Black Knight 02.5 - Movie Knight by John G Hartness

“Don’t answer that.” Sabrina warned as I reached for my phone. She was on the couch beside me with the TV remote in her hand, popcorn in her lap, and a beer on the table beside her. I had a straw in a nicely chilled bottle of B-Negative and a beer chaser. And a ringing phone.  
    “I’d listen to her, bro.” My partner, Greg Knightwood warned from his armchair. He had his own beer and blood combo pack set up, and his bare feet were crossed on a tattered ottoman that had survived years of moving since we’d graduated college. I shuddered every time I saw anybody’s bare skin touch that thing, even though Greg was long past catching any diseases. We were all three settled in for a long overdue movie marathon, and after the events of the past few weeks, we deserved it. A trip to FairyLand and back, a cage mage against trolls and evil fairies, and playing matchmaker for a dragon definitely had taken its toll on the three of us. So we were all looking forward to a nice night of mindless entertainment, and then my phone rang. I could see why they were shooting me daggers just for thinking of answering the call, but I’ve never been the brains of the operation.  
    I ignored them both and picked up the phone. Bobby Reed’s face looked up at me from the screen, frozen in the goofy look he was sporting when I took the picture. I swiped my finger across the screen to answer and said “Sharky’s Pool Hall. CueBall speaking. You rack ‘em, we smack ‘em.”  
    “Jimmy?” Bobby’s voice sounded weird, thready and high.  
    “Yeah, Bobby, what’s up? We’re stocked pretty well right now, but if you had anything exotic come in I can come see you tomorrow.” Bobby was a coroner’s assistant for Mecklenburg County, and was also one of my best connections for fresh blood. Having Bobby on speed dial kept the people of Charlotte from a lot of odd cases of iron deficiency and listlessness that vampire victims are known to experience.  
    “I think I need you down here. I need your help, Jimmy.” Bobby sounded scared. And not “my boss found out I’ve been selling blood to vampires on the side and now I’m fired” scared. More like “there’s a tiger in the morgue and it wants to eat my liver” scared.  
    “What’s up, man? Did that parakeet’s owners finally find you?” I teased. Bobby’s promising career as a pet undertaker had been cut short following an embarrassing event at a party involving a parakeet, a mountain goat and five cans of whipped cream.  
    “That ain’t funny, man. Just get down here. There’s something bad going on, and I don’t think the normal cops can help. I gotta go, I gotta hide. When you get here, I’ll be in the top right drawer. I don’t get reception in there, but knock before you open the door. I’m taking my shotgun in with me.” Bobby hung up and I stared at the phone trying to process his last words.  
    “What’s up?” Sabrina said from the couch. She looked so relaxed, sitting there waiting to watch a science fiction moviewith her “favorite dead dork detectives.” She had her shoes off and sock feet propped up on the coffee table. Sabrina was casual today, which meant jeans and a plain red t-shirt, with a dress shirt unbutton over the tee to cover her sidearm. It was a pretty big departure from the tailored look she usually sported as a detective in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, but she wore it well. Damn well, as a matter of fact, and I’d been looking very forward to sitting beside her on the couch and idly playing with her long curly brown hair for a couple of hours.  
    “Gear up,” I said in my best impression of Mark Harmon from NCIS , which wasn’t very good. “Bobby’s down in the morgue and scared out of his mind about something.”  
    “Did he tell you what had him so scared?” Greg asked as he levered his bulk out of the easy chair. He waddled to his room for some boots and probably some truly unfortunate spandex.