The Phantom King (The Kings) (2 page)

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 hop
eless 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 Ph
antom 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 Tha
ne 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 top
s
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 part
icular 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.

“S
hit,” 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 narr
owed 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 wi
th 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
wa
fted 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 insi
des 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.

Th
ane 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, smothered the hole until it shrank like a fire devoid of oxygen, and then whipped outward in a strange, black flash.