Page 52 of Vampire Kings Box Set

Maddox was there, sitting above him. “How are you feeling, boy?” Maddox stroked his head gently.

“That was… amazing.”

He had relished the feeling of being a beast, of being able to tear onto flesh, even undead flesh. There had been none of the human limitations he had become accustomed to; two hands and a mouth full of general-purpose teeth were nothing compared to a maw full of fangs and paws with massive claws attached.

“Amazing? You know, it almost killed you.”

“Everything always almost kills me,” Will said, trying to sit up. It was a more ambitious plan than he had imagined, sending immediate bolts of pain through his flesh. “Ow, goddamn, what the fuck?”

“As I said, boy. It was close to killing you.”

“Yeah. Feels like it. Fuck,” Will cursed. “I might lie down for a minute.” He flopped back down and felt blessed relief at doing so. The haze in front of his eyes cleared, and the room stopped spinning in the concerning way it had been doing.

“What do you remember?” Maddox’s question was quiet and concerned.

“One minute those assholes were trying to kill us, the next I was eating them. It didn’t feel like anything happened to me. It was just flow.” He paused. “I killed Chauvelin, right?”

“Hard to say when all that’s left of anybody is ash.”

“You got him,” Lorien appeared from the shadows. He was never far away, even when he wasn’t present. “Nice to see you again, Will. So glad you’re alive.”

Will looked at Lorien, and this time it was him who wore the smirk. He said nothing, but his gaze said everything. He was no longer the helpless human misfit to be taunted and tormented by Lorien. He was a beast of power and mystery — and he had saved Lorien’s worthless life.

“I owe you thanks,” Lorien said. “I didn’t want to be sent to the eternal void that day, and you ensured it did not happen.”

Will paused for a moment, as if considering his response. Finally, he seemed to know what to say.

“I really need to pee.”

18 LONG LIVE THE KING

“Are you ready to end the war?” Lorien asked the question with a huge grin. Maddox sighed. He was not ready. The one thing he had never wanted was high vampire office. He preferred to be a solo agent operating intermittently with humans and vampires alike. Thanks to Lorien, that life was over.

He had avoided this place like the plague, not wanting to be anywhere near the seat of vampire royal power. Now he couldn’t avoid it anymore. The Library was his domain and he was expected to pretend he cared about it.

The Library, like almost every New York building of note, was surrounded by buildings of no particular note at all. From the exterior, there were striped brown and red bricks running in horizontal lines. In the very middle of the building was a large, round window in an octagon pattern surrounded by a molded arch, both marked with multiple inscriptions. There were smaller windows either side, and statues atop them. Maddox had always considered the place to absolutely scream vampire, but nobody seemed to notice. The base of the building was covered in bold graffiti, and a metal roller door barred the general public from entering most of the time. It was, as so many things in NYC, a mixture of elegance and decadence, history, and rot.

The interior, however, had not been allowed to succumb to the same street influence. Once upon a time, this building had been at the very core of the new settlement of New York City. It had perched at the edge of the island of Manhattan as a beacon of elegance and stability. Now it was like almost everything else that had once held meaning, surrounded by mediocrity, its fortune left to the waning interests of human trends.

The twins had turned the lower floor into an incredibly tacky nightclub, but the upper floors remained what they were always supposed to be: a library. Carved shelves ran from floor to ceiling across five stories, containing books detailing the entirety of human and vampire history alike. There were tomes in this collection which, if released to the general public would certainly — well, probably — be ignored, but in the past, when people still read, would have changed humanity’s understanding of existence.

Maddox, Lorien, and Will were in the upper turret, a place where kings could hold private audiences, and prepare themselves for the rigors of public audience. Also in attendance, Alonzo Fabrice, aide-de-camp and master of ceremonies.

“During this ceremony you will take the throne and be crowned, my liege,” Alonzo explained.

Maddox was attempting not to show complete disinterest in the entire proceedings and not being very successful.

“Really, a crown?” Maddox sighed. “How gauche.”

“Give your subjects what they need,” Lorien said. “Get down there. Give them a show.”

The second, third, and fourth floors were more or less open, surrounded by spiral staircases and an open floor where all the local lords were in attendance. Like Maddox, most of them had been disinterested in the war, but a few of them no doubt harbored bitterness at having lost to someone who had not lifted a finger to fight. The place hummed with the energy of New York’s most powerful, most refined, and oldest vampire lords. Maddox knew all of them. All of them knew him. If they were human, it would have been a very congenial affair, but they were vampires and all of them would have rather been somewhere else.

“Come with me, boy?” Maddox offered Will his hand.

“As myself, or do you want the spectacle of having a wolf on a chain?”

A smile twisted Maddox’s lips. A lesser vampire might very well have insisted on Will taking his wolf form at his coronation, but Maddox had lived long enough to learn that it was better to let one’s strengths be mythic rather than overtly flaunted. Tales of the wolf were already widespread and becoming more exaggerated over time. “Let’s reserve that little power of yours for life and death situations only. I’d prefer not to torture you senselessly to death.”