The Black Knight Chronicles (Omnibus Edition)

by John G. Hartness

  “Crap.” I let go of Lenny’s ponytail.

  His head bobbed loosely for a second before he regained control of himself and stood up. He was recovering pretty quickly—I guess faeries do heal fast.

  “Crap, indeed, vampire.” He turned his head to the side and spit a gobbet of blood onto the floor. “Now I’m going to have to clean the carpets. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of carpets?”

  “You should ScotchGard. And yeah, I know exactly how hard it is to get blood out of carpets. Try hardwood sometime. You never get everything out of the cracks.” I got a smile out of him with that at least.

  Then I realized that he wasn’t smiling because I was funny, he was smiling because he had a very large pistol pointed at my chest.

  “Have you ever wondered whether anything other than a wooden stake through the heart could kill you, vampire?” he asked with a nasty grin.

  Then he shot me in the left leg, and I went down like a scrawny sack of potatoes. I lay writhing on his floor for a minute before I looked up at him and said, “This isn’t going to help with your cleaning bill.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’ll give me a rate just to do the whole room.” Still smiling, he shot my other leg, this time through the calf, because I was hunched over my thighs.

  It felt a lot like I’d imagined getting shot would feel. In other words it hurt. A whole lot. It felt a little bit like getting smashed in the leg with a hammer, if the hammer drove a burning coal all the way through my leg.

  Lenny used one foot to roll me over so I was lying flat on my back. He put his boot on my right shoulder to hold me in place, and then sighted along the barrel.

  “Now,” he said, “I asked you if you’d ever wondered whether anything other than a wooden stake through the heart could kill you. I mean, legends are old, and there probably weren’t guns when the legends first came about. So maybe we just need to conduct a scientific experiment. I know! I’ll shoot you, right through the heart, and if you heal, then it will take a wooden stake. If you die, then the legends are wrong.”

  He stretched out his arm, and I thought about how many vampire legends were wrong—garlic, holy water, churches—all that stuff dead wrong. Sunlight did in fact burn like a champ, but we’d never experimented with the stake or fire thing. Same with decapitation—we just figured those killed pretty much anything, so no reason to think we were exempt. Now it looked like I was going to find out the hard way.

  The greasy little faerie reached up, crunched his nose back into place, spat another big glob of blood onto my shirt and then shot me right through the heart.

  Chapter 28

  I woke up hanging from the ceiling of the warehouse, hurting in places I wasn’t even really sure were places. The room was dimly lit, and smelled like old blood and rust. I tried to look around, but moving my head made me want to puke, and I thought that barfing while swinging from my wrists might be a bad idea. And it certainly wasn’t going to do any favors for my poor wardrobe, which was already blood-soaked and perforated.

  When I was finally able to lift my head, I saw Greg hanging opposite me, with Stephen also swinging from the rafters across the room. Sabrina and Mike were tied back to back on the floor, and Alex was tied to a folding chair. All of them looked to be in some state of disrepair, and I had a brief flash of fierce pride in my friends knowing that we didn’t go down easy.

  I heard the rumble of a crowd outside the room we were in and knew we were still backstage at fight night. We weren’t in the room I’d seen on the monitors with the other faeries in it, so we still had to find and free them as well as ourselves.

  “Good, he’s awake,” Greg said. “This would be a good time to tell me you have a plan.” He looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to his face, with one eye swollen shut. His mouth wasn’t really working all that well, so he was a little hard to understand.

  Before I could come up with something witty to say, Mike looked up at me and said “I’m sorry, James. I blew the whole operation. They appeared out of nowhere, and I couldn’t fight them. I ruined everything. I’m sorry.”

  Mike actually looked in the best shape of all of us, even though his face was red from shame. It looked like the bad guys hadn’t wasted much energy on the humans, concentrating the beatings on Greg and me. Even Stephen looked pretty fresh, although his lip was swollen and there was a splash of blood down the front of his shirt. Sabrina was sporting the beginnings of a black eye, but otherwise just looked really mad.

  “Don’t sweat it, Dad. I shouldn’t have had you stationary. It was dumb on my part. You and Alex should have been circling the business park, not sitting still.”

  “But another vampire would have heard them coming,” he said. “Yeah, but I’m kinda short on vampire friends, so I gotta go slumming with humans.” I laughed at my own joke, and the laugh started a coughing fit. The coughing fit racked my chest until after about half a minute of coughing and spitting up blood I heard the plink of a piece of bullet bounce off the concrete floor. “That’s better. Lead tickles when it comes up, did you know that?” I asked no one in particular.

  Lenny stepped out of the shadows and responded, “I’ve heard something about that. Well, vampire, now you know that getting shot in the heart won’t kill you.”

  “Now it’s time to find out if the same is true for greasy faeries,” I said, spitting a gob of blood on his expensive Italian loafers.

  He calmly pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, wiped off his shoe, and then kicked me square in the balls. My vision went white from the pain and I tried my best to curl up into a ball, which is really hard when you’re hanging from your wrists with your feet dangling six inches off the floor. Who would have thought the little chump could kick so high?

  “I think we’re past insults, don’t you?” he said when I was able to focus my eyes on his face again.

  “Not at all. You’re still ugly and your mother dresses you funny.”

  Sabrina cut in before I could speak. “You know I’m a cop, and you know that this place will be crawling with police in a matter of minutes. If you’re lucky, they’ll just put you behind bars. It’ll go easier on you if you surrender now.”

  “It’ll go easier on you if you just keep your stupid whore mouth shut like cattle should, you human trash.” Lenny was in front of Sabrina before I saw him move, and he had a knife tracing a thin line of red along her stomach.

  She didn’t make a sound, just gritted her teeth against the pain and closed her eyes tight. I thrashed against my bonds, rage blinding me to my pain for a moment.

  “Come here you little shit, I dare you. Come on, greaseball. Try that shit with someone as strong as you!” I bellowed, then Lenny was back at me, jabbing the knife into my guts and twisting.

  The last thing I heard before I passed out was a cold voice whispering, “There is no one as strong as me, little vampire. No one.”

  When I came to again, the smarmy little faerie was still there, grinning like a cat with a spare canary.

  “Now would you like to hear my proposition, or should we just trade barbs and torture all night?” Lenny asked.

  “Which one is going to hurt more?” I asked.

  “Well, one has the potential for great pain, while the other has the certainty.”

  “Then why don’t we go for ‘potential’ for a change? I’d hate for you to get bored with torturing me.”

  “Oh, don’t give up on my account. I have a great deal of patience when it comes to torture.”

  “Oh good lord, will you can the witty repartee and move on to the monologue already,” Greg yelled.

  I closed my eyes as Lenny crossed the floor to face my bleeding partner.

  “I’m sorry, vampire, I don’t think anyone was talking to you.”

  “Oh, come on. We’ve all read the comic books. This is the point where you tell us your diabolical plan for world domination, so we can come up with some clever and unexpected way to stop you.” Greg looked down at the
greasy faerie. “It’s a formula thing, just go with it.”

  “Well, Mr. Knightwood, I hate to disappoint, but I have no aspirations to rule the world. I just want to make a lot of money. And you fine people are going to help me.”

  “I doubt it, assclown,” Sabrina said.

  “Detective Law, didn’t anyone ever teach you to shut up when the more evolved species are speaking? It’s better for your health and you might learn something.”

  Lenny took two long steps to where Sabrina and Mike were sitting and slapped her hard across the mouth. She rocked back and I saw blood coming from her split lip.

  “You done beating up humans and defenseless vampires, or are you going to prove your sexual inadequacies a little more fully before you make your offer?” I said. I didn’t really want to get kicked in the balls again, but better me than Sabrina or Mike.

  He turned to me, glaring. “Here is what’s going to happen, Mr. Black. My card starts in thirty minutes. I have a few warm-up matches, some troll on troll violence, a few faerie volunteers, that sort of thing. Then, just as the crowd is building to a fever pitch, you are going to go out there and fight a troll in a cage match to the death. These people have never seen a vampire before, so I can substitute that as a main event and not have to refund anything.

  “If you win, everyone here goes free. All the faeries, all your stupid human friends, everyone. If you lose, well, you won’t care very much in that case, now will you?”

  “What about your battle royal? Why would you keep your word if Jimmy wins?” Greg asked.

  “You mean when I win, right partner?” I asked through a mouthful of blood.

  “Sure, whatever. But why should we trust the ugly fairie?” Greg asked.

  “Because you have no choice,” Lenny said. “You’re my captives, and if I want to kill you, I can. But I’d rather see you fight. I make more money that way. And you bleed longer. Now, what’s it going to be, vampire? Are you going to play the lone hero, or do I start killing the humans?”

  Chapter 29

  The crowd was rabid as I walked to the ring. The spells cast to make the warehouse bigger on the inside than the outside were in full effect here. There was a whole damn arena set up. There was a lighting rig worthy of ESPN, aluminum bleachers like you see at every high-school football field in America and a round cage with eight-foot chain link walls, just like on TV. Except on TV the metal poles holding the cage together were covered in padding with sponsors’ logos on them, not barbed wire.

  I was dressed in clean clothes that Lenny had brought over from our place. Too bad faeries don’t have the same breaking and entering restrictions as vampires. He had taken the time to feed me, and since he’d ordered his faerie ninja bodyguards to let me drink from them, my wounds had pretty much healed.

  I looked across the ring, and standing there with a battle-axe in each hand was my old friend Gorton the troll. He looked pretty healed, too, and pretty grumpy with me. I was unarmed, except for my teeth and my wits, which basically meant that I was unarmed.

  Lenny walked into the center of the ring, and a microphone descended from the rafters. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Fright Night Fight Night!”

  The crowd actually cheered for this crap, proving that there really is no relation between taste and cash.

  “We have a very special treat for you tonight, a battle of legendary enemies, creatures whose races have hated each other since before the dawn of human history. The hatred that these monsters bear for each other makes Jon Stewart and Pat Robertson look like bosom buddies!”

  The crowd laughed again, and I looked over at Gorton, trying to see if he had any deep-seated hatred I hadn’t noticed in our first meeting. He just looked back at me as if to say what can you do, he’s got the microphone and is nuts besides. I turned my attention back to the faerie with the microphone, thinking how much I’d rather have him locked in the cage with me than the troll.

  Lenny went on. “In this corner, we have your champion, the hero of the cage, the Green Machine—Gorton the Troll!”

  Gorton raised his arms above his head and played to the crowd. I could see a line of people building at what I assumed were betting windows in the back of the room.

  Lenny turned to me and said, “And in this corner, hailing from right here in Charlotte, NC—the bloodsucking demon of the night, the Vampire!”

  Great, I didn’t even rate a name. Asshole.

  “You know the rules, ladies and gentlemen. There aren’t any. You have thirty seconds to place your bets, either in person or online. Wave to our audience at home, fighters.” Lenny waved at the ceiling, and I noticed cameras mounted above the ring for the first time. The son of a bitch was streaming this?

  “The betting is now closed. Let’s get ready for Friday Night Fights!”

  The crowd actually chanted the last bit along with him, and Lenny turned around in a slow circle, basking in their cheers. I couldn’t figure out what it was—the ponytail? The earrings? The fact that the whole crowd was plastered? He wasn’t any funnier than me, and I had the whole vampire chic thing on my side, but he had these folks eating out of his hand.

  I looked across at Gorton, and he actually mouthed sorry at me. I was going to feel bad about killing him, even if he was a troll. Of course, I’d feel even worse if he managed to kill me. But since I’d technically been dead for most of two decades, I didn’t mind all that much.

  Gorton took a step forward, and I suddenly noticed that Lenny wasn’t talking anymore. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even in the ring. I was now locked in a cage with a troll who wanted to cut my head off, and a whole bunch of people just outside that had serious cash on him doing just that. Even if I beat Gorton, I might not make it out of this alive.

  I didn’t have a whole lot of time to contemplate my eventual escape, because Gorton charged me, twirling his battle-axes like a Bruce Lee villain. Except they usually had nunchuks. And except that Bruce Lee could usually beat them. And except that was in the movies, and this was frighteningly real. Okay, now that I think about it, it was nothing like a Bruce Lee movie, but in the heat of the moment, that’s what came into my head.

  Gorton came at me in a dead run, and I sprinted away from him, running in circles around the cage while I frantically tried to think of a plan. I’m sure I looked like Andy Kaufman in a wrestling ring, but I had no idea how I was going to go toe-to-toe with a nine-foot troll and live, especially since he had two battle-axes and I just had me.

  Then it came to me—I had me. I was a lot faster and at least marginally smarter than the troll, so that’s what I had to work with. I stopped abruptly, dove backward toward Gorton and flipped over his back.

  He almost turned himself inside out trying to reverse his run and get turned around to face me, and that’s when I was able to snatch one axe out of his hand and fling it outside the cage. I heard a few shrieks from the crowd as the six-foot axe cleaved a bleacher, but they weren’t high on the list of things I was worrying about. I guessed the people scrambling out of the way had bet on the troll.

  One axe out of the way, I squared off against Gorton, who had regained his balance and was facing me head-on. He feinted once at my head, and then made a huge upward sweep at my face as I ducked. If I’d been human, that would have split my head open from jaw to eyebrows, but I left human behind a long time ago. I pulled my head back in the nick of time, and lashed out with a kick at Gorton’s knee. My foot connected solidly, and I heard something go crunch. The troll didn’t fall, though, just shifted his weight and brought the axe back around.

  I gotta get a book on monster anatomy, I thought as I skipped sideways to avoid a huge over-handed slash that tore the canvas and splintered the wooden floor underneath.

  “Careful, there, Gortie. If you break the cage it’s gonna come out of your pay.” I kept dodging, hoping I could rope-a-dope long enough to get a good shot in.

  “What pay, vampire?” The troll asked as he slashed at my head again.

 
I ducked easily and rolled forward under his arm, forcing him to stop hacking at me for a minute to untangle his feet again. “You mean you’re letting the faerie make all the money? That’s generous of you.”

  “What do I need money for? He gives me blades and things to hit. That’s all I need.” He raised the axe over his head and charged again.

  I slid sideways and gave him a couple of quick punches to where a human’s kidneys would be. By the grunt he gave, I hit something uncomfortable at least.

  “Don’t you want more out of life? A little piece of land with a house, a yard and a Mrs. Troll in the kitchen?” I ducked another attack and this time threw a knee at the big muscle in the troll’s thigh.

  He yelped and backhanded me across the cage. I slid across the canvas all the way into the chicken wire walls twenty feet away, and heard people outside yelling for my blood.

  “You ever seen a lady troll, vampire? If so, you know why I never want to get married.” He came at me again, axe slashing the air at waist height.

  He made a nasty sideways stroke, and I decided to do the last thing he expected. I stepped inside the axe strike, blocking his arms with my body. His elbow caught me in the midsection, but I was able to reach out and land a punch right on the tip of his bulbous nose.

  I don’t care how big you are, a shot to the nose is the great equalizer. Your eyes get blurry and there’s nothing you can do about it for a couple of seconds. And a couple of seconds was all I needed. As Gorton reached up to grab at his face with one hand, I took his other wrist, the one closest to me, in one hand and put the other hand on his bicep. I put all my strength in one huge move, and slammed his outstretched arm across my upraised knee with a sickening pop that sounded like a huge balloon exploding. Gorton’s elbow snapped like kindling, and his axe went clattering to the floor.