Chapter Five
Night Kings: The Lady in Red
Gregory Blackman
Holistic Healer
It would take more than firm hands and words of caution to keep Elsa Dukane from Lukas’ side. She pushed through a sea of less than gentlemanly guests to get to her friend and when she arrived at the center of the dance floor it was almost as if she didn’t exist to the enthralled Lukas Wendish. All he could see was red, the color of the lady, and the black stain on his honor that prevented him from getting closer.
“Nothing to see here,” the lady in red said to the gathered crowd. “Turn back to your partners and resume the festivities.”
The citizens of Salem turned back to their partners and they did just as the lady command. It was as if they were hypnotized by the woman’s crimson aura, powerless to break from her grasp, and seemingly unwilling to do so.
With the guests otherwise occupied it was Lukas’ turn to return to the offensive. Only he picked the wrong moment to plan his attack, and as he cocked back his fist to strike, he collided with a target far from his mark.
“Elsa!” Lukas hollered as he turned around to see his closest friend down on the ground. Both the act and the emotions it stirred within were enough to snap the young man from whatever hold the lady in red had over him. He dropped to the floor immediately and scooped up his bloody-nosed friend. She fought him all the while and remained on the ground until Gemma arrived to calm the two of them down.
“Are we really doing this?” an alarmed Gemma Kohl asked. “Get up, the two of you. We need to get out of here—now!”
“Not until I get her name,” Lukas said.
He hoisted himself up and turned to greet his lady in red, but no longer was there a lady that awaited him. She’d vanished into thin air and the man in black along with her. No one around seemed to realize their crimson mistress had left. No one seemed aware of anything except for the orders they continued to follow to the letter.
“She’s gone,” Gemma said with a tug on her friend’s less than fashionable coat, “and so, too, must we be if you want to see it through to the next sunrise.”
“What are you talking about?” Elsa asked. “You’re not making any sense.”
“And I’m not going to until we’re far from this place,” insisted Gemma, still trying to pry Lukas away from his search for the lady in red. “This festival is a bust. We’re leaving.”
The three of them argued the entire way out of Blackrose Manor, none more than the spellbound Lukas, still mildly under another’s control and unable to keep from going five minutes without mention of her.
Elsa hadn’t fared much better since her entanglement on the ballroom floor. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but it was the blow to her ego that worried Gemma most of all. Lukas had been blindsided by the ominous woman in red, taken for all he was worth, and ready to give so much more. Gemma had seen such possession before, once, and she never wished to see it again.
It was to her home they headed, to the slums of Salem, where not even the monsters dare tread. At least that’s what Gemma counted on when she took her friends there. They made no detours on route to her house. Gemma wouldn’t hear of it and yet she refused them any explanation of the sort.
“You know,” said Lukas, “I don’t think I’ve ever been inside your house.”
It was a home visited by many in the area, but Gemma’s friends were not among them. They never asked her what kind of work her mother performed. Some said voodoo, others holistic healing, but only one of them knew for certain.
The ramshackle bungalow Gemma called home was no more than three rooms connected by a living room, half a bathroom, and even less of a kitchen. Elsa had single rooms that were larger than their entire house footprint, a fact that seemed to bother Elsa more than it did her friend.
She’d been in Gemma’s home a few times over the years, but her mother, Marianne Kohl, forbid such notions when she was around. She was, however, prone to long stretches of time on the road. This wasn’t one of those times and Elsa wasn’t sure if she would ever return.
It would appear that Gemma agreed with such notions and she’d already started to remove some of the miscellaneous objects from her mother’s home. Yet, with so many esoteric belongings and not nearly enough closet space, much of her mother’s aura still remained inside these walls.
For Lukas there wasn’t a word to his assessment of Gemma’s home. In an instant he knew why he hadn’t been allowed inside. None could survive the embarrassment of this becoming public knowledge. There were a wide array of objects foreign to him, but it was the gnarled roots, bottle assortments of body parts he could only hope weren’t human, and skulls of varied size that captured his imagination. His father had told of such people before, but all his words had been that of caution. Families such as the Kohl’s were not to be trusted.
“Nope,” said Lukas, “never been here before.”
Gemma left the two of them in the living room while she headed to the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a small tin box and washcloth.
“Let me patch you up,” she said.
“There’s nothing to patch up,” Lukas replied with dumbfounded confusion. “My ego’s a little bruised, but I’ll manage.”
“That’s good,” said Gemma, “because I was talking to Elsa. You remember the elbow, the one you struck her with?”
Lukas did remember. He remembered well. He was enthralled by another at the time, one both beautiful and wicked at the same time, but his thoughts were of a darker nature. It may have been the lady in red that possessed him to fight, but it was the man in black that guided his actions. Lukas knew what the man was, deep down, under his wing-tipped façade. And as he looked around Gemma’s home it became apparent she did, too.
“C’mon,” said Gemma, nudging her friend to the couch, “let’s sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Elsa maintained.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Gemma responded. “At least let me clean that blood off your stubborn face.”
Elsa was led by hand past Lukas, whom she extended a tongue to in disobedience, and sat down on the couch with Gemma. A wet rag was taken to her face amidst objections to the contrary, but a persistent Gemma wouldn’t hear of it and continued on until the job was done.
“You got anything to drink?” Lukas asked.
“Yeah,” said Gemma with a crooked smile. “It’s called water and it comes from the tap.”
Lukas left the two of them to deal with their troubles and headed into what Gemma called her kitchen. That gave the two women time to come to grips with what’d happened, far from the man that’d initiated the entanglement. It was a tense conversation between Elsa, who didn’t know where to start, and Gemma, who didn’t know when to end.
“Do you want to tell me what happened back there?” Elsa asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s like they were all under her spell.”
“It was no spell,” Gemma said assuredly. “Possession took them.”
“Possession?” Elsa questioned. “What the hell does that mean? How do you know any of this?”
“I can’t say,” Gemma said. She looked down to her hands where a balled up rag lay between her fingers. Her hands trembled, but it wasn’t from the cold water or the sight of another’s blood. It was the reason for the lost blood that sent shivers down her spine and to her finger tips.
“Can you at least tell me about him?” whispered Elsa as she motioned to the kitchen area. “Is he still under that bitch’s control? He wouldn’t stop talking of her the entire way here!”
Elsa’s voice rose as she spoke of the lady in red and her otherworldly grip on both Lukas and the rest of the men that’d lined up to court her. The lanky gentleman in the kitchen wasn’t the only one with a fractured ego to go with the bruised contusions. Elsa had always held Lukas above other men, but the lady’s made her see another side to the young man she’d grown up next to. That’s what she hated most of al
l.
“I don’t know,” Gemma said softly.
“What do you know?” an irritated Elsa demanded of her friend. “You seemed confident enough for the both of us back there.”
Elsa stopped dead in her tracks when she realized how her actions would be interpreted to the woman that’d just tended to her wounds.
“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve been a good friend, Gem, far better than I’ve been these last few days. I’m here for you… you know that right?”
Gemma Kohl knew only too well what her friend meant and she moved in for a close embrace. They’d been friends for a long time, since the ninth grade, when Gemma intervened in a fight she had no stake in.
Elsa wasn’t the kind of girl to take anyone’s crap and when she stood up for another the girls were quick to turn on her. She could handle herself in a fight, but against odds few could overcome, she was trampled underneath too many feet to count. Gemma saw something in her that few managed to see and when she entered the skirmish the other girls were fast to back down. It would turn out that Lukas Wendish wasn’t the only one to hear of the Kohl bloodline. They children had every reason to fear her. They just didn’t know the reason why.
Gemma and Elsa never demanded anything of each other; only that they be there for one another when no one else would be.
“You’re a good friend,” Gemma said. “Better than you realize—.”
“Do you hear that?” interrupted Elsa, alarmed with her ears perked forward. “I think I hear something outside.”
The noise was faint, but it was all too present inside the thinly walled bungalow. Slowly it became louder, until it became apparent that it wasn’t one noise they heard. It was many.
“Ladies,” said Lukas at a hurried pace, “get in here now!”
Both Elsa and Gemma rushed into the kitchen, where Lukas had taken up position, hunched over the sink to peer out the one window in the room. They joined him on both sides and looked to the park behind where more than a few dark figures could be seen.
The silhouettes crept closer, but it wasn’t a direct path they took. They swayed back and forth, red eyes aglow in the night with their purpose clouded even to themselves as they moved forward to the tune of another. From all sides they came, ever closer, until they were upon the walls that kept the three friends safe.