The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy

by Richard Parry

  “Awesome,” said Carlisle. “Let’s let the lovebirds—” but Danny and Val were already walking towards one of the rooms, ignoring everyone else “—never mind. Go get me a bottle. Oh. Right. And introduce yourself to the man in the corridor.”

  “Okay,” said John, “but one thing.”

  “For the love of Christ,” said Carlisle, “I’m really not in the mood.”

  She could see something soften in John’s gaze. “What happened?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, but couldn’t stop herself from wincing.

  “I’ll get you a beer, and something with a little more pep.” He nodded to himself. “What does matter,” he said, “is that there’s no one in the corridor.”

  “What?”

  “Empty,” said John.

  “He’s gone,” said Adalia, something other in her voice. “He’s gone to fight his last battle.”

  “Ah,” said Carlisle. Guess you won’t be getting laid after all. “Actually, you know what?”

  “No,” said the old man.

  “I’d like to know,” said John.

  “I’m too damn tired for this,” she said. “Get me that beer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  “I thought you were gone forever.”

  “Shh. I thought I had to leave.”

  “But you’re back now?”

  “I don’t think I ever really left.”

  “I held you close. I thought about you every day.”

  “I know. I couldn’t stop either.”

  “If it was something I did—”

  “It wasn’t anything you did. It wasn’t anything you were.”

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Yes. I … I was missing a part of myself.”

  “But … it was something I did. Maybe I didn’t know it—”

  “Shh. There’s time enough for that later.”

  “Later?”

  “Later.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  The table was laid with a feast.

  “Is this … is this what spam looks like?” Adalia was poking something on a plate with a fork.

  “I’ve only ever seen it in video games,” said Just James. There was a kind of awe in his voice. “I didn’t think it was real. You know. Like dragons.”

  “Dragons are real,” said Danny. Val watched her pile a plate with anything she could, pieces of canned meat, vegetables from a can, stale bread.

  “…Right,” said Just James. He tossed a look at Adalia. “She your mother?”

  “Yeah,” said Adalia.

  “Always been like this?” Just James scampered away from Danny as she bared her teeth at him. He was grinning.

  Val sighed. Family.

  Not family. Pack.

  Oh, he thought. There you are.

  Yes.

  Great. Family is the same thing as Pack. He bit into a piece of stale bread, chewing it for a while before washing it down with a pull from his bottle. Danny came to sit next to him, the smell of her—

  Pack mate.

  —the best thing. Not even the cold shower could wipe the smile off his face.

  He wiped his nose, fingers coming away red. Well, that might wipe the smile off my face.

  Val felt her touch on his arm. Her eyes were warm. “Hey. We’ll fix it.”

  “Yes,” he said. Because otherwise the world was going to end. Again.

  The den is always in peril.

  Val tapped the side of his head. “Yours talk to you too?”

  “Not so much talking,” said Danny, the words coming out around a mouthful of canned asparagus. “Christ, what is this?”

  “Canned asparagus.” John tossed a bread roll to Rex across the table, before handing a laden plate to Sky. Val watched John’s hand linger against Sky’s, felt happy for his friend. “I went for canned stuff. Fresh isn’t the best in a zombie apocalypse.”

  “It tastes like … God, I don’t know.” Danny swallowed, with obvious effort. “Calories.”

  “No,” said Sky. “It doesn’t taste like calories. It tastes like—”

  “Congealed snot,” said Just James.

  “Gross,” said Adalia.

  “Accurate,” said Rex. The old man was putting his plate down. He leveled a fork at John. “Son? Next time you go looting, I’m coming with you.”

  The banter continued around the small table, people telling their stories of the past days, weeks, years. The only one who wasn’t talking was Carlisle. She was leaned against a wall, her plate held on her lap with one hand. Her eyes looked out the window, but her heart looked somewhere else.

  Her den is empty.

  Val put his plate aside, shuffling across the room. He was feeling weaker now, the virus doing its work against what was left of the Night. He didn’t know how long he had, not really, but it made him feel more alive. Like this mattered.

  “Carlisle,” he said. He leaned against the wall beside her.

  “Hm?” She didn’t stop looking out the window.

  “Not hungry?” Val sighed. “I don’t blame you really. I think this is the first time that I’ve eaten mushrooms from a can.”

  “What?” Carlisle sighed. “I’m sorry, Everard. I was thinking about something else.” She turned to face the room, shoulder to shoulder with him.

  “Someone,” said Val.

  “What?”

  “You said something,” said Val. “I’d say someone. The invisible man.”

  “Ajay,” said Carlisle. “He’s not invisible. He’s just not here.”

  “Is he with us?” Val tapped his fork against his leg. “Is he one of us?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Carlisle.

  “He’s against us?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you love him?” Val spun the fork in his fingers.

  “This isn’t a fairy tale,” said Carlisle. “Love doesn’t work that way.”

  Val looked at John and Sky, then found Danny’s eyes across the room. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah it does.”

  “You guys are sickening,” said Carlisle.

  “Here’s the thing,” said Val. “We don’t get to choose.”

  “Choose?” She turned her head towards him for a moment.

  “Who we love.” Val pointed the fork at Adalia.

  “That’s different,” said Carlisle. “I never wanted that kind of responsibility. She just kind of … wormed her way under my skin.”

  “Like I said,” said Val. “We don’t get to choose. Our Pack chooses us. And then we get to stand with them against all the world throws at us, until we make it okay.”

  “Our pack?”

  “You know what I mean,” said Val.

  Carlisle was silent for a moment. “I know what you mean.” She ran a hand through hair streaked with gray. “I don’t know him at all.”

  “I’d like to say something without you breaking my arm,” said Val.

  “Is it something that I’m likely to want to break your arm over?” Carlisle’s tone hid a smile.

  “Maybe,” said Val. “Thing is … thing is, I don’t think I’ve seen you let someone get close. Not us,” he said. “Someone who’s not us.”

  “I only want the family I can choose,” said Carlisle. “The real thing hurts you instead of…” She trailed off.

  “Carlisle.”

  “What?” There was something sharp in her voice now. “I’m not looking for more touchy-feely crap. I’ve had days of that on a road trip with psycho Barbie and her adorable half-alien child.”

  “This is your family.” Val pushed himself to his feet. “We won’t hurt you. Or we’ll try not to, but if we do we’ll make it right.” He shrugged. “We’ll get him back. Then you can find out if love is a choice.”

  “Now I want to break your arm.” She looked past him. “He came across half the world to find me.” Her face twisted into something bitter. “To trap me.”

  “Then we’ll get him back,” said Val,
“and you can break his arm.”

  “Now you’re talking sense,” said Carlisle, pushing herself to her feet with a wince. Her face was more ashen than Val had seen before.

  “You okay?”

  “No,” said Carlisle. He watched as she slotted the bits of herself back into place in her head, pieces coming together like a suit of armor. She patted the sidearm at her back, the motion almost unconscious. “But I will be.”

  • • •

  The plates had been cleared away, the regular workaday tasks of eating and cleaning, done with good company, pushing aside fears for a moment’s peace. We might all be about to die, thought Val, but at least we’ve had a good meal of stale bread and spam. There were probably worse ways to go — at least this way, they had—

  Pack.

  —family. They’d traded stories as they ate, about the things big and small that had happened to them. Somewhere along the way it had got too much, too wild. Rex had come up with a solution.

  “So what we’ve got,” said Rex, pointing at the scrawls on the wall behind him, “is a lot of unexplained shit.”

  “I think we’ve explained it pretty well.” Sky was sitting with her arms crossed. She’d pitched a fit when Rex had started to use a Sharpie on the wall, but the old man had pointed to the Ramset nails and she’d just crossed her arms with a sigh. Val agreed with the old man though — they could fix the wall later if they survived. This gave them something to do; they could work the problem.

  “Yeah,” said John. “I know what’s going on.”

  “Son,” said Rex, “son, you don’t know your ass from your elbow.”

  “It hurts me when you say mean things,” said John. “Tell you what. Race you to 80. No, wait. You win!”

  “That’s cold,” said Just James. “I mean, that’s really cold.”

  Val leaned forward. “Let’s see if we’ve got this right.” He started to count on his fingers. “First up, we’ve got a city of zombies.”

  “Pretty sure that didn’t come first,” said Just James. “I’m pretty sure the werewolf thing came first.”

  “A fair point,” said Val. “So, first up, we have werewolves. As far as I know, there were two left in the world as of a couple weeks ago.” He looked at Danny, then down at his feet. “Now we have one, and that takes us to the second point.”

  “Spiders,” said Sky.

  “Spiders,” said Val, nodding. “In a briefcase. But the briefcase did something nasty before the spiders.”

  “Right,” said Rex, pointing to the wall behind him. He underlined a piece that said Weird briefcase sucks all the joy out of Val. That’d been John, of course. “Someone stole your … son, I’m having trouble saying it.”

  “Superpowers,” said Just James.

  “Thanks,” said Rex. He sighed. “It’s not getting any easier.”

  “This is why your generation has such a problem with Snapchat,” said Just James. “It’s like trying to teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “My generation?” said Rex. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Third,” said Val, pushing on, “we have some kind of motherfucking sorcerer.” He pointed to the words motherfucking sorcerer on the wall. Carlisle had written next to that in tight, small letters the name Talin Moray.

  “Language,” said Adalia. She was playing with her phone. No way she had coverage, so must be Angry Birds or whatever the kids played these days.

  Val looked back at the wall. “This guy, Moray, comes to our town, steals the … the—”

  “Night,” said Danny, leaning in to his shoulder. She smelled good.

  We are the Night.

  “Night,” said Val. “He takes it.”

  “Then,” said Rex, “the zombies.”

  “Near as I can figure, yeah,” said Val. He pointed to the rough time line they’d drawn next to words on the wall. “That looks right. Mark it in there.”

  Rex drew on the wall with the Sharpie, Sky looking away. While Rex was drawing, he said, “Yeah. Zombies.”

  “See?” Just James was beaming. “I knew you could do it.”

  Rex sighed again. “I think,” he said, “that brings us to the fourth point.”

  “I see dead people,” said Adalia. She looked up from under her hair at the brief silence. “What? I’ve seen the movie.”

  “When?” said Danny.

  “There’s not much to do in the snow in Alaska, Mom,” said Adalia.

  “Doesn’t feel related,” said Val, rubbing his chin.

  “Dead people and snow?” said John. “No, I can see how snow would give you dead people.”

  “More the dead people to werewolf thing,” said Val. “I think we’ve skipped a step.”

  “Right,” said Rex. He drew a thick black line — Sky looking away again — between zombies and Talin Moray. “It’s like a kind of battery.”

  “What?” said Just James.

  “Figures, doesn’t it?” Rex frowned. “What. You all can’t see it?”

  Val thought for a moment. “I see. Because there were no zombies before.”

  “Right,” said Rex. “Maybe I can’t use Snapchat, but I can use my brain.” This last was directed at Just James, who breathed a whatever and went back to watching his shoes. Rex pointed at the wall. “Look. All I’m saying is that if I’m the kind of sociopath who can turn the city of Chicago into a force of brainless wonders three million strong—”

  “I’m not sure that he made them brainless,” said John. “Have you seen reality TV?”

  “—I’m probably not going to wait for Tuesday before I make that happen,” said Rex. “What holds me back?”

  “He was hunting,” said Danny. She looked at Val. “He was hunting us.”

  We have ever been hunted.

  “I think,” said Val, “that he’s not the only one. Didn’t Ajay try to get you in Alaska?”

  “He said,” said Carlisle, her voice quiet, her chest still giving her trouble even through the cocktail John had given her, “that he represented a different buyer. Raeni Williams.”

  “What’s the connection?” Val pointed at the wall. “What’s the connection between the motherfucking sorcerer and—”

  “Language,” said Adalia.

  “—this Williams chick?” Val frowned.

  “There is more than one light against the dark,” said Adalia.

  Danny was looking over at Adalia. “Sweetie? Is … is he telling you that?”

  “I wish we knew Gabriel’s play,” said Just James. There was a hint of teenage jealousy in the air, but Val figured it was a tough rap trying to compete with a dead guy. If compete was the right word.

  “You shouldn’t say his name,” said Adalia. “You shouldn’t know his name.” She shivered, as if trying to turn back into a 14 year old girl. “Whatever. He didn’t say that. It just makes sense.” She looked out from under her hair at Rex. “I can use Snapchat and use my brain.”

  “The new master race,” said John.

  “It makes sense, Uncle John,” said Adalia, “because we can’t be alone. Can we?” Her eyes moved to each of them in turn. “We can’t be the only ones who want to fight what’s wrong. I don’t believe it.”

  “‘Uncle John?’” Val looked at his friend.

  “It’s cool,” said John. “Right? It’s cool. I think it’s cool. Is it cool?”

  “It’s cool,” said Sky, a smile slipping between them. Her hand was on John’s arm. “It’s very cool.”

  “It makes you sound old,” said Just James.

  “That,” said Rex, “is how you kill a beautiful moment, son.”

  “What I want to know,” said Val, “making the broad assumption that Raeni and Ajay are on-team, is what they can do.”

  “He’s got some tricks,” said Carlisle, looking out the window.

  “He knows things,” said Danny.

  “He is the Reluctant Wanderer,” said Adalia.

  “Right,” said Val. “What’s that mean?”


  “I don’t think that’s important,” said Rex. “We just need to know what he can do.”

  “Cause trouble,” said Carlisle. “Like he’s doing now.”

  “Okay,” said Val, “wildcard. Let’s ignore that for a moment. So we’ve got a werewolf sorcerer, and a city full of zombies. I can fly a helicopter. And we’ve got a dead kid on our side.”

  “Rock on,” said John.

  “What am I missing?” Val looked around the room.

  “Small detail,” said Rex. “I think we’re in agreement: we’re going to go clean this guy’s clock.”

  “With you,” said John.

  “So,” said Rex. “Where is he?”

  “Can’t you feel it?” said Adalia. “He’s where the wind touches the earth. He’s where the dark is strongest. He’s under the world, and over it. He lives in the space between our thoughts, touches our dreams, and gives us nightmares that make us fear the fading of the sun. He sits aside the water, drawing power from it. He is the Leader of the Damned.”

  The room fell silent. Val looked at Danny, her face as surprised as everyone else’s.

  Rex stepped into the quiet first. “Okay. Where’s that?”

  “Shit,” said John, “that’s easy. He’s in Trump Tower.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Talin looked out over his city, pride in his soul, hate in his heart. Such promise, a city like this, and that pack of dogs was trying to bring it down. Bring him down. It didn’t matter what they did, of course, the city was lost — but they weren’t to know that. Only he and one other could know, and she was dead.

  Dead, and buried. He’d killed her himself.

  It was always easier with a woman. She’d fought back, of course, her eyes bulging out as his fists closed around her throat, but her strength was … insufficient.

  He’d had only a tiny fragment of power then, enough to know that there was more to be had, and enough to make him feel powerless among the powerful. His plans had wrought an outcome, set his feet on the path that led him to today, to here, to the very now of life.

  He’d sent his Five off to do God’s work. He had so much strength now, power to spare, he could gift it to a thousand like the Five and not want for more. He stretched, marveling — again — in the youth that his body had found once more. He held the Five in the palm of his hand. Shamshoun, the strongest of them. L’inglesou, to bring night to the brightest day with a kiss of her sweet steel. Agni, who would scar and burn all in his path. Saint John, the balanced, the easy, the benign, the very devil himself. And — his first, his favorite — Choler. Choler would give them all a cloak of sweet lies, whisper into the ears of the angels themselves and make them doubt all that was true.