Night Kings: The Complete Anthology (40 page)

“The Sunkeeper Temple is no more,” he said,
wistfully and between blows. “I alone basked in the inner chamber’s
radiance before it crumbled. I alone have the power to see our
people into a new age. Don’t fret, high priestess, your sisters
will be allowed into my kingdom… when I have your severed head upon
my throne!”

Hans turned his blade towards the ground and
raced back towards Cetra with all the strength given to him by dead
gods. She could hardly keep up between the swipes of his sword and
intermittent bolts of lightning, but a moment of clarity allowed
her to fire off a blast of liquid fire that struck Hans square in
the chest.

Hans stopped in his tracks. He stood there,
lurched over, with his sword clattering on the pavement as it hung
precariously in his hands.

“You sadden me, high priestess,” said Hans,
now struck with a manic bout of laughter. “I expected more from
those sent to replace us!”

Hans arched his back to showcase the damage
wrought to his robes, but upon his flesh there wasn’t a noticeable
mark of any sort. With his claymore now firmly in grip he ran
headfirst back into the duel. He knew the priestess would have a
plan for his approach, but now that he’d seen her worst he didn’t
rightly care.

Hans took another two blows to the chest
before he met her on equal grounds and used his blade to swipe her
feet out from under her. Cetra crashed to the ground, but despite
the pain she endured, remained silent. If any of her sisters were
to intervene they would already be dead. She couldn’t have that on
her shoulders. This was still her battle, only now she realized it
wasn’t one the goddess could win.

“How can you fight for them?” Hans sneered at
her foolish displays of defense. He realized that his ancient blade
was not needed for what came next and dropped it to the ground
before him.

“I don’t fight
for
the likes of them,”
Cetra said as flecks of blood touched her lips. “I fight
against
the likes of you.”

“You did,” he corrected.

Hans clasped his hands together, only to see
them ripped apart in a furious sweeping motion. In the once empty
air between his hands now dozens of swirling black energy filled
the void.

“Your pillar still remains connected to this
world, doesn’t it?” Hans asked as his hands lingered from her body.
“I knew you weren’t that powerful to pull something like that off.
There may yet be a silver lining in this night, high priestess.
Your grand display of strength back there only further my resolve
to burn your town alive. Your secrets will be mine and then the
country beyond will know of our kind… and then they, too, will
fall.”

“Never,” Cetra said with eyes closed shut.
“The goddess will never allow it.”

“I’ve heard ‘never’ before,” he said,
laughing as the dark energy drew near. “After a while it starts to
become dead air.”

Cetra believed the last thing she would hear
was the sound of the dead souls that writhed in agony between the
fingers of Hans Brackhaus. Yet, no such end came, and when the high
priestess opened her eyes she watched the warlock king do battle
with another.

A black noose was throttled around the throat
of Hans Brackhaus, but there was no intent to pull or break. It
began to thin and thin, until the ethereal black noose had turned
into a razor wire.

“Filthy vampire,” Hans croaked before he
disappeared into a smoky haze. “I’ll see you in Hell!”

Hans burst back into reality across the
street where he immediately set upon Remus Castalon with a forceful
bolt of hellfire. The blast struck the vampire king as he lay
perched on a stone figure atop the carnage, but he fell neither
into the building, nor to the ground below. Remus was swallowed
whole by the shadows behind where the shroud waited its weakened
tormentor.

Hans was allowed to savor his victory for a
few fleeted moments before a powerful blast of white light caused
him to stumble. Then another discharge struck him and Hans was
placed the same pavement he put many others.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Hans said with
his eyes on his next opponent, “Daddy’s little girl joins him in
his most foolish of battles.”

“You’re damn right I am,” said Elsa, for the
first time proud of that label. She stepped towards him with hands
beside her in white rage. “My father trusted you. He believed in
you. He spent hours locked away in the night when he should’ve been
there for his own flesh and blood! I can’t fault him for those
decisions. Not anymore. I can fault you, however…”

Hans scrambled towards his claymore, but a
wave of white crashed against the sword first and knocked it back
to witches entrenched in a battle of their own.

“For better or worse, my father made me what
I am today.” Elsa sauntered towards the warlock as if there wasn’t
a force on this world that could do her harm. “I don’t know if I’m
a force for good in this world or a force for evil. The truth is
that I may never know, old man Brackhaus, but there is
one
thing in this world I do know.”

“Get back!” Hans bellowed.

Hans refused to show his opponent any
weakness, and while he stood without sword, he wasn’t without his
weapons. He had more than enough tools to finish this opponent and
then he would return to slay the high priestess and her followers.
The unknown girl only stood to delay the inevitable.

“I know now what needs to be done,” Elsa
said. Her eyes burst into the same flames the warlock king saw in
the eyes of her father. “I need to let the monster out. I need to
feast.”

What Hans saw in those fires incensed him
into a blind rage. He saw the destruction of his life’s goals, and
while they might one day unearth the Sunkeeper Temple it would
never be what it once was. Whatever these two beings were, they
were responsible for all the loss in his sheltered world. The
father knew pain. Now it was time for the daughter.

“Your kind destroyed our temple!” Hans
frothed at the mouth. His arm was extended to his side where an
open palm saw a dark mass of energy began to take shape. “If your
father is no use to us then you’ll have to make do,
little
girl. I’ll rip that light out of you if it’s the last thing I
do!”

An ethereal sword took shape in Hans’ hand to
replace the one he lost and immediately set to the task to
eliminating Elsa Dukane from this world. He soon found that to be
more of a challenge than he first imagined and any attempt made to
cut through unknown girl was seen wide of its mark.

Elsa fought like a woman possessed as she
danced in the night, always out of reach for the warlock king’s
sword to harm her, but even the best she had to offered couldn’t
avert all blows that came her way. Hans lashed out and struck, not
with his steel, but the winds channeled in the blade’s wake.

Elsa was thrown through the air and into an
abandoned lot tucked into in the middle of the commerce district.
She shrugged off the assault, but hadn’t a moment to recover before
Hans Brackhaus came for her once again. He appeared in a cloud of
black smoke and moved to continue their altercation with black
sword in hand. She moved to defend herself, but it turned out that
there was another more willing to do that job for her.

Lukas Wendish struck at the warlock king with
everything he had left in his furred tank. He continued to pummel
on Hans Brackhaus until his knuckles were covered in blood, but
when Lukas looked upon the flesh of opponent he found it unmarked.
It was Lukas’ own blood on his hands and that blood continued to
burn right down to the bone.

“What did you do t-to me?”

“Nothing you didn’t bring upon yourself,”
Hans replied. “Mangy dogs are beneath me; no matter the shape they
come in.”

He put the boot to Lukas Wendish that sent
the young werewolf back to his brothers in waiting and out of his
way. He casually looked towards the unknown girl, as if he’d done
nothing out of sorts, and said, “Now where were we?”

Elsa had one move and she wasn’t particularly
adept in its use. Whatever secrets Elsa Dukane inherited from her
father were beyond her on this night. She would have to make do and
let her other guide her to see their vested interests to
completion.

Only Elsa wasn’t alone in this fight and she
soon found another to join the battle in her name.

“Your time is at hand, dark one,” said Gemma
Kohl with hands of frozen fury. “This is for Charleston!”

She unleashed a frozen orb that saw the foot
of Hans Brackhaus frozen to the ground, and when the warlock king
moved to free himself, she struck him in the chest with her own
brand of fiery wrath. Gemma waited patiently for a response, ready
to fire again if needed.

She knew her reserves were low and that she
wouldn’t be able to keep up this pace for long. That wouldn’t keep
her from being there for a friend in need.

“Interesting,” said Hans, heaved over with
his hands around his stomach, “you pack a tougher punch than your
high priestess. You’ll make a fine addition to our new world.”

A hoarse laughter started to emanate from the
gut of the warlock king and it soon spread throughout the abandoned
lot. Gemma panicked and fired multiple bursts of energy into her
dark robed opponent, but none of them appeared to do any good. When
she moved to strike for the last time, Hans reached out and struck
her with a bolt of lightning. She crashed into the pavement and
rolled to a dead stop as the steam sizzled from her body.

“Hold on, Gem!” Elsa reached out to lend her
friend aid, but a familiar foe arrived to do just that in her
stead. It was the man in black, freed from the confines of the
shroud and ready to act. He scooped the limp body of Gemma Kohl
into his arms and looked back to Elsa Dukane to convey his
findings.

A stiff grin crept over Remus’ face to let
Elsa know her friend still lived. They began to melt into their own
shadows on the ground and away from the further harm. He wouldn’t
tell any of them how he managed to come back. Only those that knew
the shroud’s embrace would understand the sacrifice he made. Only
they could judge him.

“Shall we?” asked Hans Brackhaus, taking a
formal bow towards, Elsa Dukane, a most surprisingly capable foe.
He never could’ve envisioned one so svelte, so young, to be the one
to grant him the honorable kill he desired. He’d slain vampires,
werewolves, and witches tonight, but still, Elsa and her father
drew breath. Despite these failings of his, he would take what was
given and he would take it with a wide-set smirk upon his face.

He reviled in the bloodlust and looked over
to a black horde of brothers that would soon break the witches and
their hold over Salem. “If another brother fells the high priestess
before I arrive, I’ll gut you as I did the mayor!”

Elsa charged towards Hans, but in her enraged
state she left her mind open for penetration. She was caught in the
warlock king’s cerebral web, unable to make any sort of move
against him.

Hans Brackhaus took his time to approach and
made sure the warrior of light could see the blade of evil spirits
he carried beside him.

It was that sword Hans now used to puncture
Elsa’s flesh as if it were butter.

“Oh,” said Hans with a devilish twinkle in
his eye, “you didn’t expect it to hurt that bad?”

She didn’t, in fact, and as the sword removed
itself from her side, Elsa found the wound refused to heal. She
could feel the blood inch its way up her throat, the numbing
sensation of adrenaline not far behind.

When Hans saw for himself how his
otherworldly blade had affected the unknown girl, he stabbed her
again and again with a vehement passion. “I want to know what you
are! You and your father played me for the fool. I, the goddamn
king of kings, made to appear as though a simpleminded commoner!
I’ll come to know your secrets, girl, or I’ll see them burned from
this world!”

It wasn’t Elsa the warlock king loathed. Nor
was it her father. It was the humiliation he endured at the hands
of beings he considered his lesser. The brotherhood was a vast
network of sleeper agents and shell corporations that spanned
borders. Because of this, they relied on information and secrecy to
keep their lines of communication open. To have his authority
tested by one he brought into the fold was too much for his
prodigious ego to handle. He needed to be done with them.

“Who are you?” an irate Hans Brackhaus
asked.

He stabbed Elsa again. She was frozen without
recourse available to her, but still she fought his pull while the
taste of her own blood crept up her throat. Hotter and hotter her
eyes burned as the pain and the strain became too much to
maintain.

“Who are you?” he repeated to a thunderous
roar.

“You’ve known me many years, councilor,” said
an empowered Elsa Dukane as she broke her mental locks with ease,
“and I think somewhere deep down you always knew the answer to that
question. I’m the bitch that’s going to put you six feet under
Salem.”

Elsa Dukane had proven to be a most
worthwhile adversary for Hans Brackhaus, but she battled with a
king on this night and a king always comes prepared. The moment she
uttered what would be her last words, Hans plunged his black sword
into the heart of the unknown girl.

Streams of white burst from her chest until
the light could no longer be withstood by the warlock king and the
battle on 1
^st
Street came to an abrupt end as the
witches and warlocks surrendered to radiant light. There was only
one that braved the white fires of Elsa’s other. That man was Lukas
Wendish and he would see himself burnt to a crisp before he gave up
on his friend in need. No matter his intentions, it would seem that
time wasn’t on the young wolf’s side. He wouldn’t make it to her in
time.