Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) (14 page)

“Kneel.” I hit one knee without ever thinking about disobeying. I looked from side to side and saw Greg and Sabrina kneeling beside me. I gave Sabrina a look that I hope said,
If this kills us, I really liked you
. She smiled back at me, and I swear if it was possible my heart would have skipped a beat.

“By the power vested in my by the Lords of the Fae, the Gods of the Realms, and the Dragons of Tivernia, I hereby declare you to be Knights of the Fae, with all the authority and power therein. Serve me well, Sir James Black.” She tapped me on each shoulder with the sword, a little harder than I thought absolutely necessary, but a far cry from taking my head off. Milandra stepped left and repeated her declaration over Sabrina’s head, then stepped right and did the same to Greg.

She stepped back and addressed us all. “Rise, my knights. You now speak with my voice, and act on my accord. You may bare steel in the Market if necessary, and may act in any fashion you see fit to uphold the laws of the land and the conscience of your Queen.” She smiled, and suddenly she was the little girl playing at Faerie Queen again, complete with dimples deep enough to make a dead man weak in the knees. I know—I watched Greg’s legs buckle when she turned that dazzling smile on him. “Just try not to embarrass me too badly, Jimmy.”

“I make no promises, Your Majesty.” I returned her grin with a lopsided one of my own, and we all broke up laughing.

Milandra handed the sword back to me with a slight smile, and I shoved it through my belt. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Tivernius and turned to the dragon.

“What’s up? Was this your sword? You can have it, bro.” I reached to take it out of my belt, and Tivernius held up his hands.

“No, it is not mine. I simply had not recognized it before that moment, is all.”

“Recognized it? I’ve had it since the last time we were here, since the fight with the Unseelie.”

“I remember,” Tivernius said. “But at that time it had been only loaned to you. Now it has been bestowed upon you as a knight, which has certain other properties.”

“Dude, what are you babbling about? It’s a sword. It had properties of chopping people up, properties of poking holes in them, and if I’m feeling particularly generous, properties of slapping them around with the flat or the pommel. That’s about it.” I looked back and forth between him and Milandra. “Unless there’s something you guys aren’t telling me, that is?”

They shared a couple of those meaningful glances people like to throw around when they know something that you don’t and they’re deciding whether or not to tell you about it. I usually shortcut those glances with a punch or two, but since I’d already avoided one fight with a dragon today, I decided to wait things out and not start another one.

After a few seconds, Milandra took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you this, James, but that sword is a little more than just a sword.”

“I’d figured that out all on my own, Your Mysteriousness,” I snarked back.

“You’ve probably heard of it, but likely regarded it as just a legend,” she continued slowly.

“Once upon a time I thought the same thing about dragons, faeries, witches, vampires, and intelligent police officers. But look at us all now!” I held my arms out wide, and Sabrina stepped up to smack me in the back of the head.

“Shut up, Jimmy. She’s trying to tell you something important,” Sabrina hissed at me.

I rubbed the back of my head and looked back at Milandra. “So tell me. What’s the deal with this legendary sword? Unless you’re telling me it’s Excalibur and I’m wielding it because the world is reaching a time of supreme peril again, I’m probably not going to be suitably impressed.” I chuckled at my joke until I noticed that Milandra wasn’t laughing.

I looked hard at her, but got nothing. I looked over at Tivernius, who wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Is this sword Excalibur?
The
Excalibur?”

Milandra nodded. “Merlin brought it to us here for safekeeping at Arthur’s passing. We have held it until a worthy bearer could be found.”

“And until you find one you decided to let me use it?” I asked, trying to keep the mood light.

Milandra just shook her head.

“You think I’m worthy of carrying Excalibur, the sword of King friggin’ Arthur?”

The Faerie Queen nodded. “I have seen your heart, James. What lies within you is more than even you suspect. More than you allow others to see or yourself to believe.”

“No, wait. I know who and what I am. And I know that I have already stopped a Big Bad from destroying the world once. It’s someone else’s turn if things are coming that are so bad that this heavy-duty mojo needs to come back to our world to stop it.”

“Mojo, as you call it, is needed.” She nodded again. “All the auguries and signs point to a time of great upheaval, James. We don’t know when it will happen, but something very bad is coming. And you and your friends must stop it.”

I took a deep breath, then shook my head to clear it. Didn’t help. I did it again, then once more. I’m sure I looked like a terrier with a nose full of cayenne pepper. I glanced from Tivernius to Milandra, then back again. “Is it coming today?”

“No,” Milandra said. “We do not know when the attack will come, or in what form. But it will not begin for some time yet.”

“Then we still have work to do. There’s somebody in the Goblin Market kidnapping humans and selling them to the chef for soup stock. We’ve got to take care of that, then we’ll worry about whatever this Big Bad is going to look like and how I’m supposed to use this pigsticker to stop him. So Scaly-butt, you wanna magic us back to the Market so we can go back to kicking ass and taking names?”

Greg tapped me on the shoulder. “Dude, I think I’d better sit this one out. It’s going to take several regular feedings to regrow my leg muscles and if you run into anything dangerous, I’d be more of a liability than a help.”

I nodded to him, then turned to Stephen. “And I’m guessing you have a lot of questions you’d like to ask the fine folk of Faerie about yourself.”

He nodded, and Milandra motioned for Sabrina. “You should stay as well, Detective. There are certain events and auguries we need to discuss with you.”

“Sorry, Your Majesty, but I can’t let this civilian run my case, no matter what kind of magical sword he’s packing.” Sabrina crossed her arms across her chest and actually tried to stare down the Faerie Queen.

It didn’t work. “I’m sorry, Detective. You were obviously under the impression that I was asking you to stay. There are things we need to discuss with you, and we need James out of the way to discuss them. So you will be staying here while he returns to the Market.”

Sabrina’s eyes got big, and I stepped up before she opened her mouth and got us all killed. “Sabrina. It’s cool. I can handle this. You stay here, find out how to save the world, and I’ll go chop the bad guy into little pieces and feed him to the dogs.” I saw Greg wince out of the corner of my eye and flashed back to what had just happened to my leg muscles. Suddenly the concept of being fed to things wasn’t funny anymore.

“Fine,” Sabrina said between gritted teeth. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

“No promises. Okay, then, Big T. How about sending the rest of us back to the Market, unless you ladies would rather stay here?” I looked at Anna and Abby.

“There is no way I am letting you run around a magical marketplace unescorted while wielding one of the most powerful magical swords in history. Goddess only knows the trouble you would stir up,” Anna said, crossing her arms and giving me a glare.

I looked over at Abby. She shrugged and said, “You did mention there was ass to kick, right? Then I’m with you. I’m not much for big houses with marble decorations anyway.”

I nodded to Tivernius and said, “You’re welcome to join us, pal. Might even be fun.”

He shook his head with a little regret and said, “As much as I might enjoy it, goblins give me indigestion, and that’s terribly inconvenient when one no longer lives in a cave.”

“Fart fireballs, huh?” I asked. The dragon in human form ducked his head and made some funny gesture with his hand. Everything went dark, and we were gone.

I BLINKED, AND we were back in the Market. I looked around for Tivernius, but the dragon was gone. There was no evidence that we had gone anywhere, except for the marked lack of Market guards milling around wanting to poke holes in us. I looked around, and Anna and Abby were there with me. Abby was scanning her surroundings for threats, while Anna was gaping at all the different types of creatures strolling through the Market.

I waved Abby over and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you guys connect with Marty anyway?”

“I approached them, Sir Sanguine. More mundane, searching humans at the Market? They had to be your people. I found them. Led them to you. How else would they have found their way to you?” I turned at the familiar voice and saw Marty leaning by a tent pole.

“Marty!” I exclaimed, holding my arms out. The little lizard ran to me and jumped into my arms. I gave him a hug, then promptly dropped him on his back in the dirt when he licked the side of my face. “Too much, dude. Too much,” I said as I reached down to help him stand.

“My apologies, sirrah. I was overcome with the moment. I feared that I would never see you again once you were taken by the dragon.”

“Yeah, I had a moment or two of concern myself. Wait a minute. How did you know it was me?”

“Your voice, sirrah, and your scent. Your appearance has been altered, but not the most important aspect of yourself.”

“Yeah, most folks only use their eyes. So you led my friends to us?” I waved at the women.

“Yes, but there were more humans then. The dragon didn’t eat your friends, did he?” The little lizard actually looked concerned.

I patted him on top of the head and smiled. “No. Tivernius is a friend. Most days, anyway. He wouldn’t eat any of us. Greg was too injured to fight, and the others had things to discuss with the Queen.”

“Oh, they must be important nobles, then.”

“No, just a cop and a dancer. And I’ll let you figure out which is which. Thanks for bringing them to our rescue. But how did you find them?”

“When I saw you were captured, I returned to the entrance to the Market, where we first met. I thought that eventually someone would come looking for you, and that would be the best place for me to find them. I knew the chef wouldn’t kill you, because he wanted to use your regenerative powers for a never-ending food supply. I’m sorry it took so long, but I brought them as soon as I could.”

Anna chimed in, “If I had my way, we’d still be on our side of the universe, but Sabrina and Stephen finally convinced me that you were worth coming after. Creating a portal from scratch is difficult, so we needed Stephen’s blood to open a gate to Faerie.” At the look on my face, she held out her hands. “No, no, we didn’t spill his blood to open the gate, we just had to have a native of Faerie with us. Otherwise the gate wouldn’t open where we wanted it to.”

“And where did you open this gate? And is it still open?”

“In your living room. And no, we closed it behind us. But I can take us home easily enough, and anywhere I open a gate to from this side will tie to the gate in your house. As long as Stephen is with us.”

“Okay then, so we can get home. Good. Now let’s get this rescue underway. We need to find the chef’s supplier and get to him, preferably unseen. I don’t have my heavy hitters with me, so going in guns blazing is a bad idea.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Jimmy? We’re just as capable as Greg and Sabrina.” An indignant Anna stepped in front of me holding her hands in front of my face. Her argument was made more persuasive by the fact that her hands were glowing with a nimbus of blue fire.

“Point taken,” I said, taking a step back. “And what exactly is that, anyway?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “As soon as I set foot in Faerie I felt my powers grow exponentially. I can do things here that I only dreamed about in the mundane world.”

“Beware, human witch,” Marty said, tugging on her belt loop. “That is the temptation that leads many of your kind to forsake your world entirely.”

“Is that really so bad, Marty?” Anna asked him. “It might be nice to live somewhere that my people are respected, instead of ridiculed or feared.”

“That may be true, miss, but there are many things in Faerie that feed on magical energy, and not all of them are content to take that energy from willing or inanimate donors. And while you are more powerful here than in your world, so are the dangers you face.”

Anna’s face betrayed her emotions, and I watched her struggle with those ideas for a few seconds. Then she sighed, extinguished her hands, and straightened her shoulders. Apparently a decision had been reached, and I wouldn’t have to tell Mike that I’d left his kinda-girlfriend witch in the Magic Kingdom.

“Let’s chat about Anna’s relocation another time. When lives aren’t at stake. Marty, do you know where this is?” I asked, handing him the ledger Sabrina swiped from the chef.

The lizard shuddered and looked up at me. His head-ridge was standing straight up and quivering, and his eyes were wide. “Are you sure this is where the chef gets his humans from?”

“Why? Is it another bad neighborhood?”

“No, Sir James, I know this address. It is the home of the Dream King. He is a very powerful wizard, and one that doesn’t like outworlders at all. I have never known him to allow a human to leave his shop alive, but I have never heard of him trafficking in human meat, either.”

“Why do they call him the Dream King?” Abby asked.

“He sells dreams, lovely Sanguine. He takes dreams from other creatures and sells them in his store. He is one of the strangest creatures I have ever encountered, and I admit to having no little fear of him.”

“A four-foot-tall talking lizard thinks something is weird. Now this I gotta see,” I said. “Lead on, Macduff!” I gestured as grandly as I could in the crowded thoroughfare.

“It’s ‘lay on, Macduff,’ moron,” Anna grumbled at me, but I would almost swear there was a teensy bit less hatred in her voice than normal. Maybe my charm was starting to have an effect on her. Or maybe she just couldn’t be bothered to think as much about me. Either way, I’d take an early thaw any day.

Marty turned left down a less crowded alley, and we were off to see the Dream King.