Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (16 page)

Akil gave him nothing in response. He
understood well what Remus had done by sparing his life. It would
be an act not easily forgotten. He disappeared into the night,
amidst the carnage, without a word said to his embattled
brethren.

The battle raged on in the forests, in the
fields, and the front yard of the Wendish home. The throngs of
vampires that descended thought they would come and take what the
lady wanted to be taken. They thought wrong and found a pack of
werewolves chomping at the bit to take back what was already
theirs.

Remus stood there and watched as kindred died
all around him. Those with some sense turned to flee into the
forests they’d emerged from. Little did these vampires know their
actions would only delay the inevitable. There was only one thing
the lady in red loathed more than failure. That was desertion and
those vampires would come to learn firsthand how their queen dealt
with such disregard for the crown.

“We walk together,” said a husky voice from
behind. “Words I never thought I would extend to one of
your
kind.”

Remus turned to greet the recently turned
Bernhard. He had flecks of wolf hide still adorned on his body and
a larger than life grin plastered on his face. He extended a hand
to the man in black; a hand that was reciprocated in kind.

“You saved the life of one of our own,” said
Aubrey as she joined her husband and son on the grass, “and you did
so against the wishes of your queen.”

“I did,” Remus replied.

“You know what she’ll do to you,” Aubrey
said.

“The same thing she desires for all of us.
She’ll not stop until the boy is under her domain.”

“Then she will perish,” said Bernhard, “as
have all others that threatened our livelihood.”

“You’re too wise to play the fool,
councilor,” seethed Remus, cracks in his stoic foundation starting
to show. “Even with our combined strength there’s little that can
be done against the queen of the vampires. She’ll kill
everyone.”

“What do you expect us to do?” Lukas
asked.

“I expect you to run,” Remus said coolly.

“Unconceivable!” Bernhard bellowed with
nostrils flared and arms flailed around him. “We run from no one!
Not a reaper. Not a vampire. Not even a goddamn archdemon could
force us from our land!”

Remus couldn’t help but cut a wide-set smirk
across his pale face in admiration of the werewolf’s doggedness. He
looked the pack master dead in the eyes and saw no waver in his
heart. This was a man that would die to protect his land, his
family, and his pack. It was a respectable quality, whether it was
from the man or the wolf, and one not often seen in monsters of the
night. It was at that moment Remus decided that if these wolves
were prepared to die then he’d see his fate tied with theirs.

“She comes!” a bloodied Kaleb shouted from
the fields afar. “The vampire queen comes for us!”

Along the landscape of trees there stood a
lone speck of red that pierced through the blackness. Before
Bernhard Wendish could command his pack otherwise, many of the
wolves took to the offensive against their most hated adversary.
The lady in red brushed off their attacks with ease, and as each
werewolf approached, they were sent to the ground, awash in their
own blood.

“Run,” said Remus to the pack master and his
family. “I shall hold the lady at bay until you’re far from this
place.”

“Never,” Bernhard barked. He turned from the
undead man in black and towards his wife and son. “Not while there
is still so much to fight for…”

The werewolves that survived the vampire
onslaught did so only to fall at the hands of the vampire queen,
now halfway across the open field and unlikely to halt her advance.
It was then Bernhard Wendish separated himself from wife and son
and took towards the field where the lady in red lay.

“You mustn’t,” said Remus with hands extended
in the pack master’s direction. “She will tear you apart!”

Aubrey Wendish placed a hand on Remus
Castalon before he could use the shroud to bring the defiant wolf
back. With a glint of sadness in her eyes that Lukas only witnessed
once before she stopped the man in black so that he couldn’t
interfere in the decisions of the pack.

Bernhard charged towards the vampire queen.
His speed picked up until he couldn’t force his human legs any
faster, and he called out to the wolf for aid.

Bernhard changed into the werewolf while in
full stride. It was a task difficult and strenuous for even the
strongest of their kind and done only in times of great need. Such
a need presented itself tonight for Bernhard, who couldn’t bear to
witness one more of his pack fall.

The monster inside him came out with a
vengeance and tore the earth underneath his claws to shreds on his
way to the lady in red. Bernhard lunged at her teeth bared, intent
to deliver a fatal blow, but he would find no such blow available
to him. Not while the vampire queen held him by the throat.

“Father!” cried Lukas, but it was already too
late for words to save one so determined to sacrifice himself for
the greater good. He tried to chase after his father, but Aubrey
held him close and refused to let son chase father to the edge of
reason.

“Whether you agree with his actions or not,”
Aubrey whispered into his ear, “this is your father’s battle.”

“No,” Remus interjected. “This battle should
be mine.”

Bernhard Wendish thrashed around in front of
the lady in red to not avail. He was firmly within her grip and not
likely to be released any time soon. There was a glimmer in her
eyes that he couldn’t place, a curiosity, and yet one of utter
disillusionment.

“You disappoint me, councilor,” said the lady
in red. “I was assured you wouldn’t interfere. That miscalculation
shall be corrected by my hand.”

The vampire queen had the werewolf right
where she wanted. What she didn’t have was the wolf she wanted.
With the flick of her wrist Xenia snapped the neck of the red wolf
and let his limp body fall to the ground. Now the lady would have
the wolf she wanted.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Night Kings: Dayside

Gregory Blackman

Demonic Retribution

Elsa Dukane looked on as werewolves threw
themselves into the lady’s fire. She was helpless to stop them, and
when she saw Bernard Wendish chase after the women responsible for
such needless bloodshed, she truly believed this dreamlike state
she was in to be over. She would soon find it had only just
begun.

With the snap of Bernhard’s neck a collective
cry broke out amongst the werewolves that remained. The pack was
defeated, their pack master the latest casualty, the most
meaningful. There was nothing left to lose. Nothing left to gain.
It was their worst fears come alive. They were now a pack without a
master.

Elsa watched it all unfold from the porch for
she had little choice in the matter. Her knees were locked and her
feet planted; there wasn’t a place she could go. Elsa would die
here if the lady in red wished it so and there wasn’t a thing she
could do to stop it.

She didn’t belong anywhere near this madness.
That’s what she continued to tell herself as she watched it all go
down.

For Lukas the events passed by in a blur of
emotion. He watched his friends and elders get torn to shreds at
the vampire queen’s hand. Then he watched the same of his father. A
small piece of him died in that instant and he broke out in similar
stride as his father had done just moments before.

“Lukas!” cried Aubrey as she reached out for
her son. “You have to come back to me!”

It was too late for Aubrey Wendish, too late
for her wayward son, but not so for the vampire that stood with
werewolves. Remus could save Lukas and yet he didn’t budge one
inch. He didn’t fear the queen of the vampires. She was but a myth.
He feared the woman behind the crown. He feared Xenia’s retribution
above all else in this world; second death included.

It was one thing to defy her orders and open
dialogue with her enemies. It was something entirely different to
raise a hand against her. Remus wanted to believe he was capable of
such a feat. That when the moment called he would step up and take
his maker’s life. He lied to himself. That moment came and passed
and it was all because Remus feared reprisal from the lady that
brought him into the supernatural world.

Remus watched the young, determined werewolf
charge toward the same inevitable fate as his father. Elsa watched.
The remnants of Bernhard’s pack watched. The only one not to do so
was Aubrey, mother of the pack, and none more important to her than
the one headed to an early grave. She couldn’t bear to witness the
events that were to unfold.

Unlike his father before him, Lukas kept the
monster inside while he passed through the open field. The black
vines still ran underneath his skin, traces of the lady’s
possession that haunted him to this night. His friends and family
risked their lives to see those dark veins recede. What his father
started his mother finished until the vampire queen’s command over
him had been lifted. It didn’t come without cost to Lukas and all
those around him. Their lives would forever be tainted by the
lady’s presence inside his head, affected in the minutest ways, yet
affected all the same. He would repay them the only way possible.
He would repay his brethren with blood.

Bernhard tried to teach Lukas in his ways,
but they were lessons that fell on deaf ears until too late in
life. The ways of the pack were ancient and mired in dark history.
It was that history Lukas could not accept. For a man in the modern
world those traditions no longer held relevance. That’s what Lukas
believed until the moment he saw his father sacrificed for those
very traditions. It was the only thing that separated them from the
monsters they fought.

Bernhard Wendish wanted the next pack master
to be his son, but if Lukas had come to realize anything on this
fateful night, it was that one doesn’t always get what they want in
life. Lukas could not be that man. He could not be that
monster.

Despite all his reasons, Lukas didn’t rush
through the fields with revenge on his mind. It was to his father’s
side Lukas went with his face flush with tears. He scooped the
lifeless body of Bernhard into his arms, oblivious to the lady in
red’s presence, now a mere ten yards away.

Everything Xenia wanted was there for her to
attain. All she need do is walk a few paces and claim her reward.
He stood a shadow of his former self, so caught up in his emotions
that it subverted the warrior inside. He was a broken man. The kind
that was perfect for the taking.

Lukas’ present state of mind did little to
curb the lady’s appetite. She would build Lukas back up as she’d
done to all others of worth that dared to disobey her in the past.
That’s the way it had to be if she was to call the werewolves
hers.

He would resist. He would fight. Still, he
would fail as all others before him had. Only Lukas wasn’t like any
of those before him. He was different, special, of that the lady
was certain. Within his lanky frame lurked a monster not even Lukas
could see.

That monster could sway the pendulum of power
against the vampire queen, but it could also secure her position
for another five hundred years. Xenia would control the beast
inside or none would. Not even the young man that brought that
monster into this world.

“I knew you’d come back to me,” Xenia
said.

Lukas gave the vampire queen no attention.
His eyes stayed locked on the corpse in his arms.

“I have
much
planned for you,”
continued the lady, “and those plans begin tonight.”

A low rumble overtook the fields they found
themselves. It came from deep within Lukas Wendish and reverberated
outward to pierce the hide of all the wolves the remained. They
joined him in this war cry, as did his mother, a pack together
until the end. That war cry saw him lower his father to the ground
and ball his fists up in rage.

Lukas lunged at the lady in red with
everything he had left to give. Like his father before him it was
an assault that would prove fruitless and he was halted by the hand
of the vampire queen, but unlike his father he was released by that
hand and forced to the ground in submission.

“Long have I sought a wolf I could call
equal,” Xenia said softly. “For many years I aspired for peace with
your kind; a united front against the reapers, against mankind.
Yet, your barbaric race wasn’t ready to heed the words I had to
offer. They chose war over peace. That war has continued for
centuries. That is until tonight.”

“We will set fire to the packs of old,” said
the lady in red as she knelt down to eye level, “and bring a new
dominion over the land…
your
dominion… guided by
my
hand.”

Lukas resisted the vampire queen’s gaze as
long as he could before he buckled to her will. He fought with
every ounce he had left to give, but he fought a futile battle.
Xenia forced herself inside where she could pick at his very being
and mold it in her image.

“Let us leave this place,” whispered the lady
in red, “for it is home to you no longer.”

Xenia moved to grab hold of Lukas once more,
but her approach slowed to a crawl, and then not even that. With
her hands halfway extended she came to a standstill in the dead of
night.

“What trickery is this?” an enraged vampire
queen asked. “Show yourself!”

Dozens of hooded figures emerged from the
woods. Those same woods that once held the vampires and the
werewolves that chased them. Aside from their somber attire these
figures were unimposing and walked with a certain grace the
monsters lacked.

Their collective hands were raised in the
lady’s direction, palms towards her and all fingers pointed upward
to the night sky. They didn’t move as monsters, because they
weren’t monsters of the night. These were flesh and blood women led
by the clairvoyant Cetra Altaras and accompanied by Gemma Kohl.
Sisters of Salem united under the night sky after centuries
apart.