Knight in Charlotte by Edward McKeown

Author:Edward McKeown [McKeown, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ad Astra
Published: 2013-01-31T22:00:00+00:00

To The Holy See

From Raoul Esposito SJ Calificador,

Your Holiness

The audit of Jeremy Leclerc has been cancelled. He is beyond the powers of the Realm of Earth to judge.

I submit my resignation as Inquisitor and request reassignment to Sub-Saharan Africa where I may finally begin God’s work….

The End

Pas De Deux

Jeremy almost dropped his latte on the keyboard as he read the headline from the Charlotte Observer website: POLICE SEEK “VAMPIRE” KILLER.

“Dammit,” he said. People stared as the lanky, brown-haired, man wiped hot coffee off his wrist. Jeremy ignored them as his eyes devoured the text.

“Twenty-six-year-old, Desmond Rovelo was found dead near Eastland Mall by teens in the early morning hours. The teens claim to have seen a small, white female fleeing the scene. A witness, Latesha Williams, said that the man had two bite marks on his throat and appeared to have lost much blood.”

As if on cue, his cell phone vibrated. He flipped it open.

“It wasn’t me.” The voice belonged to Debbie Middleton, vampire and sometime ally.

“You have a cell phone?”

“You think Verizon wouldn’t sell to the undead? Anyway, it wasn’t me. I was in a threesome last night and other than being a bit anemic, they’re fine and can testify I was with them all night.”

“Never mind. You may be the evil undead, but you worked too hard to get a truce with the forces of light to throw it away so soon.”

“Damn right. But we both have a problem.”

“Let’s meet. The sun’s down and I’m in the Starbucks on East Boulevard.”

“Yuppie scum. I’m outside. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t stick a bloodsword in my petite derriere before coming in. You Templars are quick with those things.”

“I never stab a lady without warning.”

“I ain’t a lady and wasn’t when I was alive, but thanks.”

The door opened and Debbie stepped in, folding her cell phone. Most of the men in the place glanced up from their laptops and electronic toys. Debbie looked a lot like a country singer, small, but with a pile of bright blond hair and a bust that threatened to burst her blue jean jacket.

She dropped into an overstuffed chair in the quiet corner he’d settled in. Jeremy glared at the staring men who went back to their PCs, tablets and cell phones.

“Any idea who or what it is?” Jeremy said. He tried to keep his eyes up on Debbie’s. The vampire had turned their first hand-to-hand combat into something more erotic and lingering. For two hundred years Debbie had lived a life of sensual decadence. She played the human body like an instrument in return for a “nip and a sip.”

“No. The cops think it was a psycho, but it’s a vamp.”

“Friend of yours?”

“No vamp that knows me would come near. I’d kill them. This town ain’t big enough for two of us. Least not the way I want to exist.”

Jeremy scanned the story. “Victim was a mugger with a record of robbery and assault. Another vamp with a heart of gold?”

Debbie shrugged, which was fun to watch.

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