Black Knight 02 - Back in Black (5 page)

"That's disgusting, even for you." I chastised my partner.
 

"Yeah, but still funny."
 

"I didn't say it wasn't funny, just disgusting. How you doing over there, Bobby?" Our erstwhile observer had collapsed in his chair and was looking decidedly paler than before we began our meal.
 

"I-I-I'm okay. I guess. I...I...just guess I wasn't really sure that you guys were..." his voice trailed off and he looked around, as if to make sure nobody could hear him.
 

"Vampires?" Greg said from behind him, and giggled as Bobby jumped out of his chair. We're fast, and really quiet when we want to be, and sneaking up on people is one of Greg's favorite, and most annoying, tricks.
 

"Yeah. That." Bobby looked back at me, obviously flashing back to my threat of drinking from the source if he told anyone about us.
 

"We are, buddy. But don't worry, we hardly ever eat our friends." I grabbed Greg's elbow and turned him to head out the doors of the morgue and start looking for our gay-basher.
 

"Hardly ever?" Greg whispered, trying not to giggle as we walked towards the elevator.
 

"Well, I wanted to make sure we kept our options open." I pushed the door for the lobby level and smirked as the doors closed on Bobby's pale face.
 

Chapter 8

As we drove back to the crime scene, Greg and I started to go over the details of the case. "So what do we know?" I asked, as he turned right onto Hawthorne.
 

"Well, we know that Detective Law has family issues, that some of those issues are currently lying in a hospital bed, and that your libido has elected you therapist."
 

"Bite me." I replied, fiddling with the radio trying in vain to find something other than country music.
 

"No thanks, you're stale. But anyway, we know that there have been several of these attacks over the past few months, and the gay community has been up in arms for the police to do more about them. Unfortunately, living as we do in the buckle of the Bible Belt, the police were reluctant to get involved until there had been too many attacks to ignore."
 

"How do you know so much about this? There hasn't been anything on TV to speak of." I flipped the radio off and stared across the front seat at my partner. "Is there something you've been meaning to tell me?" I teased.
 

"No, butthead. Popular culture to the contrary, being a vampire is not synonymous with sexual ambiguity. I have not ever been, nor will I ever be attracted to your skinny butt. Or any other part of your undeveloped frame."
 

"I dunno, Greggy..." I needled. "Methinks he doth protest too much..."

"Oh shut up. If I wanted to go after guys, I'd definitely go after better-looking ones than you.
 
But anyway, there's been this invention lately called the Internet. You might have heard of it? I read about the attacks on a couple of city message boards that I monitor."
 

"What message boards are these, pray tell?" I was beginning to get a sneaking suspicion I knew the answer, but I wanted Greg to admit it.
 

"Law enforcement message boards. The kinds where people talk about hot spots for crime, places the city can't or won't take care of, that kind of thing. You can find anything on the web if you look hard enough." He looked smug as we pulled into the Spirit Square parking lot and got out of the car.
 

"Anything except a life, apparently." I muttered as I followed him into the alley. The crime scene unit had finished up, so we had the run of the place, which was just fine with me. It gave us a chance to use some of our more off-the-record abilities to look over everything. I'd walked the alley a couple of times looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary when I heard Greg give a low whistle. I looked back to see him standing at the top of a concrete staircase leading down to a stage door. He waved me over excitedly and I headed his way.
 

"Give this a sniff, dude." He said when I reached him. He pointed at the door, and I leaned over and took a big whiff. My sense of smell is nowhere near as keen as Greg's, but this almost knocked me over. It smelled like rot, and blood and serious armpit funk, with a tinge of something else underneath that I didn't recognize.

"Ewww. Damn, dude, how about a little warning next time? That is seriously nasty!" I smacked him on the shoulder, and he smacked me back.
 

"Shut up you pansy. Have you ever smelled anything like that before?"
 

"No. You?"
 

"Nothing, but now that I've locked in on it, I can tell it's all over the alley. It's hard to smell because of the blood and garbage, but it's there. I think whatever beat up Stephen smelled like this."
 

"Well then it oughta be easy to find. Just look for wherever there are a lot of people with sinus trouble, because nobody else could stomach that stench." I saw something fluttering out of the corner of my eye and went back up the stair.
 

Greg called after me as I knelt down beside a dumpster and reached under it for what had caught my attention. "If you get any of that on your clothes you're totally walking home." He yelled.
 

"I'll sit on the roof." I yelled back as I pulled a brightly colored flyer out from under the dumpster. It advertised a drag show at Aquarius, the city's oldest and most famous gay bar. There was a smear of blood across the front of it that told me it had been a lot closer to the fight than it was now, maybe even on Stephen somewhere. I stood up, wiping as much of the alley muck off of me as I could.
 

I held the flyer out to Greg and said, "Let's get back home and plan our wardrobes."
 

"For what?" He asked, trying hard to read the flyer and stay downwind of me.
 

"This show is tomorrow night. We're going clubbing. Now let's get out of here before the sun comes up."

Chapter 9

The next night found me rolling on the floor as Greg trotted out his finest club garb for our investigative trip to the gay bar. I was sporting a patterned t-shirt under a silk blazer with a pair of designer jeans and the only pair of decent shoes I owned, black loafers with silver buckles. Greg, on the other hand, came out in a pair of black leather pants and a gold mesh shirt that showed far more of my rotund partner than I wanted to know existed.
 

"Dude," I gasped between howls of laughter, "how many cows had to sacrifice themselves to build those pants? And please don't tell me I'm seeing the sparkle of a belly ring?!?" I fell off the couch and sat there laughing as Greg stood in the doorway of his room glowering at me.
 

"Shut up, toothpick. I'm trying to look inconspicuous." He muttered.
 

"Dude, we're going to a gay bar, not Mardi Gras! You don't have to dress like Captain Jack Sparrow slept with a disco ball!" I said. He turned on his heel and went back into his room while I sat there wondering what he would come out with next.
 

"And since when are you the expert on how to dress for success at a gay bar?" Sabrina asked from the stairs. I clambered up from the floor and headed over to her.

"A guy's gotta eat. How did you get in here? And what are you wearing?" I'd never seen Sabrina in a dress before, and this one didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination. The skirt was short, the top was clingy and red, and she had on a pair of heels that I bet were borrowed from a pal in the Vice department.

"One – you're disgusting. Two – Mike gave me a key. And Three – this is called a skirt, and I'm wearing it to the club to keep you two social misfits out of trouble." She went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. "Want one?" I nodded in the affirmative, and she brought two beers over and set them on the coffee table.
 

"Judging from Greg's ensemble, it looks like my services will most definitely be needed." She continued as she sat down and twisted open a Miller Lite.
 

"Yeah, we weren't much for the club scene when we were alive, and loud music really plays havoc with our hyper-hearing nowadays, so we don't spend a whole lot of time shaking our groove things." I sat next to her on the couch and propped my feet up.
 

"Huh. I hadn't thought about that. How are you going to deal with the noise tonight?" She asked.
 

"Wax earplugs." I answered. "Greg came up with the idea. They look a little bit like hearing aids but they'll cut enough noise out for us to be able to function. And it's not like I'm looking for a date."
 

"I thought all of you guys were bi." Sabrina said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye to gauge my reaction. I didn't give her the satisfaction, just muttered "racist" under my breath and took another sip of my beer. A few minutes later Greg came back out of his bedroom, this time wearing a flannel shirt and work boots.
 

"You're a lumberjack and you're okay. Let's go." I said, then stood up and we headed to the car.
 

We took my car to the club, just in case there was anyone paying attention to the parking lot. Nothing says, "ignore me" like an imported economy car, and we didn't exactly want trumpets blaring announcing our arrival. The bouncer was wearing a shirt that looked a lot like the one I'd mocked Greg for wearing originally, and he shot me an "I told you so" look. I didn't bother making any remarks about their respective physiques, just paid the cover and went inside.
 

It was a good thing Greg had come up with his earplug idea, because I can't stand Lady Gaga at low volume, much less the ridiculous level it was blaring at through the club. The lights were dim everywhere except the dance floor, where the strobes and colored light flashed in time with the music. Everywhere you looked there were ridiculously fit men dancing together, and in the corners of the bar you could see men talking with their heads close together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes just talking. All in all it looked just like a straight dance club only with no women, and I felt just as out of place. Come to think of it, there were never any women in my experience at straight dance clubs either. At least not until they became dinner.

I headed over to the bar and waved the bartender over. He gave me a quick once-over and said "Domestic beer in the bottle?"
 

"How did you know?"
 

"It's what all the straight boys drink. It's like a flag." He smiled and grabbed me three Miller Lites, twisting the tops off into the trashcan with a practiced flip of the wrist.
 

"Who says I'm straight?" I asked, a little offended that my cover could be blown so quickly.
 

"Everything about you, sweetie. Don't worry, we don't mind your kind coming in here, just don't start any trouble." He flashed me a smile that I bet got him a lot of second dates, and turned to go down the bar. I waved him over with a couple of twenties and suddenly his attention was mine and undivided.
 

"Since you know I'm not here looking for a date, I might as well just ask you some questions." I started, but he waved me off right away.
 

"Sorry, sweetie, not a chance. You've got 'PI' written all over you, and the last thing I need is to end up in some frustrated closet case's divorce hearing." He started to turn again and I went ahead and brought out the big guns.
 

"I'm investigating the assaults." He stopped cold and turned back to me.
 

"Really?"
 

"Yeah, really. The chick's a cop, and my partner and I are private investigators. We're trying to find out more about the victims, and we're starting here."
 

"Why here? I don't even know a couple of the guys that were beat up, and I know everybody that comes in here more than twice." He looked around and waved the other bartender over. "Come with me. I can't talk to you out here. No. They stay here. Just you." I waved off Sabrina and Greg, who had started over when he came out from behind the bar. I followed him back to the office behind the bar and sat with my back to the door. Not my favorite seating arrangement, but I hadn’t seen anything out there that felt like a threat, so I let it slide.
 

"Alright, what do you want to know?" He asked as he sat behind the desk. I might not be the sharpest fang in a mouth, but I was starting to get the idea that this guy was more than just a bartender.
 

"Let's start with some introductions. I'm Jimmy. And you are?" I passed him one of my cards, and he tucked it under the corner of a blotter on his desk.
 

"I'm George. I've been the manager here for the past five years. And I know for a fact that my customers have nothing to do with these attacks."
 

"And exactly how do you know that?" I asked, turning my chair to at least give myself a little peripheral view of the door.