The Phantom King (The Kings)

The Phantom King

By Heather Killough-Walden

Sequel to The Vampire King

And book t
wo in the
BBW spinoff series, The Kings

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The Phantom King

“And far away in some recess, the Lord and the Devil are now playing chess. The Devil still cheats and wins more souls….” –
The Spanish Train, by Chris d
e
B
urgh

Prologue

The metal of the gun slipped in
Steven
’s wet grip. It wasn’t supposed to do that. He was never supposed to be in this state, sweating, terrified, without a firm handle on the situation – or his gun.

But when the back window shattered, exploding inward in an
eruption
of tinkling, foreboding sound,
Steven
didn’t rise from where he crouched between the couch and the overturned coffee table. He didn’t stand and face his enemy. Not this time.

He was learning. The lesson was hard and fast and unreal, but
Steven
’s mind was that of a trained cop, and despite the impossible nature of what he was facing,
it knew what to do: Absorb the information and assimilate.

If he stood up, he was a dead man. If he faced this opponent,
he wouldn’t live to see the sun
rise. His only hope was to get out of the house and as far away as possible
,
as
quickly
as possible.
Which was to say… there really was no hope at all.

Steven
closed his eyes and swallowed hard when he heard footsteps slowly cross the kitchen tiles.
Glass popped and crunched beneath a set of boots
,
and a trickle of sweat threatened
Steven
’s eye.
His breaths were harsh in the sudden, threatening silence. He tried to still it in his lungs.
He’ll hear me
, he thought.

“You’re a plucky litt
le human,” his attacker said, a faint accent and the sound of genuine amusement lacing his words. “I’ll give you that.”

Steven
very carefully wiped the sweat from his brow and cut his gaze to the living room door. It was twenty feet away. Twenty feet between him and possible freedom.

“
You’re in my way, detective,” the voice said. He was nearer now, boots casually closing the dista
nce between them. “Have you
any idea how many little shits like you have tried
to get in my way during my life
time?”

Steven
considered his options. He had eleven bullets left in his clip. But the first four had been fired point-blank
into his attacker’s chest
and had no effect. None whatsoever.

“Thousands,” the voice said. He laughed, the sound ominous and low. It raised the hairs on
Steven
’s arms and turned his stomach to lead. “
Thousands
.”

Steven
tried to ignore the voice. What else did he have? His phone was on the kitchen counter.
Worthless
. The house was set back from the road and a good half an acre from the nearest neighbor. No one was planning on visiting. He was alone.

“She’s going to come home and find you in a puddle of blood on the
living room
floor, detective,” his enemy told him
as he came flush with the threshold of the living ro
om. “And in her distress, she’
ll be weak.”

Steven
’s heart hammered, his gaze narrowed, and his gut twisted. The voice laughed, sending pain down
Steven
’s jaw as his teeth clenched hard enough to crack a molar. “
And she’ll be mine.”

All reason, all logic, and everything
Steven
had ever learned came together in one split decision then and there.

He wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.

The best he could hope for was to give
Siobhan
a chance to do what he couldn’t do.
Escape
.

Steven
rose from behind the couch and turned just as the demon did. They faced each other head to head, eye to eye. The demon’s red gaze flicked to the gun in
Steven
’s hand,
and recognition passed before hi
s beautiful but oh-so-wrong features. He knew what
Steven
was going to do. The detective had learned his lesson the
first
time.

The demon acted in retaliation just as
Steven
raised his arm and pulled the trigger. The detective’s tall form was enveloped in angry, red fire even as he unloaded all eleven of his bullets into his opponent’s face.

Outside on the lawn, a large ginger cat watched the house with big, yellow eyes. His tail twitched as a window exploded and flames licked out to kiss the falling temperatures of night.

The
cat
made a strange
brrreow
-
like sound
and cocked his head slightly to one side just before he r
aised his chin to watch
a stream of red smoke lift from the chimney of the now-burning house and disappear into the night.

A second later, as sirens wailed to life in the far distance and the house crackled to bright, burning life, the ginger cat turned and bolted, disappearing as well.

*****

Thanatos
, who went by Thane most of the time,
knelt beside his latest project and ran his arm over his forehead. He wasn’t normally bothered by temperatures or climate; they rolled off of him the way they would a ghost. But today, he was off his game.

The Phantom King could go a very long time without sleep. Days, weeks, even months. Every once in a while however, the energy that made him who and what he was needed to be replenished. He’d slept
last night. And that’s when the dreams had come.

He’d been standing in the desert, alone as usual. The air shifted, growing dark, and the ground became checkered as if it were a massive chess board. In the distance, outlined by the horizon, a shape appeared. He could see her long hair blowing in the wind,
highlighted
by the sun like a flame. But he couldn’t see anything else, no matter how fast he ran toward her, no matter how long he dreamed.

He wondered whether it had anything to do with the thirteen kings and queens that the Vampire King had told them all about during a meeting a few months ago. He wondered…. But he tried not to wonder too hard. Thoughts like that could drive a man mad.

Now
, after the dream-filled sleep
,
he was
physically
whole
again
, but mentally exhausted. It was a new sensation for him and one that left him feeling edgy.
Even
mean
.

Thane pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. And then he
felt the presence at his back in much the same manner as he always did. It was a disturbance in the air, an unsettled sensation, as if the wind were preparing to take a breath and blow.

Thane
did what he always did when he felt that particular disturbance. He tossed the tool he was presently using in
to
the tool chest to his right and stood, coming to his full impressive height before reaching for the rag atop the work bench and wiping his grease-covered hands.

Then he turned
in the dusty but relatively cooler gloom of his garage and waited as the air in front of him shimmered, warped, and separated.