the last knot and ducked as he took a swing at me.

  “Thanks. And you’re not half-bad for a soulless bloodsucking parasite.”

  “One does what one can. How are you?” I asked, looking over at my partner.

  “I’m fine,” Greg answered irritably, swatting my hand aside when I tried to check his pupils.

  “You must be fine if you’re grumpy.” I went over to Abigail. She still looked pretty rough, and she sat with her back to the crypt, none of her normal attitude in evidence. “How about you?”

  “I’m okay,” she said in a blank voice that told me she was anything but. She sat staring at nothing, rubbing her wrists where the stakes had been driven through.

  “It’s understandable if you’re scared. They really did a number on you. I don’t—”

  She cut me off with a look. Her eyes were cold, almost completely soulless. The only thing they reminded me of was the way the Master of the City had looked—completely predatory.

  “I’m fine. They’re the ones you should be worried about. When do we leave?” She stood up, but wobbled a bit, still unsteady on her feet.

  “We aren’t going anywhere. You two are staying here with the furry blood bank, at least for tonight.” I held up my hand at their protests. “Come on. You both know you’re too weak, and it’s the peak of the full moon, so I can’t take Fluffy here with me anywhere. You guys might as well stay here, take the occasional nibble from th
e regenerating fountain of youth, while I go get some help and generally do what I do.”

  “And what is it that you do, exactly?” a dizzy King grumbled from his spot on the floor.

  “I hit things and make huge messes.”

  I headed out to do just that.

  Chapter 17

  The last rays of sunlight made me squint and gave my skin that nice rosy tint that either said, “vampire got out of bed too early,” or “ginger kid stayed at the beach too long.” I wasn’t really angry when I left the crypt, but I wasn’t ready to sing campfire songs, either. Everywhere I looked I saw Sabrina’s face, and every smell on the air reminded me of her. Thinking of her tied to a chair with a vampire gnawing on her gave me a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, that feeling a person gets when they know they are going to do a large number of very bad things to people before the night’s work is finished.

  It wasn’t a good feeling, but that was where I was when I got into King’s Silverado and headed down to Wilkinson Boulevard. Wilkinson was home to all the porn stores, strip clubs and pawnshops one could ask for, with a gigantic country bar thrown in for good measure. Since I wasn’t in the mood for line dancing, and all my guns had just been turned to slag, my internal compass led me straight to the biggest pawnshop in town. I walked in just as the clerk was trying to lock the front door.

  “Sorry, man. We closed. You gotta come back tomorrow.” He was six foot six and three hundred pounds of large black dude with no hair and enough gold around his neck to give Mr. T a chubby. He put his hand on my chest and tried to push me back toward the door.

  That didn’t go so well for him. I broke his arm below the elbow, so he’d only have to wear the short cast, but that was the only consideration I gave him.