Even now he felt that phantom weight upon his head. It dug at his cranium and forced in the insecurities of his past. This was the lady in red’s world. It was always her world. She created it, molded it in her image, and when the reaper’s took it away she came to the New World and built it back up.
A shimmer along the horizon caught the man in black’s eye and he watched as it passed through the forests, towards his front steps. He didn’t recognize the vampire that approached, but he didn’t need to recognize any one particular vampire again. Kindred all over the world were his concern. He couldn’t abandon them. Not while the ethereal crown rested on his head.
Remus disappeared from atop the balcony only to reappear down below as a disjointed, wide-eyed vampire ran towards him. It took the startled vampire a moment to realize his king lay before him. He lost his balance and slid feet first down to the ground. When he jumped up to his feet he gave half a salute, a bow, and a kneel; all in attempt to greet his new monarch in proper fashion.
“Rise,” said the man in black wistfully, “and tell me what’s so important that you risk my exposure to the humans with your mad dash through Salem.”
“We’ve been attacked,” the vampire said with his eyes shifting from side to side. “They came out of nowhere! They knew right where to hit us, knew our weaknesses. Fifty years I’ve lived on this world, my king, and never before had I witnessed an attack such as this. I beg of you, noblest of kings, aid me in my hour of need…”
“What do you mean you’ve been attacked?” asked Remus with his brow furled in displeasure. “Speak up or you shall not speak again!”
Remus wasn’t blind to the vampire’s blight. He saw past the concern in his eyes. He saw the shame burrowed deep down in what remained of this vampire’s tortured soul.
“I give you pardon for past transgressions against kindred law,” he said. “Tell me what you happened this evening… and know that you tell it with impunity.”
The man in black heard what the young vampire had to proclaim. The town turned on them, faster than he expected. He always knew the day would come. When the lady in red departed this world so, too, did her ties with the esteemed city of Salem. Now he would find out firsthand where it was about to go. There were questions still unknown to him, but he knew better than most that, in this place, answers came few and far between.
His crown was getting heavier.
Chapter Thirty Five
Night Kings: Sisters of Salem
Gregory Blackman
The Spirits Within
Elsa Dukane would have guessed it midday when Gemma and she left the realm of the witches, but when they exited the unseen pillar it was the moon that’d come out to greet them. The darkness still lingered in these woods. It would’ve been foolish to think otherwise, and yet, Elsa found it hard to reconcile the differences between their world and hers.
“The full moon is nearly upon us,” Gemma noted as she looked up to night sky. “In only a few days time the werewolves will be unable to control themselves. In the years prior Bernhard would lead them west to the mountains. There it was only the goats and bears that had cause to worry.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what the wolves will do,” Gemma said. “The high priestess believes that the mother of the pack won’t be able to control them for much longer. With Lukas missing it’s only a matter of time until one from the warrior caste seizes control. Then all bets are off the table.”
They walked the long walk back to Salem under the cover of night. It would take the two of them hours to reach home. Gemma’s mother was gone and Elsa’s was swept up in problems. Their absence would go unnoticed by all—all but the two young women caught in the middle of a war neither fully understood.
Elsa wanted to understand, but it proved a tall task for someone who didn’t understand herself. She listened to the high priestess speak of their past, their misgivings, and their hopes for the future. She wanted to believe there was a future out there for her, but the closer she came to the truth of her nature, the further a normal life seemed to get.
“What’s Charleston like?” Elsa asked. “Cetra mentioned your sister city. I thought you could tell me a little more about it.”
“Charleston… is,” Gemma paused to best put it into words, “a city like any other.”
Unfortunately, Gemma’s best was still cryptic.
“You know what I mean,” Elsa said.
“That is what you mean,” responded Gemma, sternly. “Unlike in Salem the sisterhood in operates against the grain. They’ve forged no alliances, revealed themselves to none of the city officials. Nor did they need to. The temple once built to harness the strength of the goddess is still intact. Because of that strength the vampires and werewolves hold little sway in that town.”
“It sounds a lot better than here.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Gemma said as they passed down into the vale that’d lead them to the pillar. “Because of the latent power within their temple walls, other monsters, ones more powerful than you could imagine, come in search of the power the sisters’ harnessed. We believe it’s them who came for Charleston, but we cannot be sure. The rest of the sisters have determined to stay within the goddess’ realm until the threat reveals itself.”
“You mean, worse than vampires and werewolves?”
“Vampires and werewolves ascended from the bowels of Hell,” Gemma tried to explain. “While the ones we know now weren’t born in such a place, their ancestors were. They were forced into a life of servitude and slavery, unleashed upon the world to tear it asunder. All before the real menace arrived.”
“The real menace?”
Gemma couldn’t have put it in more ominous words for the addled Elsa Dukane. She had enough to worry over these last few days. Could these forces be the ones behind the darkness that spread? No, she reasoned. The Sisters of Salem would be the first to know.
“Demons,” said Gemma, flatly, “Charleston is infested with demons and I fear they might’ve finally overwhelmed our sisters to the south.”
As sudden as the topic began it was finished. Elsa could see how the words, the images they conjured up, pained Gemma as it would any of her kind. They were a close-knit people. They had to be to survive the modern world.
How would she survive? That was the question that swirled around in the furthest reaches of Elsa’s mind. She decided not to press the subject and followed close behind as they descended from the vale’s southern reaches.
Elsa was lost in a murky sea that threatened to swallow her whole every time she tried wade above the waters. She knew neither her past nor her future. After these last few days not even her present was known to her. She needed to find herself. Needed to know where she belonged.
“So, this goddess of yours,” stammered Elsa, unsure of the ground she stood. “Is she really a god?”
“She is,” Gemma answered.
“Like a real god?” Elsa pried even further. “I’ve never been a religious person, but doesn’t the existence of one disprove all those that come after?”
“Gods and goddesses exist in the world and they have since mankind first emerged from the caves,” Gemma said. “They desired power and the humans gave it to them in the form of worship. It doesn’t make them gods, but it doesn’t make them any less godly. Countless wars have been fought in their name; wars that rage on to this very day. All of them lay claim to our world. Yet, none come from it.”
“And what does that mean?”
Gemma halted her descent and stopped to gaze up into the night sky. “There are many stars in the sky. More than one could count in a lifetime and most invisible to the naked eye. This world stands unique amongst most every other world in the galaxy. It was born without divine power. Divine power found it.”
“Some came of virtuous accord,” she continued with a hint of sadness in her voice, “others of a more sinister nature. One has even found a direct gateway to this world. A tunnel from th
eir world to ours that can be accessed by any that dare make the voyage.”
“You mean,” Elsa said with a lump in her throat, “the Hell Gate.”
“I do.” Gemma shook her head solemnly and resumed their long voyage back home. “The pillars are a small tear in the fabric of space and time, a portal to another dimension. In this dimension the goddess reigns supreme, and in another, the moon gods. There is an infinite arrangement of beliefs, one by one finding this world as they discover it.”
“Many of them have such portals into this world,” Gemma continued. “Whether it is high in the sky, such as how the angels enter this world, or from down below, as do the archdemons of the twelve circles. Anything that descends the gate goes to Hell. Anything that ascends goes to Earth. It is how races such as vampires and werewolves broke free from their eternal prison.”
More questions to fuel Elsa’s desire to learn the truth, of herself, of her surroundings, and of the implications it all meant. Would she be a nonentity in this fight to save her home? Would she be savior when it was all said and done? Both could easily be true. Still, there was every possibility of her being the villain.
“What should I worship?” she asked earnestly. “I was baptized, but that might have been the last time I was in a church. I can’t imagine Catholicism covers… whatever the heck I am.”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” asked Gemma with a crook in her brow. “At a young age we define ourselves by what we were meant to be. Whether you’re born in Egypt to parents of Coptic Christianity or to a family of the Confucian faith in Manchu it makes no difference. Those that believe lend their power to something greater than themselves. They don’t speak for the universe or the secrets it reveals and those that do are lying to themselves as much as they are their followers. We were not meant to know. They were not meant to know.”
“You’ll find your way, Elsa,” said Gemma, as if she just realized the impact of her words on the fractured young woman. “I promise to be there for you when the time comes to learn the truth. You won’t go through this alone.”
Elsa gave a stiff nod in response, too swept up to put her thoughts into words. Her heart fluttered a mile a minute, threatened to bust out of her chest, or so she believed on several occasions this night.
When Elsa raised her head she found the darkness gone and the flush forests of green returned. So was no longer in the valley they’d walked for over an hour, Gemma nowhere by her side, but she wasn’t worried. Not in the least. She felt at peace in this place, as if there was no cause for concern.
A rustling in the bushes grabbed her attention and she found herself moving towards it at a frantic pace.
“Who goes there?” she asked.
She appeared to have no control over her movements or the words that left her mouth. Not that she seemed to care. She was confident in this place, sure that wherever she was it was a place she was meant to be.
With a throaty growl from the brushes Elsa was snapped from her otherworldly trance, forced back into proper state of mind. The specter of a werewolf emerged from those bushes. He was constructed from tiny stands of light spun together, beady white-hot eyes trained on her, eyes no different than her own.
With regained movement she stepped backwards, away from the beast, but her actions only proved to spur the beast on. It snarled at her, and with the snap of its jaws, erupted into full blown sprint.
Elsa turned from the werewolf with hopes of escape, but when she did it was already too late and she was caught unable to defend herself. Only this wasn’t the shimmering white wolf that caught up with her. It was the figure of a luminous bat, built of the same white constructs as the werewolf, and it struck her full bore.
She dropped to the ground; back in the real world where a shaken Gemma Kohl was quick to wraps her arms around her in support. Not that it would do her any use. There were no prayers, no spells to bring her back from such an unconscious state.
Gemma called out to the goddess for assistance. She called for any sister that may be near. She even called out to man in black. None answered her call. They were alone out here without so much as a sign to know help would arrive.
After some time Gemma received her sign, but it wasn’t from any of the sources she expected. The sleeper inside Elsa awoke, eyes afire, and extremities as stiff as a board. As much as she wanted to help her friend, the magnitude of power she felt emanate from Elsa forced her to relinquish her friend’s body.
Gemma backpedaled to a safe distance and watched, in horror, as Elsa lay on the ground with her head turned towards the young witch.
“Blood turns to fire turns to ash,” a haunted Elsa said with eyes locked on Gemma Kohl. “The Sunkeeper has been tainted.”
Chapter Thirty Six
Night Kings: Sisters of Salem
Gregory Blackman
Haunting Shadows
A turned Lukas made his way up the coast with neither snack nor rest to aid him in his travels. He ran unopposed in North Carolina towards the low capped mountains of Virginia that stretched throughout the night; mountains that concealed him from human eyes and made his long stretch home a smidgeon easier.
At this pace the full moon would be upon him by the time he reached Salem. He would be no use to them at that point. The best he could hope was to take action against those that meant his friends harm. That was the true monster inside, the beast Lukas couldn’t control, the one with no ties to the mortal realm.
While their beginnings were forged in the pits of Hell, the werewolves gave credit to gods not yet seen by man for release from their hellish origins. The moon gods; and his people believed it was these gods, not the ones below, which possessed them each full moon. A small sacrifice, many would say, for all the gifts bestowed upon them.
Lukas couldn’t hate the true beast for he knew the truth behind the beast. In the days that led to the moon’s ascent there was a merger of minds between man and wolf. Whether the beast was a wounded soul from this life or the next Lukas could not know. What he did know was the anguish in the beast’s heart. He was trapped, frightened, and nowhere he could run would be far enough to escape the confines of the moon’s hold.
Beyond the anxiety and rage that merger saw the monster and the man align their goals and see that both paths were vested in the same interests. If one of them were to fall so would the other.
It was the monster that would return to Salem. He wouldn’t apologize. He wouldn’t back down. Lukas would take what belonged to him by birthright and he wouldn’t stop until all his enemies lay slain.
It was in the Virginian Mountains that Lukas was seen by one he hadn’t prepared to face. Not in this life. His unseen observer watched for miles atop the mountains until Lukas passed into the sheltered forests; away from watchful eyes.
The misty forests of Virginia were unknown to Lukas. There was no taint to these woods, these rivers, or knotted vales. They were untouched by man and in many ways more a home for him than the now darkened landscape of Salem.
He thought the death of the lady in red would stop its unearthly hold over the land. He was wrong. The problems only grew worse for the encumbered townsfolk and the forests that surrounded. Lukas tried to put those thoughts out of his mind while he traversed the wild lands. It had been a long time since he’d appreciated the run in such a way. He needed to soak up everything these ancient lands had to offer for they would soon be behind him.
The sound of rushing waters brought him to the edge of a creek. The water skimmed the spine of the mountains and brought a frantic pace to the water in search of the closest basin.
Lukas looked dejectedly at the sight before him. It was too wide to cross, too hurried to swim. It wasn’t so much the water that bothered him, but the smell of drenched fur that would accompany him for miles if he were to fall in.
A few outlier rock formations afforded Lukas a path across the creek. He made his way precariously from one to the next, fully aware that one wrong move would mean a lengthy swi
m. The rocks brought him to the center of the river, but no further. He took a leap of faith with trust he not spend the next hour trying to drag himself out of rapid waters.
It was at the apex of Lukas’ leap that he was struck across the chest by an unknown object. He managed to regain his balance before he was swept into the water. He spun around and around in search of the unseen hand that hit him. He saw no signs of anything out of place. Not until it was too late to act.
A cool breeze rushed over Lukas and brought the fine hairs on his back to stand on end. He moved to separate himself from the frosted touch of his oldest adversary, but it was a move he couldn’t make and was again struck to the ground.
“Lukas Wendish?” a woman’s voice asked.
He refused to aid the apparent vampire in the slightest and fought to free himself of her embrace. The shadowed woman dug a thin blade into his neck; and immediately the fight fled the broken wolf. She kept that blade inserted until he no longer gave her cause for concern.
“As far as I’m concerned, the only good werewolf is a dead werewolf,” hissed the vampire, “but it would seem my maker has other plans for you. Plans that continue ”
She watched Lukas change from monster to man on the ground before her. In response, she placed a heel upon the bloodied neck of Lukas. He fought her icy touch, but there was little he could do in his condition.
“You’ll never be free,” said the woman in the shadows. “Not in this life. Not in the next.”
Lukas’ last move was upon him. Whatever this vampire wanted with him she would have it. Best he could hope for was a pack in the region to heed his dying call. So he howled, through the blood and pain, to the moon gods above. To anyone that would listen. It was a call that went unanswered as the blood loss got the best of him. He faded from consciousness, vampire upon his throat, and not a wolf nearby to help.
Night Kings: The Complete Anthology Page 16
