The Phantom King (The Kings) (5 page)

Steven
.

She’d met him six months ago at a coffee shop where he and a few other cops sometimes stopped in for a warm drink and a break. They’d gotten to talking. She’d been impressed with a lot of things about him – his appearance, of course,
and the confident way he carried himself. B
ut
there was also an untapped power about him; the magic in her recognized it, even if it was altogether human and not magical in and of itself. Most of all, it was
the keenness of his
eyes
.

And he’d been carrying a dog-eared copy of
Macbeth.
It seemed like fate.

He’d watched her with a strange kind of interest, as if
he could tell she had a secret
and he was dying to know what it was. But there was also a gentleness about him, a
smoothing out of his rough edges. He was hard but kind. And she was intrigued.

They dated for two months before he caught her using magic. She’d been finishing up the final touches on an 18k pocket watch
she’d picked up at an auction, and while she thought she’d locked the door, apparently she hadn’t. He walked in while the watch hovered in the air, spinning like a top, becoming increasingly shiny and functional.

Instead of the in
sanity she expected to ensue, Steven
seemed… almost pleased. As if he’d
subconsciously
known all along
what she was
and had simply been waiting for proof.

He accepted it,
he
accepted
her
, and
since he was a detective and used to keeping evidence unde
r wraps and
an orphan with a somewhat blotchy past o
f his own, he kept her secret,
and she trusted him.

Two
months later, they’d
become comfortable
enough to start
staying at each other’s houses.
They exchanged keys and left a few belongings behind for “sleepovers.”

Two months after that, she’d come home to a house on fire and a dead boyfriend.

And now, a week and a half later, he was a ghost living on the outskirts of her reality, always somewhere nearby but just out of reach. She didn’t know what to make of
a
n
y of
it. She had no idea what to think. What had happened that night? The forensics
people, CSI investigators and insurance arson experts had all come up with
vague, strange stories and none of them seemed to be able to pinpoint how the fire had started, what had set it off, or how
Steven
had been trapped within it.

Because Siobhan had been
Steven
’s girlfriend and because the house had been hers, she’d been offered a larger amount of police protection than usual. After all, when they’d found
Steven
’s body and the gun in his hand, they’d discovered that all fifteen bullets had been discharged. There was no point to holding an empty gun, and
Steven
would have known that better than anyone.

Someone
probably killed him. T
hat was the general consensus.

It was just that no one could figure out
how
. Much less,
why
.

In the privacy and silence of a hotel room in the dead of night,
Siobhan had tried casting a spell that would allow her to see the events that had taken place just prior to the fire, but each time she
attempted
to use the magic in this way, she failed. She never saw anything.
Steven
’s death remained a mystery.

Siobhan frowned and looked up at the faint vapor that moved
away from her side, away from her chair, and
through the living room
. It passed beneath the archway that led out of the joined rooms and
disappeared down the hall.
Steven
’s ghost… most likely checking out the house
now that it was getting dark
. Always protecting her
, even in death
.

Siobhan leaned forward and put her face in her hands, allowing the coolness of her fingers to pull a bit of the heat off of her forehead. She closed her eyes again. There, behind her lids, she saw the flames rising toward the moon and smelled the deep black of soot and felt the heaviness of doom on her chest. There had been very little left of
Steven
’s body when all was done and said. So even though her warlock’s brain had tiptoed toward the idea of bringing
him
back from the dead, she’d known it would be impossible. Unthinkable, even.

So she’d pushed it from her mind as if it would have been the last straw, that dividing line between what and who she was and what and who her magic wanted her to be.

And now, ten days later, she moved through the days with a shadow hanging over her, and a ghost of a man who lingered, watched, and waited.

But for what?

Siobhan pressed her hands into her eyes and shook her head. The truth was, she didn’t really want to know.

Chapter Two

Roman D’Angelo
called the meeting to an end. The
13
Kings were now aware of the sudden and unexpected halt in Hunter activity that had occurred over the last seventy-two hours and would be on alert for any nasty surprises. No one had any clue as to why the Hunters had disappeared, standing down after the onslaught of nearly epic proportions they had initiated over the last few months. That wasn’t to say that the supernatural world wasn’t grateful – only wary. And ri
g
htly so.

Roman
rose
from his seat
as the others did and stood at the head of the
table, waiting silently as the k
ings began leaving one by one. Some
of the indomitable men
walked through the door of the
underground
meeting room in the
usual fashion and would most likely take the warded elevator back into the mortal world.
Others disappeared in clouds of
inky
smoke or slipped into the shadows or opened up
cracks in the very fabric space
and stepped through them. To each his own.

The Akyri King, Marius, was always one of the first to leave.
He was a poster boy for Michelangelo-style
pulchritude
from his
thick,
wavy blonde hair to his
striking
ice blue eyes. The man used
his beauty
to
its most fruitfully debauched end.

Roman was probably as fond of Marius as
he had been of Charles Ward. The Akyri King
was petty and cruel,
his appearance a beautiful mask to hide the monster beneath. H
is power
was
bloated on the d
arkness of the very magic he was forced
to absorb
in order
to stay alive
; adequacy wa
s not a stopping point for the Demon K
ing
.
  He was
a lecherous philanderer who had made his way through so many female warlocks, Roman likened him to some of the more notorious vampires of his
own
early reign. Those vampires were no more. And he’d just as soon see
that
the Akyri King was no more as well. But
for the k
ing to be replaced, he would have to be killed by another Akyri
, who would then become king in his place
; the sovereignty of th
e demons was similar in that respect to the
hierarchy
of the
vampires.
It would take a decidedly
powerful and
destined Akyri to pull off such a feat
.

Also, the truth was that
as far as
ruling
was concerned, Marius had
long had
things well in hand with his Akyri. It was the one thing
that until recently
Roman couldn’t fault him on – and it was the one thing that counted in the Council of Kings.

Recently
, a few
odd
rumors had surfaced that rogue Akyri were attacking warlocks in order to absorb their power
s
. Such a thing had never occurred before, again most likely due to the iron-grip hold Marius had over his people. Roman wondered what
it was that
had changed
, if anything. Perhaps it was rumor and nothing more
. It was a
topic for a private conversation
and another time.

The Warlock King
, Jason Alberich,
was one of th
e last to leave
the meeting
.

Roman found his attention focused on the tall young man as Alberich slowly pushed his chair out and rose. He was dressed all in black, as was customary for the warlock, but the darkness of Alberich had thickened somehow.
He was not the
relatively inexperienced and torn man
he had been several months ago.

Now he was just torn.

Roman’s forehead furrowed slightly. Lalura would call him sentimental, but for some reason it bothered Roman that the Warlock King had made this transformation. He hadn’t been given a choice.

Of all of the sovereignties in the supernatural worl
d, that of Warlock King was arguably the
most difficult.
Warlock magic was inherently nasty, outright cruel at times, and those who wielded it more often than not gave in to its murky pull, becoming fitting vessels for its wrathful legerdemain. Warlocks were mean. At least, most of them were.

N
ow Jason Alberich occupied the highest seat in their society. It was up to him to not only create warlock law, but to make certain that
it
was upheld.