Since the manor’s construction in the mid 18th century Xenia had personally tended to the flowers in this courtyard. Many were exotic to the region, brought in from lands far away, and meticulously cultivated until they could sustain whole patches. The lady did this to show human and supernatural alike this was her home and she wasn’t going anywhere.
It was one of the few traditions Remus decided to keep and now that the festival of the moon was over the garden could return to its unnatural splendor. It was there Remus and Akil decided to wait for the guest that never seemed to arrive.
“Am I to wait all night?”
Akil looked from one side of the courtyard to the other, and said, “You know how she is.”
“Better than anyone, I’m afraid,” said the man in black. “Just so you’re aware, it’s considered improper to keep the king in wait. The lady in red would’ve let heads roll for this.”
“You’re a benevolent king,” Akil said, dryly.
A wiry smile cut a swath across Remus’ face, but it was swiftly removed as the presence of another entered into the courtyard.
“I see he wears the crown with pride,” a woman’s voice said from the shadows. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Corina Petravic,” Remus growled in response.
“Is that how you address me,” the woman asked as she stepped from the darkness and into the light, “your flesh and blood?”
Unlike the man in black her skin was flushed and full of life, though possibly only from the contact high brought on from her multi-colored hair and wardrobe. Only on one night of the year could a woman such as her blend into a crowd—the night devoted to ghosts and goblins. This was a woman that wanted to be seen, noticed, and remembered by all that passed by.
“Oh, relax,” she said to a visibly stiff Remus. “I already know it was you that killed our mother. If I wanted you dead I wouldn’t have sent for Akil to arrange a reunion.”
Corina passed the man in black without so much as a glance and moved to her on and off again lover’s side. She placed a gentle hand on Akil’s neck and moved behind him in a suggestive manner. She wanted Remus to know who really commanded his heart and mind.
“I’m not upset,” she continued. “Surprised maybe, but not upset. It’s our way, after all.”
“Why are you here?” Remus asked, coldly. He was many things to the vampire princess, first child to the lady in red. Friend was not among them.
“To see the emperor,” she said, “I hear he wears new clothes.”
“Must we continue this dance we do?” Remus asked. He’d played enough games with the sadistic temptress to last a lifetime. One more just wouldn’t do. “I’m undead, Corina, not oblivious to the passage of time. Cut the shit and we’ll see this conversation over before the sun rises.”
Corina flashed a sadistic smile in the king’s direction. She was insane, lost to her bloodlust, and to be trusted by no one. Remus had known this for some time. Now it was Akil’s turn to find out how ruthless she could be.
“I’ve always enjoyed our conversations, brother,” she said. “Pity our beloved queen had to pack up and leave the Old World when things were getting interesting. Sure, I understand her reasons. That doesn’t mean I agree with them.”
Remus grunted in disapproval and turned from his sister’s sight. “You would’ve stayed and fought the reapers, the shamans of Africa, and the Catholics, with their holy knights and Templar?”
“I would have,” she answered.
“Then you would’ve died a fool,” said Remus, “and the crown would’ve fallen to me by default.”
Her smile turned to a restrained grimace. In her younger years Corina was often placated by the queen. It was a means by Xenia to toughen her up, but it only served to temper her resolve, drive her towards the path to insanity.
“Over a king’s dead body we may one day find out,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I will ask again.” Remus was undeterred by her forceful demeanor and continued the passive resistance to her arrival. “Why are you here? Must you always go where you’re not wanted?”
Corina stuck her tongue out and puffed her cheeks in dissatisfaction. “You haven’t been fun since you relinquished your duties as executioner and right hand to the queen.”
“Why are you here?” Remus bellowed at the top of his lungs. It saw the birds from their trees and the critters from their burrowed holes, but it didn’t unseat the frustrated Croatian from her narrowed warpath.
Corina moved from Akil’s back to a bed of azure roses in the middle of the courtyard. She knelt down, but as Corina looked ready to pluck one from the garden, she stomped them down with her fist.
“Our mother took care of these flowers until the day she died,” said Corina, “and not once did she speak of a fondness for flowers. You ask me why I’m here, my brother? I’m here to finish what our maker started.”
Remus knew of what she truly spoke and it wasn’t the flowers or the vampires. He looked for something to grab hold of. Something not of this world, but merely imprinted on it. He searched for a shroud powerful enough to quell his older sister.
“Back off,” he growled through clenched .
“Or you’ll do what?” Corina asked. She sliced through the air straight towards the man in black and grabbed him by the throat before he could use the shroud against her. “What will be done to me that hasn’t been done a hundred times before?”
Remus struggled to free himself from Corina’s grasp, but his older sister was stronger than he expected and he was tossed to the ground in defeat.
“You’re not fit to wear the crown,” Corina scoffed as she turned her back to her vampire king. She wanted to show him that she wasn’t afraid of his retribution. It was the single most humiliating act one kindred could do to another in battle. “I’ll continue the lady’s work unopposed. What will you do, Remus? Why, if I were you, I’d start by gathering up your forces and dealing with whatever shit this town’s got going on.”
Remus had no answer for the undead princess. He was defeated, shamed, and no matter what he said in defense it wouldn’t be enough to quiet Corina Petravic. There was nothing he could say that she’d want to hear.
Remus melted from the courtyard back to the shadows he knew so well. Only in the shadows would the man in black be free from those that wished him harm and those that wished him to be the savior to all of their problems.
With their conversation, ended all parties departed Blackrose Manor. Corina went continue the secret orders she’d been given. The unwilling Akil moved to follow. And Remus left to skulk in the shadows he’d grown so accustomed. That left only one to bear witness to the shift of power seen down below.
High atop one of the stone statues was the raven that watched. Its beady black eyes were locked on the courtyard below and not once during the meeting did they waver.
Blackrose Manor was a place the raven visited often. There were secrets within these walls. More secrets that the raven could hope to learn in one life. That didn’t keep the raven from coming back time and time again.
No one ever saw the raven that soared high above. No one knew why the raven watched, or why it waited, but they would learn. Soon every monster in Salem would know the raven’s name.
Chapter Forty
Night Kings: The Red River
Gregory Blackman
King Lore
“I can’t believe you went to him!” Gemma Kohl shouted, banged, and kicked in Elsa’s direction. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
“I am now,” said Elsa halfheartedly, too wrapped up in the forests around them to properly explain herself or her actions.
“Yeah,” Gemma said, “after the fact. Why would you do something that stupid?”
“He offered me something no one else could,” Elsa said. “Don’t take it personally.”
“What could he offer you?” Gemma asked. “A walk in the dark and then maybe, if you’re lucky, a bite on the neck? And
you tell me not to take it personally? What the hell were you thinking on this one?”
They’d been in these woods for hours without a hint they moved in the right direction. What Gemma sought could be anywhere within a hundred square miles of here. Yet it bothered Gemma little. She knew they traveled down the right path. The unknown girl was there to guide her.
Elsa stopped dead in her tracks and turned towards the only friend in this world she had left. She was so caught up in the search that she lost sight of how her actions were perceived. Elsa wasn’t even sure what Gemma and she were out here to find. All she knew was that it was important to quell the darkness in Salem. That’s what she was repeatedly told, at least.
“It’s all right, Gem,” said Elsa with warm eyes and a stiff upper lip. “The sisters showed me a light that can survive even the darkest of depths. I needed to see a darkness that couldn’t be quenched. You were born into your sisterhood. Where was I born? To a mother that killed herself and a father that doesn’t care about anything but his own ambitions. Where do I fall on your spectrum of light? Am I one of white or one of black? I could be freaking purple for all we know!”
Gemma understood all too well where her friend came from. The sisterhood was a close-knit community, regardless of how isolated, how spread apart they were; but many of them there were not. Gemma would’ve been alone had it not been for Elsa Dukane.
She was drawn to the young girl with hair black as a raven’s feather. It was more than a connection of spirits. They were meant to find one another. Gemma was almost certain of it. All they need do now is find the Sunkeeper’s inner sanctum to confirm her overwhelming suspicions.
She quieted down about her worries in hope that the issue would resolve itself of its own accord. The man in black would be dealt with in time. For now, she walked beside her friend in body and in spirit while they searched for what Elsa identified in a possessed state. In actuality, Gemma walked one step behind so that her friend would lead her unimpeded in the right direction.
Elsa swore to Gemma she couldn’t remember the words she spoke while in a transient state. The Sunkeeper was an ancient relic of their ancestors. The heart of their temple, as her mother would often say, and the tool from which the goddess above spoke to her. It would appear this chamber spoke through Elsa Dukane. Would it guide her there, as well? Gemma could only hope.
Elsa, and by extension Gemma, moved west to the mountains. They left Salem behind and now found themselves on the paths the Wendish werewolves took during their monthly descent into madness.
“Wait,” Elsa said. She stopped abruptly on a rocky ledge, no more than five feet wide, and moved to the mountain’s edge. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Whistling,” Elsa answered.
“Someone’s coming?”
Gemma jumped in a full circle and traced the rock-strewn path for any signs of movement. When none could be found, she turned to Elsa with hands on her hips and disgruntled look upon her face. “There’s no one here.”
“No,” said Elsa, “I mean the air.”
“Yeah,” said a cockeyed Gemma Kohl. “We’re a fair distance above sea level. The wind whistles up here.”
“Not like this it doesn’t,” Elsa replied. She moved to a patch of vines that grew atop the rocky incline. Her hands wrapped around the thick vines and yanked on them until they came down.
Elsa acted like she expected to see a stone door behind these vines. Maybe she did. Gemma, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more surprised by the secret passageway so casually revealed to her.
“These,” whispered Gemma as her hands traced the intricate carvings inscribed on the door, “… are of Norse design. There! You see that? This here is Gylfi… and that’s Gefion off to the side. I can see markings that depict Thor’s duel with Hrungnir! Elsa, can you believe this?”
Elsa couldn’t. She wasn’t even sure what to make of the hidden door, but she could see the interest it sparked in her friend. Until now she hadn’t even known the reason for this nighttime trek.
During Elsa’s visit with the sisters, the high priestess spoke on the subject well into their eternal daylight. The first Vikings that came to the New World set fire to the monuments the natives had erected, but those that destroyed also built upon what they’d so callously demolished. One colossal structure atop the mountain was raised in their place. It was a place of worship for the conquering horde, a place they could call their own in this most foreign of lands. Little did they know it was to the wrong gods they prayed.
Most of the goddess’ temple was destroyed in the civil war when Union forces used it as a makeshift fort to halt the advance of Confederate forces. The soldiers were all killed when the old, decayed walls toppled around them. Only the lower portions of the structure remained after that fateful night, but there were none alive to speak of its secrets.
What remained was a temple the sisterhood inherited. It wasn’t much to look at. In fact, once outside the temple left no footprint on the world it surveyed. For the sisters of old it was home; and for Gemma and the others sisters of the modern age it was a child’s story of love and loss.
“This is it, El,” said Gemma as she looked up at her friend with boundless optimism. “After all these years… you’ve given us back our home. You found the Temple of the Sunkeeper.”
“Wait,” said Elsa, her hands raised in confusion, “I’ve found what now?”
Chapter Forty One
Night Kings: The Red River
Gregory Blackman
Blinded by the Light
Elsa had every right to be upset at the way she was used by her close friend. There wasn’t a mention of the words she spoke while in a trance; and not until the Sunkeeper’s chamber was found did the young witch open up about what happened the night before.
She wasn’t mad Gemma used her. She understood the gravity of the situation. The truth was that Elsa Dukane wanted to help in any capacity she could. She’d been used her whole life. So what if she had to play the fool a few more hours?
Elsa’s inability to hold a grudge didn’t make things easy for Gemma Kohl. She wanted to make things right with her friend, but at the same time, she was preoccupied with the discovery of a lifetime.
It was one of the few stories Gemma’s mother had the time to tell her. Because of this she was enthralled with the witches of old and the powers they wielded. Powers she hoped to harness herself one day.
The door the two young women opened led to a spiral staircase that seemed to descend the entire mountain. The carvings Gemma identified on the door continued with them down the lengthy decline; right down to the end of the line. All the Viking gods were covered on these walls, in triumph and in failure, hundreds upon hundreds of actions and reactions from the gods and their eternal enemies.
“They must have worked tirelessly,” said Gemma, her hand not once parted from every nook, every crevasse on the stairwell. “I could spend a decade here and still I wouldn’t uncover all the stories this place has to tell.”
At the end of the stairs another door barred their path. It had the same carvings as the door on the face of the mountain, no handle to grab hold of, and no way to sense what lay on the other side. Once that door opened it wouldn’t be so easy to close. Because of this, Gemma stood there for a few minutes and contemplated what it may be on the other side. All the while her trembled hand rested on the stone cold door.
Elsa didn’t have that issue and got tired of the wait. She pressed her right shoulder against the stone door and heaved with all her might. It slid slowly, and it slid loudly, but in the end it, too, gave way to the unknown girl.
“I guess they don’t believe in locks,” Elsa said, slyly. “It would’ve been a shame to have to go all the way back.”
“Locks have never proved a problem for me,” replied Gemma with a flash of guile in her yawning smile. “Besides, who would’ve been foolish enough to steal from Vikings—?”
Gemma stopped
dead in her tracks when she passed into a world lost to time. The stories continued from floor to ceiling across the entire room, but it didn’t stop there. On the vaulted ceiling the Viking’s had carved the most elaborate of them all, Odin the Wanderer, his watchful eyes atop the mountain’s peak.
The room they found themselves in appeared to be a central hall from which several adjacent rooms connected. There were rows of stone slabs, each one parted in the middle to allow passage to the pulpit at the end. While many of its columns, balconies and shelves still stood upright, much of the debris from the temple above had fallen to the ground below. It created gaps in the Nordic wanderer above that allowed the moon’s light to cascade down to floor below. Light that Gemma Kohl now basked in.
“Viking’s were known for many things in this world,” Gemma said in astonishment. “Sculpting wasn’t one of those them. Can you believe what they did here? A few thousand men put to a purpose they couldn’t comprehend; simply amazing.”
She’d asked that several times now and each time Elsa came up short. If this was what remained of the temple she could only imagine the opulence of what once stood atop the mountain.
“The Sunkeeper’s chamber must be up ahead,” Gemma said. She pointed to the end of the hall where two more stone doors, no different than the one they entered, lay in wait for them. What was beyond was anyone’s guess. All they’d been told was that the sun’s guiding light would be there to greet them. The icy stone beckoned for her touch and Gemma moved forward only to be pulled back by her levelheaded friend.
“What in the hell was that for?”
“Shh,” said Elsa with a finger pressed to her lips. “I hear something.”
“Hear something?” an alarmed Gemma asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Twice now the unknown girl heard what the trained witch could not. While their kind wasn’t known to posses the hearing of a vampire or werewolf, the sisterhood took comfort that at least their senses extended past that of normal humans. They used these gifts more than any other the goddess bestowed upon them, for it allowed for the sisters to remain one step ahead of persecution at every turn but one.
Night Kings: The Complete Anthology Page 18
