Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (17 page)

The lady in red spewed blood and profanities
in all directions as the sisters of the night descended upon her.
Once before had she felt this vulnerable, this afraid. Those were
the days of her infancy when it was only the lady and her maker.
That was a lifetime ago and yet that fear returned to these fields.
No different than the last.

“We hide from you no more,” Cetra said.

“Back, you vile witch,” said Xenia with a
bloody spit in the witch’s direction. “I dance on the bones of your
kind! If you thought the humans destructive to your way of life
you’ll soon be awoken to the hell I know!”

“No one should be denied such a last
request,” Gemma said. “You may dance your heart out, milady.”

Gemma kept pace with the high priestess in
the face of a terror unknown to her until this night. She faltered,
for the briefest of moments, but it was all the time in the world
for the vampire queen.

With their spell broken the lady in red found
she was once again able to govern her own body. Rather than heed
the words of those beneath her station, Xenia chose to escape with
her prize and live to fight another day. Lukas is what she wanted.
The rest would have to wait one more night. She moved to take hold
of the young werewolf, but found his touch now out of reach. The
man in black had taken him out from underneath her thumb.

“I’m afraid not, my liege,” a mordant Remus
Castalon said. “The boy doesn’t belong to you.”

“And he belongs to you?” Xenia scoffed.

“Perhaps,” said Remus, “in time he will. What
I do know is that day isn’t today.”

The vampire queen dug as deep as she could to
summon the strength needed to break the witches’ hold of her. She
went to the shroud in that moment of freedom and called forth the
snaked fingers of her forbearers to aid her in this time of
need.

The man in black and his red maker rarely
agreed on much over the years. In truth she would’ve struck him
down on numerous occasions if it were not for his unusual
connection with the vampiric gift known as the shroud. She was
twice the monster Remus pretended to be, and yet, it was he that
reigned in that dark place called the shroud.

Xenia poured everything she had left into the
attack; one last chance to wipe a century old smirk from off the
man in black’s face, but it passed through Remus as if nothing more
than the conjuration of a delirious, fractured mind. With her
strength all but used up control of the lady’s body returned to the
interlopers in the night. She was frozen in her place and forced to
watch as the one she chose relinquished himself from her grasp.

“There’s still much that needs to be done,”
the lady said with a quiver of her lip. “None know this better than
you…”

“In this you’re correct, my dark queen,” said
Remus as he drove a hand into her chest. “I understand all too well
what needs to be done.”

His fingers wrapped around her black heart.
When Remus saw the darkness in her eyes falter ever so slightly he
pulled on her heart and her heartstrings and watched the black of
her eyes melt away.

In her dying moments the lady in red saw the
sinister grin that now made up Remus’ face replaced with that of
her maker. The man in black was born from a dream that she might
one day be reunited with her lost love; but Remus would prove that
a false notion every chance he could. Despite their many
differences it was Cain’s face she looked into in her final
moments.

“My love,” whispered Xenia, “I never forgot
you.”

Freed from the witches’ spell the lady in red
was now able to lash out and defend herself against the man in
black’s assault. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to harm the man
she believed to be maker, savior, and eternal love.

Xenia brought her lips to his and kissed Cain
Vetus one last time before her heart was torn from its home. The
lady’s body began to break down underneath its ancient weight and
the ash that afflicted all vampires in death spread throughout her
body. That ash spread slowly due to her many years upon the mortal
realm. It would continue to eat away all the same until she was no
more.

Xenia buckled into the arms of the man that
caused her downfall, although she was unaware of whose arms they
truly were. Not that it would have mattered to the fallen vampire
queen. There were none closer to the lady in red than her man in
black.

“I stand in your image,” Remus said softly,
“and for that I’ll forget you, Xenia Parentucelli.”

It had been centuries since the vampire queen
heard her own name. Remus let those words usher the lady in red
into the afterlife as the ash took her final breath away. She was
as evil as the world made her and for that Remus could not be
wholly monster as he took her life away.

Xenia may have been raised a simple villager,
but that wasn’t the life she was meant to live. She was the bastard
child of Pope Nicholas V. Stolen from her home by the immortal Cain
she was forced the live a life on the run in fear that secret would
get out again. When word reached the pope that his daughter had
been turned into a monster he spared no expense to see his secret
never reach daylight.

He ordered knights, mercenaries, and
cutthroats after her, men that would act on his behest in secrecy;
where revealed truths could do no harm. Those men stood nothing
next to the true monsters that Pope Nicholas V sent after word
began to spread of her true heritage.

These men were the Knights Templar and they
would see that no one dared speak the Parentucelli name again.
Xenia ran for so long that survival became a way of life, her way,
and she’d rather die than live in regret of those actions.

Remus wavered as he held the vampire queen’s
ashes in hand. He laid the lady in red to rest in the ground as the
night grew thin. It weakened him, but it also weakened the monster
inside and let him mourn for the woman that re-birthed him in
proper fashion.

The werewolves had their battle cries.
Vampires had their tears of blood and Remus shed many for his
dethroned queen. He looked up to the fleeted moon and said a silent
prayer to the gods above and below.

“I can feel it,” whispered Remus as the tears
streamed downward. “The crown is mine.”

It was a crown he never wished for while his
lady drew breath. Then, in an instant, it became his and the power
proved too much to tame. Tens of thousands now forced to kneel at
his whim, power few in this world could know, fewer could handle.
There would be dissenters, traitors, those that would breed ill
will. They would be dealt with as would all others that opposed his
reign.

It took Remus a moment to realize the new
world around him. The werewolves stood in awe of what they
witnessed. The sisters, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen,
save for the illusive Gemma Kohl that stood with them still. He saw
a wide-set smile on her face, as if they’d just saved the world,
but that smile quickly turned around on her with all but a few
spoken words.

“I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” said Elsa
Dukane, “but I think I have… a slight problem…”

Elsa finally gathered the inner strength to
leave the porch steps, but it only came after she was struck by the
shroud of darkness meant for the man in black. Her face was pale,
her movement off kilter, and a deep wound ran along her side. Black
fingers spewed outward from the cut and forced the blood from her
body. The blood pooled beneath her with every step until she could
take no more.

Elsa had descended two steps, but already she
could hardly see the hands in front of her face. The blood loss
affected her sight, her mind, and when it affected her balance she
tripped over her own blood. Down she went with not a soul nearby to
catch her fall.

“Elsa!” cried Lukas as he raced towards her.
“I won’t lose another!”

But it was too late. Elsa already laid on the
front steps of the Wendish home, barely cognizant, eyes rolled back
into her skull. In a few minutes she’d be dead.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Night Kings: Dayside

Gregory Blackman

A Walk in the Sun

Time stood still for everyone on the Wendish
fields, everyone except the young Elsa Dukane. She succumbed to the
lady in red’s final assault and all those around rushed to her side
in a show of support. Lukas sped past his mother to make sure he
was the first to her side, followed closely by Gemma Kohl and then
what remained of the Wendish clan.

Lukas cradled her in his arms, no different
than he’d done for his departed father. Lukas refused to let her
leave him, too, and he tried to stem the blood before it could
leave her open wound. Despite his conviction, Lukas’ efforts had
little effect on the shroud-infected lesion and the blackened blood
continued to pour from her side. His actions could only serve to
delay the inevitable.

“You can do something,” Lukas begged of the
robed figure that stood above. “You
have
to do
something.”

“It’s not within my abilities,” Gemma
answered. Her head drooped low as the words left her for she knew
what fate would befall her closest friend. “I’m sorry, Lukas. I’m
so sorry.”

“But it
is
within mine,” said an
unusually somber Remus Castalon. He approached without a foot set
upon the ground, hovered over the grass as if his dominion now
extended to the soil he walked. “I can save Elsa Dukane. I can
breathe new life into her.”

“The hell you can,” Lukas growled.

“You offer slavery,” said Gemma, moving to a
defensive position, “not salvation.”

Remus laughed at such disregard for his
offer. Yet, he knew what compliance with their wishes would mean.
This was a prize he could not take without force. Remus would learn
the secrets locked inside her head and he would learn this one way
or another.

“If that is your concern,” he said through
the rage that stirred, “I can renounce my claims on her this very
night. She will not know of the progeny curse.”

“Can he truly save her?” Lukas asked. He
looked up at Gemma with bloodshot, teary eyes. “I can’t lose anyone
else. Not tonight. I can’t, Gem. I just can’t…”

Gemma Kohl looked to her love struck friend.
This wasn’t what she wanted, but what she wanted held no relevance
in this discussion. She couldn’t speak for Elsa Dukane. Not even
Elsa could do that anymore. “If she’s a virgin…”

“And if she’s not?” Lukas asked.

“A ghoul,” replied Remus, “like all the
impure ones taken before her. She would walk this world a barren
husk. A tormented hell no decent person should know.”

Lukas dropped his head low in guilt. He was
the reason Elsa came to this home, to this battlefield. He couldn’t
let his emotions be the reason she didn’t walk away from it.

“Go on,” he said, wistfully. “Get on with it
then.”

By now, the night sky had abandoned them and
sunlight began to creep over the landscape. What warmed the
werewolves to the touch caused a reverse outcome in the man in
black and it saw him tremble at the knees.

He fell from a height of inches, but still it
was enough to send him to the ground. When Remus looked up to those
that gathered around Elsa they were shocked to see the man in black
had taken on a new appearance. His face was emaciated, as if he’d
been locked in a coffin for a hundred years, and his eyes were
sunken into his skull. In spite of the sun, and of himself, Remus
rose to his feet and slinked closer to the downed Elsa Dukane. This
had to be done now or her secrets would forever elude him. He
lowered himself to her and looked back at the gathered crowd with
fangs bared.

As they watched in horror Remus took a clawed
thumb and pierced the inside of his mouth. He took his time,
savored the victory, for he knew the answers would soon be his.
This young woman would always be different from the others. Only
now she would be his.

“By the goddess above,” said Lukas as he
watched Remus sink his teeth into the neck of one he cared so much
for. “I pray this is the right thing to do.”

“It’s the only thing to do,” Gemma said,
flatly. “It’s either this or she dies.”

To their astonishment the process was denied
to the king of the vampires and he recoiled violently from Elsa’s
touch as her blood spurted from his malnourished lips.

“What is this? What have you done to me?”
Remus asked as her blood poured down his chin. “What in the nine
circles are you?”

The man in black spat out what blood of hers
remained and crawled away from her side as quickly he could. Her
blood boiled to the touch; pained him in ways he couldn’t
comprehend. Whatever she was he hadn’t experienced it in over four
centuries as a vampire.

Elsa arched her back and convulsed on the
ground. Aubrey and Gemma moved to control her, but she wouldn’t be
controlled at the moment of her awakening. Her eyes flared a
brilliant white for all but a second before they returned to their
natural brown. Elsa’s wounds closed and flushed the lady’s shroud
from her body.

It came as a shock to all, none more than the
man in black, who now laid hunched in the porch corner, as far from
her side as he could be. None knew what to say because none
understood what they’d bore witness to. They could only watch as
the young girl turned into one of them—a monster. She was the
unknown girl in a world of monsters.

It was a dark end to a darker night. They’d
lost much this evening, gained nothing in return, and no matter
what happened next they were sure to lose more. The witches were
exposed. The werewolves were without their beloved leader. And who
knew what causalities would befall the vampires now that a new
line, a red line, had been drawn in the sand.

The queen of the vampires was defeated, but
they would all come to find that their true enemy hadn’t been
revealed. There was another in that field; one that watched from
first bite to last. He was clad in white robes and around his neck
dangled a shimmering crescent moon amulet. He stood unaware by all
that lingered on the Wendish farm simply because he wished it
so.