Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (20 page)

“Secure the main floor,” said the first of
the masked men to enter the premises. “Then you move for the
basement. Give the fuckers no time to react.”

He waved on the five others behind him and
watched as they passed from room to room. The sound of muffled fire
followed them, until there was no vampire’s left to halt their
advance into the den’s inner sanctum.

The tallest of these men remained on the main
floor. He lowered his weapon and took stock of his environment. The
living room was devoid of any light sources, kept that way by the
vampires, and if it weren’t for the night vision goggles the team
would have fallen where they stood upon entry. The man pulled back
the taped up drapes and let the sun’s light flood into the main
floor. He slid off his goggles then the balaclava he wore over his
head.

With the flick of his hands a cigarette found
its way into his mouth which he promptly lit and took a drag from.
The light shone on his bald head and brought attention to the
rampant eagle tattoo that ran across the right side of his face. He
cast a wide shadow into the room and waited with weapon beside him
until the sounds of gunfire ceased from the rooms below.

“We’re clear, sir,” said the first of his men
to return. “We got two of the bloodsuckers from out of their
coffins. The runts of the litter, just as you wanted.”

“Good,” said their lumbering commander.
“Bring them to me and we’ll depart this shit-stain the monsters
call home.”

“Shall we purify the establishment?” the
masked soldier asked.

“Not yet, brother,” the commander said,
pausing to take another pull from his cigarette. “Bring them back
and we’ll see ourselves from this dreadful place.”

“Yeah,” said the soldier with eyes lit up in
enthusiasm, “and straight into the next.”

“We do what
he
commands of us,” the
stalwart commander replied. “From new to old we travel the world
for
him
. Don’t forget he who placed the blessed hand upon
your head—.”

A stifled screech was heard in the corner and
caught the attention of both commander and his right hand. They
readied their rifles and moved to flank the chesterfield against
the wall.

“Show yourself,” said the commander, “and
we’ll let you walk out of here alive.”

The soldier beside him shot a puzzled look
his way, but it was soon dismissed by the commander and they kept
their weapons locked on the sofa in front of them.

A slow rumble accompanied the forward shift
of the sofa. A small shadow appeared behind, the shadow of a small
boy no older than ten. He, too, was a vampire the men were sent her
to kill, and yet neither of them pulled the triggers they clung
to.

“What should we do with this one?” the masked
asked.

The baldheaded leader of this group didn’t
take more than a moment to contemplate his next move. “We show him
the light.”

At that moment the four soldiers that secured
the den’s inner sanctum emerged with the two vampires their
commander requested. They were beaten black and blue, nothing that
wouldn’t heal in time, but these vampires had neither the time nor
the blood to see that happen.

“Get them into the truck,” the commander
said.

“Should we cover them up first?” one of his
men asked.

“Fuck them,” he replied with his eyes still
attached to the scared, lonely vampire on the living room floor.
“Monsters get what they deserve; each and every one of them.”

Four of the masked soldiers left to escort
the vampires into their truck out front. That left the commander
and his second in command to finish what they started. The
youngling trembled on the floor before them. The sunlight scorched
him to the touch, but he was too focused on the rifles aimed at his
heart to think of escape from the light the shined on him.

“And I shall cast them into the furnace of
fire,” said the commander as he retrieved the same flint lighter he
used to fire up his cigarette, “where there shall be wailing and
the gnashing of teeth.”

With those final words the towering commander
locked the lighter in place and tossed it towards the childlike
vampire. Even in the boy’s last minutes he kept his eyes locked on
the men in front of him. The fire spread quickly across the
necrotic flesh of the child and within seconds he erupted into
flames.

It was then the boy understood his
predicament and he shrunk back to the chesterfield that’d once
provided him safety; but it was too late for the child. He turned
to ash before he could make the trip.

The two soldiers watched with gaiety as they
fulfilled their roles so dutifully. The fires that took the child’s
life soon extended to the floorboards beneath. They left the home
no differently than they’d entered it, under full daylight and in
view of the whole block. Yet, there wasn’t a person to lay eyes on
any of it, and if there were, they knew not what they saw.

Those six men got into their large panel van
and drove off as the flames spread to the exterior. It soon moved
to the rest of the home and forced dozens of bewildered home owners
out in search of how things could spiral out of control so
quickly.

Not a single one of them realized the
darkness that’d befallen their upper-middle class cul-de-sac. Not
the den of monsters. Not the men that came to purify those monsters
from the world. The people could only watch in bemusement and hope
the fire trucks came before the flames moved to their homes.

Far from the fires that raged there was a
dark figure caught under the shadow of a lone oak tree. It was one
of the vampires that dwelled within the den, or rather, should have
dwelled within.

This vampire was one of the day walkers. Like
their king in black, they were vampires largely unaffected by the
sun’s light. They could move in the daylight as well as any man,
but while the day walkers weren’t much stronger than the mortals
they stalked, the freedom it afforded saw them rise to prominence
within their community. Just as long as the blood ran thick in
their veins the day was theirs.

This vampire was one of those that were to
keep all three eyes on the entrance, to guard, to make sure that
any who entered felt their wrath. He chose to flee when he heard
the men come. He left his maker and all the kindred he’d ever truly
known for dust.

It wasn’t an easy decision. It was survival.
The drive to see that he not fall prey to the fate he’d brought to
so many others. He fled to the forests behind so that no others
might lay eyes upon him. He was afraid, cut off from the world,
with only one direction left to tread.

Chapter Thirty Three

Night Kings: Sisters of Salem

Gregory Blackman

Shuffle the Deck

The Wendish fields burned with the death of
their pack master. Bernhard led them through some of the darkest
times in Salem’s history, but he couldn’t lead them through what
came next. That task was left to another.

Unfortunately, the one he tasked with that
role was several states to the south. Bernhard Wendish lived and
died for his land, his pack, and now it all threatened to leave the
bloodline he’d put in its place. The void it left in the pack
hadn’t gone unnoticed. If his son Lukas wouldn’t step up to the
challenge, others would take that step for him.

There was one that heeded the call of pack
master, one that had coveted the position since both the heir and
he were children. Kaleb Ramsey was a child no longer and tonight he
stood tall and proud before his people.

“A dark day looms on the horizon,” Kaleb said
to those gathered nearby. “The sisters have their high priestess.
The vampires have their newly elected king in black. Even the
goddamn Dukane girl has the mayor on her side. What do we have? I
respected Bernhard as much as the next wolf, but what did he leave
us with? An absentee heir and fields corrupted by the darkness that
spreads? I say, he left us with a pack of lies!”

A number of werewolves surrounded him atop
his perch. It wasn’t the whole pack, but it was enough to see power
change from one hand to the other. The woods in which they stood
may have belonged to the Wendish family. The monsters that roamed
their land did not.

“We’ve been given the raw end of a deal,”
Kaleb said with nostrils flared and scowl upon his face. “A deal I
intend to correct… if you will have me. Come, my brothers and
sisters, let us find the courage and strength to do the right
thing. Find that strength not in your heart, but in your blood. My
blood boils… and I know all of yours does, too.”

“Join with me!” He pounded on his chest in a
similar fashion as his fallen pack master had done. “Heed the call
of the warrior and together we’ll guide our pack in a new
direction!”

A single stomp of the foot broke out from the
crowd that surrounded. It was followed by another, then another,
until the whole of Kaleb’s warriors stomped on the ground; in heed
of the call of the warrior. They pounded on their chest and chanted
their oldest of hymns. All for the one they now placed the mantle
of pack master upon. He was their chosen one. Not by blood, but by
choice.

The werewolves were the only ones in these
woods to make a ruckus, but they weren’t the only ones there. Two
others watched from afar in the forests Kaleb now claimed as his
own, one of silver, the other of auburn. They watched as the sun
began to fade from the sky. It brought a chill to the air that
stiffened up Aubrey Wendish and sent a shiver down the spine of
Leanne Ramsey.

The world was ever changing before their eyes
and none of it was for the better. New lines were being drawn in
the sand and revised rules to go along with them. This was a new
Salem and it would do away with the old ways by force it if that’s
what it took.

Chapter Thirty Four

Night Kings: Sisters of Salem

Gregory Blackman

Uneasy Lies the Head

The man in black always found comfort in
solace. It wasn’t often he found such comfort in his second life.
For a race that never slept a vampire’s life was full and goal
driven. Unfortunately those goals weren’t of artistic or scholarly
pursuits. They sought to crush their enemies, overwhelm their
allies, and succeed their maker in the truest sense of the
word.

It wasn’t others that kept Remus from the
peace he desired. His head stirred with the memories, emotions, and
the thoughts of the thousands upon thousands he drew blood from.
All his victims awash into one consciousness; be they man, monster,
or kindred. They all called to him at once. They whispered of his
evil doings and the wrongs he committed, a countless number, all
while he walked the dark world rarely seen by most men. These were
atrocities that couldn’t be taken back. Nor could they be atoned
for. They simply were, as they were, and would forever remain as
such; sins of the worst kind.

“My lady,” a somber man in black whispered
into the wind, “I could use your guidance right now. What you
feared continues to fester in Salem and I believe the woods can no
longer contain its dark presence.”

He stood atop his manor, on the highest
balcony, where he clasped his hands and bowed his head in
submission.

“This was a duty I never coveted,” he
continued. “I never yearned for your position and I not once did I
conspire against you. Not until the end. You always knew the role I
had to play. You were my lady, my maker, and the one I’ll never
forget. You taught me everything I know of the supernatural world.
Yet, you forced me to forget everything I knew of the human world,
and those that dwelled within it. So you win, your majesty… in two
worlds you’re all I have left.”

The crown in which he spoke had been lost to
kindred for over a century. It was during a reaper attack, the
last
reaper attack, when the last of the vampire queen’s
royal army was slaughtered before her eyes. It was lost to the sea,
to the vampires, and enemies that would rather see it smelted down
than once more on rightful head. Now the crown was only an illusion
to the kindred of the world. Maybe it always had been.

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!”