Paint it Black: 4 (The Black Knight Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

me right out of the running for role model. Role model or not, I still worried.
    “Crap. I hope she didn’t go bar hopping downtown again.”
    Greg and I exchanged looks. Ordinary, garden-variety bar fights draw the wrong kind of attention and are bad enough, but bar fights where nobody remembers how they started are worse. Bar fights that spill out into three blocks and spark five cases of spontaneous anemia are downright suspicious. I could tell Greg wasn’t happy before he opened his mouth.
    “Well, maybe if some folks weren’t running off getting hammered at the drop of a hat, she would have better examples in her life.”
    “Seriously? We’re going to have the parenting talk? Now?” My head started to throb at the very idea of having a serious talk about Abby’s behavior, so I downed the rest of my beer and cracked another. That earned me another disapproving look from my portly partner. I indicated Sabrina with a gesture and a stare meant to remind him we had other issues at hand. Didn’t work.
    “We’ve got to have it sometime, and I know you metabolize beer too fast to get drunk, so it might as well be now.”
    “I thought we were trying to solve a couple of murders, not worry about what our roommate, who happens to be a grown woman, is doing with her free time?” I could hear my voice getting loud, and I tried to bring it back under control, with little success.
    Greg stood up, running his hands through his hair in irritation. “It’s about impulse control, Jimmy. She’s got to learn to keep herself under control. And if she can’t learn that here, where is she going to learn it?”
    “If she hadn’t learned impulse control by her senior year of college, how has she not ended up on drugs, with every STD in the book, or flunked out of school long before we ever met her?”
    “That’s different, dude. The rules are different for us. You heard what Tiram said—he thinks none of civilization’s rules apply to us. Abby drank the Kool-Aid. She’s acting the same way. If we don’t get her under control, she’s going to end up like him, or worse.”
    “Worse?”
    “Yeah, worse. I don’t know how, but worse. I worry, man. And you’re better with her than I am. I get all tongue-tied and can’t get to the point, and then it all gets awkward and . . .” He sat back down and killed his beer. I handed him another.
    I knew the problem. Abby was pretty. Okay, Abby was absolutely smokin’ hot, and Greg never had much luck talking to pretty girls. They always treated him like a fat nerd, which he was, and that just made him more self-conscious. Even after we went vampy he didn’t suddenly turn into Lestat or one of the other fictional vampire studs. He just became a fat nerd with super-strength, speed, enhanced senses, and serious dietary restrictions. Kinda like being lactose intolerant, but to everything. When you’re a guy who likes food, the vamp gig is a bitch.
    “I’ll talk to her, okay? I’ll see if I can get her to chill a little.”
    “Thanks.”
    “You two gonna hug it out now, or what?” Sabrina asked from her chair. “Because I can leave.”
    “Why would you want to do that? Stay. You can be the meat in a nerd sandwich,” I said, holding out my arms to her.
    “Not right now, nerd-boy. You smell like cheap beer, expensive whiskey, and swamp muck. And that’s just to my normal human sniffer. I don’t see how Greg stays in the same room with you.”
    “It’s not easy,” Greg replied. “You should have smelled his room when we were alive. I made it through that, I can make it through anything.”
    Except he hadn’t lived through that, and it was my fault. I spoke up quickly, more to keep myself from heading down that road than anything else. “Yeah, okay. Point taken,” I said. “A shower sounds like a great idea. We’ve got nothing new here, so I’m gonna go get cleaned up. Wanna wash my back?” I asked Sabrina as I headed for the stairs.
    “Maybe next time. But I