The Phantom King (The Kings) (23 page)

It was peaceful. Quiet, a bit lonely. But peaceful.

As if he’d known that she needed to gain her bearings, or
perhaps
because he was simply a gentleman underneath that rough exterior, Thane allowed her the time to look around. But when she looked back up at his face, it was to find his eyes so light, they were nearly glowing again, and his jaw was set. Tense.

He seemed distracted, impat
ient, and perhaps even
in pain.

“Are you alright?” she asked, suddenly very wary.

It took him a moment to respond.
When he finally did, he had to take a deep breath first. It wasn’t a good sign.

“This realm is home to the Anime,” he began. “They are the spirits of those who have died wrongful deaths.” He paused. “There are seven billion people on the planet right now, and homicide runs rampant.”

Siobhan absorbed that, her mind spinning with the implications.

“In the last hour, more souls have come knocking on my door than I
’d
care to count,” he said. “They’re waiting. And I'm not sure how much longer I can put off doing my job.”

She stared up at him, his tall form, his dark visage, his incredible beauty, and she thought about what his “job” must entail. If he was the king of this place, Purgatory, and he had to tend to all of the souls of those who had died wrongful deaths…. She could scarcely think of a worse profession. A more lonely one
certainly did not exist
.

“You have to deal with each one?” she asked quietly.

His eyes confirmed it.
“
Every
one.”

*****

He could well understand her silence then. She’d been hit with a lot over the course of the af
ternoon, but
this final bit of news was most likely mind-numbing.
He was actually very impressed with how well she was handling it all.

He, on the other hand, was not doing so well.
There were too many wars, too many things people found to fight over. The human race was as diverse as any species he had ever come across, and yet they were the least equipped to deal with that diversity. They simply could not accept differences. Instead, they relied upon those differences to validate their hatred.

The result was astronomically, profoundly sad. And he had to deal with it now; it simply could not wait any longer.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand once more.
“I’ll show you.”
This time, he prayed that she
would simply take
it. He prayed for it with all of his might, because he felt bereft in that moment, helpless and lost, and more than anything in the world, he wanted her touch. He couldn’t explain it. It was just what he craved –
more than he craved
air to breathe.

Like
a blessing or
a miracle, Siobhan looked down at
his hand and slipped hers into
it. She was so small, so seemingly delicate in the contained strength of his grip.
She had no idea who it was she was touching, the death he’d seen, the battles he’d fought, the knowledge he possessed. And that innocence took her own beauty to another level. She’d been an inconceivable angel in his eyes, somehow strong enough and good enough to fight the pull of black magic her entire life. But now?

Now
s
he felt out of his league.

Which was what made his fingers curl over hers and his grip tighten before he turned toward the door and led her out into the hall.

He could let the spirits in anywhere, but no one had ever seen the interior of his home. No one but Siobhan. He didn’t want to change that now. For some reason, sharing this small thing with a warlock he’d barely met was important to him.

Instead he took her out through his kitchen, small but clean and barely used for anything but coffee, and through the door to his adjoining garage.
His boots made a hollow sound as he descended the three steps to the concrete floor of the cavernous space. He heard Siobhan hesitate behind him; the garage was dark and she didn’t know what to expect.

He leaned over,
flipped a switch, and waited as one by one
the massive lights fifty feet overhead popped to life. A long and sturdy tin roof protected the garage from sun and wind. The in
terior space was cool and calm
and seemingly endless.

It
was not really so much a garage as a hangar. There were walls of aluminum that he could pull closed to section off parts of it from time to time if he wanted to, but right now, they were all wide open and the hangar and its inhabitants stretched into the distance.

As he always did when entering his garage, he found himself standing still, admiring the view.

And then he
realized that the woman behind him was doing the same thing. He turned to look at her. Her beautiful light brown eyes were wide, her lips were parted, and from somewhere deep in
side, she muttered the softest oath
he’d ever heard.

He smiled. He was proud of his garage.

“Holy…
mother
,” she muttered, coming down the steps like a zombie. She moved around him as if in a dream. “
You’ve… you’ve got… a Mercedes Benz 540 K?”

Thane blinked. How did she know that?

“And a Maserati 3500 GT!” she
exclaimed
softly. “Oh my G
od, you have a BMW 327 Sports Coupe! Thane, these cars are worth a
fortune
! They’re collector’s items! And they’re….” Her voice trailed off as she moved out into the garage in a state of wonder.

He was beginning to feel himself slip into the same state.

“They’re all
perfect
,” she muttered. Her hand reached out as if to touch the nearest of the vehicles, a massive beast in white from the 1940’s, but stayed several inches above the paint as if touching it would ruin the illusion. And the gloss of the paint. “Jesus, you have a 1948 Delahaye 175 Coupe de Ville,” she whispered
, shaking her head
. “I always wanted to find one of these and fix it up.”

Thane was certain that as he stood there and watched the young warlock make her way through his garage, he felt more stunned than she did. In all these years, he’d never met a person who knew as much about them as he did. Not until today.

The wond
er on her face was breathtaking
. She
had
moved between the glossy-coated vehicles and slipped into a darker space beyond when he heard her gasp.

“Holy shit, a Brough Superior SS100!”

Thane
breath caught and his pulse quickened
.
He moved through the garage to stand beside her. She gazed down at a bike from the 1940’s in absolute awe.

“This thing is eighty years old if it’s a day and it’s worth a quarter of a million dollars,” she said breathlessly. “I can’t believe I’m looking at one. And I swear to
G
od it’s in pristine condition.” She managed to pull her gaze off of the motorcycle
in order
to look up at him. “Have you ever
even
ridden it?”

It took Thane a moment to find the words to speak.
He had several dozen motorcycles in this garage, both sports bikes and cruisers. They were lined up like chrome soldiers, each unique in its own way. But t
he Brough Superior was his all-time favorite bik
e, and she’d picked it out of the line-up in no time
. Just like that. Had he ever ridden it? Holy fuck, had he ever.

Would you like to go for a ride?
h
e wanted to ask.

But the spirits were banging
restlessly
on his door,
their
varied
darkness
es
amassing like a thunderhead.

Thane had never hated his job before that moment. He’d never really minded what he had to do. It had been
a desolate existence,
and it had been never-ending,
and it
troubled him that he’d been progressively busier at it as the centuries passed. But until that
very
moment, he’d never actually
resented
it.

Now his duty as the Phantom King
stood in th
e way of so
mething he wanted. And suddenly
it
was nearly unbearable.

With great effort, Thane pulled his gaze from Siobhan’s and turned away to run a hand through his thick black hair. “Yes,” he told her flatly. “I have.”

She was silent behind him, no doubt surprised by the shortness of his reply. He wanted to kick himself. But there was no time, not even for self degradation.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” he said, tasting the bitterness of his own words. He raised his hand to the darkness of the deeper end of the garage –
and opened the door.

The air wavered, the darkness
lightened to gray
, and a fracture erupted in the fabric of space and time.
A figure appeared in that darkness, a middle-aged man with leathery skin, wiry hair, and linen clothing. He wore a countenance of misery, as so many had before him and no doubt so many would to come.

As if he’d been born knowing what to do when the time came, the man stepped forward, seeming to hover in the air above the vehicles several yards away.

“Cover your ears,” Thane said, speaking to Siobhan. He saw her obey out of his peripheral vision, her palms pressed to ears just in
time as, behind the male spirit
the portal began to close once more.
It crashed shut
behind him,
filling the air with the sound of thunder.

“Where am I?” he asked
in a quaking voice and
speaking his own language. Thane would not have bothered with the translation, but because he wanted Siobhan to understand what it was he did, the Phantom King allowed the words to change. They were spoken in one language – and heard in another.

“You’re in Purgatory,”
he told the spirit
, using
cultural terms and synonymous
words that the man would be familiar with.

“Why am I here?” he asked next.

Before Thane could do as he always did and explain the situation to the new Anime, Siobhan stepped forward beside
him
.
“You were trying to protect your son, weren’t you?” she asked quietly.