The pressure built until the bubble burst and forced the white light to the surface. Unlike all the times she was locked inside while the other reigned supreme, this time it was Elsa that held dominion over the ancient spirit.
“This must be what the other monsters feel,” Elsa said. She referred to herself as one of the other monsters. It was a monumental moment of the young woman, but for one reason more than any other. This time she didn’t flinch at the word or the haunted imagery it brought to the surface.
She used this newfound strength to rise to her feet and take control of her environment. She felt lighter, spry, and able to overcome any obstacle in her path. After all the events that led to this moment, she felt like nothing in the human world could stop her. Maybe nothing in her world could stop her, but here, on this world her inert prowess was an entirely different matter.
The twin suns became brighter until it caught the attention of the girl with eyes on fire. She looked up into sky to where the second sun hung below its larger brother. It ballooned in size over the next few minutes until the heat on the surface rose well past bearable temperatures.
Elsa Dukane was set afire along with the trees that towered and the grass that sunk into the world below. She survived long enough to see the younger sun explode, and with it its older brother, all before everything in this world came to a fiery end.
Elsa opened her eyes to the world she left behind, the human world, now more foreign to her than ever. She was agitated by the sights she’d witnessed, not entirely sure of the meaning, but clear on the intention. This was her warning. Elsa needed to change the path she was on or risk the same fiery fate for herself. While she didn’t quite trust her other half, Elsa and her other came to an understanding in the forests behind her empty home. The time to change the world around them was at hand.
When she rose to her feet, Elsa found that she wasn’t alone in these woods. There were many, and they’d already had time to surround her. These were the Sisters of Salem and they had returned to take action against their oldest of adversaries.
No more were the witches hidden away behind their hoods. Their faces were revealed for the first time. In their faces Elsa saw her baker, one of the tellers at her local bank, and even her fifth grade teacher. Elsa spoke to these women on many occasions and not once did she ever think of them as anything more than they appeared.
That’s the way the sisters had been since the days of the Salem witch trials. It kept them alive, but that safety came at a grave cost to all those in the inner sanctum. They were near blind to the world around them.
In front of the other witches stood Gemma Kohl, joined by the high priestess, Cetra Altaras. She moved with tantric rhyme, as though she was connected to a naturist force beyond control, and circled around Elsa with the shakes of her hips and quiver of her arms.
Cetra was suddenly struck with a moment of lucidity and straightened up as stiff as a board. She looked Elsa dead in the eyes, and said, “It’s time.”
Elsa tried to open her mouth in response, but it was her other that answered. “So the witches act at last. Tell me, ladies of the earth, what can your kind do differently this time? From what I hear there were a lot more of you back then.”
“We do what we must,” Gemma answered for the rest of her coven. “We finish what our goddess started. We kill the bloody lot of them, and this time we end the bloodline.”
Chapter Fifty Five
Night Kings: Old World Cull
Gregory Blackman
For the King
Lukas Wendish led the frenzied wolves over the hills of Salem. They headed for the swirled mass of black on the horizon. There, the werewolves were promised retribution. Allow the sinners one last battle to see if their gods deemed them worthy of repentance. And with so many gods in the fight, he thought, surely the odds would sway in their favor at some point in the night.
He knew the unfortunate truth. They wouldn’t come home on this night or any other night. Theirs weren’t the gods that answered.
On this long, fateful run towards their enemy, Lukas couldn’t help but think back to the stories his father would tell. The gods were never Bernhard’s favorite subject to broach, but those times he did, Lukas was there to scamper to his feet.
Supernatural lore wasn’t much different from the history of man. They shared the same map and spoke of the same historical figures, but their pieces on the board differed. Where man told of armies and their victories over the barbarian hordes of other nations, the supernatural races had their gods and mystics that ushered their human armies across the board in their name.
When the Zoroastrians and the Persians came to Greece it wasn’t just their hoplites and their triremes that they faced. The Greeks had mighty gods in the Olympians and they hacked away at the forces of their pagan neighbors, toppled their gods and went back to work on their followers.
The Olympians found the world within their grasp. They conquered the lands of their invaders to the east and drove the kemetic gods of Egypt out from the lands in the south. That notoriety came at a price, as the Olympians would soon find. The gods that feared extermination—most notably the Slavic and Norse deities—banded together and moved to strike the Olympians where they slept.
The Greeks below never knew what happened, and when Alexander the Great asked ‘why’ of his gods, they were nowhere to be found. They were lost to the world, much like the Greeks that once worshipped them.
In time the Olympians and their followers would have their revenge. Centuries later, angels of light cascaded to the land below and let up their holdings with a terrible fire that lasted nearly a decade. When the fires were finally doused, the men, women and children there found armies of steel soldiers at their doorstep to finish what the fires failed to cleanse.
It was the Christians, their orders and their armies, and as his father would always say, “they don’t fuck around. Not then. Not now.”
Some in his father’s pack would often share of their fears that the same would happen to the moon gods one day. What if there weren’t enough wolves out there to support them? What if there were too many? Despite their fears, every full moon the moon gods came back to torment them.
Bernhard was convinced they weren’t gods at all, but instead extraterrestrial entities of varying supernatural power, far beyond even the mightiest of werewolf. He believed they were out there, somewhere, locked in a galactic battle for dominance.
Lukas would often ask him of what interest werewolves could have to beings of such omnipotence and every time his father’s answer would be unwavering and alarmingly cryptic.
“That’s a good question, my boy,” he always said. “Let’s find out.”
It was a fool’s dream, but now it would be Lukas’ dream. He owed his father that much, but as the snarled maw of a nearby wolf slammed shut beside him, he was forced to abandon such thoughts and focus on the task at hand. Come next dayside his dream might be dead, too.
The werewolves passed over the scorched earth of what was once Wendish land. Their paws burned from the embers, each footstep worse than the last, but still the werewolves kept formation, because that’s what their master did.
“Do you feel that, my brothers and sisters?” Lukas stopped to survey the pack that passed. They were hungry, in a lust for bloodshed, but they held true in fear of their master’s reprisal. “Fire, blood, and battle, brought to our home courtesy of a godless people and their dark ambitions. Tonight, we take back the night and remind these invaders just whom they are screwing with! We march down their throats until we stab at their black heart!”
It was that moment his dark admirer decided to join him in tonight’s festivities. Corina Petravic, the princess of multicolored patterns, and her bronzed defender stood behind the shadow of the tree line. The two of them watched Lukas with interest and intent, as if they alone knew his true calling in the world.
The werewolves, so finely attuned to Lukas Wendish, became aware of his apprehension
at the same moment their master did. They swooped back around to greet the vampires with a flash of teeth and claw meant to instill the fear that came from centuries of rivalry.
“Get back!” Lukas commanded to those that returned to his side. He had to hope that Elsa managed to contact the witches; that his wolves would be there to meet them in the throngs of battle, even if he wasn’t. He had to believe that. “This is my fight! Mine!”
The werewolves were confused over the order, but they remained in the shadows, all of them save for one. The silver-haired Aubrey Wendish broke through the impulses that kept her out of the fight and lunged straight towards the woman that came after her son.
“No, mother, no!” Lukas cried with hands stretched out in vain. “You’ve got to stay away!”
Lukas tried to reach out and grab hold of his mother, but it was too late. A backhand from Akil Fayed saw the hoary werewolf knocked down to the ground.
Lukas rushed to his mother’s side, but the shadows behind him kept his contact as brief as possible. Her back was sprained, but he made no move to bend down and tend to her. Aubrey would heal soon enough, but not if the vampires made their move. If that happened, his whole pack would be torn to shreds before they stole him away in the night.
“You’ll leave here, all of you,” said Lukas with eyes only for his mother. “Don’t come back here. Not until Salem has been saved will you return to these fields! Not one minute sooner! Do you understand?”
“Do you understand?” Lukas bellowed as loud he could until he was certain that each of his wolves heard his warning call. They each nodded their heads, but the question had to be repeated twice more before the silver haired werewolf came to a reluctant agreement with her son.
Lukas watched as his mother limped away with the rest of the pack. Soon their figures would be masked by smoke and he would be left alone with the dark princess and her heavy-handed bodyguard.
“I knew there was something,” Corina cackled in delight as her boney finger drove into his backside. “You’re the goose that laid the golden egg. Yes, you are—.”
Lukas lashed out with a right hook that saw the sadistic royal stumble backwards in a bloody haze. Before he could get another shot off in her direction, Akil stepped into the picture and grabbed hold of his extended wrist.
“Not tonight,” Akil hissed.
Corina felt the blow more than she thought she would. The last century saw her cut a bloody swathe across the Old World and in that time her powers grew by leaps and bounds. Humans started to resemble ants more than the cattle she once prayed on. The supernatural races, such as werewolves and succubae, became less her equal and more akin to the humans she once fed on exclusively.
That’s when her bloodlust reached frightening new heights.
Entire packs, dens, and covens were crushed under her thumb and not a single monster along her path was spared the experience of her bite. With the draining of each one of her many victims, not only did Corina’s strength grow, but so, too, did the many voices in her mind. Louder and more forceful their voices became as more were added into the fold.
The mind of a vampire in bloodlust was a crowded place to dwell. The souls of the tormented, now too many to count, called to her. They told of the many atrocities committed in her name and all the sorrows they’d experienced by her hand. It was a price duly paid by the dark princess, but one she came to revel in over time.
She became engorged by the voices in her head and sought to see their misery amplified with the souls of all they knew added to her subconscious. She was pulled from one direction to the next, lost in a sea of blood with her sanity not far behind. So when one of the wolves she put down so many times before reached out and touched her, it was too much to take for her shattered psyche.
They were laughing, all of them, laughing and mocking and taunting her with their cruel remarks. She wasn’t untouchable anymore, worse still, that touch had come from one mired in filth and fur.
“I was many things in my life,” one of the voices whispered, “but never was I stained by the grubby paw of a werewolf.”
“The Lord of the Isles never would’ve stood for such disregard.”
“I always knew she fancied the touch of a dog.”
Corina fought to shut the voice out. She needed to focus on the task at hand and see her business in this forsaken city come to a close. The distressed, worried look of Akil Fayed brought the princess back to reality, and in that reality, her jaw still ached from the wolf’s touch.
“That’s enough,” said Corina with a hand on the shoulder of her on-again, off-again lover. “I don’t think he’ll be trying anything that foolish again.”
“You’re going to come with us,” Akil yanked on the wrist of Lukas to force him in the princess’ direction, but the young werewolf fought him at every twist and turn. “You filthy runt, I’ll see this arm ripped clean off if you press me further!”
The two of them almost came to blows, but a surprisingly tender hand from Corina Petravic saw both of them cool down. Akil relinquished his grip from the werewolf’s wrist, yet he did so with a lingered nail that ran the course of his hand.
“Don’t be rude, habibi,” said a haughty Corina. “He’s going to come willingly.”
“Why would you ever think that?” Lukas asked. His hand was cut wide open from the serrated vampire nail, but he refused to show the dark twosome any ounce of weakness. He would heal soon enough. Then the struggle would begin anew. However many times it took until the vampires tired of a bloodless fight.
“Because you’re a good dog,” Corina said as a serpentine smile crept over her face, “yes, you are.”
“It’s not going to happen.” Lukas stood firm against his two undead aggressors. With his hand healed, all he needed was for someone to reach out and try and take him once more. “I don’t know what kinds of crazy you’ve got going on in your head, but this union isn’t going to happen.”
She leaned in and crooked her head sideways. “Who said anything about a union?”
Corina’s laughter, much like the tormented souls in her head, droned on into the night. Every joke of hers was a private affair in which she alone was entitled to hear the punch line.
When Lukas was locked up in her basement crypt he looked in her and saw a black hole. He saw a woman devoid of the slightest bit of compassion or warmth, and enriched solely by the misery of others. Now that he was on free, equal ground, he looked on her with an entirely new light. The dark princess was a bottom pit of despair and self-doubt, lost to the world, and as much separated from others as she was from reality. He pitied her undead upbringing. He pitied her dreams. He pitied every damn thing about the girl.
“I’m going to mass produce you, sugar,” she said with a slow, drawn-out kiss in his direction. “My maker didn’t quite know what to do with you, but I don’t seem have that problem. She wanted to make packs of your kind, packs that called them her queen, as would any vampire, but I see things differently. You’re too strong, too unpredictable for that. No, I’m going to breed you like the cattle you were meant to be, but cattle to my exact specifications; every single one of you. And let me tell you, baby, you’re all going to love me.”
She ran her forked tongue across her lips slowly, and methodically, in attempt to antagonize the werewolf. It almost worked, too, and Lukas had to fight the near irresistible urge to reach out and rip Corina’s slithery tongue from her mouth.
“A tall task,” said Lukas, visibly shaken, his lip aquiver in the prospect of devouring her whole, right here and now. “How does one plan to accomplish such a grand feat? I fear not even the vampire queen was so bold.”
“I’ve got a buyer lined up,” she said with unsettling conviction. “While my lady never approved of his sort, I figure it’s best to hitch my wagon to a rising star, not one that’s plummeting well past sea level; and when our beloved king perishes in the fires of Salem, I won’t shed a tear. Few among our race will, for his death means a new beginning,
a greater beginning, in which we will ascend to previous heights. You should be honored to be a part of this movement—as should all that survive our rise to dominance.”
“The vampire kingdom isn’t what it once was,” said a suddenly demoralized Corina Petravic. One moment she was hot and the next she was cold. No one could read the dark princess. Not even Corina, herself, was privy to where her mood would shift next. “While I don’t blame my brother for that particular failure, he isn’t the one our kind needs to lead them back to greatness.”
Each word that the dark princess spewed filled Lukas Wendish with a fire that originated from the centuries of oppression his people faced at vampires hands. Those were the dark times for the werewolves of the world. A world they were forced to flee or face a life of vampire subservience. Corina Petravic would have those dark times return, and she would use Lukas to get there.
“Despite our many, many differences,” said Corina, neither hot nor cold, but instead a blank canvas devoid of any emotion, “Remus and I shared one commonality in regards to rule. The vampire race can no longer thrive in the world if we remain isolated and alone. Allies are needed, and while your mangy pack of mutts and the broomstick bunch were enough for the soon departed king, they’re not quite up to my standards. Don’t take it personal, sweetie. It’s just survival, and I am to be the fittest.”
Lukas looked towards the bodyguard of the insane monarch. Akil seemed ill at ease with Corina’s remarks. Not that it would help him much in the fight that was to come. It was a losing battle, whether he fought against two of them or one.
“Whose business is it to send the world into such upheaval?” Lukas asked with the hopes of stalling a one-sided fight. “What you speak will tear national borders apart. Millions will perish and countless more will be forced to endure a life of degradation and sorrow. Is that the world the spoiled, little princess envisions?”
Night Kings: The Complete Anthology Page 26
