Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (3 page)

“You’re serious?” Lukas asked in disbelief.
“The guy looks like he hasn’t stepped outside in half a
decade.”

To say Lukas was jealous of the man in black
would’ve been an understatement. He fumbled around in the
background for a moment while his two friends crooned over a man
not likely to pay them any attention.

Lukas would soon find out karmic balance
restored in their group with the entrance of another.

The crowd stirred to attention with the
arrival of one that stood out from all others. Whispers began to
pass among all those at the festival and soon all eyes were on the
latest guest to arrive.

“Who’s the pair of legs?”

“I’ve got to get me some of that.”

“You’ll have to go through me first,
pal.”

Her red satin dress was beyond radiant,
backless to showcase her exquisite figure, must have cost a small
fortune and had all the men chomping at the bit to get at her. Some
fawned over her beauty, others argued over her revealing choice of
attire, but all eyes were upon the lady in red as she made her way
down the cascading patio steps.

“Now
that’s
why I come to these
festivals,” Lukas said with wide-set grin on his face. “Enjoy the
Festival of the Moon, ladies. You’ll find me otherwise occupied for
the remainder of the evening.”

A line of eligible, and some ineligible,
bachelors started to form at the edge of the patio where the dance
floor lay. A classical band stood ready to play at a moment’s
notice, but it wasn’t until the lady in red placed a heel on the
floor that the band started to play. The entire festival was
wrapped around the tip of her finger. What they didn’t know was
that she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Too tall,” the lady in red said to the first
gentleman with his arm extended, “and you, well, you’re far too
small.”

“You’re too ancient,” she said to the elderly
man, accompanied with a smile and tender hand to the cheek. The
line of eligible bachelors was shrinking almost as fast as it was
forming, and one by one, men were being cast aside as if they were
nothing.

“Isn’t it past your curfew, young man?”

“Try to find some style.”

“Sorry, honey, I need someone that knows how
to lead.”

The field dwindled before Lukas’ eyes and
soon the lady in red was almost upon him. He was confident, far
more than he should’ve been; certain he was neither too old nor too
young, of according tastes and well versed in leading a waltz.

That’s when the lady in red approached.

“What do we have here?” the lady asked. She
looked him deep in the eyes, and as if she could see the man
behind, pulled back slowly with a devilish smile upon her face.

“Uh, well,” stammered Lukas, “my name—.”

“I care not for your name,” said the lady in
red softly. “I care only for what lay concealed underneath. Well,
boy, do you know what I see?”

Lukas turned as red as the lady’s dress and
fumbled around as if a school kid without a clue what to do
next.

“No,” he said, “I don’t.”

“I see the man underneath such garish
attire,” the lady answered. She offered Lukas a gloved hand and
proceeded to the center of the dance floor to the astonishment of
all in attendance. None more than the two ladies he’d accompanied
to the festival.

“Can you believe this?” Elsa asked.

“I’m still trying to figure out that suit he
decided to wear,” Gemma replied.

Once the lady had chosen her partner the rest
of the men accepted their consolation prizes and so, too, did the
women. The ballroom floor filled up as quickly as the lady had
rejected suitors and soon there was no one left for the two ladies
that waited still in the corner.

The night’s festivities were only just
beginning it would seem for the gathered crowd of mild mannered
citizens. Lukas would be the first to realize that fact when his
waltz with the lady in red was interrupted by an unpleasant
passerby.

It was the man in black and he now stood
between Lukas and the woman he so eagerly lined up to meet. In
spite of the music from the twelve piece orchestra, the townsfolk
stood at a standstill for what would transpire next.

“What the hell’s your problem, man?” Lukas
asked, his fists balled up in anger. He wasn’t the kind of man to
raise his fists in anger, but he’d fallen under the hold of
another, and the actions he thought his own were guided by
another.

He charged at the man in black with a fist
raised high into the sky and threw as heavy-handed a blow he could
in the man’s direction. Lukas missed wide of his mark, and with a
black oxford to the stomach, Lukas crumpled to the ground as if
little more than a minor annoyance to the man in black.

“Lukas!” Elsa cried out as she rushed to his
aid.

But it was too late. There wasn’t anything
Elsa could do for her friend. Gemma was aware of this and held
tightly onto Elsa to keep her from rushing to her close friend’s
side.

“Stay back,” Gemma warned. “There’s nothing
that can be done for him now.”

Chapter Five

Night Kings: The Lady in Red

Gregory Blackman

Holistic Healer

It would take more than firm hands and words
of caution to keep Elsa Dukane from Lukas’ side. She pushed through
a sea of less than gentlemanly guests to get to her friend and when
she arrived at the center of the dance floor it was almost as if
she didn’t exist to the enthralled Lukas Wendish. All he could see
was red, the color of the lady, and the black stain on his honor
that prevented him from getting closer.

“Nothing to see here,” the lady in red said
to the gathered crowd. “Turn back to your partners and resume the
festivities.”

The citizens of Salem turned back to their
partners and they did just as the lady command. It was as if they
were hypnotized by the woman’s crimson aura, powerless to break
from her grasp, and seemingly unwilling to do so.

With the guests otherwise occupied it was
Lukas’ turn to return to the offensive. Only he picked the wrong
moment to plan his attack, and as he cocked back his fist to
strike, he collided with a target far from his mark.

“Elsa!” Lukas hollered as he turned around to
see his closest friend down on the ground. Both the act and the
emotions it stirred within were enough to snap the young man from
whatever hold the lady in red had over him. He dropped to the floor
immediately and scooped up his bloody-nosed friend. She fought him
all the while and remained on the ground until Gemma arrived to
calm the two of them down.

“Are we really doing this?” an alarmed Gemma
Kohl asked. “Get up, the two of you. We need to get out of
here—now!”

“Not until I get her name,” Lukas said.

He hoisted himself up and turned to greet his
lady in red, but no longer was there a lady that awaited him. She’d
vanished into thin air and the man in black along with her. No one
around seemed to realize their crimson mistress had left. No one
seemed aware of anything except for the orders they continued to
follow to the letter.

“She’s gone,” Gemma said with a tug on her
friend’s less than fashionable coat, “and so, too, must we be if
you want to see it through to the next sunrise.”

“What are you talking about?” Elsa asked.
“You’re not making any sense.”

“And I’m not going to until we’re far from
this place,” insisted Gemma, still trying to pry Lukas away from
his search for the lady in red. “This festival is a bust. We’re
leaving.”

The three of them argued the entire way out
of Blackrose Manor, none more than the spellbound Lukas, still
mildly under another’s control and unable to keep from going five
minutes without mention of her.

Elsa hadn’t fared much better since her
entanglement on the ballroom floor. Her nose had stopped bleeding,
but it was the blow to her ego that worried Gemma most of all.
Lukas had been blindsided by the ominous woman in red, taken for
all he was worth, and ready to give so much more. Gemma had seen
such possession before, once, and she never wished to see it
again.

It was to her home they headed, to the slums
of Salem, where not even the monsters dare tread. At least that’s
what Gemma counted on when she took her friends there. They made no
detours on route to her house. Gemma wouldn’t hear of it and yet
she refused them any explanation of the sort.

“You know,” said Lukas, “I don’t think I’ve
ever been inside your house.”

It was a home visited by many in the area,
but Gemma’s friends were not among them. They never asked her what
kind of work her mother performed. Some said voodoo, others
holistic healing, but only one of them knew for certain.

The ramshackle bungalow Gemma called home was
no more than three rooms connected by a living room, half a
bathroom, and even less of a kitchen. Elsa had single rooms that
were larger than their entire house footprint, a fact that seemed
to bother Elsa more than it did her friend.

She’d been in Gemma’s home a few times over
the years, but her mother, Marianne Kohl, forbid such notions when
she was around. She was, however, prone to long stretches of time
on the road. This wasn’t one of those times and Elsa wasn’t sure if
she would ever return.

It would appear that Gemma agreed with such
notions and she’d already started to remove some of the
miscellaneous objects from her mother’s home. Yet, with so many
esoteric belongings and not nearly enough closet space, much of her
mother’s aura still remained inside these walls.

For Lukas there wasn’t a word to his
assessment of Gemma’s home. In an instant he knew why he hadn’t
been allowed inside. None could survive the embarrassment of this
becoming public knowledge. There were a wide array of objects
foreign to him, but it was the gnarled roots, bottle assortments of
body parts he could only hope weren’t human, and skulls of varied
size that captured his imagination. His father had told of such
people before, but all his words had been that of caution. Families
such as the Kohl’s were not to be trusted.

“Nope,” said Lukas, “never been here
before.”

Gemma left the two of them in the living room
while she headed to the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a
small tin box and washcloth.

“Let me patch you up,” she said.

“There’s nothing to patch up,” Lukas replied
with dumbfounded confusion. “My ego’s a little bruised, but I’ll
manage.”

“That’s good,” said Gemma, “because I was
talking to Elsa. You remember the elbow, the one you struck her
with?”

Lukas did remember. He remembered well. He
was enthralled by another at the time, one both beautiful and
wicked at the same time, but his thoughts were of a darker nature.
It may have been the lady in red that possessed him to fight, but
it was the man in black that guided his actions. Lukas knew what
the man was, deep down, under his wing-tipped façade. And as he
looked around Gemma’s home it became apparent she did, too.

“C’mon,” said Gemma, nudging her friend to
the couch, “let’s sit down.”

“I’m fine,” Elsa maintained.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Gemma
responded. “At least let me clean that blood off your stubborn
face.”

Elsa was led by hand past Lukas, whom she
extended a tongue to in disobedience, and sat down on the couch
with Gemma. A wet rag was taken to her face amidst objections to
the contrary, but a persistent Gemma wouldn’t hear of it and
continued on until the job was done.

“You got anything to drink?” Lukas asked.

“Yeah,” said Gemma with a crooked smile.
“It’s called water and it comes from the tap.”

Lukas left the two of them to deal with their
troubles and headed into what Gemma called her kitchen. That gave
the two women time to come to grips with what’d happened, far from
the man that’d initiated the entanglement. It was a tense
conversation between Elsa, who didn’t know where to start, and
Gemma, who didn’t know when to end.

“Do you want to tell me what happened back
there?” Elsa asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.
It’s like they were all under her spell.”

“It was no spell,” Gemma said assuredly.
“Possession took them.”

“Possession?” Elsa questioned. “What the hell
does that mean? How do you know any of this?”

“I can’t say,” Gemma said. She looked down to
her hands where a balled up rag lay between her fingers. Her hands
trembled, but it wasn’t from the cold water or the sight of
another’s blood. It was the reason for the lost blood that sent
shivers down her spine and to her finger tips.

“Can you at least tell me about him?”
whispered Elsa as she motioned to the kitchen area. “Is he still
under that bitch’s control? He wouldn’t stop talking of her the
entire way here!”

Elsa’s voice rose as she spoke of the lady in
red and her otherworldly grip on both Lukas and the rest of the men
that’d lined up to court her. The lanky gentleman in the kitchen
wasn’t the only one with a fractured ego to go with the bruised
contusions. Elsa had always held Lukas above other men, but the
lady’s made her see another side to the young man she’d grown up
next to. That’s what she hated most of all.

“I don’t know,” Gemma said softly.

“What
do
you know?” an irritated Elsa
demanded of her friend. “You seemed confident enough for the both
of us back there.”

Elsa stopped dead in her tracks when she
realized how her actions would be interpreted to the woman that’d
just tended to her wounds.

“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing in
embarrassment. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve been a good
friend, Gem, far better than I’ve been these last few days. I’m
here for you… you know that right?”

Gemma Kohl knew only too well what her friend
meant and she moved in for a close embrace. They’d been friends for
a long time, since the ninth grade, when Gemma intervened in a
fight she had no stake in.