Nearest me was a collection of two and three-story buildings that resembled a decent-sized town, replete with darkened alleys, a few pubs, and even what appeared to be a brothel or inn featuring scantily clad women—sporting tails—barking out crude catcalls to those in the streets in an attempt to stroke up some business. Drunken singing and cursing drifted out from the open windows and door, so the women had either already tapped out their opportunities inside, or the prostitutes were trying to lure in new customers in order to spread their legs—their market share.
I spotted dozens of winged sentries scouting the perimeter of the outer walls, circling a few of the towers in what looked like a familiar routine to guard the Castle Keep. We were a good football field or two within the perimeter, so they didn’t come anywhere near us.
I could even see vague glowing forms moving through some of the nearby cemeteries, packs of werewolves patrolling the woods, a handful of human-like creatures—maybe vampires—walking the streets, and dozens of the skeleton dudes standing in perfect circles just staring at each other.
Fucking weirdos.
Castle Dracula wasn’t just a barracks for his vast and diverse army. It really was a home—a city. Remembering Nate Temple’s Beast, Falco, and the crazy assortment of ‘monsters’ who often resided there…
It wasn’t necessarily reassuring. Was Nate one bad day away from Falco becoming like this? Two bad days? Maybe that bad day had been weeks, months, or years ago, and no one knew it yet—perhaps not even Nate.
I dismissed the thought—knowing I couldn’t do anything about it if I died in the next three days.
So, as I assessed the monsters going about their figurative day—even though Dracula had said the place was perpetual night—I remembered Dracula telling me that he wasn’t notifying everyone that I was stalking the streets. No one was looking for me. If and when I raised enough hell, I was certain things would change, but for now, I had a semblance of safety.
If Dracula had wanted me dead, he could have simply locked me in the feast room and sent everyone to greet me. He could have also locked me up in a cell to imprison me.
Technically, thanks to the barrier around us that Samael had brought over from Kansas City, we were all prisoners here. None could leave until Dracula died.
Which meant I needed to find Dracula’s Bane—as Samael had called it—in the belly of the currently sleeping Beast. Did that mean the Keep?
I went over it in my head a hundred times, trying to find some hidden clue or hint that Samael might have dropped.
That this was all some act, like he had said.
But the way he had hit me in the face…
The way he had cut off my power…
The way he had spoken about my mother…
He could have earned an award for best actor.
But something about the quest the two bastards had given me just didn’t sit right. Another game rather than a direct confrontation. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a reason for them to go to such efforts unless either, or both, of them wanted something as a result of my quest.
I doubted the two men were discussing business. They were probably sitting in leather recliners, glad-handing each other about how incredibly clever they were. Maybe even having a double mani-pedi while they waited for our fateful dinner.
Despite Dracula’s reassurance that he didn’t intend to announce my arrival, that didn’t mean that if I ran across some monsters that they were going to let me walk by. They just wouldn’t be actively looking to maim and then murder me.
It also made me trust Xylo a little bit more. Dracula had no need to send a spy to befriend and betray me. That would ruin the fun of the trap he had already laid out. To watch his residents tear me limb from limb.
The way he had studied me across the table, though…
It was as if a part of him actually wanted me to succeed. That he wanted to face me. Because he was a recluse. Bored out of his mind hiding out in his castle. Everyone thought he was dead. He couldn’t just go out and terrorize cities anymore. Well, he could, but he couldn’t take credit for it. He secretly ran the world of vampires. Although impressive, it had a price.
Anonymity.
Right now he had a great board of directors in the Sanguine Council to handle all the day-to-day management. Dracula was the reclusive trust fund heir—and he was on house arrest.
One of the most feared, legendary creatures in human stories, and he couldn’t revel in his reputation. I could understand that frustration. It sounded cool, but after a few months of riding your tricycle around your castle in your undies with a bottle of tequila while practicing your evil laugh, you realized you were pretty goddamned bored.
So what did my quest gain him?
The monsters below went about their duties.
The wind laughed at me.
Xylo studied me in silence.
And I continued to wonder…
Chapter 10
The night sky hung overhead like an ominous blanket, seeming to somehow even dim the brilliance of the stars. The red moon added to the crimson haze in the air, but after spending the last few days in Kansas City, I’d apparently grown accustomed to Roland’s barrier.
The only difference here was that the big, bad Master Vampire of this city was secretly the big, bad Master Vampire of all Master Vampires, working behind the curtains like the vampire of Oz, and the city itself was the birthplace of countless legends and tales—even if the most notable had been sold as fiction thanks to Bram Stoker.
But…was it?
How accurate was that story? About Jonathan Harker coming to visit a wealthy nobleman at his personal estate, forced to stay within the castle for the duration of the meeting? Maybe that wasn’t so much fiction, but fact.
It didn’t really matter; I was just putting off what I was supposed to be doing here. I’d done plenty of that already, and I had nothing to show for it.
Well…
Other than giving myself time to hold the Mask in my fist.
Which had been the entire point of it all.
“Mind standing over by the door, Xylo? I don’t want the wind knocking you over the edge.”
He stared at me blankly. “The wind goes right through me.” He used his bone fingers to play a little ditty down his rib bones—literally tickling the ivories—and then held up his arms to prove that the wind had no effect on him. The only indication that it was windy was that the red bundle of fabric around his neck and shoulders that was both scarf and bandana whipped around, but he didn’t appear to notice it. I’d seen something similar when Dracula hit me with the power of his will—none of the skeletons had been affected in the slightest.
I sighed. “I need you to keep an eye out for trouble,” I said instead.
He stared back at me—and that drawn-out, eerie stillness from a walking, talking skeleton reminded me just how strange all of this really was. “Both of my eyes decayed long ago,” he finally said, poking a bony digit two-knuckles-deep into his ocular cavity.
My stomach made a strange wriggling sensation at the imagined organs that should have been inside. “I was trying to be polite. I just need some privacy and I want you to make sure no one disturbs me or sneaks up on us.”
He cocked his head, withdrawing his finger from his eye socket. “Polite? To me?” he asked, not seeming to understand. “How peculiar…” he said to himself, already turning to walk away from me. Was that because he didn’t understand what polite meant or because he didn’t know why I would bother being polite to him?
He stopped to stand before the supposedly dangerous, locked magical door that he’d told me hardly anyone ever used, and clenched his fists in an aggressive pantomime of menace. The only menacing thing about him was his scarf whipping in the wind, like he was some dead pirate king protecting his buried treasure. He’d already admitted he had zero combat ability, so it was comical to see him acting as if he would be able to stop one of the monsters if they happened to stumble onto th
e fiftieth floor of this specific tower for a smoke break on the bridge. We hadn’t seen anyone at all in the tower we had climbed, so I wasn’t too concerned about an attack. I’d also checked the nearby rooftops and spires for gargoyles, but the rooftops surrounding us were quiet and empty.
Xylo had been true to his word. It was a nice, quiet spot.
Having already tried—and failed—to tap into my powers back in the…
I decided to dub it the Feast Hall. It was the location for my future fight with Dracula, so I couldn’t just call it the dining room.
Having failed to call up any of my old powers there, I tried again now, hoping to find that Samael had been putting on a show, lying to Dracula about what he’d done with the Mark of the Beast.
Perhaps he had left me my wizard’s magic or something.
But I let out an annoyed sigh after only a few moments of trying to access my toolbox of powers. Samael hadn’t been lying.
I couldn’t use my wizard’s magic. Even worse, I could still sense it—like staring through a glass display case at a priceless Hermes bag. Inches away, but it might as well have been a million miles.
I still couldn’t call up my Silvers to make my claws.
I tried to tap into the Silvers to get that strange time-distorted perception of my surroundings. Fail.
I even tried calling up the Spear of Destiny—the Spear that had pierced Jesus’ side on the Cross. It was healing somewhere within my soul, and Archangel Michael had called me the sheath prophesied to keep it safe.
You know, like keeping it away from Castle Dracula, for example.
It was unresponsive, but that could have been entirely unrelated. I’d never been consistently successful at calling it up. I’d gotten better, but when I needed to whip it out the most, it stubbornly refused. Maybe I needed some Holy Viagra—the little Pearly Pill.
Unlike a three-year-old boy who had just discovered his penis and wanted to whip it out at every opportunity to show the world his built-in sword and watch them bask in the radiance of his mighty blade, I had no penis saber to wield.
I see your Schwartz is as big as mine, the old movie quote popped into my head, unbidden.
Penultimately, I tried calling upon my Angel wings and gauntlets—something that was literally part of me thanks to an angelic blood transfusion I’d inadvertently been subjected to. Other than a faint warming sensation forming across my shoulder blades, nothing happened. I kept at it until I started to feel a tension headache forming.
Which left me my last resort. The Horseman Mask clutched in my fist.
The Mask of Despair. The Sixth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Although my first use of it earlier tonight had been incredible, it had also powered down very rapidly. Probably because we hadn’t officially bonded with each other yet. Relationships took time to build.
Those who just slapped them on and hoped for the best risked damaging the Masks, or even themselves. Like Nate Temple, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, had done with his Mask of Hope. I hadn’t wanted to risk any of that, but if it ended up being my only chance at escaping Castle Dracula…
Basically, my most tried and true methods of power had failed, and my only immediate armor was the most tentative power I had access to. I wasn’t holding out much hope.
Or maybe Xylo’s emo aura was infecting me.
I made one last sweep of the surrounding area to make sure we were still alone before I unclenched my fist. The butterfly charm was only an illusion—a safeguard so that I wasn’t literally lugging around a Mask all the time. I’d chosen the butterfly charm for personal reasons, and with a thought, I would be able to reveal the Horseman Mask.
But I didn’t do that yet. The reason I’d been holding it this whole time was in hopes that it would reestablish our bond. You didn’t rev an engine—or a woman—cold, gentlemen.
That approach—with either example—was just asking for an explosion of shrapnel in a wide blast radius.
I stared down at the silver charm, my pulse quickening. Could Samael have really made such a glaring mistake? Taking away my old reliable powers but leaving me the equivalent of a nuclear bomb?
If so, maybe I could drift through the castle in my mist form—an ability the Mask seemed to have—find Dracula, kill him, and then take my time with regaining my powers from Sanguina. At least it would save me the trouble of having to fight Dracula and Sanguina back-to-back.
Then again, I’d seen Dracula shift into a red mist, so maybe that option was out.
My brief interaction with the Mask had taught me a lot—it had forced me to confront a lot of internal self-doubts and concerns. Despair was manipulative, tricky, and deceitful, so I closed my eyes to focus. I took six deep breaths—for luck, since I was the Sixth Horseman—and focused on the power hidden within the butterfly charm.
Despair was the antithesis of Hope, and Despair was a dicey landscape to traverse. It was a darker, subtler, more introspective power. A blade that could cut both ways. It was self-doubt, self-pity, and any other negative thought that ever whispered in your ears that you were not strong enough, not good enough…
That was Despair.
Learning how to bond with such a depressing power without letting it roll over me had taken a lot of meditation to discern. I had related it to a battle on two fronts:
Firstly, I faced an army of negative thoughts striking the outer walls of my mental defenses like battering rams. Waves of self-doubt and criticism. Except they were all vague, generic lies.
You’ll never be good enough, strong enough. No one could ever love you. Claire is so much prettier than you’ll ever be.
They were an army of infantry with no real finesse, but they made up for it in numbers. The only way to survive them was to counter the flood of vague lies with opposing vague lies.
I can do anything. I will win the lottery. Everyone thinks I’m gorgeous.
Each outlandishly encouraging thought you could drum up became a miniature Tony Robbins ready to fire the-power-of-positive-thinking arrows into the advancing horde.
The second, more dangerous, front Despair attacked on was internal.
Because everyone had Despair inside of them, and it had to be accepted and admitted. While the army of lies was attacking the castle walls, an elite special forces team of legitimate self-doubt and personal failings had already infiltrated your castle and were slowly poisoning your meals, taking immense pleasure in your slow, painful demise.
Those stealthy, elusive assassins had been tricky for me to analyze. Battling them head-on was difficult because those agents of despair attacked with the truth.
Remember when your boyfriend broke up with you in sixth grade? When you flunked that test freshman year? When you lost that promotion at your job? How you always get pimples before a date?
They were relentless, and truthful, and they cut to the bone.
I had to accept these failures as one-time occurrences, not the deciding prophecy of my life.
I did all of that now, staring down at the butterfly charm.
And in return…
It did a whole lot of nothing.
I let out a breath, ironically feeling despair as the Mask of Despair failed to respond to me. I couldn’t even make it turn into the actual Horseman Mask, which wasn’t even really using its power. That was a very bad sign. Damn.
Even though it didn’t react, I could sense that there was still power inside it. Just that I was blocked from accessing it. Like my wizard’s magic. Damn, damn, damn.
I turned to find Xylo glancing back at me—turning only his skull so that his body still faced the door—letting me know that I’d cursed out loud. I motioned him over to join me. It was looking like I had to pick door number one, kill them without the help of my magic, and then collect their blood in their ruby amulet to at least get some of my power back.
And then use that power to kill five more.
Then Sanguina.
And finally, Dracula.
I hoped Xylo had a good map of the place and a dossier on each inhabitant so that I could pick an easy foe first. Xylo reached me, hesitating a few paces away, and his eyes were riveted on my clenched fist that concealed the butterfly charm. “No luck?” he asked in a careful tone. I hadn’t told him exactly what I had been trying—what I held in my fist. I’d just told him I might have a backup power I could use.
I shook my head. “No,” I sighed, studying him thoughtfully as I searched for any signs he may have ulterior motives—like obtaining my Mask. The embers and sparks holding his bones together occasionally flared and smoldered—lines of red and yellow light spiderwebbing across the surface of the coal-like substance. The sparks didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest, and I was still surprised to find that they didn’t burn if they touched my own skin. “Still willing to help me? It seems Samael was telling the truth back there,” I told him, wanting to be honest.
Even though he was undying, and that Dracula had given him to me to do with as I will, I didn’t think honesty was part of Baron Blood-Junkie’s character. If I failed—died horribly—and Dracula believed Xylo had broken some unspoken rule, Xylo might suffer greatly.
Because he could torture an undying person for as long as he wanted.
Xylo stared down at my fist for a few more moments before looking up at me. “Nothing has really changed. If you don’t mind me asking…” He trailed off, waiting for my answer. I nodded. “What were you trying to do? I…feel something in your hand, and I haven’t felt anything for a very, very long time.”
I hesitated, not sure how much I was willing to trust him. Maybe Dracula really had put him here to steal my Horseman’s Mask.
Godless: Feathers and Fire Book 7 Page 6