Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (18 page)

The man cast no spell, chanted no
incantation. He simply asked for it to be so. He didn’t lift a hand
during the attack and he didn’t show himself to others. He was
there to watch, to record, and to interpret events as he saw
them.

Against the glimmer in his necklace a sole
crack was revealed in his stoic foundation. Only it wasn’t a crack
on the amulet he wore. The crack was on his face and it swept
upward at a swift pace. The seeker at long last found what he
sought.

Act Three

Sisters of Salem – The Red River

Chapter Thirty

Night Kings: Sisters of Salem

Gregory Blackman

Southern Hospitality

Days had passed since the fires burned across
the Wendish fields. Those fires saw a father separated from his
son, a crown wrested from a queen, and a girl parted from her
innocence. Friend and foe became tethered in the moonlight and none
would ever be the same. There wasn’t a soul in the city that
emerged from those fires unscathed. Some were just more open to the
truth.

Lukas Wendish was one of those tortured
souls, eyes forced open, unable to shield himself from the dark
truths born of their hellish beginnings. They were monsters in the
night and would remain so until they found the sweet release of
freedom that came with the second death.

Was that freedom known to Bernhard Wendish as
he departed this world? Lukas would never know the answer to that.
He liked to think that his father was at peace, somewhere beyond
the supernatural veil, but it was a thought that refused to linger
for long. For monsters there could be no peace. Not in this life.
Not in the next.

In the days since his father was taken from
him, Lukas’ life had been torn asunder and his pack wrested from
his control. There was nothing left for him in Salem. Yet, the
city’s hold over him wouldn’t be so easily shaken and not a night
passed that Salem drifted from his mind.

Fear was all he knew. Fear of the past; fear
of the future, and the fear of not being good enough to fill his
father’s pelt.

That fear clouded his mind and caused Lukas
to flee the only lands he’d ever known. He travelled south until
his bloodied paws could take him no further. The brown and molted
countryside of Salem no longer lingered in his peripheral vision.
Now it was coastal plains and rolling hill after rolling hill that
encompassed his surroundings. Much of the land he traveled was
untouched by man where the wolf in him could run free and without
pause, except for the occasional deer that wandered into his path
come diner time.

It was in this particular stretch of forest
that Lukas realized something was out of place. A black cloud
pushed through the tree tops and rose into the night sky. Lukas had
been so focused on the run that he forgot to allow his senses to
guide him. Those senses could no longer be ignored and he was
struck full-bore with a myriad of synaptic responses.

It was a warning call to those that could
sense the supernatural realm. Heed these words or perish like the
rest.

“Get out while you can.”

Lukas tried to stop dead in his tracks, but
it proved too difficult for his wounded paws to muster. He vaulted
through the air, spun in all directions, without a thought as to
where he’d land. When Lukas did land on the ground he rolled down
the slanted ground until he was forced upon a steep cliff that
overlooked what should have been a thriving port town.

“That smell,” the wolf growled, “it’s the
stench of flesh...”

It was a sight unimaginable to the misplaced,
young werewolf. The fires of battle had left this town, but the
chaos it brought saw the town ushered further into chaos. There
were no cries for help down below. There was only the charred
buildings that once housed many and the smoldered remains of the
people that once lived there.

“Charleston, South Carolina,” said a turned
Lukas as he looked to the billboard at the edge of town. “She
guards our buildings, customs, and laws.”

There was no one left to guard Charleston’s
buildings, customs, or laws any longer. There were no signs of the
military to ease their pain. Only the cold of the night to see what
was left of their town swept away into the darkness.

Lukas wondered what could have become of this
city, but in truth it didn’t rightly matter. Not to him. There were
many fates a city in the New World could fall. Most of them
belonged to the monsters in the night and they were growing in
number. No one was safe anyone, lest of all the monsters that stood
against other monsters.

The werewolves back home wanted him to lead.
His mother wanted him to lead. He wasn’t the leader they believed
him to be. He wasn’t his father, and no matter how hard he tried,
that man wasn’t within him.

Lukas couldn’t lead them into a war. Not when
he didn’t know whom to fight; where the battle was to be fought, or
what side of the line he should be on. His father walked a thin
line with the other supernatural races, a line Lukas crossed many
times, and one he couldn’t uphold any more. He would be his own
pack master, not in his father’s image, not in the lady’s.

In the remains of Charleston Lukas saw what
could’ve been Salem had his father not forged an alliance with
human and witch. He wasn’t his father; he wasn’t even the brawny
Kaleb Ramsey, but there were lives that counted on him. Some that
didn’t know of him or his kind, others didn’t even know themselves.
They counted on him nonetheless.

“It’s time,” Lukas said out loud with eyes
locked on the scorched lands below. “I heard your warning, witches.
Now I see your sorrow; and through my eyes your sisters to the
north will, too. This I promise you.”

He turned from the chaos down below with his
eyes ablaze in renewed determination. The undying hold Xenia had on
him through the beyond was no more. It died in the fires that took
more lives than she could ever know. All that remained now was a
wolf on the hunt for those that would bring harm to his town.

Chapter Thirty One

Night Kings: Sisters of Salem

Gregory Blackman

The Goddess Bestows

Elsa’s entire world collapsed a few days ago.
She discovered the truth of her nature, and while the whole of it
still eluded her, the door had been opened. Never to be closed
again. The human world left her behind with the burst of her
luminous eyes. It was the supernatural world, a world full of
monsters and demons, which she now called home. Yet here she stood,
ready to embark on a new chapter in her life, guided by the one
person she could still count on in both worlds.

She was assured the vale they walked was once
a place of harmony. Gemma spoke of the many birds that would flock
to her on arrival and the critters that would gather nearby. They
would be unknowingly drawn to the circle of power located deep
within its basin and the presence of those that protected its
secrets. It was a lively place. Not anymore.

Now these hallowed grounds were tainted by
the darkness that spread. None could identify the source of the
corruption, and if anyone had, they didn’t speak a word of it. It
was as if something or someone were sucking the life straight from
the roots. That was Gemma’s belief. Elsa wasn’t sold on the
notion.

First it was believed the lady in red cast a
shroud upon the land. That vampire queen’s death would save the
city from its dark hold. It was a belief that saw mortal enemies
work as one and stem the tide against one of the world’s most
powerful forces. It cost countless lives, but in the end, it was
for a cause they all believed in.

Gemma swore the reaper’s death had played its
role in these events. She couldn’t peace it together. But Gemma was
convinced she would get to the truth, in time, and when that
happened the sisters would be there.

Elsa wasn’t in agreement with the entirety of
her logic, but whatever the truth was it needed to be stopped. If
she was meant to play a part in this war then that’s what she would
do. Not even fear of death could stop her, for until these last few
days her entire life felt as if it were a waking dream. Elsa was
awake now and she wouldn’t be so easily put back to sleep.

She sought any connection she could find to
this supernatural world. To know the monster inside was to know thy
true self. Those were the passing words of the newly crowned king
in black before he slinked back into the shadows for relief. They
were words she would see taken to heart.

“That’s when it started,” Gemma said with
absolute certainty in her eyes. “The reaper was on to something and
they silenced him. That has to be why. No easy feat, either.
Reapers are feared by all for good reason. We find out who killed
the reaper and we find out where this all began. I’m sure of
it.”

“You have any idea who might’ve killed him?”
Elsa asked.

“Fuck no,” Gemma blurted out. She stopped
abruptly when she realized her crassness and looked to her friend
for forgiveness.

Elsa’s response was to extend her tongue in
vulgarity that saw the two of them break out into laughter. After
all the lies she’d been told in her life a little candor was a
pleasant surprise; and so too, a welcome way to pass the time in
this most dreary of places.

“It could be anyone,” Gemma said. “You know
how I feel about Salem, El. Everyone in this town is creepy as
shit.”

“If everyone in Salem is
creepy as
shit
,” said Elsa, now leaned in with inquisitive eyes aflutter,
“what would that make us?”

“The best of a bad lot,” Gemma answered.

Ever since Elsa first awoke to the
supernatural world she’d felt alien to her homeland. Tonight, for
the first time, she felt normal, as if her life could somehow
remain a fraction of what it once was.

There was a dire air to the land she never
noticed before that night. She could feel the death of the land,
the decay of nature. Elsa wanted to believe her awakening was of
fortunate chance. That she was destined for some grand purpose. It
was a fool’s notion, but it was the only thing she had to cling on
to.

Elsa couldn’t speak to Lukas. He hadn’t been
seen in days. The man in black was no use, and even if he was, she
wouldn’t dare risk the trek to Blackrose Manor. Could she lean on
her father?

Victor was always a man of many troubles.
Zoning restrictions and border disputes often accompanied him home
from the office and put in place an insurmountable stack of
paperwork that parted father and daughter. These last few weeks saw
a new side to the man Elsa hardly knew. His nature had become as
dark as the forests in which she now walked. He was brooding,
distant, and far too preoccupied with himself to notice a change in
his daughter.

She was afraid to reveal her nature to him,
but also to the rest of the world outside. She hadn’t spoken a word
to anyone outside her home, save the one friend she could still
count on to answer her calls. So she accepted Gemma’s invitation
tonight. She was guaranteed the time was right; that old grievances
had been shelved for the time being and she’d be safe to walk the
forests at night. The dark ones would not come out to haunt them
tonight.

“You need to be mindful of your words,” Gemma
whispered as she slowed her advance. “Not since the trials that
wronged us in the past has an outsider been welcome in our sacred
realm.”

“Then why me?” asked Elsa, humbled by the
honor they’d bestowed. “Why break tradition for me?”

Gemma stopped unexpectedly in the center of a
small grove. She reached out to place warm, friendly hands on the
girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders, and said,
“Because you’re a friend in need.”

Gemma waved her hand in the air and whispered
an incantation, but her words weren’t for Elsa. They were for the
lands that surround. A portal opened in front of them and showed a
land inside untouched by the darkness that gripped their
forest.

“And this would be?” Elsa asked,
nervously.

A yawning smile spread across Gemma’s face.
She didn’t know if he friend would rightly believe her, but she
knew there could be no other way. Elsa wanted the truth and she’d
promised to give it. To the Sisters of Salem their word was all
they had, both in this world and the next. Gemma would see her
friendship with Elsa honored by that truth. She would need to
choose her words wisely then. Not everything could be revealed.

“It’s a tear in the fabric of space and
time,” Gemma said without a quiver in her lip, “a bridge between
dimensions that can only be opened by one from our sisterhood.
There are many places our worlds connect, but only two pillars in
which we can pass from one world to the next. Or at least, there
used to be.”

“What happened to the other?” Elsa asked.

Gemma put as strong a face she could when it
came to her own troubles. She was always the one to look to in
times of need, but when it came to her people there wasn’t much
room for a soft heart. No words were said as she moved through the
portal, only the implicit agreement that her friend would follow
into the unknown.

“I… I,” stammered Elsa as she stepped from
one world to the other, “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so easy…
or so beautiful.”

From a young age Gemma Kohl would come to
this place and stand in awe of its innate beauty. It was a place of
peace and worship, untouched by the hand of man, and forever to
stay that way as long as the goddess that reigned here allowed. She
almost forgot what it could be like to witness it through untrained
eyes. Still, she said little to avoid having said too much.

“Where are we?” Elsa asked. It was an
innocent enough question, but one with many answers, none simple to
tell. “In space and time, I mean.”

“This realm belongs to the goddess,” said
Gemma without hesitation in her voice. “She came to our world
through the pillar we just passed and bestowed a chosen few with
the power to defend themselves against the monsters of the
night.”