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  The Phantom King

  By Heather Killough-Walden

  Sequel to The Vampire King

  And book two 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 de Burgh

  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 sunrise. 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 little 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 distance between them. “Have you any idea how many little shits like you have tried to get in my way during my lifetime?”

  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 room. “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 his 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 raised 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 into 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.

  Genius scientists hit the nail on the head when they claimed that everything was relative. Time was relative. Especially here in Thanatos’ realm.

  This was Purgatory, it was a desolate layer of reality, sparse and hopeless and dry. At least, right now it was. It seemed to change over time, becoming a reflection of the man who ruled over it. And because that was the mood Thanatos had been in for several of the last few centuries, that was the mood his plane was in as well. The vast desert stretched out as far as the eye could see, its distant boundaries melding with those of the astral plane and the faint,
inconceivable borders of reality.

  It was the land of lost souls – the place where spirits went to die.

  Thane’s realm took in every “essence” of every human that had been dealt an untimely and unjust death in the material world. And because, due to war and homicide, there were simply too many of these to count, time in Purgatory worked differently. It stretched itself out, turning the seconds into days and the years into centuries.

  As the Phantom King, Thane retained control of this time loop, this suspension of quantum physics, and dealt with the plethora of wronged one at a time.

  Which is what he did now.

  The air before him in the garage finished breaking apart, and inside of this strange portal-like crack, a human form coalesced. It crackled and shimmered into solid male form, dropped to its booted feet before Thane, and the air around it slammed shut once more, filling the space with the sound of thunder.

  Thane was used to this, but of course the spirit was not. The Phantom King watched and waited patiently as the newly-formed man slapped his hands over his ears and ducked down in reflex.

  A few seconds later, the man slowly straightened once more, lowered his hands, and stared around at Thane and the surrounding garage with wide, frankly terrified eyes.

  Thane frowned. The man had a familiar feel about him. It wasn’t that Thane recognized him from anywhere, it was more like an energy signature that his body carried. Like an aura. He was sure he’d felt it somewhere before.

  “Where am I?” the man asked. “Who the hell are you?” His voice was harsh and a bit hoarse, as if he’d just been screaming at the tops of his lungs. He was fresh from the fight, Thane could tell that much simply by experience. He was also fully dressed, and if Thane wasn’t mistaken, he smelled a bit like fire.

  His silver gaze narrowed. “Don’t tell me someone set you on fire.” It would be the only thing that made any sense. But it sure as hell was a strange way to kill someone.

  The man in front of him continued to stare at him, and Thane had a chance to look him up and down. He was clearly an American, given what he’d already said and the accent in which he’d said it. Plus, Thane’s magic always fed him the basics about a spirit when they appeared in his realm. This one had grown up as an orphan and had no living family remaining. He was the last of his line.

  He was tall and well built, with a hard edge. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?” Thane reasoned quietly.

  The man swallowed hard and straightened. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

  “I asked first,” Thane said, trying not to smile. It was just that he had so few chances at fun in his line of work. And again, he was feeling mean. Also, there was something about this guy that just ticked him off.

  The man watched him in silence for several long, contemplative moments – moments that Thane magically stretched into the timeline ahead. After all, another murder victim was sure to come along any minute now.

  “Detective,” the man corrected as he straightened a bit and clearly tried to regain control of his faculties. “Detective Steven Lazarus.”

  Thane gave a simple nod.

  “Now please tell me,” the detective went on, his expression desperate. “Am I dead?”

  “Oh yeah,” Thane said, nodding as he turned his back to the detective for a second and bent to pick up the tool he’d been using a few moments ago. “As a doornail,” he finished, and once more straightened.

  He glanced at Lazarus, and the detective at once came forward, rushing toward Thane with his hands out as if pleading. Thane frowned as a wave of something strange washed over him. It moved before the fallen cop like a ripple of water, dark and tingly. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it took him by surprise. Thane unconsciously took a step back and found his leg flush with the side of the bike he’d been tinkering with.

  But the cop continued forward, and on reflex, Thane held up his hand. The Anime stopped at once, blinking in confusion and looking down at his body.

  That was when Thane realized that this particular Anime had taken on an incredibly solid form. It happened every once in a while; a spirit’s anger or desperation was strong enough that the energy it possessed made it a good deal more tangible. But in this case… it was almost as if the detective had simply been reformed. Whole.

  Thane squinted at Lazarus’ broad chest. He couldn’t see through it. Not at all. Not even when he really tried.

  “Shit,” he muttered, speaking more to himself than to Lazarus, who was clearly confused as to why he’d stopped in his tracks when Thane had raised his hand. The detective tried to move, tried to come forward again, but remained glued to the spot with Thane’s magic.

  “You’re a live wire, aren’t you?” Again, Thane was talking to himself.

  But this time, the detective’s blue eyes narrowed on Thane, shooting aquamarine sparks. “If I’m dead, where the hell am I?”

  “Purgatory,” Thane told him. He wondered what he was going to do with this one. The really pissed spirits often caused problems for him. Not that he minded, really. Life got incredibly boring without the occasional rabble rouser to deal with.

  But there was something wholly, entirely, and uncomfortably different about the man who stood before him now. And the wheels in Thane’s head were spinning furiously as they tried to figure out exactly what the hell that was.

  “And the demon who killed me?”

  Thane blinked. “Demon?” His attention focused.

  “The demon who is after my girlfriend!” the detective hissed.

  If Thane hadn’t been the Phantom King and well aware that demons actually existed and that they did tend to go after people’s girlfriends, and if he hadn’t been staring at the spirited evidence of demonic foul play standing before him then and there, he might have automatically labeled the cop as crazy.

  But Thane knew better.

  “You were set on fire by a demon who killed you to get to your girlfriend.” He was working things out in his head, thinking out loud more than anything.

  The detective glared at him. “You didn’t answer me,” Lazarus told him, his white teeth gritted in furious impatience. “I shot him in the head point blank,” he said. “Eleven times. So where the fuck is he?” The detective raised his arms and gestured to the garage and the dust-filled ghost town beyond. “Is he here somewhere too?”

  Thane wasn’t sure how to answer that question. The truth was, he’d never dealt with a spirit as animated as this, he wasn’t sure what kind of demon he’d been fighting with, and for that matter, no one had any real idea what happened to demons when they died. If they died.

  And that darkness that Thane had sensed earlier wafted around the detective like black pixie dust. Thane could actually see it now. It was truthfully rather beautiful.

  But it was also ominous, and Thane’s insides felt heavy with trepidation.

  Suddenly, the detective shook his head and dropped his hands at his sides as if giving up. “Fuck this,” he spat. “Siobhan needs me. She’s alone and it doesn’t take a first class detective to figure out that you’re not answering me because that god damned demon is still there – right where I left him.” He shook his head, his expression fiercely determined. “Fuck this,” he said again.

  And then, for the first time in the history of the desolate realm and its Phantom King, Thanatos watched as one of his Anime stepped back in his garage and the air behind him cracked open once more.

  Detective Steven Lazarus retreated right into this newly born crack and was at once surrounded by fissures of light and magic.

  Thane was rushing forward before he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t even certain what it was he was witnessing, but he knew that he needed to do something about it. Whatever it was.

  However, he was too late.

  That beautiful, sparkling darkness that had been growing around the detective wrapped around him now like a tight blanket of starry night. As Thane closed in on it, that blanket sucked Detective Lazarus through the crack in the air, smot
hered the hole until it shrank like a fire devoid of oxygen, and then whipped outward in a strange, black flash.

  The air thundered, as it always did when it sealed itself back up, and Thane skidded to a halt. He stared at the space where a newly formed spirit had entered his world – and then escaped it once more.

  Such a thing had never happened before. Not ever.

  “Lazarus,” Thane whispered, letting the name and its historical significance roll off of his tongue. Then he took a slow, deep breath and ran a hand through his thick black hair. Life for the Phantom King had just gotten a hell of a lot more interesting.

  Chapter One

  Siobhan Ashdown slammed her car door and looked up at the house. The realtor was already ten steps ahead of her and fumbling with the metal key holder than hung from the house’s front door knob. Siobhan stayed where she was, her light brown eyes narrowed on the house’s façade, her auburn hair brushing against her cheeks, neck and bare arms.

  Down the street, a cop car kept a discreet distance, its occupants quietly watching Siobhan, though she could feel their presence as strongly as if they were standing inside of her personal space bubble. She turned and shot them an “I know you’re there and I’m grateful” smile, waved, and acknowledged the return flash of headlights. Then she looked back up at the house.

  It was a Victorian styled manor and, according to its records, it was one hundred and thirteen years old. From what Siobhan could see, it showed. The wrap-around porch hosted broken beams and a sagging roof topped with cracked and splitting tiles. Half of the windows on all three of its above-ground levels were shattered or boarded up. The red brick chimney jutting from the top roof was half as tall as it should have been and quickly crumbling to its foundation.

  The building’s wooden exterior had seen so many layers of paint, it was difficult to tell which was supposed to be the latest, and the house’s grounds were a tangled mass of dead or dying rose bushes, shrubs, and crab grass.