I can’t stop staring.
“No guards?” I whisper, my voice sounding small and thin.
“The gates themselves are the guards.” Whistler’s grin gleams gold. “Best not test their temper, queenie.”
I swallow hard and let him pull me through. Cold air washes over me as soon as we cross the threshold, sharp and metallic, smelling of iron and old blood. My skin prickles. And then the city beyond the gates opens up before me.
I stop dead, my jaw going slack.
We are standing at the bottom of a long-cobbled road, winding upward like a serpent through a city that makes no sense at all to my dazed eyes. Overhead, the moon hangs enormous and swollen, its surface scarlet as fresh blood. Its pale red light pours down on everything, tinting the streets…the rooftops…even the clouds above.
The effect is disorienting—nauseating. It’s as if the entire world has been dunked in a vat of watered-down blood-wine.
My breath fogs in the cold air as I turn slowly, taking it all in.
The buildings climb the hill in layers, like a collage of mismatched eras thrown together by someone with a taste for nightmares.
A row of Victorian townhouses squats beside a glass-and-steel skyscraper. Gaslight lamps gutter on street corners, their glass panes cracked and fogged, while right beside them neon signs blaze in sharp, modern fonts. A carriage rattles by, its wheels squealing, drawn by a pair of coal-black horses with eyes that glow faintly red. Behind it roars a sleek motorcycle, chrome gleaming crimson in the moonlight.
I almost laugh, except the sound would come out too high, too hysterical.
“What… what is this place?” I whisper, rubbing my arms in apprehension. My entire body is covered in goosebumps and not just because I’m cold—I’m also scared of this weird, gothic-horror looking place. My damp hair clings to my neck. My teeth are starting to chatter.
“Like the sign over the gate told you—it’s The Bleeding Court,” Whistler says calmly, like it’s no big deal.
But it is. It is a big deal and I’m scared to death!
The road stretches upward, steep and endless. The city is alive around us. A woman with skin the color of polished marble glides past, her black, crushed velvet gown dragging behind her. She glances at me, her lips curving in a smile, and I see fangs glint before she disappears into the crowd.
Two men lean against a lamppost, their coats tailored, their shoes shining. At first they look normal—until one turns his head and I see his eyes glowing faint green, his pupils slit like a snake’s. He flicks a tongue over his teeth and laughs at something the other says, the sound sharp and cold.
A trio of pale children sit on the steps of a crumbling townhouse, their eyes completely black with no whites at all. They whisper to each other in voices so soft I can’t make out the words. The sound is monotonous and vaguely ominous—like three people all using the same throat and saying the same things at once.
I tear my eyes away, not wanting to see them anymore. I have a feeling if I lean closer I’ll understand what they’re saying. But a glance at those empty black eyes lets me know I don’t want to understand.
“Where…where are we going?” My voice shakes.
Whistler raises one long, bony finger and points.
Up…we’re going up.
We start to walk.
The road winds and winds, leading ever upward. At the very crest of the hill, dominating everything, rises the tallest building I’ve ever seen.
It doesn’t just loom over the strange, twilight city—it owns the city.
The tower stretches so high it feels endless, its spires stabbing at the swollen red moon like needles. The walls are black, a color so deep it seems to swallow the bloody light, drinking it in. Hundreds—no, thousands—of windows glow faintly crimson, as though the building itself has veins and blood runs behind the glass.
The spires twist, curling upward, menacing and inescapable. The tower leans, just slightly, like it’s bending down to glare at the city sprawled beneath it.
I can’t look away. Now that I’ve seen it, no matter how I turn my head, my gaze is dragged back to it, as if some invisible hand is pulling my eyes.
“Ah, I see you’re admiring our destination, my queen,” Whistler says. “It’s quite a monolith, is it not? ‘Tis said the foundation was laid in blood and all the mortar used to fill in the cracks has bonemeal in it.”
“What…what is it called?” I ask in a thin voice.
“Why that there is the Crimson Spires,” Whistler says.
