The ghosts tumbled away, an unseen barrier going up around me, protecting me. It was something I understood I couldn’t lower for a moment here. The dead possessed this area, claimed almost every inch.
Spitting out the vile taste in my mouth, I took a staggering breath, pulling myself up.
“Holy fuck.” Ash blinked at me in awe.
“What?” I peered at Kek, Ash, and Lukas.
“You fucking lit up, little lamb.” Kek huffed through her nose, her eyes wider than normal. “Like a bolt of lightning.”
My gaze met Warwick’s. He told me the same thing when I faced off with the ghost in the Bone Church.
Ash noticed our look between each other.
“That happened before?”
“Yeah.” Warwick nodded. “At the Bone Church.”
Ash’s head bobbed. “O-kay, we’re gonna come back around to that at a later time.” He blew out in bewilderment. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I wiped the sweat beading my brow. “We better get moving.”
“Get this done, so we can get out of here.” Kek shivered. “This place is even too horrible for me, and I’m a demon. I like horrible.”
“Fuck, I second that.” Ash breathed out. “I never thought I’d come back here.”
“Lead the way, princess.” Warwick motioned for me to go. “This is your show.”
Nipping my lip, I started the climb up the hill. I had no real plan. I was just following my father’s message and my gut instinct. The fact that he used that song as his code made me feel he was speaking to me, leaving it for me to figure out. As if he knew someday, my choices would lead me here.
“Okay, Dad, show me...” I muttered to myself.
Scaling the hill, the stone steps eroded, we hiked our way up to the castle. Luk struggled the most, but he didn’t complain, while Kek made up for it.
“Dammit, little lamb, if I’d known there’d be exercise involved, I would have stayed in the boat,” she grumbled. “Not my preferred workout choice.”
“Have no stamina, demon?” Ash jabbed back.
“Want to test my stamina, fairy?” she coyly countered. I heard Luk growl, but it could have been from the pain.
Ignoring their conversation, my feet moved faster until I reached the base of the High Castle, standing at the arched gate. My stomach rolled with something I couldn’t explain, electricity zinging my skin, tingles at the back of my neck.
This place felt so familiar to me, though I knew I had never been here exactly. The battle took place in an open field behind the castle grounds. I hadn’t even known a castle existed here, except, oddly, I did. I couldn’t explain it, but the utter realization this place was known to me, as if I belonged here, thumped fear into my heart.
My pulse grew louder in my ears as my feet instinctively moved through the dilapidated ruins. The shell of the fortress remained, but most of the roof was now gone, allowing the moonlight to break through some of the darkness.
The pounding in my ears echoed my heartbeat, almost sounding like it was calling my name. I felt it everywhere. Death.
But these were not the same as spirits I encountered earlier. Oddly, I didn’t feel any ghost within the castle. There was an emptiness. Void of that energy that comes from a soul.
I zigzagged and moved through the castle’s pathways. The sense that things were watching us from the shadows raked across every vertebra. Just out of my peripheral, but when I looked, nothing was there, urging me to move quicker.
“Kovacs.” I heard Warwick call my name, but I no longer felt I was in control of my body. I started to run, curving through an archway until I hit a small courtyard overlooking the Danube.
My feet came to a shuddering stop. A scream cracked across my ribs, dying on my tongue, terror trapping it in my throat.
“Holy fuck.” Ash stopped next to me.
Warwick halted on my other side, Kek and Luk flanking them.
