Chapter Four
Nero Ares Crowley stared down at his hands as he turned them slowly over, taking in every detail. He looked at his arms, his clothes, his shoes. At the same time, he ran his new name through his quick-thinking mind. Nero was a bit outdated and more than a little infamous. Ares was the god of war, and it had also been his name the last time he’d been generated on the planet. He supposed it was an inside joke played by the fates that it would now be his middle name. Crowley was a tad off-putting to anyone familiar with history. None of the names were particularly pleasant. To some, they would appear frightening.
But what did he expect? He was a Nightmare, both ancient and frightening. He might have to create an alias, or no one would take him seriously.
He thought of his height, his strength, and he measured each in turn. Then he looked up at the display window of the store in front of him. It was night, and the store’s lights were off, allowing him a clear view of his reflection.
He smiled, slow and confident, a secret smile with a cruel edge. He was tall and his frame was strong. He could see by the shape of his wrists and the veins in his forearms, and feel by the callouses on his fingers that he was quick and well practiced. As usual, he’d been given the tools he would need for a fighting chance against the king. But this time….
He narrowed his gaze and stepped closer to the glass.
This time he’d been given something extra. This time, he was as beautiful as the Nightmare King himself. “There’s a first for everything,” he said softly. His smile broadened. Even his voice was beautiful, deep and laced with an accent that would make women swoon.
“An Englishman then,” he said with a chuckle. This was a first for him too.
And as he gazed at his reflection and the depth of his green-eyed gaze, he realized why there were so many firsts this time around. Information poured into his mind, information that always came but was different this time. It was more this time. “This is the last time,” he reasoned, his handsome brow furrowing. This was the final time he would be given form and allowed to compete for the throne.
That was a touch disconcerting, he had to admit. But that wasn’t all.
His mind continued to broaden as more information poured in.
He blinked, his intense eyes widening. “Oh my.” His brow lifted. “This time there’s a queen.”
He tossed that around in his head for a few seconds, wondering of what kind of woman could possibly fit the role of queen of the incubi. The very idea of a woman being in charge of a legion of womanizing men was, well, it was… “Interesting,” he said aloud.
And then Nero confidently adjusted his collar, turned away from the store front, and walked into the rain-soaked night.
*****
“How long will it be this time?” Nicholas asked. He noted that when he felt grouchy, his accent intensified. It appeared it would grow stronger with his emotions.
He ran a hand through his hair to remove the bulk of the rainwater from his thick, dark locks and gave the lapels of his jacket a quick shake on the house’s outer doorstep before breaching it and moving further inside. This was apparently his home. Or one of them, anyway.
It was pouring in his home town, it would seem. No big surprise. This time around, he lived in the rainiest city on the planet.
“Probably as long as it usually takes,” replied Andros, who must have instinctively known that Nick was talking about his powers and their full return. Andros cocked his head to one side and asked, “Is there a reason you thought it would be different?”
Nicholas hung his designer trench coat on the coat rack and peered at his Preceptor over his shoulder. “Everything else is. There’s a queen, after all.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Minnaea, coming around the corner from some room that Nicholas had yet to investigate. “I know you haven’t even had a chance to settle in, your majesty. But I thought you’d like to know I got a hit on the Challenger’s location.”
The female Preceptor walked right past the butler, who’d been standing off to the side with a polite but uncertain expression on his weathered face since Nicholas and Andros had arrived. Minnaea had left the two alone at the office and transported away, going ahead of them to make certain the new king’s home was “safe.”
Frankly it was a little bit emasculating to have a woman doing such a dangerous job in order to protect him. He was an incubus, and the desire to protect women came naturally to him, not the other way around. But it was her job. And in all fairness, she had bones made of other-realm metal, and she was immortal.
Minnaea stopped in front of them, all six feet of her, and raised her right arm. From her fingers dangled a gold chain with what looked very much like a pendulum made of prismatic crystal. Nicholas knew exactly what it was. It was a dowsing crystal with a sole purpose – to locate the Nightmare King’s Challenger.
At the moment, it was pulsing with red light, indicating the Challenger had been “born” and was fully formed. “He’s going by the name Nero Ares Crowley,” said Minnaea. “It figures his previous name would be in there somewhere.” As Ares, the Challenger had been born into the role of a general in the Roman army, just as had Hesperos. The difference was that General Ares had been a little more infamous.
Now all they needed to do was place the crystal over a map, and the rock would point them in the direction of the Challenger’s location.
“Oh,” Minnaea suddenly said, her expression changing as she glanced over her shoulder at the butler. He hadn’t moved a muscle. Obviously the butler was accustomed to Nicholas, even if Nick had never seen the aged man before in his life. “And this guy’s name is Monroe,” she said with a quick gesture of her head toward the manservant.
At that, the butler’s gaze narrowed suspiciously at the back of Minnaea’s head.
Nick’s eyes widened, and he gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. Minnaea’s expression became at once apologetic. She mouthed the word, sorry. Two thousand years had seen her out of practice – because Nicholas Wargrave would surely already know the butler’s name, and wouldn’t need an utter stranger to tell him what it was. “… I’ve just learned,” she corrected quickly and ineffectively. “He introduced himself to me earlier, Nick, so there’s no need for you to introduce us again.” She grinned nervously, and Nick almost rolled his eyes.
She was the world’s worst liar.
“Sir,” said Monroe finally, and his voice sounded exactly as Nick would have expected it to, like an old butler’s voice. “So good to see you home safely in this weather. Shall I have refreshments sent to the study for you and your companions?”
Nicholas could only hope that his mannerism was similar to Wargrave’s previous behavior when he nodded and smiled. “That would be nice, Monroe. Thank you.”
Monroe nodded, not missing a beat, and turned on his heel to head toward what Nick could only assume were the kitchens of the enormous mansion.
Nick closed his eyes and exhaled. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath, but had to admit that a band of stress had formed tight around his chest since he’d materialized in his high-rise office an hour and a half earlier. Getting out of the building had been tough enough; then there was the ride home. He was an important man, and the world wanted a piece of him. Fortunately, his driver was well acquainted with his schedule and had rushed him home without a word.
Nick surrounds himself with good people. At least there’s that, he thought thankfully as he waved his new “bodyguard,” Andros closer. “Let’s find that study, then find the Challenger,” he said.
“No problem,” said Minnaea. “I’ve already memorized every room in the house.” She smiled widely and leaned forward conspiratorially. Despite her height, Nick noticed that both he and Andros were still a few inches taller. He probably shouldn’t have been so grateful for that, but he was. Men were petty.
“Monroe thinks I’m your new assistant,” she told them. “You might have to wait on the return of your abilities, but thankfully,” she said as she winked at her husband, “we don’t.”
“Then perhaps you should stop referring to me as your majesty,” said Nick.
Andros grinned a broad smile. “Nah, it makes things more interesting. Did you see the look on Monroe’s face?”
Nicholas let that go. Clearly Minnaea had used her Nightmare charm power to convince the mansion’s staff that she belonged. He ran his hand over his face and took a deep breath, thanking his lucky stars once more for his Preceptors. “Lead the way.”
Minnaea turned and strode down the hall, and Andros and Nick followed closely after. The mansion sprawled, which was especially impressive given he could see at least two more levels above them from the foot of the winding marble staircase. For half a second, Nicholas Wargrave felt overwhelmed. But he schooled himself and focused. If he could handle a re-materialization as a general in the Roman army during a time of war, then he could handle this.
Right?
“Here we are.”
They entered the study and Nick gave his surroundings a quick perusal. Then his cold gaze settled on a polished oak table. “There. Andros, get a map. Minnaea, give me the crystal.” It was time to find out where his competition was hiding.
Andros produced a map in short order. It wasn’t difficult; the study was well stocked with maps and books from what seemed like every era. In actuality, it was a library, not a study, and a vast one, at that. “Am I supposed to have read all of these?” he asked under his breath as Andros laid the map out on the table and the three of them smoothed it flat.
“Not even a little bit,” said Andros. “You’re too busy. But you did have one hell of an education, so it’s a good thing you know your history.” Andros looked up and met his gaze from across the table. “Wargrave is a dangerously intelligent man.”
“Okay, here we go,” said Minnaea. “Your majesty, you know the routine.” She nodded at him, and Nick pulled the crystal out of his suit coat pocket. He lifted it over the map, picking dead center United States as a starting place, then released the stone to hold it aloft by its chain. The crystal dangled on the end of its gold chain as Nick attempted to hold it still. It continued to pulse red in its telling manner, but other than that, there was no change.
And then, like the magic that it was, something happened. The chain snapped taut, and the crystal froze. Nick straightened a little as the tension around the table thickened. The crystal lifted to his left, stretching the chain as it reached out. Nick followed its lead like the pull on a dog’s leash. The crystal pulled hard over the map, until Nick was directly over Washington State and the tautness of the chain finally lessened. At last, it angled downward once more, and the Nightmare King felt adrenaline enter his veins as the crystal hit the map – on Seattle.
“He’s here.” His accent was thick. Because Nicholas Wargrave, his home, and his company were in Seattle too.
“This has never happened before,” said Minnaea. Never before had the Challenger been born in the same location as the king. There had always been traveling involved.
Nicholas looked up. “A lot of things have never happened before.”
The crystal suddenly shifted, just a little. A tiny slide along the map, no more than a few millimeters. Everyone froze as the red pulse changed as well, transitioning from red into orange, and then into amber. The pulse spaced out, and an extra beat was added, mimicking the pulsing of a heart.
“Holy shit,” Andros whispered. His wife glanced at him, no doubt irritated by his swearing. She’d been against swearing since Nicholas became Hesperos two-thousand years ago, no doubt because what current society regarded as swearing was actually the Anglo-Saxon terminology deemed “lower class” by the Romans when the Romans took them as slaves.
But Andros was either unaware of the reprimanding look, or couldn’t have cared, because he looked up and said, “It’s her.”
Nicholas was way ahead of him. He stared down at the pulsing yellow light, gold and steady and beautiful, and he knew exactly what the crystal was telling him. A lot of things were indeed different this time around. The Challenger was in the king’s court, practically in his back yard.
And so was the queen.