Lady in Black

By John G. Hartness

Vigilante. . . check.
Killer vamp. . . check.
Undead serial murderer. . . check.
Enough alcohol to get Jimmy through this sh*tstorm? Doubtful.

Fists, fangs, and fury. It's all a matter of balance when Jimmy Black, Charlotte's Vampire Master of the City, is tasked with discovering why a mostly bloodless, decapitated body shows up in a dumpster. After a little sniffing around, Jimmy uncovers problems he didn't even know he had. Like a murderous vampire running loose in the city.

To keep the whole supernatural world a secret, Jimmy has to find the vigilante and stop them before the mundane world figures out that the monsters-under-the-bed are really living right next door. But the people the vigilante is killing are people who probably deserve it. So now Jimmy has to balance the safety of the city against the secrecy of the supernatural world. To maintain his leadership of that supernatural world, Jimmy is going to have to step up his game before it's "game over."

Author Bio: Author John G. Hartness is the Epic and Manly Wade Wellman Award-winning writer behind The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, as well as the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter and Bubba the Monster Hunter series. In his copious free time, John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees, and playing Magic: the Gathering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BelleBooks
• Release date: Jun 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781610261579

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Praise for John G. Hartness

EPIC Award-winning Series!

I flew through this series.

—We Geek Girls on The Black Knight Chronicles Omnibus

I do love the banter in this book. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s often hilarious.

—Fangs For the Fantasy on Back in Black

"What’s not to love about a snarky Buffy-loving vampire? . . . The dialogue in Hard Day’s Knight, both internal and external, is what really makes this book. I learned the hard way to not both read this book and take a drink of tea."

—Shay Williams, NetGalley, on Hard Day’s Knight

Bell Bridge Books Titles by

John G. Hartness

The Black Knight Chronicles

Hard Day’s Knight, Book 1

Back in Black, Book 2

Knight Moves, Book 3

Paint It Black, Book 4

In the Still of the Knight, Book 5

Man in Black, Book 6

All Knight Long, Book 7

Lady in Black, Book 8

The Black Knight Chronicles, Omnibus 1

The Black Knight Chronicles Continues, Omnibus 2

Lady in Black

Book 8 of the Black Knight Chronicles

by

John G. Hartness

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Bell Bridge Books

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

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Bell Bridge Books

PO BOX 300921

Memphis, TN 38130

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61026-157-9

Print ISBN: 978-1-61026-165-4

Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Copyright © 2021 by John G. Hartness

Published in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Cover design: Debra Dixon

Interior design: Hank Smith

Photo/Art credits:

Urban Scene (manipulated) © Susan McKivergan | Renderosity.com

Man (manipulated) © Volodymyr Tverdokhlib | Dreamstime.com

T-shirt (manipulated) © Evgeny Ustyuzhanin | Dreamstime.com

:Eblp:01:

Chapter 1

YOU ALWAYS TAKE me to the nicest establishments, honey, I said as I slipped the Tyvek crime scene booties on over my shoes. I looked for a manufacturer’s name and resolved to ask Sabrina where to order some of these things. With as often as I’ve found myself traipsing through sewers in recent years, I should either own stock in protective footwear or a shoe store.

This nice establishment was an alley behind an Italian restaurant in a half-empty strip mall. Flashing blue LED police lights made a garish display across the service entrances to the restaurant and other business. With the ambulance’s red and white light mixed in, we had ourselves a patriotic display of death between the dumpsters and the steep embankment leading up to the apartment complex next door.

The main attraction of the evening was the corpse lying in the alley. Or maybe the attraction was his head, lying in a puddle of blood and grease about six feet away. One or both of those were the reason I wasn’t bingeing V-Wars on Netflix and laughing at all the things Hollywood gets wrong about vampires. The dismembered body was male, early thirties judging by his face, and Caucasian. He was dressed in early twenty-first-century biker trash—a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, a do-rag laying on the ground next to his head, motorcycle boots, a black helmet, and worn jeans. A Honda Gold Wing lay on its side near the body.

I think he’s dead, Detective, I said, walking up beside Sean Fitzpatrick, who knelt beside the body.

Anybody ever tell you how funny you are, Black? Fitz asked without looking up.

Not lately, I said.

Yeah, there’s a reason for that. Jimmy Black, meet Bradley Guenther, age forty-two. Mr. Guenther seems to have run afoul of the same person who’s been dropping headless bodies on CMPD’s doorstep for two weeks. You know anything about that?

Honestly, Sean, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I looked around for Sabrina Law, my girlfriend and Sean’s partner in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Homicide Division. Sabrina told me she was working some murders that might be connected, but I didn’t know there was anything . . . in my area of expertise about the murders. Officially, I sometimes work as a consultant to the department, brought in on unusual cases, and that’s all most of the people at the crime scene knew about me, if they knew anything at all. Unofficially, I’m the guy they call in when the weird stuff happens. It says a lot about my life that decapitation doesn’t trigger any of my warning bells.

I didn’t think they were in your area of . . . interest until tonight, Fitzpatrick admitted, standing up. He led me off to the side, away from the prying eyes and ears of patrol officers, crime scene photographers, and forensic techs. The killings looked routine. A little more violent than usual, but not too bad. All the victims had victims of their own, if you know what I mean, so nobody was shedding any tears downtown to see a couple of familiar faces move into the ‘solved permanently’ column.

What’s different about this guy? I asked.

"Other than his head being ripped off his body? Nothing. Come on, Black. Did you even look at the body?"

I’m not exactly the medical examiner, Sean. Why not save us all some time and tell me what you want me to know?

When I said his head was ripped off his body, it wasn’t a figure of speech. He wasn’t decapitated. At least not with anything that slices. Whatever killed this dude literally tore his head off.

Well, that changed things a bit. There aren’t very many things in this world that can rip a human body apart like that, and exactly none of them are the things that mundane cops are equipped to deal with. Looked like I had a case.

I knelt down by the body, working hard to ignore the cool sensation of something seeping through the knee of my jeans. Too bad those crime scene booties weren’t hip waders. I looked closely at the neck wound, drawing annoyed glances from the crime scene photographer, who almost certainly didn’t want a skinny private investigator with unruly brown hair getting in his shot. I didn’t really care, I just hoped he got my good side.

And then showed the pic to me, so I’d know if I even have good side.

Fitzpatrick was right, this dude was decapitated the hardest way. I could see where the skin had stretched before tearing, and it looked like who-or whatever killed him had given things a twist at the end, judging by how the arteries were slewed around in the neck.

Where was he killed? I asked without looking up.

What makes you say he wasn’t killed here? Sabrina said as she walked up. She didn’t kneel next to me, but her pants were nicer than mine, so I didn’t blame her. Frankly, her whole outfit was nicer than mine. She was in a dark green scoop-neck top, black pants, and black sneakers with her own set of lovely booties on them. I was rocking my very finest haute couture—a pair of jeans that would probably now have to be burned, and a killer Saga T-shirt I’d found at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find a couple weeks before. I had a long-sleeved black dress shirt hanging open doing a really mediocre job hiding the Glock under my left arm, but it was no worse than the ill-fitting suit jacket Fitzpatrick had on.

There’s nowhere near enough blood. What’s out here, maybe a liter? That means there’s at least four, maybe five liters missing. I can’t really tell how big this guy was with his head over there. It’s screwing up my estimating. But you get my point.

Yes, I do. Come over here. She turned and walked over to a dumpster with the lid open. I followed, the coppery scent of blood getting stronger with every step.

Seriously? I asked, looking at the dumpster. It was your garden-variety industrial trash container, about five feet tall by eight feet wide, blue, with rust shining through pretty much everywhere. There was a locking bar that should have been holding the lid closed, but it was bent all to hell. One of the plastic lid sections was ripped almost completely off, hanging by a scrap of the surviving hinge. I peeked inside, and my eyes confirmed what my nose had already told me—the dumpster was full of blood.

What the hell? I asked, turning to Sabrina. "Your killer decapitated the dude in the dumpster, then yanked him out and tossed him aside. I mean, I get the metaphorical dumping him like garbage, but he was in the garbage already!"

I’m as baffled as you are. I’ve seen some weird shit in my time, and way more of it since I started dating you, but this one is out there.

Did you find anything in the bottom of the dumpster? I asked.

We haven’t sifted through that yet, Sean said, giving a sympathetic look toward the crime scene techs. Those folks were not in for a good night.

Can you pick up on anything that we might miss? Sabrina asked, reminding me that I wasn’t there just for my scintillating wit.

I closed my eyes and focused on the scents around me, which was every bit as enjoyable as one would expect. Every vampire has different abilities, almost like specialties. I got a really hyper-jacked sense of smell, and I’m crazy fast. My best friend Greg is strong, stronger than any two normal vampires, and our roommate Abby is also strong, with the power of super-snark. She probably had that one when she was human, but dying and being reborn certainly fine-tuned it.

The alley was a breeding ground for scents, almost none of them appealing. I smelled the kitchen garbage from the Italian place, the cleaner scent of cardboard and plastic from the video store, and the light aroma of homeless person piss laying under everything like an acidic foundation. There was blood, of course, the pungent coppery scent that usually made my mouth water; instead, the toxic mix of odors killed my appetite. There was shit, and more urine, centered around the corpse, because that’s what happens when you die—all your muscles relax. There was something else, though. Something familiar, but faint, almost vague. I couldn’t tell where I knew that smell from, but it was definitely familiar. It was strongest around the dumpster, but there were hints of it around the body as well.

I walked back over to the body and knelt beside it again, trying to separate the familiar scent from the regular death and garbage smells. I closed my eyes to concentrate, but the more I tried to nail it, the more other scents kept getting in my way. The rubbery smell of the Tyvek booties. The rich tomato smell of pizza sauce, the hint of seriously good weed half-heartedly masked by cigarette smoke.

You picking up anything? Sean asked, shattering my concentration. I glared at him, and he took half a step back, his hand drifting toward his service pistol. Hey, hey, easy.

Sorry, I said, standing up. There’s something here, I just can’t put my finger on what it is. Did our Mr. Guenther have anything interesting in his pockets?

Nothing out of the ordinary. Keys to the motorcycle, thirty-five bucks, some change, a pocketknife.

A condom in his wallet that I think was there since Clinton was in office, Sabrina said. He also had a can of snuff or dip, and the ring on the back of his jeans says he carried one pretty much all the time.

So the cigarettes probably weren’t his, I mused. Any marijuana?

I don’t smell pot, Sean said, looking around. Are you sure?

I went to college in the 90s, and I have a better nose than you. Yeah, I’m sure. If Guenther wasn’t holding, then some of the kitchen staff have been out here on their smoke breaks. I nodded toward the back door of the restaurant.

I’ll interview them, Fitz said, heading off.

I’m gonna follow the ambulance to the morgue, Sabrina said. We’re in one car, and I want Jimmy to be there when Bobby does the autopsy.

Have I mentioned how much I love your idea of date night?

Shut up. It’s bad enough I just told every patrolman in the department we’re dating. I don’t need any crap about it from you.

"Wait. Were there any people in the department that didn’t know we were dating?" I asked. It wasn’t like we’d been keeping it a secret. Or at least, we didn’t use to keep it a secret.

I’ve been keeping it on the D.L. for a while. Since you . . . got some new interests.

I got rid of all of those interests! I protested. I got rid of those interests like four months ago.

When I killed Gordon Tiram and took his spot as Master Vampire of Charlotte, I also took over his spot as a crime lord, which made dating a police detective . . . problematic, to say the least. I ended all my involvement with illegal enterprises a few months back, but apparently either Sabrina was afraid of me backsliding, or she decided she liked having some parts of her life that the boys at the office weren’t privy to, because it certainly seemed like she hadn’t been in a hurry to share our relationship with them.

Hey, she said, and something in her voice made me look in her eyes. Where do I wake up every morning?

She had a point. Beside a sexy dead guy?

With cold toes, no less.

Me or you?

Both. As I might have mentioned, you’re the worst foot warmer of any boyfriend I’ve ever had.

But I have the absolute best fashion sense, I said, smiling as I stood. My comic book T-shirts were a battle she had finally accepted she’d lose.

Well, you certainly have the most comic book shirts of any guy I’ve ever dated. Now get in the car and let Bobby load the van.

She was right. My fragile male ego could get stroked later. Right now, we had a murder to solve.

Chapter 2

I WAS SITTING ON a metal table sucking the sides flat on a bag of AB-positive when Bobby pushed the stretcher into the exam room in the basement of Presbyterian Hospital. I like to get a good blended vintage blood type whenever I can, and the Red Cross had a nice bumper crop of donations recently, so Bobby’s stash was loaded. I had to drink it cold, though. I blew up a pint all over the inside of Bobby’s microwave a few years back, and he banned me from touching it ever again. It’s not like he could stop me, but I tried to respect his wishes with regards to county property. Or city property. I can never remember which is which in the whole Charlotte-Mecklenburg thing, which is why we were under a hospital instead of in a city morgue.

You know I ain’t had time to clean that since the last autopsy, right? Bobby said as he pulled the stretcher over to another table. You’re probably sitting on all kinds of fluids. I wouldn’t be surprised if you stood up with pieces of kidney stuck to your ass.

Don’t worry, I said, hopping down from the table and holding up my improvised cushion. I found this nice lab coat hanging on the back of the chair and sat on that, instead.

He glared at me and snatched his lab coat out of my hand. Dammit, Jimmy, if you got . . . hey, this is clean. He looked up at me, confused.

I washed down the table, man. Even dried it. You’ve only got one chair, and I didn’t want a wet ass, no matter the cause.

He chuckled, walked over to the body, and unzipped the body bag. Okay, you got me. Now grab this dude’s shoulders and help me get him onto the table. Don’t let the head roll away.

I did as he asked, then stepped back and let Bobby get to work. He had a delicate touch with a scalpel, making me think he probably threw a hell of a pass before he blew out his knee and had to change career trajectories. The big man opened up the body to begin removing and weighing the organs, taking tissue samples for the lab, and performing a thorough, if quick, autopsy. There wasn’t much for Sabrina and me to do while Bobby worked, so we bounced ideas off each other and poked through Guenther’s life on social media to pass the time. I called Greg and had him dig around in the places we didn’t have access to, and Sabrina called up the victim’s criminal record.

Huh, she said, turning her tablet around for me to see the screen. Check this out. The display showed a healthy rap sheet for Mr. Bradley Guenther, age forty-two, currently deceased. He had a history of domestic violence, burglary, shoplifting, drunk and disorderly, and other nickel-and-dime offenses. His one highlight was a grand theft auto conviction from a New Year’s Eve about five years ago, which looked mostly like a joyride, but when paired with a DUI and resisting arrest, earned Mr. Guenther six months as a guest of the North Carolina prison system. The most recent notation was from a couple days ago, and didn’t list an arrest, just that he was a person of interest in an open assault case.

Is there more on that most recent case? Maybe that’s what got him killed, I asked Sabrina.

You think he beat up the wrong person and somebody ripped his head off for it? She tapped the screen a couple of times and dove into the investigating officer’s notes. Says here the victim is Sherrilyn McArthur, age twenty-seven, female, and Guenther is suspected of beating her so badly she ended up in a coma with a brain bleed. Apparently she’s upstairs now in the ICU.

Okay, then, let’s go, I turned to the door, but Sabrina put a hand on my arm.

Where are you going? She’s in a coma.

But her entire family isn’t. I remember when I was in high school my grandmother had some kind of accident during an X-ray and they ruptured her large intestine. She was in intensive care for a week after surgery, and it was almost like a family reunion in the lobby every day. Sherrilyn isn’t going to have a dozen kids and four times as many grandkids, but she should have parents, siblings, or at least a friend or two sitting vigil for her. And if she doesn’t, that tells us something, too.

Fair enough. Let’s go. She walked past me and straight through the double doors leading out of the morgue.

I turned to Bobby. We’ll be back soon.

He didn’t even look up, just kept on cataloging organs. Take your time. I got at least another hour here, but it ain’t like I’m going to find out anything new.

A couple minutes later, we stepped out of the escalator right into the ICU waiting room. There were three little clusters of people sitting in uncomfortable chairs scattered around the tiled floor. A tall man in his fifties with an impressive snow-white handlebar mustache leaned back in a chair with an LSU baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and his legs stretched out in front of him. A woman of about the same age sat next to him reading a J.D. Robb novel and occasionally reaching over to stroke his forearm.

At the far opposite end of the room was a twenty-something redhead sitting with a black couple in their late forties. The man wore slacks and a blue dress shirt, with his tie loosened and his jacket thrown over the back of a nearby chair. The woman had the rumpled and slightly shell-shocked look of someone who has been in the hospital far too long waiting for some kind of news about a loved one. Her hair was tied back in a loose nest of dreads, a couple wound with red and yellow thread. The younger woman had her face buried in her phone, her sneakers poking out on front of her without a care in the world.

In the middle of the room was the ubiquitous loud family in the waiting room, the people treating the whole ordeal as a lark, something to be made the best of. They were the ones I used to hate when I saw them as I visited Mike, because no matter how sick someone was, they plastered a cheerful mask on their face and gave out hugs like drug dealers give out free samples. There were half a dozen