The Phantom King (The Kings) (7 page)

Roman
touched the fingers of his right hand to
the polished wood surface before
leaning forward
. “What do you mean
‘
he popped back out again
’
?”

“He vanished,” Thane replied simply. “He came in more solid than any Anime I have ever dealt with and then re-opened the portal to this realm and stepped right
back
through it.” Thane crossed his
thick muscled
arms over his chest
and shook his head. “I have no idea how it hap
pened or where he went. And here?
” His silver eyes looked bewildered. “I have
no power to track him
down here. Once I find him, I can take him back
where he belongs
, but until then….” He trailed off and once more shook his head.

“And because he’s dead, you think a warlock can help you locate him.”

“Warlocks have an affinity with the dead whether they’ll admi
t it or not,” Thanatos said
, though it was nothing Roman didn’t already know. “
And whether they
like
it or not,” he added with a slight turn of his chin.

They were silent for a moment while they each no doubt imagined certain warlocks and their struggles with the dark side.

“
Plus,” said Thane when he finally broke the silence, “There was something surrounding the Anime who disappeared.” He paused, frowned, and added, “I think it was warlock magic.”

“The Anime was a warlock?”

“No,” Thane shook his head. “He didn’t
have that feel about him, and
someone killed him by setting him on fire
. A
ny warlock worth his salt would be able to
get out of that mess with a single word.”

“Was he resurrected?” Roman had always wondered what happened to a soul that had been unjustly taken – hence, shot into Thane’s realm – and then resurrected by a warlock. He’d never asked
.

“Resurrected souls never enter my plane,” Thane told him now. “Fate knows they aren’t going to hang around long, so they never rematerialize. They remain intangible, invisible, floating nowhere
,
and then return to their bodies at the finish of the spell.”

You learn something new every day
, Roman thought.

“And this dark ma
gic surrounding the Anime,” Thane
continued, speaking as if he were merely thinking aloud now and grateful for the company while he did so. “It was warm
… a
nd different.”

“War
m black magic?”
Black magic was cold and unpleasant.
What Thane was suggesting was a supernatural oxymoron.

“It was
quite beautiful,
” Thane admitt
ed with a bemused expression. The look
made his silver eyes even lighter; they stood ou
t in the
tanned frame of h
is face, stark beyond normality
.

“I see.”
Roman waited, brow raised
, not really knowing what to say
.
This was very, very interesting. He couldn’t help but wonder whether it might have something to do with the queens. If he’d found his only months ago and Alberich’s was out there somewhere waiting, then it was possible Thane’s existed here and now as well. Not that he could fathom
how
this Anime business might have anything at all t
o do with Thane’s future bride,
but Roman had a feeling he would be connecting
everything
with the queens for a while.

But Thane
said nothing further. After a while, he simply sighed
and pushed out his chair to leave.
“I’ll approach Alberich with the request,” he told Roman as he made his way around the table.
He stopped at the doorway to the room and glanced back. “But I have a strange feeling about this one. So if I don’t show up to the next meeting, you’ll know why.”

Chapter Three

“
You can’t go alone,” he told her, his hollow voice bouncing in a muted and odd fashion against the counters and cupboards of the kitchen. Siobhan hugged herself. Being around
Steven
made her feel cold these days.

“I have to
Steven
, y
ou know that. You need to stay in the house; you shouldn’t even be in this plane, much less shadowing me.” She spoke the words under her breath, as if she were embarrassed to say them aloud. And maybe she was. But not for herself.

“What if the demon attacks while you’re out?”
Steven
asked.

“Me or you?” she questioned, knowing damn well he meant her.

He knew it damn well too; he’d been a detective in life and was far from stupid. So
he simply gazed at her expectantly.

“I can handle myself,” she told him. “Unlike some people.”

That
was a cheap shot, picking on him for dying
, and sh
e felt terrible as soon as she
said it.
Steven
had been up against a demon,
from what he’
d described to her,
an unusually powerful Akyri-like demon, and he’d faced the monster on her behalf. To protect her.

He hadn’t stood a chance, of course. He’d died trying to keep her safe.

“I’m sorry,” she
said almost immediately
. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did,” he said with a half-smile.
His
keen eyes
were filled with clouds now, but a ray of light shone through them, illuminating the ghostly knowledge he’d
acquired. He hadn’t been unintelligent
in life, and he was far from that in death.

“You di
dn’t ask me to fight for you, Siobhan
, and you certainly didn’t ask me to die for you.” He pushed his ghost body off of the counter on which he’d been leaning and brushed by her
on his way out of the kitchen
, filling her with a bone-deep chill. “So you can drop the guilt trip.”

Siobhan deepened her self-hug
to stave off the unnatural cold
and closed her
eyes. He was on the money. Even
dead
, his detective skills were top notch.

“And you’re right,” he continued, his voice wafting to her from somewhere down the hall. “Y
ou can take care of yourself… f
or the most part.”

Siobhan frowned
in the new stillness of the kitchen and didn’t respond
.
She stayed where she was, her gaze drifting from dust mote to dust mote as they whirled and eddied in the sunbeams coming through the windows.
Her thoughts turned inward.

Steven
’s ghost form had
become
increasingly
solid over the last few days. It was as if his spirit were growing comfortable with its existence and settling into it.
She wasn’t sure what to think of that.

Whatever had killed
Steven
had actually been at the house looking for her. But despite the fact that
Steven
was now out of the way,
that danger – that demon – had yet to return.

It had been two weeks. What was he waiting for?

And what did he want?

Siobhan hadn’t left the house much since she’d purchased it. Salem wasn’t exactly a hotbed of cosmopolitan excitement, but it was more than that. Before the attack, she’d spent a lot of time at bookstores and parks and in Boston for whale watching and sight seeing. It was good for the creativity.

But since
Steven
had died, she’d
felt at odds with the world. It was like the demon had gotten her instead
,
and she was now as immaterial as the former detective. She saw everything around her through a sepia’d
lens
and felt as if
she had on
e foot in the grave already. Like she
didn’t really belong.

So she hid away. She ordered things she needed online and met the UPS man every day at the door. She
exercised by running up and down her four flights of stairs for thirty minutes and then doing push-ups while wearing her iPod. She focused on fixing up the house and restoring objects of the past. She tried to move on.

But she was running out of food now and there was a film of uneasiness on her that
she had the uncomfortable urge to dig her
fingernails into and scrape away. She needed to get out – away from
the aged wood that creaked beneath her feet – away from the
ghost
.

Th
e
ghost that was a constant reminder of how her supernatural life had infiltrated and ultimately destroyed someone else’s.

Steven
was right. She was riddled with guilt. She should have been there the night the Akyri had attacked. She could only imagine that it had sensed her magic and was perhaps hungry. Though how a hungry Akyri could have summoned that much black magic was beyond her.
Regardless
,
it had destroyed
Steven
because she wasn’
t there to stop it.

Siobhan took a deep breath and let it out with a tired whoosh. She ran a hand through her blood-red locks, leaned one palm against the counter, and chewed on her lip. A second later, she straightened again and left the kitchen.

Steven
wasn’t in the hall. He wasn’t in the living room either. Siobhan
pulled
her jacket
and purse
from
a peg on
the antique coat rack she’d repaired
years ago. She scooped
her car keys
out of a porcelain bowl on
the
small table beside the rack
and made her way for the door. She half expected the former d
etective to materialize before the solid oak exit
in order to stop her. But he didn’t.