Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (15 page)

Remus moved on his kindred with a fire even
the young wolf couldn’t muster at the height of his aggression. His
movements mimicked the darkness that surrounded and allowed him to
strike multiple opponents whether they were near or far from his
shadowy tendrils. The same fate became of each that moved against
him, evisceration, and a blood trail the reached well past the
front yard.

Remus didn’t stop until only one of the
vampires that attacked remained; the only one who knew better than
to raise a fist against the infamous man in black, one time hand of
the queen, and forever known as the butcher of many kindred. The
distraught vampire backed into the fields he emerged from, but he
would soon find that distance wasn’t an issue for one with command
of the shroud.

In a field where no shadows lingered Remus
found way to strike without a step in the fated vampire’s
direction. A single oak tree provided Remus what he needed and its
black fingers began to sprawl across the field on route to the
shaken young vampire.

“No… please, not me,” cried the vampire with
hands over his eyes in vain attempt to keep the darkness out. “No,
no, no, no, no!”

His pleas went unanswered as the mile long
shadow overtook him. He could not run. He could not halt its
movement. He could only cry out in agony as the black vines made
their way up his legs. All while the man in black conducted with
hands elevated in symbiotic concord with the black fingers of the
sole oak tree.

“Help me, mother…”

When the shadows reached the vampire’s chest
he could no longer take the punishment inflicted on his soul. Blood
spurted from eye sockets to the ground below as he drove his
fingers in to ease the pain onset by the myriad of visions the
darkness provided. He was enveloped by the shadow. Then he was
gone, replaced by the nothingness that once ruled over these
fields.

No ghouls lurked. No vampires lingered. There
was only a half conscious Lukas Wendish, strewn out on the ground
and covered in blood, and a man in black that just banished a dozen
of his kind to the afterlife.

Lukas attempted to rise from the grass, but
his gaping wounds prevented such a notion and saw him back to the
ground in defeat. A hand reached down to aid him in this time of
need. A hand he accepted without reservation. Right up until the
moment he realized whom the ivory hand belonged to.

Lukas pulled back at moment his gaze met the
man in black. It was a decision that proved foolish and for the
third time tonight he struck the ground hard.

“Leave me,” he growled.

“There’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing a
were-pup in distress,” said Remus with a devilish smirk stretched
across his face, “but I assure you that we’re not done here
tonight. The lady has plans for you. Plans you’d best avoid.”

Despite Lukas’ objections Remus was
determined to see the werewolf off the ground and on to his feet.
He was badly wounded and in no condition for another quarrel, but
he would fight, because that was the only option left for him. So
he picked himself up one last time and he stood beside the man in
black, mortal enemy, now provisional ally against the coming
storm.

“Quite the display the two of you put forth,”
said a man from behind. “Never was much for kindred on kindred
violence, myself. Find it taints the very nature of our way. You
know, brothers in arms, honor among thieves; that sort of
thing.”

Lukas and Remus spun around to the front door
of the Wendish home. A door that now stood open.

“I honest truth?” the vampire asked as he
emerged through the door. “It’s just too damn messy for my tastes.
An old vampire is a messy vampire as my sire used to say. So I
found a way to change the rules. I hope that doesn’t pose a problem
for the two of you going forward.”

The vampire stepped over the door’s threshold
and came under the unforgiving moon’s light, but he didn’t come
alone. Elsa Dukane stood beside him with a hand wrapped around her
throat.

Lukas had cause to lash out and end this
vampire’s existence. Those reasons proved the very same as the ones
that kept him flat footed. He couldn’t let her die. Lukas turned to
his undead cohort in fear that the man in black would move where he
could not.

He would find the man in black no better
equipped to deal with this unforeseen threat. Elsa wasn’t what the
lady in red wanted. She was a pawn, a bargaining chip to be used as
she saw fit. Remus couldn’t act because he couldn’t lose her. Not
until he had unraveled the truth of her nature.

“What do you say, gentleman?” the vampire
asked. “Will you lend me your fangs?”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Night Kings: Dayside

Gregory Blackman

Spoiled Snacks

Ten yards separated Lukas from the best
friend he’d ever known—ten yards that might as well have been a
hundred.

Lukas couldn’t help but feel that he’d taken
her for granted, for he always believed Elsa would be there for him
when he needed her to be. She might judge, make the odd snide
remark, but she would always be there with his best interests at
heart; as long as she never uncovered the truth about his
nature.

That time had come and gone and still Elsa
stood by him. Now Lukas needed to be there in her time of need.

The beady red eyes of more vampires began to
creep into the corners of his eyes. They watched from across the
vast fields their predecessors had crossed, but they wouldn’t watch
for long. Soon they would be upon them and Elsa would be meat for a
monster that shouldn’t have passed. He failed her and he needed to
be the one to set things right.

“You see that?” The vampire’s forked tongue
slithered and slathered upon Elsa’s skin. Hard as she tried to
avoid his touch it would be to no avail. He had her trapped
underneath his thumb. “My brothers approach. They were once your
brothers. Were they not? Oh, no, no, no, that’s right. You’ve
forsaken your entire bloodline for some bitch of inconsequential
worth. What kind of kindred does that make you, Remus? You were
once renowned hand of the queen with the admiration of kindred
across the globe. What of that legacy now? Only the name betrayer
seems to fit.”

A disconcerted Lukas looked towards his
momentary ally with untrusting eyes. He now realized why the man in
black refused to move against the vampire when he had the chance to
do so. Remus’ eyes were set on her and they hadn’t wavered in the
slightest.

The vampire on the front porch looked out to
the fields with merriment. His grin was sickening and it stretched
from ear to ear; tongue unfurled down the neck of his next
potential feast.

“You see that?” he asked. “Those are
my
brothers… and soon… soon
my
queen will come. Then
you’ll all wish for the death I give this young girl—.”

Before the vampire could act, the jaws of a
werewolf were upon him, but they were not the jaws of Lukas. It was
the white wolf of Aubrey Wendish that came and she clamped down on
the vampire’s neck until he was forced to let Elsa slip from his
grasp.

As the vampires approached from the tree line
they would soon find that they were not alone in these fields. Led
by a red wolf the others of the Wendish pack emerged from the
shadows and took the attack to the vampires that trespassed on
their land.

“Father,” whispered Lukas, “I fight with
pride knowing that you fight beside me.”

Now that his friend was safe he fought with
renewed purpose that he meant to see put to best use. The battle
for the farm was over, but the war for Salem had only just begun,
and though every bone in his body felt as if it’d been set on fire,
Lukas fought tooth and nail to keep the vampires from the young
woman on his front porch. He pushed through the pain, through the
anger, and used the man, not the monster, to stave off the undead
assault on his home.

Lukas hadn’t the strength to combat the
vampires hand to hand; hadn’t the speed to meet them on equal
ground. Not while more blood had spilled from him than still
resided in his body. But for what he lacked in ability he made up
for in tenacity and vehemence. He struck at the vampires that
approached, and when one of them moved to intercept his blows, he
found the man in black there to pick up where he left off.

The two of them worked side by side on the
front yard while all around the cries of werewolf and vampire rang
out in the distance. It was a massacre on both sides that saw
vampires bite the dust and werewolves drained of their blood. There
was no honor here, only the carnage brought on by a war older than
any of the tonight’s participants.

It was Bernhard Wendish’s worst fears come
alive; to watch those under his tutelage become lost in the wind;
dishonorable deaths from a dishonorable opponent. He saw brothers
and sisters fall to the ground. He saw them devoured by the fiends
that toppled them; and he saw a future that rapidly spun out of his
control.

A pair of wolves, one of them ebony, the
other auburn, made their way through vampire after vampire on route
to the farm. They used tactics honed in many battles over the
years—battles almost exclusively between the two of them.

Kaleb and Leanne Ramsey had spent years
together, whether or not they wished it so, and over time developed
a unique bond that allowed them to understand each other without
the need for words. It was a bond they used to great effect on
approach to the farm, but it was a bond that would not prove
indomitable to the overconfident pair.

Several vampires banded together to bring the
two of them down. It was an attack they didn’t see coming. Not when
things had been going so well in the moments before. Brother and
sister were brought down, side by side, with vampires upon every
inch of their blood-matted frames.

The vampires and their many rows of fangs dug
deep into their hides, through muscle and bone, until all that was
left was the slight twitch from snapped tendons. They’d downed many
of their fated enemies, but now their fight was over. Bernhard’s
had only just begun. He pounced on the vampires and tore through as
many of them he could before they realized what happened. Despite
the odds against him, the pack master more than held his ground; he
gained it against the vampire horde.

The war waged on with neither side ready to
concede defeat. For every vampire that was felled, another was
there to take its place. Through the fields that surrounded to the
front door of the Wendish home it was chaos incarnate for the
beleaguered Elsa Dukane. She was lost in the skirmish as more
vampires emerged from the tree line in an endless wave. She was
afraid to run; afraid to hide. Wherever she went these monsters
would find her. They would always find her. She stayed on the porch
of the country home and watched it all play out in front of her. If
she were to fall here beside her friends she would do so with eyes
open.

For Remus Castalon human eyes weren’t
necessary to see wave after wave of kindred dispatched. He had his
third eye, the vampire eye, the one concealed to all but the
supernatural, and the only eye that mattered. That eye allowed him
to see past the darkness and take the world for what it was, not
what it wanted to be. It allowed him to fight like the monster he
was born to be.

More than just the benefits of perception,
the man in black had the shroud at his command. And when two arms
wouldn’t do he added a third, and a fourth. He added as many
shadowy arms as he needed to ash the vampires that approached
him.

“Forgive me,” whispered a familiar voice
behind Remus. “We do what we must to survive…”

A stabbing pain shot through the back of
Remus that forced him to the ground in submission. It twisted
closer until Remus could feel the claws of another wrap around his
non-beating heart. He knew there was little time before his heart
was to be ripped from its place. He had only once chance to save
himself.

An ethereal hand jetted out from Remus’ back
and sent the vampire behind him to the gravel driveway. With a
gaped hole still in his back, Remus threw himself into the air and
came down upon the vampire that’d nearly taken everything from
him.

“What you do,” hissed Remus as he drove down
onto the vampire, “is the reason you’ll not survive.”

That’s when Remus realized the vampire that
had him moments from the second death. The man in black had no
friends, held no allegiances, but there were a few people on this
planet he respected. This vampire was one of those people.

“Whether it was by your hand or your maker,”
Akil Fayed said softly, “my fate was etched in stone the moment you
defied the vampire queen. Whether I die at the hands of red or
black it makes no difference. Dead is dead; even for us
kindred.”

Remus could show no weakness, yet he couldn’t
bring himself to harm one with so much wasted potential. It wasn’t
the Egyptian’s will to come here tonight. Still, he came, as did
all others that now exist only as piles of ash.

The lady in red got her way in the end. She
always got her way.

Remus knew that if he allowed Akil to leave
he would no doubt find himself in the lady’s path once more. Akil
would return to this home and kill any that stood in his way. Next
time that could be Elsa. Remus couldn’t allow that to happen.

Akil’s entire existence had been predicated
on taking orders. There wasn’t a day in his life he had known
otherwise, human or vampire. A Mamluk during his human years, Akil
was a slave soldier without the free will to make his own
decisions. He was born into his caste and to remain there for the
rest of his human life. Luckily it wasn’t all that long. He was
born into blood, reborn into blood, and now he lay soaked in that
blood once more.

Remus placed his boot on the chest of Akil.
He pushed downward until he could hear the crack of the vampire’s
ribs. It was then the weight of such action revealed the truth of
Remus’ nature. He could no more be the man in black the vampire
queen created. He could not end this man. Not here. Not like this.
Remus looked into the eyes of the bronzed vampire, and in a moment
of weakness, released Akil from underneath his boot.