Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (2 page)

“I see no choice around it,” the mayor said
as he reclined in his chair. “A reaper has been slain inside our
city borders. I needn’t remind you of the severity of that
statement. The body shall be cremated and all traces of his
existence here wiped clean. The Order of the Reapers will not learn
the truth of what has happened here.”

“And if they
do
uncover the truth?”
Cetra asked.

“Then hope the culprit has been found before
that happens,” a solemn Victor answered. He rose from his chair and
moved to the window where a waxing crescent moon waited beyond the
drapes. It was a difficult decision that’d been forced upon him,
one that could prove troublesome for more than just the
accused.

The Order of the Reapers was a brotherhood of
soldiers bred for the sole purpose of vanquishing the monsters that
plagued mankind. To think something had not only taken a reaper’s
life, but torn him limb from limb was a prospect both equally
intriguing and terrifying to the city’s enduring mayor. The Order
would rain political hellfire down on Salem and they would do so
without abandon for those caught in the middle. The town of Salem
would survive, as it always had, yet an embattled mayor and his
closest of confidents wouldn’t be so lucky.

“None of our positions will survive such
scrutiny,” the mayor continued after some time at the window. “We
turn this city over in search of those that may have had a hand in
the reaper’s demise… and we do it without city council’s
support.”

“We find out how it happened,” Hans said in
concurrence, “and then we uncover what the hell a reaper wanted
with Salem in the first place.”

These were the most influential people in the
city. Victor Dukane had chosen them for a reason. Not just for
close allies, but for those to share in his darkest of secrets. If
there were any people in Salem to see this done it would be them.
He knew they wouldn’t fail him. Their lives hung in the balance
every bit as much as his.

“So,” said the mayor as he turned back to
face his councilors, “we’re all agreed on what needs to be
done?”

Cetra looked to each of her councilmen, and
with a nod from all of their heads, she turned back to face the
mayor, and said, “We are.”

“So say we all,” the assembly of four said in
harmony. “So say we all.”

Chapter Three

Night Kings: The Lady in Red

Gregory Blackman

Dead to the World

For the embattled mayor of Salem city council
was akin to open warfare, but it was his home he feared most of
all.

“Quite honestly,” a beleaguered mayor said,
“I don’t give a damn what you think of me. I’m doing this for you.
One day you’ll understand. And if you don’t that’s your cross to
bear. Not mine.”

Victor Dukane had spent most his life in
courtrooms and boardrooms, but there was one room that he’d never
managed to emerge from unscathed. That room was his dining room,
and his opponent, a daughter he’d never been able to
understand.

“You want to protect me?” Elsa asked. She
rose from the dinner table in defiance and moved to beside her
father. “Then let me live my life! Sheltering me from the world
outside only serves to drive me further from this damned home!”

There was a real threat out there. None knew
that better than Elsa. She’d found the man Lukas had called a
reaper, and although she scarcely knew what that title meant, she
wouldn’t allow one life taken in violence determine her course in
life.

“You don’t have to understand my motives,”
Victor said as his daughter stormed out of the room. “You just have
to follow them. You’re not going to that festival tonight. Not
after what’s happened. That
place
isn’t safe for you.”

Elsa paused at the doorway of the room and
turned back to her face. “You know, dad, you weren’t the only one
she left.”

She’d already donned the outfit she’d be
wearing for the evening. It was a dusty rose evening dress with
sweeping surplice and frilled lace, and a last minute cancelation
of her plans was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Elsa fled the main floor and headed to her
bedroom. With her door locked behind her she collapsed onto her bed
and proceeded to reach for her music player. She wasn’t one to
voice her objections so vehemently, but after years of
indifference, his now heavy-handed approach to parenting was just
another excuse to drive that wedge farther between them.

With her headphones in and eyes closed, Elsa
completely shut off to the world around her. It was for those
reasons she didn’t hear her bedroom window creak open and dark
figure enter. It moved ever closer to Elsa with hands
outstretched.

“…The hell?” Elsa asked as a hand placed
itself on her shoulder. She struck back with an elbow to the
attacker’s nose that sent him down to the floor. She ripped the
headphones from her ears and dove over the side of the bed to get
better look at her assailant.

“Ugh,” said the figure from below, “what are
you doing?”

“Lukas, is that you?” Elsa drew back
immediately and fell back to her bed in laughter. “You can’t do
that. I almost broke your nose.”

“Almost?” he asked in response and rose with
a hand over his bloody nose. “C’mon, El, that wasn’t cool. Did any
blood get on the suit?”

He struck more than a few comedic poses in
his newly acquired suit so that Elsa might get a better look. There
was no blood on his suit, but that was the least of his problems.
There weren’t many men, young or old, that could confidently pull
off a pastel colored plaid suit. Lukas wasn’t one of those people
and he stood out accordingly.

“Looks like you’re dressed to impress,” Elsa
said with a hand to cover her gaping smile. “I mean, if you’re into
girls without any taste.”

Lukas brushed off her jokes and extended a
hand to his companion for the evening. “Shall we depart?”

“We shall,” said Elsa as she accepted his
hand and twirled around once in the bedroom, “but we’d best leave
the same way you entered.”

“Problems with the old man again?” he
asked.

“Not at all,” she said. “It would only be a
problem if he were ever home.”

She peered outside her bedroom window to the
bushes below. Before Lukas could advise caution she darted from
window to latticed wall and began her downward descent pass the
main floor smoking den. It was a room used rarely in their
gargantuan mansion and one that they could use to pass undetected
by her father.

The distance from outskirts to city center
wasn’t one that took much time. While Salem stood as tall as any
city in the state, it remained in the small form of the town that
once was. From gated neighborhoods in the north to Blackrose Manor
in the south, the city of Salem was as close-knit a community as
there could be. All the more strange that few people were ever
caught conversing outside their homes.

Tonight’s Festival of the Moon was to be held
at the farthest reaches of Elsa’s home, Blackrose Manor, home to
both tonight’s proceedings and innumerable ghost stories. The manor
was owned by an eccentric millionaire, said to be nearly one
hundred years of age, and so sickly that he hadn’t left the top
floor of his home in almost two decades.

They took a slight detour on route to their
destination to pick up the last of their party. It wasn’t the
finest part of Salem they found themselves, but it was a
neighborhood that had close ties to the house they were about to
visit. To those that lived on these streets they were as close as
kin and not to be trifled with. That was the power of a Kohl; a
family with no name, no currency, and yet found a family that
needed neither to survive.

But Gemma and her mother did more than just
survive in the slums. They thrived.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Lukas said
with eyes over his shoulder. “Let’s make this fast. Don’t want
anyone jacking my style.”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Elsa,
playfully. “You should probably get out of here while you still
can! Hurry up, Lukas, those pretty little legs of yours can’t
possibly run fast enough to outrun the imminent horde of fashion
starved citizens.”

“You laugh now,” he muttered under his
breath.

“Be nice,” Elsa hushed. “Gemma’s been alone
since her mother took off in the middle of the night.”

“Does she at least know why?”

“Nope,” said Elsa with a nervous gulp. “No
one knew she was leaving, least of Gem, and the only sign of her
departure was a note suggesting that Gemma would be safer without
her only parent around.”

“So she went nuts,” Lukas rationalized.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Elsa said.

“Come on,” said a wounded Lukas, “we’re both
thinking it. She’s always been a little batty. Since we were kids
I’d remember her scaring us off every time we’d go ringing on her
door—.”

“Oh,” said Lukas, stopping dead in his tracks
as he caught sight of their missing friend, “hey there, Gemma. I
didn’t see you.”

Gemma Kohl stood in front of the two of them
with her hands on her hips. She wore a radiant canary dress that
billowed at her feet in the gentle night breeze and was topped off
with matching headband to add color to her pallid skin.

Elsa had always known her friend was
beautiful. Now the rest of the city would be able to see.

“Makes sense you didn’t see me,” said Gemma
blankly. “You’re not the type to talk shit to someone’s face.”

Lukas was floored at her response and failed
to grasp the necessary words for a proper apology. It would turn
out none was needed and once Gemma doubled over in laughter, Elsa
was quick to follow suit.

Gemma was hiding her pain; and she was doing
it well. Only Elsa could see the anguish behind the crooked smile,
the dead eyes. Elsa knew the heartache of losing a mother, but
Gemma’s mother had left of her own accord. That was a pain not even
Elsa could pretend to understand. All she could do was see the
signs in front of her.

“Are we doing this or what?” Lukas asked.

“Well, I didn’t get all dressed up for
nothing,” Gemma said, “that’s for damn sure.”

He extended an arm to each of his ladies, and
with their acceptance, escorted them from out of the dregs and into
the decadent. Each had their reasons for escaping the everyday
minutia of their lives. One was running, one hiding, and the other
trying to find their place in this world.

Chapter Four

Night Kings: The Lady in Red

Gregory Blackman

The Man in Black

There it stood, Blackrose Manor, the
generational estate of the mysterious Castalon family. It housed
over a hundred rooms of luxury and affluence that few would know if
not for these parties. Colossal stone pillars lined the entrance to
the main entrance where stairs of marble awaited to greet the three
friends. Despite the welcoming support staff, the group of three
stayed just outside the gated entrance in wait of one of them to
make the first move.

“Shall we?” Lukas asked of his companions.
“We’re late enough as it is.”

“Let’s go around back,” Elsa said, nervously.
“I hear the staff make a scene when new guests enter.”

“Since when don’t you enjoy being the center
of attention?” Lukas asked.

The scowl to end all scowls was all the
response he needed and Lukas found himself more than a few paces
behind the ladies he was to accompany. They skirted around the high
stone walls beside the manor and headed to the back area.

To call the environment they walked into a
backyard would have put it as mildly as possible. Blackrose manor
looked every bit the estate home from the front, but it seemed the
back garden was an entirely different world altogether. Hundreds,
if not a thousand, of Salem’s residents had come out for the
Festival of the Moon, and still it couldn’t fill the patio space
meant for one ancestral family.

A large ballroom floor had been enacted in
the center of the backyard where a formal dance was to be the
highlight of the night’s festivities. It was, however, a dance not
of particular interest to the young ladies Lukas accompanied to the
festival. All the better for him, Lukas thought, for it was on the
dance floor he could bust the moves needed to land a lady.

“Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief now,”
said Elsa jokingly, “because I don’t see anyone here
jacking
your style.”

“Keep laughing, El,” Lukas said in his
defense. “Wait ‘til the men with style show up to this thing. Then
you’ll see.”

Lukas and Elsa argued with each other for
some time while Gemma looked around for anyone she recognized,
anyone she could use to separate herself from two friends that’d
yet to realize what they meant to one another.

Both Elsa and Lukas were in search of someone
at this party to save them from the mundane. Yet, little did they
know it was each other they searched for. Gemma could see it.
Everyone here could see it except for the two of them.

“I see one of those fashionably dressed
gentleman now,” said Gemma, breaking up the soon-to-be public
disturbance, “and I hate to break it to you, Lukas, but your style
may be out of date.”

She pointed to a man in black that stood
apart from all the townsfolk. While he might have been apart from
the crowds, the man looked as if he belonged at that precise spot
now and for all eternity. The man owned not just the secluded
ground beneath him, but the entirety of everything around.

“Why can’t
that
be your style?” Elsa
asked.

Black dominated the man’s presence, from the
pristine oxfords he wore on his feet to the skinny bowtie that lay
slightly askew. Even the hair curled around his neck was blacker
than an abyss and cast him a mysterious aura that extended far past
his ominous shadow.