The steel hatch bent and buckled under the duress brought on by the serrated claws of Lukas Wendish now put to purpose. He tore into the hatch with a deep seeded resentment of the mistreatments he’d been put through; but it was more than that, it was the mistreatments he’d put his pack through.
He could only imagine what the silver-haired matriarch of the Wendish clan would have to do to keep the pack strong. Alliances would be tested, if they already hadn’t been, and soon the pack would be on the hunt. If they hadn’t yet left for the mountains this town would be in grave danger. Danger only he could avert.
After the steel hatch came the next door and the one after that. Whatever it took Elsa and he to reach the ground floor. They passed by dozens of sealed tombs covered in a thick coat of dust. All of them were marked by the passage of time, as if not a soul, save the three of them, had been here for quite some time.
A frenzied Lukas emerged from the mausoleum with Elsa hot on his trail. They raced through the remote cemetery with eyes not on revenge, but on the emancipation of their homeland from dark forces yet to reveal themselves. They had only a sniff of their city to guide, and while a werewolf’s senses are second to none on the full moon, it was only a matter of time until the inner wolf tried to emerge once more.
Not even the lady in red and her dark princess could have predicted what would transpire here tonight. That didn’t make it anymore delightful to witness. As she watched them dart through a field of tombstones an impish grin stretched across her powdered face. Both Lukas Wendish and his female companion were unknown variables, misrepresentations in the natural order. Now they would learn to work for her.
“My queen was right about you,” she whispered into the wind. “We’re going to change the world… yes we are.”
Chapter Forty Nine
Night Kings: Darkest of Depths
Gregory Blackman
Here at Last
The mountains west of Salem had been quiet for too long. They remained impartial throughout the ages while battle upon battle had been fought in their name.
The secrets contained within those mountains were older than the town itself, older than the country that claimed it. Few of the conquering hordes ever knew the reasons why they fought over such a small tract of land. Yet, they did so all the same.
No more would those mountains remain neutral in the war for Salem. Those that had taken root in the goddess’ temple now felt the time was right to leave their sacred grounds.
Down the mountain path these men walked towards the unsuspecting city. They were dressed in black robes, all of them, and in each of their hands rested a torch that illuminated all but their concealed faces and a sword that glistened in the fires beside. These were men on a mission, a dark mission; one that had interests vested in the very origins of Salem.
When the dark figures made it down the mountain top they were joined by others from all sides. The others were of similar garb, similar mind, and as these men met at the mountain’s base they all turned towards the city of Salem.
Hundreds of men descended upon the city with hundreds of torches and hundreds of swords. Not a human soul in Salem could know, not truly, of the darkness that loomed on the horizon and they wouldn’t learn until the fires were already upon them. Then it would be too late for them all.
Chapter Fifty
Night Kings: Old World Cull
Gregory Blackman
A Moment All Too Brief
To say that Salem had seen hard times over the centuries would be to say nothing at all about the city’s storied legacy. Its citizens, be they supernatural or not, had known loss, bigotry, and persecution in considerable doses over the years. Now they would all know damnation onset by those supernaturals rooted in their community.
Elsa Dukane lived for nearly twenty years of her life without knowing of the dangers that lurked outside her home, or the ones that lurked within. Now that her guiding white light shone on the dark and mysterious, Elsa’s life swirled around precariously amid a torrent of enlightenment. She learned of truths no human should ever have to know. Only she wasn’t human. She was the unknown girl surrounded by monsters of all shapes and sizes.
Elsa and her werewolf companion ran for miles from the crypt that housed them. Or rather, Lukas ran and she did her best to keep pace. He was no more the beast on four legs. It was his human body Lukas clung to in his hour of need.
Not once in the history of the werewolf race had one of their ranks turned against the moon gods. For werewolves it was a cardinal sin to refuse the bloodlust onset by the full moon. It was another thing entirely to keep the wolf at bay. That’s what he did now, in his human skin, and he did it with all the powers the gods bestowed.
The closer they drew to Salem, the more pungent the air became. Smoke clouded the air they breathed, slowly began to choke them, mile by mile until they were forced to head east. They didn’t know of the men that’d come to Salem, nor did they know of their reasons. All Lukas Wendish and the unknown girl knew was that in this city there were loved ones in need.
“An unpleasant stench,” Lukas said with his nose wrinkled in displeasure, “to go with an unpleasant night.”
“Armageddon…”
Lukas stopped his brisk pace and turned back to Elsa. “What did you say?”
“You could call me non believer these days,” she replied, in remembrance of her conversation with Gemma, “but the description would seem to ring true. Gods be damned, what we’ve got here is Salem’s day of reckoning.”
“What are you talking about?” Lukas asked. He stormed over to her and placed his hands roughly on her shoulders. It wasn’t anger that moved him, it was fear and the concern he had for friend and pack alike. “We’re talking about werewolves on the hunt. I can stop this before it gets out of hand. I can save everyone.”
Lukas didn’t know. Since the lady in red fell Lukas has been absent. Not from just his pack, but the friends he’d made over the years. It was easy for Elsa to forget how much had changed over the last few weeks. How much she changed along with it. She was no more the foolish girl that waited in a red line for her best friend to notice her. Elsa wasn’t sure what she was anymore, but she was damn sure what she wasn’t anymore, and she wasn’t powerless. She possessed the inner strength to fight back where others couldn’t. If monsters had come to their town for war then she would be there to block their path, every step of the way.
“If a person’s life is said to happen too fast to truly appreciate it,” asked Elsa, “what can be said of the supernatural one?”
“What does that mean?” Lukas balked. “For years now, Gemma’s held information over my head at every available opportunity. Now I have to worry about you, too?”
“The darkness came while we were swept up in the vampire’s queen shit.” Elsa looked down to the ground when she realized that the lady in red’s forceful hand still lingered heavily on her friend. “Only it never left when the lady in red fell.”
“What are you talking about?” Lukas asked. “She was the source of it all.”
“Yeah,” said Elsa, “that’s what we thought, too, but it hasn’t stopped spreading. We found a temple, Gem and I. The sisters say it was built by Vikings during the early middle ages. Gemma thinks that temple is the source of the darkness.”
In a fit of rage, Lukas let the moon god out for the briefest of moments and violently pushed Elsa away. He took a swipe out of a nearby tree to release that anger, but it served to further his descent into madness. He’d failed his father, failed his pack, and now he’d failed everyone in the city of Salem. This fight suddenly became larger than he could handle.
“The smoke is getting thicker,” Elsa noted.
“It’s not the smoke or the flames that worry me,” Lukas growled with his nose raised to the sky. “We’re not alone in these woods.”
“Are you sure?”
Elsa used the senses given by her other and reached out into the black. Despite those senses, not one of them came in use. T
he smoke choked her off from the world and limited what she could pick up both near and far, and no matter how hard Elsa tried, her best wasn’t enough to pierce the hazy barrier.
“Unfortunately,” he answered.
Lukas didn’t have the same difficulties and used his senses to penetrate the many layers of smoke. Under the full moon a werewolf’s senses were second to no creature on this world. Those senses warned of many dangers on their smoky horizon; dangers that were getting closer.
“It’s not safe,” Lukas said with eyes to the southwest. “You need to get out of here.”
“The hell I do,” Elsa fired back. “I’m not that absentminded girl you abandoned on the steps of your farmhouse. You know, a lot’s happened since you left us in the lurch.”
Her steely gaze met his, and in spite of her best attempts, broke under the pressure of a backlog of emotion. She wanted to tell him, right then and there, what he meant to her and what he’d always meant. Yet, when it came time to pull the trigger, she didn’t say a word to the lanky blonde with concerned eyes.
“I-I didn’t mean,” she stammered. “You had every right to leave. Not like I haven’t thought of it a million times before.”
“You don’t get it,” Lukas said hastily. “I can’t protect you when they get here. You might have the strength to topple mountains and the ability to soar into the clouds up high in the sky. But you’re still flesh and blood and that means these beasts won’t stop until your blood and guts are laid out before you.”
“Then at least my supernatural life will have meant something,” said a stone-faced Elsa Dukane. “What do you expect me to do? Do you know how sick I am of being caged up? If it’s not my father it’s a goddamn sociopath! I’ve had it up to here with people that want to do me harm. So whoever’s out there can bring it the hell on!”
She wanted to break down in his arms, but held true to keep her head above the rising storm. They needed to be strong in the face of the dangers that came. Anything less could mean for devastating results down the road. Elsa wouldn’t stand for that. Not even if it meant the suppression of everything she needed to tell him.
“You need to find Gem,” Lukas said with a hushed voice. “The witches have to know something about this, El, they’ve just got to. I don’t know where they are, but something tells me that you do. You keep the city standing and I’ll make sure they’re people left alive to reside there.”
A single tear streamed down the face of Elsa Dukane, only this tear wasn’t for Lukas or her father. She wanted to bare her soul to the world, and she wanted it to start with the man before her. Where would she begin? What could she tell?
Elsa had nothing tangible, nothing with a shred of merit. Only the light that came and went as it pleased throughout her body. When they were home, safe and sound, she would confess her emotions. Not a moment sooner. At least that was something she could control.
“They’re your people, Lukas,” said Elsa, unsteadily. “They don’t know what they’re doing. What are you going to do to them?”
Lukas turned from Elsa and stared off into the smoky forests to the west. With his back to her, he said, “You don’t want to know.”
Elsa wasn’t sure of why she waited in silence, but she waited, nonetheless. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do except let him go in the night. That was the life of a monster in disguise. You rarely got to pick your battles, and when you did, they never went according to the plan.
Elsa didn’t watch Lukas leave. He had enough problems without having to worry about what she brought to the table. They would have their conversation, of that Elsa was certain; even if it had to happen on the other side.
“One supernatural day at a time,” Elsa whispered under her breath. “At this pace I’ll be lucky if I can manage that.”
With a sullen shake of her head she put such foolishness behind her and moved to keep ahead of the fires. She raced among the trees at a frantic pace, desperate to keep ahead of the fires that raged in the distance. When she reached the city streets the cries from those in dire need caught her ear.
At first it was the hysterical laughter from those that burned in the flames. Then the cries of agony of those trampled under the weight of their common man. She saw some citizens flee and others raise whatever weapons they could find in defense of their homes. For many of the citizens the end result was the same. They fell to the dark hordes that descended from the mountains.
Clusters of people clogged the main streets and forced Elsa to turn from her southern path. If she was going to get to the sisters it would have to be through a different route. That would mean more time away from the frontlines. More time for her city to burn.
She had one last option before her. It wasn’t the witches. It wasn’t the vampires. There was only one person in which she could openly commune. Of course, Elsa never knew of the true reasons she went back to that man. That wasn’t for her to know. That privilege was for her other.
No matter how fast Elsa ran the sounds of slaughter followed her on the streets. When she reached the upper hills of her gated community, she turned back to survey the damage wrought to her city.
The fires spread from the suburbs of the west to the lower income slums of Lower Salem. Soon main street would be engulfed in those fires and with it her father’s place of business. There was something out of place, but she couldn’t rightly put her finger on it. It was as though there was something other than the fires and the hordes of invaders. This was something missing, not adding fuel to the fire.
When Elsa returned to her home the front door was ajar and her father nowhere to be found inside. She was at her wits end, afraid she’d made the wrong decision to leave Lukas’ side. In her frustration she stumbled out the back door and into the forests behind her home.
She had more than a few choice expletives lined up as she charged through the trees with no end in sight. There was nowhere else for her to turn, no plan to save the town, and no endgame where time could be reversed and everyone could live in blissful ignorance.
Elsa was struck with a shortness of breath that saw her to crawl to a halt. Her head spun her every which way but forward and soon she found gravity out to get her, as well.
“Don’t do this to me again,” she pleaded with eyes of white fury. “Not now. Not while so much is on the line…”
This time it wasn’t just her eyes. Her entire body burst into flames. The fires forced Elsa to her hands and knees in submission, where she lay in her own tormented hell. There was nothing she could do to stop the warrior of light inside. At this moment this body was every bit as much hers.
Through clenched teeth and rolling tears of molten lava, Elsa dug her fiery hands into the dirt below, and cried, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”
With those words Elsa passed from this world. Where she went wasn’t a place for those that knew. It was a place for the lost ones, the Elsa Dukane’s of the world, the ones that wished to learn, and with a little luck, understand.
But first, she needed to survive the trip.
Chapter Fifty One
Night Kings: Old World Cull
Gregory Blackman
City of Fire
Remus Castalon was a man known throughout the kindred world for deeds both noble and immoral. Most of those deeds fell under the latter and for that he was known as the infamous man in black. Now, that infamy was nothing but a rouse, a blanket for him to masquerade in. He hadn’t been that man, the executioner, for a hundred years. Could he become that man again to save his people? He shuddered at the thought.
Remus looked out from the same balcony he’d stood many times. No matter the time of night it was a view that rarely changed, rarely diverted from the vampire queen’s path. Now he was the king and her once mighty kingdom lay in ruin.
Specks of amber seeped from the forests into the suburbs. The light spread forth through the populace that moved towards it, and even the populace that ran. Everyone caught in the horde’s path m
et the same fate in the end. He could have descended his lofty heights and joined the ranks of those that clogged the streets, but there he stood, motionless and reluctant to share in the battle.
Remus was joined on both sides by the dark princess and her faithful champion, Akil Fayed. Corina Petravic swore up and down that they’d come to watch the fires fan from home to home, but Remus knew the truth of the matter. She had come to gloat.
“Quite the kingdom you’ve got here,” she whispered into his ear.
Remus was in no mood for mind games, but those were the only games the dark princess was taught. Theirs was a dysfunctional family; one that saw the darkest parts of their humanity rewarded, and acts of mercy scolded.
“I like to think it’s a work in progress.” Remus kept his gaze on the fiery sight below. Not once did he glance over to the princess he spoke. “Less than a week ago you appeared on my doorstep and now the city erupts into flames. I find that alarmingly coincidental. Don’t you?”
“Don’t be so hard-pressed to find an enemy in me, my liege,” said Corina Petravic, the scorn emanating from her lips. “I haven’t taken up arms against you, although I’ve every right to do so. I came for the wolfling at our maker’s behest. Whatever fucked up shit this town’s got going on it happened centuries before I got here. So, tell me, Remus, why did you come here?”
Remus refused to take the bait and focused on what he read between her lines. She knew something about the forces below, something Remus could use in this hour of need.
“What do you know?” he asked, finally giving into demand and turning towards his older sister. “Who commands these invaders?”
Corina cackled in delight at the confirmation of what she could hardly believe to be true. The vampire king didn’t know the enemy he faced.
“My, my, my,” said the dark princess, “you really don’t have any clue, do you? I never thought the day would come when my own brother failed to see the dangers that lay in wait. Let’s just say that old sins have found their way back to the city of Salem.”
Night Kings: The Complete Anthology Page 22
