Then he’d brought me up to the fucking roof of one of the towers. And it had a connecting bridge to another even taller tower. He’d assured me that the other tower was incredibly dangerous, but that it was locked with powerful magic and that hardly anyone ever used it.
Not entirely reassuring, but better than nothing.
I was hesitant to trust the skeleton as a result of his prior affiliations with Dracula, but something about the harmless, emo skeleton was kind of endearing—like having a stray puppy. And I had kicked his ass several times already when he’d shown me no signs of physical aggression. I’d just been reacting on the basic assumption that anyone here was an enemy, which was just common sense. Except he was nothing like his weaponized brothers. He was probably the mellowest being I’d ever met. He just didn’t care about anything or anyone strongly enough to want to fight for it—even Dracula. For better or for worse, I would use him—and keep a close eye on him for any sign of betrayal.
I sat down on the stone railing of the bridge, directly in the center of the two towers, dangling my feet over the abyss. I pulled out my silver butterfly charm—a magically concealed form for my Horseman Mask—and held it in my fist, doing nothing with it other than establishing direct contact with it. That was important to me.
The bridge reminded of another I’d once visited. It had also hung over a vast, seemingly eternal space and either end had held dangers for puny little humans who thought they could play with vastly superior beings.
I’d fought Samael there. He’d killed Cain. The only reason Cain had been brought back to life was due to us both passing the test from Solomon’s Temple.
Regardless, I was experiencing some deep feelings right about now. I had already been in a dark place, having just come off a fight with Roland where I’d fully intended to kill him, only to find out that we had all been pawns in a game orchestrated by beings much stronger than any of us—namely, Samael and his associates.
Xuanwu—the Black Tortoise.
Qinglong—the Azure Dragon.
And the Unholy Trinity—as they’d called themselves—had apparently set all of that up as a favor to my mother. A promise they had made her to keep me safe in various ways—primarily, making Samael my Godfather and for us to come to Castle Dracula and bag-and-tag our first Master.
So, with Samael betraying me not even an hour into his alleged oath to fulfill my mother’s wishes, was this another game? Was it a joke? On whom? My mother, me, or Dracula?
Was Samael one of these Masters?
And why had Dracula reacted so strangely when I mentioned the Masters? Had he been surprised I knew about them, or surprised that I cared to know the answers in light of my own troubles?
That Dracula had figuratively made me the unlucky sap tasked with kicking out all the guests still crashing at his house from the party last night—before the parental units came back home.
My method was simple—exsanguination.
Except…it made absolutely no sense. Why task me with killing his infernal fraternity brothers? Those most loyal.
I realized that I could spend the next few years trying to decide who had lied, to whom, and when, but that ultimately it didn’t matter.
Rather than worrying about what anyone else thought—who they worked for, who they had promised what to—the only constant I could rely upon was what I was going to do about it.
What I wanted to do right now.
I needed to treat this as if everyone was working against me, and that if everyone but me ended up dead at the end…well, that was their fault for not filling me in on the details ahead of time. If they were on my side—really playing games against Dracula—then the only reason they wouldn’t tell me anything beforehand was because they trusted me enough to be myself and do what I did best.
Kill monsters who did anything more felonious than jaywalking.
I had been thrown into the deep end of the pool without my floaties. Treading water as I debated which person had thrown me into the pool wouldn’t help save me from drowning. Movement was life.
I would get answers after I reached shore—when I confronted Dracula.
Dracula…Vlad Dracul…Count Dracula. The Dragon. Whatever his name or origin really was. And his Beast, Sanguina—the source of his power. The creature that controlled everything as far as the eye could see.
The Castle Keep—as Xylo had called it—was where Dracula actually lived, and where I had first met the bastard and lost all my powers. It was the heart of the royal structure—what everyone imagined a castle would look like. Just a metric giga-fuck-ton bigger, more sinister, and scarier.
We had escaped through dozens of hallways, tunnels, rooms, and about fifty-bajillion stairs to finally reach two of the outermost towers, giving me the first chance to look back and get a clear view of the place.
The Castle Keep branched out into numerous towers of dark gray—almost black—stone connected together by battlements, bridges, and…probably a bunch of other really cool names that equated to architectural or engineering porn.
Xylo had gone on at length describing them to me, but I had zoned out.
All I needed to know was that the Castle Keep was the figurative Pride Rock from The Lion King.
And everything within the surrounding ring of titanic, moss-covered walls was called Castle Dracula—his kingdom.
Kind of confusing, really.
Sitting on my bridge, I focused on everything but the Keep. I stared out at the beautiful, seductive nightmare of a landscape. As horrifying as the place was, it also felt like I was looking at one of the Ancient Wonders of the World. The architecture of everything was exquisite, embellished, ornate, and built on a scale that only should have been possible in a movie or video game. Never in the real world.
Yet here I was.
And seeing it up close from hundreds of feet overhead, rather than from the Courtyard, was breathtaking. Ironically, it served to bring all the nightmares to life.
I stared outwards, trying to familiarize myself with the general layout of the area in front of the Castle Keep. I saw a giant observatory, the Clocktower Dracula had mentioned, a stadium that reminded me of the famous Coliseum in Rome, what looked like a replica of the U.S. Capitol building, several gardens of statues that looked like chessboards from this elevation, gargantuan fountains, dozens of cemeteries, and a hilly sprawl of wooded and floral gardens with fog-covered ponds that might even rival Central Park in New York City.
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.