Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (26 page)

It wasn’t Corina Petravic that stopped Lukas
in his tracks. It was the raven haired beauty with eyes afire that
blocked access to his homeland. The sight of one familiar, yet
unknown, brought both Lukas and the werewolf out of the dream
state.

Lukas wasn’t prepared to enter back into the
land of the living. When he awoke he struck the back of his head
against the stone floor. If the pain wasn’t enough to coax a
response out of him, the peculiar way the dark princess sat before
him would’ve done the trick.

Corina didn’t watch him with the eyes she was
born with. Those eyes were blacked out and void of any presence.
She watched with her third eye, the one hidden away from the world,
and the one that allowed her the control over men she desired.

All of a sudden, Corina opened her eyes and
parted her lips into a devilish smile. Her gaze didn’t falter for a
moment, not until she jumped to her feet and put a bare foot to the
sternum of an already beaten down Lukas Wendish.

“That’s it,” she said with damnable
conviction. “That’s been it all along. I found the one thing that
makes you tick—the key to unraveling your mystery.”

Corina left the basement chamber without as
much as a snide remark at Lukas’ expense. She was a woman on a
mission with another firmly within her sights and when she found
that person there would be a reckoning unlike any they’d known
before. No one would get in her way, and those that had would be
forever regretful of that decision. That was her promise to the
vampire queen. Eat or be eaten.

Chapter Forty Four

Night Kings: Darkest of Depths

Gregory Blackman

Pack Mentality

It was almost sundown in the Salem Willows.
This expansive park on the water’s edge of town was home to many
different kinds of people in the daylight hours. Children, mothers,
and their pets walked these pathways without a care in the world,
unaware of the darkness that spread once the cover of night passed
over the park.

A group of vampires had made the Salem
Willows their home while the threat of unknown attack loomed
overheard. For a race that considered themselves the top of the
predatory food chain, vampires were unaccustomed to a life on the
run. They spent so much time on the hunt that they never thought
they would be the ones hunted. At least, that was the case for the
younger kindred, the ones who didn’t remember the Old World. The
reapers torched all of their holdings and what they left standing
the crusader factions set fire to a hundred times over. They were
lost to the world, relegated to movies and fairy tales, and forever
to stay to that way.

The older vampires remembered, and the only
thing louder than their hate was their fear. They remained in the
shadows, where they were strongest, and where they could gather
their forces in secret. If something powerful enough to kill a
reaper still stalked the Salem borders these vampires had every
right to worry. Whether it was one man or one hundred there was a
monster greater than them out here. In spite of all this, the
kindred waited with the same carefree attitude the unsuspecting
townsfolk had waited.

None of these younger vampires had any clue
of the danger that lay in wait.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” a
disgruntled vampire asked.

He was hung low in the bushes, invisible to
all but those with supernatural sight. A muddied vampire beside him
looked up to the full moon only a few hours from ascension.

“We’ll need another few hours,” his brother
in blood said. “We can’t risk exposure by those that have been
hitting our dens.”

The first vampire to speak growled in
disapproval, but with the approach of another vampire he quieted
down to a murmur. The elder kindred pushed her way between the two
of them and lowered to a prone position.

“Don’t be so hasty to leave the brushes,” she
said. “They’ve kept us safe all day. When our strength returns the
time will be right to make a move. Not before.”

The older vampire looked behind her shoulder
to where the rest of her nest rested. There were a dozen kindred
under these willows. They were dirty, malnourished, and displaced
from the only world they knew.

Their queen would’ve been there for them. The
thought hadn’t left the elder’s mind since word of the darkness and
its spread first reached them. It signaled more than just a change
in the environment. The citizens of Salem became agitated, scared,
and their law keepers scrambled to keep it under their control.
This left the perfect storm for the hunters that watched from
afar.

She wasn’t sure whom these men worked for,
but they’d been paid top dollar and they showed up in force. Would
their newly crowned king be able to pry himself from his dark
castle before it crashed down around him?

“Do you hear that?” one of the kindred
asked.

The rest of the vampires began to talk
amongst themselves with each of them wanting to chime in on what
they’d heard or not heard.

“Quiet!” the den mother hissed, afraid to
raise her voice any further than needed. “I can hear it, too.”

All of the vampires quieted down at their
mother’s command. They listened intently to what could only be
described as a slow thunderclap before it rose to a mighty roar. It
was the stomp of many feet they heard first, but it was the stench
of matted fur they remembered last.

“The werewolves,” said a panicked, young
vampire. “They’re already upon us—!”

He was the first of the kindred to realize
what came. He was also the first to fall victim to the unhinged
jaws of a werewolf at war. Others soon joined him on the
battlefield among the willows. The vampires were sapped of their
strength, weakened, but not down for the count.

The vampires fought for every inch of land
the werewolves took from them. Tooth and nail the vampires defended
their nest, but in the end it was no use. They were outnumbered,
unprepared, and cursed to do battle in the daytime hours.

“Head to the manor,” the vampire mother
called out to her young. “Fall under the protection of the king and
we might live to fight another day!”

But there would be no other days for the
mother of this nest. A blank expression ran across her face as the
jaws of an umber werewolf took her head off where she stood.

The other vampires watched in similar
disbelief as the werewolf spit her head back at them. Soon more
werewolves would join the fray and the vampires that watched soon
came to understood just what their mother experienced.

“Run them down,” Kaleb Ramsey growled.

It was a tall task for a werewolf to speak
while transformed. While all werewolves were believed to have the
ability, it is only with tremendous resolve and perseverance that
one can train themselves to speak the human language.

The warrior caste never bothered with such
things. Bernhard Wendish told the warriors that burden fell upon
the ruling caste, so that orders may be given on the battlefield.
It was a form of control and Kaleb Ramsey never cared much for it,
so he trained himself in secret in case this day ever came. Only
none needed to know how he pushed events to get there.

“I want no quarter!” Kaleb howled to the
legion at his command. “Cut them down where they stand!”

He watched as they devoured vampire after
vampire. It signaled the beginning of a new war between
supernatural races of Salem. It may have very well signaled the
end, as well. Blood had been spilled on this night and it would
continue to spill until both werewolves and vampires reached
Blackrose Manor under the light of the full moon. They would give
the vampires no warning, no quarter, and when the full moon passed
from the sky there would be no trace of Kaleb or his kind. There
would only be the corpses of all their enemies.

“Feast, my brothers and sisters!” bellowed
Kaleb Ramsey with his snout tilted towards the moon. “We march to
the southern parts of Salem! There we’ll see the
old
enemy
crumble beneath our might!”

The werewolves howled in approval and
bloodlust. The Wendish clan would never have sanctioned attacks
such as this, whether it was father, mother, or son; but the
Wendish clan didn’t exist anymore. Kaleb Ramsey saw to that. Now he
would see the clan to a brighter future—his future.

Chapter Forty Five

Night Kings: Darkest of Depths

Gregory Blackman

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Elsa Dukane and her father had barely spoken
these last few weeks. Somewhere between secrets they kept and the
misgivings of the past, this place became a house and not the home
it once was.

Her father wasn’t here often, and when he
was, Victor was usually in the foulest of moods. Regardless of such
dispositions, on the nights he was home he demanded the two of them
eat supper together. They hardly spoke during these meals and when
they did it was frequently at the others expense.

There were many secrets within these walls.
Elsa once believed those secrets started with the death of her
mother, but now she feared they began at her birth.

What was she? Did her mother know what she
would become? Countless questions swirled around in her mind, none
that could be brought to her father’s attention. It wasn’t that she
distrusted the man that raised her. It was that she couldn’t even
trust herself. She might say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
That could only lead to another of their recent clashes.

More than that, Elsa was frightened that her
father would learn the true of her other half. Maybe her father
would embrace her, help ease her into this new world she’d found
herself. Maybe he’d push Elsa into the darkness, drive her to the
same fate that befell their mother. The truth was that Elsa didn’t
know how her father would react and that scared her most of
all.

“How’s the job search going?” Victor asked
out of the blue. “Well, I hope.”

Elsa would’ve rather answered a question
about her recent visions than one about her search for work. The
school year was long over, and in the human world that meant the
latest crop of young adults had the choice to ship off to school or
stay and find someplace to work.

Not once since that decision was made did
Elsa inquire about local postings. She became engrossed in a world
unknown to decent people, forced into the darkness where she
discovered that the light at the end of the tunnel was her own. She
was one of those monsters she feared as a child.

With a lump in her throat Elsa tried her best
to respond. “It is… it’s going well.”

“I bet,” said Victor as he shoveled a bloody
hunk of steak into his mouth. “Collard Industries called me today
and inquired if you’d be available for an interview.”

“Really?” Elsa asked with her mouth gaped in
disbelief. “Are you serious?”

She was about to query him further, but when
Elsa saw the blank expression on his face she stopped dead in her
tracks.

“I’m not the foolish old man you think I am.”
Victor placed his utensils on the plate and looked his daughter
dead in the eyes. “Come tomorrow I want you out there looking for a
job.”

“I will.”

“You say that,” said Victor, “but do you
truly mean what you say? The night life’s no place for someone like
you.”

“What does
that
mean?” Elsa asked,
begrudgingly.

Victor picked his fork and knife back up and
took a moment to savor the last of his meal. He didn’t want her to
know of the many monsters that lurked both in the darkness and in
the daylight. It was his darkest fear that those monsters would one
day find her, and with the darkness nearly upon his town, Victor
knew it would be only a short while before those monsters came for
her, came for everyone in Salem.

“It means you should be mindful of the
company you keep,” Victor said. He paused in mid sentence to look
down upon his daughter’s plate. “You devoured the half your meal
and then just stopped. Did I say something to sour your
appetite?”

“I’m not as hungry as I thought I’d be,” a
flustered Elsa said. She was madder than heck, ready to shout and
kick to make him see the fallacy of that statement. He didn’t know
the kind of friends she had. He didn’t even know his own daughter
anymore. “You mind if I skip out early on dinner?”

“Is everything okay?” her father asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, “I’m just feeling a
little light headed, is all. I think I’ll head to bed early
tonight.”

Elsa wasn’t exactly honest with her father.
None of this was
okay
. She was headed straight into the
darkness. This time she wouldn’t turn back until the truth was
revealed to her. Still, despite the severity of the night, the
darkness could wait a few more hours while she napped.

“I’ll be heading out tonight,” said Victor as
his daughter headed from the dinner table to the sink. “I’ll make
sure to wake you before I leave. Keep the lights off and doors
locked, okay?”

Victor waited for a response, but when none
was given, he asked “Okay?” once more, albeit in a much more
serious manner. “I want the lights off and the doors locked at all
times.”

“I got it,” Elsa said with a stiff upper lip.
“Lights off and doors locked. I got it.”

It was easy for Elsa to comply with her
overbearing father’s requests when she hadn’t the slightest
interests of seeing them through. She had somewhere to be tonight.
Nothing could stop her, and a nap could only delay her. She was a
woman on a mission. Now if only she could shake the relentless need
for sleep.

He listened to her shuffle out of the
kitchen, headed upstairs towards her bedroom. It took her some time
to do so, but only Victor knew the reason why. He regretted the
choice to silence his daughter, but these uncertain times called
for the darkest of responses. Somewhere in his guarded daughter’s
heart Victor believed she still had respect for the man, not the
title. He wanted to keep things that way. She didn’t need to see
what he would become.