Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) (19 page)

“It was white, with a rack on top, like the ones that carry ladders? There was nothing in the back, no windows, no seats, just a big empty space with a cage between the back and the front seats. We tried to get out, but there weren’t any door handles on the inside.”

“He modified a normal work van into a kidnap vehicle,” I muttered.

“Makes you wonder how often he did this kind of thing,” Greg added.

“I’ll put that on the list of things I need to ask our friend when we find him,” I said.

“What if he doesn’t feel like talking?” Greg asked.

I smiled at him and said very quietly, “He will.”

Tivernius stood and turned to us. “I hope that drawing will be of assistance. I am afraid that I will not be able to travel with you and provide direct aid in apprehending this foul villain. We have much work to do in restoring the Goblin Market to normal business conditions after your . . . visit.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Maybe someday we’ll come to visit and not start half a dozen inter-dimensional wars.” I gave Milandra a sheepish grin. “Thanks for not killing us, Your Majesty. It was good to see you again.”

“And you as well, James. Now it is time for you to return home, and finish this unpleasant business once and for all.” She waved a hand, and a golden circle of light opened up in front of us. I had just enough time to wonder if it was daytime back in our world before the circle passed over me and I was home.

FORTUNATELY FOR MY lily-white complexion, I was
really
home. As in, in our basement den, right where Anna said we’d reappear. Even better, it was just about sunset. The room was pretty full with me, Greg, Abby, Anna, Sabrina, Stephen, and the Carmichaels, but as soon as we all realized where we were, people jumped into action. Sabrina whipped out her cell phone and called into her boss, Lieutenant McDaniel, telling him that we had recovered the Carmichaels safe and sound, then asking him to send a couple of patrol cars over to our place to take them home and to bring her cruiser to her from Anna’s. McDaniel didn’t ask any questions, just went along with it and sent the cars. That worried me a little. I didn’t want to think too much on what Sabrina’s boss did or didn’t know about the help we gave Sabrina from time to time.

She got off the phone and turned back to the rest of us. “There have been no other reported missing persons since the Carmichaels, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah, it’s the weekend. He could have grabbed a couple of kids from the college and nobody would know they hadn’t gone to visit their parents or just gone off on a bender.”

“I don’t think they call them benders anymore, bro,” Greg said. He seemed to have decided to let me off the hook, at least for now.

“Regardless, Jimmy’s right for a change. We have to assume that he has hostages until we know different, regardless of the police reports. He could have taken a couple that lives alone, people vacationing, or any number of people that wouldn’t be missed quickly. When I get back to the station I’ll go over any reports that may have come in and not been filed yet because of the forty-eight hour limit.” Technically, people weren’t declared missing until they’d been gone two full days, but with our timeline that could be way, way too long for safety.

Greg hopped on the computer and scanned the sketch into his hard drive, then started poking around databases to see if he could pull a facial match off the drawing. I wandered over to where he was working, but he waved me off. Abby settled in beside him at the big monitor and started surfing social networks, posting the sketch as a “possible sexual predator—call police immediately” alert on every website she had access to.

Anna took a look around the room and shrugged, then pulled out her own cell phone and called a cab. “I’ve done all I can do here. My magic is down to normal levels now that we’re back in the mundane world, so I won’t be any good in a fight. And I do not want to be here when the police start asking questions about how you found these two.”

“Can I catch a ride back to your place?” Stephen asked. “I’m in the same boat. I don’t think the Scoobys need me to take down one human, and I’d really like to go home and cuddle on the couch with my husband. It’s been a long day. Or week. Or however long we were gone.” I thanked both of them and led them upstairs to wait on the cab. After they were gone, I went back downstairs to see Sabrina talking seriously with the Carmichaels.

“No, there is absolutely no reason for this man to ever come after you again.” Sabrina was saying in a low, reassuring voice. “He thinks the Dream King killed you. And besides, we have no reason to believe that you were anything more than a crime of opportunity to him. We know that he always took people in pairs, and the pairs were married couples, friends, co-workers, any kind of pairing of people that happened to be together.”

“Besides,” I chimed in, “I’m going to kill him tonight. So you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“How are you going to do that?” Elizabeth asked. “You don’t have any idea where he is.”

“I have a few resources the police typically don’t have,” I replied.

“Like what?”

“Like my enhanced senses. I visited the abduction site before we went to Faerieland, and I took a good look around and catalogued the scents of the crime scene. Now that I’ve been around you two for a while, I know which scents are yours, and which ones belong to your kidnapper. We can use that to track him, and when we find him, I’m going to kill him.” That was complete BS. I was counting on Greg’s computer-fu to find the guy, but no point in making myself seem less mysterious and omnipotent to the mortals.

“Enhanced senses help with the police work. I can see that,” David said. “That’s really handy, I bet.”

I stared at him for a second, but he gave no indication that he understood. “Absolutely handy. I hunt by scent, David.”

He went a little pale when he realized that I meant hunting people, but I couldn’t afford to sugarcoat anything for him. “Yes, I hunt people. Nowadays I do it for my job, not for my dinner, but the principles are the same. So I’m going to use the abilities that nature has given me to track my prey to track the man who abducted you.”

“And kill him,” David said, looking me firmly in the eye.

“Yes, and kill him,” I confirmed.

Sabrina stood up and said, “Can I talk to you for a moment?” She grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me off to a corner of the room.

“Are you crazy? Telling these people that you’re going to kill the man who kidnapped them? At first I thought you were just grandstanding, but now I think you mean it.”

“I am going to kill him.”

“Jimmy, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m a cop. We don’t kill the bad guys, we turn them over to the courts and let them do their job. That’s the way the justice system works.”

“Not this time. This time we know who the bad guy is, and exactly what he is doing. We’re not going to trust your so-called justice system to make sure he never, ever gets out of the hole he deserves to be planted in. So we’re going to take care of that for them.”

“That’s vigilante justice!”

“And some days that’s the only kind of justice there is. Look, Sabrina,
that little spider in his web of dreams
went into the heads of who knows how many humans and stole their dreams. Then he sold those dreams to other magicians to be used in God-knows-what. And when he stole all the dreams they could ever have, he sold them off to be cooked into stew by goblins! How do you think you’re going to explain that to a judge so the bench will understand just how heinous trafficking in
raw materials
is? Would anyone believe us? Can we even tie our guy to the disappearance with only the word of very shaken victims? You think they’ll hold up to a cross? You think they’ll sleep nights ever again if our guy is still alive?”

Memories came flooding back to me as I talked to her: hanging there waiting for Abdullah to cut off more bits of me to throw in the pot, listening to Greg screaming as the sadistic little goblin worked on him, the look in Elizabeth’s eyes when she woke up in the Dream King’s tent, the bookcase full of heads in the back of that tent—no books anywhere—just shelf after shelf of heads magically preserved to look almost alive, except for the look of horror on the faces and the missing eyes.

I put my hands on Sabrina’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. We both knew I couldn’t mojo her, so it was just to make a point. “Sabrina, this guy is giving people to monsters. That makes him a monster. And we don’t try monsters in a court of law. We kill them. This time the monster happens to be human, but only on the outside. On the inside, this bastard is as evil as any demon, ghoul, or beast that we’ve ever faced. And we have to put him down, once and for all.” I looked her in the eye again, trying to see some hint of agreement.

“You with me?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. But I’m not going to say no. That’s as good as you get right now.”

“I can live with that. Now let’s get these people home. Their ride’s here.”

Sabrina began to move, then looked back at me.

“I know, you can’t hear anything yet. You will.” A few seconds later the sound of gravel grew louder, and Sabrina shook her head at me.

I went back to where the traumatized couple was sitting on our sofa. “The police are here to take you to the station for some questions, then home. Sabrina’s right that you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, but I’m sending Abby with you just in case.”

“Why me?” Abby protested. “I wanted to help kill the bad guy!”

“I know you did, but it’s his fault that goblins ate parts of me and Greg, so we get dibs. Sorry.” She thought about that for a second, then nodded. “I promise to bring you a present if he’s got anything good lying around.”

“Oooh, that’s good. Remember, I want a puppy!”

“Not on your life, chicklet.” I hugged her and whispered in her ear, “Keep sharp. If this asshat makes an appearance, don’t screw around with him. Put two in his face and then decapitate him.”

“But he’s human, right?” she whispered back to me.

“Who know what kind of upgrades he got from the Dream King. Don’t take any chances.”

“Deal.” Abby led the couple up the stairs, and in a few seconds I heard feet coming down.

Sabrina came over to me and said, “I’ve got to go with them to the station. Even with McDaniel running blocker for this, I’m going to have to do some fancy footwork to keep the feds off your back.”

“Give me until the morning, and then they can come in guns blazing. If we can’t settle this thing by then, we’ve got bigger problems.”

“Where are you going? Do we know where this guy lives?”

“Not yet, but we’ll find him. Track Greg’s cell if you need to find us.”

“Why his cell?”

“Because I broke mine again.”

We stood there, looking at each other for what felt like a year. Finally I said it. “You know I’d never hurt you, right?”

“I know.” She didn’t quite look in my eyes as she said it.

“Sabrina, I don’t know where we’re going, but I just want you to know . . .”

“I know.” This time she looked in my eyes, and what I saw there was a mirror for what I felt—a little scared, a lot worried about the future, but either crazy in love or damn close to it.

“Okay. Well, let’s talk after this is all settled. Figure some stuff out,” I said.

“I can live with that.” She took a step, then turned around and threw her arms around my neck. Our lips met, and it was better than the first time I tasted blood after being turned. It was even better than drinking faerie blood, and that stuff is
amazing.
I felt her warmth flow into me all the way to my toes, and as she stood there wrapping her arms around me, I almost felt alive again. After our little scene in Milandra’s palace, my head was all in knots about Sabrina, but the rest of me knew exactly how I felt about her. And apparently, with that kiss, a few parts of her were still into me, too.

Sabrina pulled back and looked me in the eye. “Don’t get dead. I need you in one piece.”

“I’m already dead, but I’ll try to not get any deader.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Then she leaned in and gave me another quick kiss, just a brief meeting of our lips, but the tingle it sent down my everything was intense. I watched her walk to the stairs, then she stopped and turned back to look at Greg.

“If anything happens to him, I’m putting a stake somewhere the sun doesn’t shine, Knightwood.” Then she turned and walked up the stairs.

Greg looked over at me and said, “Dude, I’m a little scared of your girlfriend.”

I looked back at him and said, “Dude, sometimes
I’m
a little scared of my girlfriend, and I’m pretty sure she likes me. No telling what she’d do to you.”

Then there were male footsteps on the stairs, and I snapped to attention. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come back in, so Officer Nester found himself with a Glock leveled at his face when he stepped into the room.

“What are you doing here, Officer?” I asked without moving the pistol.

“I brought Detective Law’s car keys. And I’m here to help finish things.”

“I don’t remember asking for your help.”

“You didn’t, but I can be useful. And I haven’t spilled the beans on you guys so far, have I?”

“Spilled the beans? Who says that? What are you, Officer Howdy Doody?” I asked, looking at the kid.

“I’ll be Officer Fozzie the Bear if I need to, but let me help. This is why I became a cop, this is what I’ve dedicated my whole life to doing.” He looked so sincere I couldn’t help it. I put my arm around his shoulders and walked him over to the sofa.

I sat down next to him and said, “Look, kid. I know this is important to you. But you’ve got too much tied up in this thing, which is why I can’t have you around. When people are too close to a situation, they miss things. And with the kind of fights we get into, if you miss something, there’s a good chance you’re going to end up dead. Or worse. And trust me, I’ve seen what ‘or worse’ looks like.”

He sat there for a minute, then looked at me, eyes cold. “Is it worse than lying awake every night listening to your mother cry because her baby girl’s gone missing and she doesn’t know what happened to her? Is it worse than watching your father drink himself to death while you’re still in high school because his wife cries every time the phone rings? Is it worse than dedicating twenty years of your life to something, only to be told that you can’t take the last two steps to get there because it might be too dangerous? If you can tell me how anything is worse than that, I’ll go home.”

I couldn’t. He had me, and he knew it. I’m a sucker for the whole unfulfilled destiny thing, and it sounded like his sister had it in spades. I was just about to open my mouth and tell him that he could ride along when Greg spoke up.

“Officer, was your sister with anyone when she was abducted?” Greg asked from his computer command center.

“Yes. She was with her best friend from school, Jenny. They were going to the mall to try on shoes. At least that’s what they’d told our parents. I don’t know if they were meeting people, or what. But they left school and were never seen at the mall. Jenny’s car was found at school that night when they didn’t make it home.”