The Castle of Spirit and Sorrow

by Steffanie Holmes

  My mouth dried as I remembered my dream, how I’d peered into that blackness and felt the oppressive presence of pure malevolence trained on me. Of the hand on my back, shoving me inside, and how I fell into eternity before landing in my own bed.

  Only this time, I was pretty sure this wasn’t a dream. As we neared the black void, the knife in my chest stung. The pain intensified.

  Corbin squeezed my hands. “It’s a veil, Maeve. It’s designed to keep out enemies and shades. Here,” he took a small stone container from his pocket and tipped it onto his hand. A thick, black mucus poured out of it. “Demon blood,” Corbin said, holding up his hand. Before I could protest, he’d smeared the blood over my face, rubbing it into my cheeks. Globs hung off my eyelashes and clung to the hairs in my nose. It smelled delicious, like rotting meat and burning plastic.

  “This is disgusting,” I mumbled, not wanting to part my lips in case I accidentally swallowed a glob of it.

  “You’re telling me.” Corbin rubbed his hands over his own face, smearing on the blood like war paint. From the black sludge, his eyes shone like bright crystals.

  “How did you acquire a container of demon blood?”

  “With great bravery and daring-do,” Corbin grinned, snapping the box shut and replacing it in his pocket. He held out his blood-soaked hand. “But that’s a story for another time. Shall we?”

  I peered at the door. Is it just my eyes adjusting to the gloom, or does the darkness not seem quite as dark as before? Corbin slid his slimy, blood-covered hand in mine and pulled me into the gloom.

  We stood at the entrance of an enormous cavern, the vaulted ceiling reaching so far above our heads its apex was hidden in darkness. The space was carved of the same dark-veined stone as the hallway, but here the veins stuck out in high relief, twisting up the walls and pulsing as though they were actual veins pumping blood through a living body.

  “Shite,” Corbin swore. “We’re too late.”

  I followed his gaze and gasped. In the center of the room was a tall dais, accessed across a chasm of fire by a narrow stone bridge. The dais held a high throne made of bones – femurs fanning out into elaborate arches, piles of bones forming steep steps that led to the seat of the king of hell.

  At the foot of the steps, a giant shape made of smoke and nightmares writhed on the ground, its power fading as it wilted into nothingness. Daigh stood on its back, his bone blade raised above his head. He looked over at us and winked, then brought the blade down, burying it deep within the creature’s shadow flesh.

  The creature bucked and writhed, and a wave of heat shattered the air, knocking me off my feet. Corbin dragged me back as tendrils shot out of the demon’s body and slammed against the walls, sending bones and rocks raining down. The fire in the pit flared, showering spikes across the narrow bridge.

  With a final heave, the creature shrunk against the ground, collapsing in on itself like a star becoming a black hole, leaving behind only a smudge of black soot on the ground and a large crown fashioned from skull and bones.

  Daigh tore off his crown of wilted vines and horns, and tossed it into the fire. He raised the demon’s crown above his head and settled it on his dark hair. Dark tendrils snaked from between the bones, pouring through Daigh’s ears, into his mouth, through his nostrils and eyes. He turned to me, and grinned.

  “Hello, daughter.” Even in the intense heat, Daigh’s cold voice chilled me to my bones. “It’s fortuitous to find you here. Now, if you’ll indulge me by getting on your knees. It’s polite to prostrate before the new king of the underworld.”

  30

  ARTHUR

  I opened one eye. Mistake. Bright light shot through my skull, like a laser irradiating my eyeballs. My head throbbed.

  “Praise Mother Mary, he’s awake.” A familiar Irish voice drawled, each word a sword stabbing at my eyes.

  “Flynn?” I croaked. “Why is the sun in my eyes?”

  “It’s not the sun, you eejit. It’s the light. I’ll turn it off if you like.”

  I heard shuffling and a click. I tried my eyes again. The room was still bright, but it wasn’t killing me. I blinked again. Blobby shapes started to materialize, becoming bodies and limbs and faces. Familiar faces, all looking weirdly solemn. Behind Flynn was a huge contraption, like something from the medical bay on the USS Enterprise, all flashing lights and intermittent beeps.

  I tried to sit up, but it was like my whole body was underwater. “Where am I? What happened?”

  “You’re in the hospital, mate.” Flynn squeezed my arm. His fingers on my skin shot more knives through my body. “You’ve been here for the last three days.”

  “Three days, but…” Something nagged at me, some important thing that I had to do, that I couldn’t miss. I searched my foggy memory. “What about the Slaugh?”

  “The Slaugh are toast. Goneburger. Finito. We defeated them like that.” Flynn snapped his fingers. “It turns out belief magic and my amazing artistic talents are a killer combination.”

  “Ryan Raynard’s painting stunt helped a little,” Blake pointed out.

  I slumped back against the pillows. I’d missed the Slaugh. I was the warrior. My arm rubbed against the thin sheets, sending shivers through my skin. I looked down at it and noticed it was wrapped tightly in layers of gauze.

  If I missed the Slaugh, then how did I get injured? Why was I in the hospital?

  “What happened to me?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Flynn scratched his head. “They said you might not remember much. You cut yourself with your sword, mate. You hit a main artery and lost almost sixty percent of your blood. We were fecking lucky Rowan saw you and Blake called an ambulance and gave you some herbs to quell the bleeding a bit. If it wasn’t for him, you’d have joined Corbin and Maeve.”

  Flynn’s words took a few moments to fully register. I’d done this to myself. I’d lost all that blood…

  And Blake… Blake had saved my life.

  The door flung open, banging against the wall. The sound mashed against my skull like a mallet. Jane, Connor, and Kelly crashed into the room and surrounded my bedside.

  Kelly wrapped her arms around my neck, squeezing so hard I was afraid my head would roll off my shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Everyone was here to see me. Flynn, Rowan, Blake, Kelly… I glanced around for Corbin before the memory of his death bounced off my skull like a rock.

  Corbin. That was why I cut myself. Because he was dead.

  The rest of Flynn’s words sunk in. Or you’d have joined Corbin and Maeve. I searched the room for her face, but she wasn’t there. “Where’s Maeve?”

  Kelly leaned back. The guys exchanged a telling glance. My chest tightened. Behind me, a machine beeped at double-speed.

  “Flynn,” I demanded.

  Flynn cleared his throat. “Right, there’s something we have to tell you, and you’re not going to like it. But we need you to stay calm and don’t burn down the hospital until we’ve finished talking, okay?”

  “Bloody hell, just tell me!”

  “Maeve’s gone,” Blake said, his voice hard and cold. “She’s gone to the underworld to stop Daigh becoming the fully-fledged demon king.”

  31

  ROWAN

  It took a lot of convincing, and some low-level compulsion from Blake, to get Arthur discharged. As soon as we were piled into Ryan’s car and Simon had started the engine, I explained what I’d found in the library. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and showed them the pictures of the book, as well as Corbin’s Post-it notes. “Corbin was reading about these Mysteries of Lazarus before the attack on Briarwood. I think he might’ve figured out how to protect himself in the underworld.”

  “That wanker,” Arthur breathed, holding one of the Post-it notes up to the window. “Why didn’t he just tell us? Surely he doesn’t expect us to learn Latin or bloody Elvish so we can bring him back.”

  “He must not’ve got that far,” I stared at the Post-it no
tes. They still made no more sense now than they had before.

  “Or the answer was so obvious he knew we didn’t need the books to figure it out,” Blake piped up.

  I whirled around to face him. The corner of his mouth twitched up.

  “You might’ve said something!” I yelped.

  “I wasn’t sure,” Blake grinned. “I’m still not sure, in fact. I’m just trying to think like Corbin. Maeve said there was an object around Corbin’s neck that usually sat on the library shelf – an ampulla.”

  “What’s that?” Flynn asked.

  “It’s a medieval vial for holding holy water,” Arthur said.

  “How do you know that?”

  Arthur gave a small smile. “I picked it up once and Corbin gave me a boring lecture.”

  My chest pinched. I could just imagine Corbin launching into a long-winded description of how the pilgrims used the ampulla.

  “What’s the plan here, gents? Are we going after Corbin and Maeve?”

  “I think that ship has sailed,” Arthur looked up at the pale moon, where the last traces of the Slaugh riders had disappeared. “Unless we’re all planning a suicide.”

  Flynn frowned. “Jeez, mate, ease off.”

  Arthur glanced at Flynn, then stared at his hands. “Sorry, bruv. I forgot.”

  “I don’t think Corbin intended us to follow him,” Flynn said. “I think there’s something we’re supposed to do on our end to bring him back. And of course now we’ve got to get Maeve back, too.”

  “Do we need another ampulla?” I asked

  “I don’t know!” Flynn threw up his hands. “I’m not the expert in all this magicking shite. I don’t think an ancient pilgrim hip flask is the kind of thing you can buy from Sainsburys.”

  “Whenever we’ve needed to reverse a spell, we’ve performed it backwards,” I pointed out.

  “But we don’t know what spell Corbin did,” Arthur said, holding out the Post-its. “We’ve got these diagrams, but no idea what they mean.”

  “No,” I said, reaching for my mobile phone. “But there’s one way we can find out.”

  32

  MAEVE

  Shadows slithered from the glinting eyes in Daigh’s crown, flickering across his skin and darting through the crevices of his clothes. I winced as they burrowed under his fingernails and drilled into his ears. When he opened his mouth to speak, black tendrils whipped across his lips.

  “You do not prostrate yourself before a new king?” he asked mockingly. “I thought you would wish for an accord between our worlds, in the same way you asked for a treaty between fae and humans. Surely, you would begin negotiations with deference to my position.”

  “What position?” I scoffed. “You can’t just call yourself the king of the underworld. You have to actually have a kingdom. In case you haven’t noticed, yours emptied out to go and fuck up the world, and when they get back they won’t be happy to learn you’ve killed their ruler. You’re the king of empty halls and useless torture chambers.”

  “You did me a favor, dear daughter. You occupied the demons for time enough that I could come here and dispatch the one who stood in my way,” he laughed. “And now here you are, delivered to me as my gift from the traitor Liah. It is too perfect. You will be my heir, my princess. Your friend can be our grand vizier. What a beautiful court of chaos we’ll have.”

  “I’d rather die,” I shot back.

  “You’re dead already.”

  He had a point.

  Daigh descended one step, his boot crunching against the skulls. He waved a hand in front of his face. Black tendrils shot from his fingers. I screamed and flinched away, covering my face as the tendrils circled me, sliding across my skin like blades before returning him. “Freshly dead, I see, but like your friend here, you’re not on an official stay. Your presence here upsets the balance of things. You both still retain your souls. The boy has an amulet that allows resurrection, and with that blood on your face you bear the three essences that allow you to return also, but without a soul offered in exchange, you will never leave my court. So you may as well make yourselves comfortable.”

  Daigh swept his arm in a graceful arc. Something butted against my legs. I turned around, and saw two stools made from bones, each with a cushion of crushed purple velvet, waiting for me and Corbin.

  I yelled and kicked the stool. Mistake. It would appear that even thought I was technically dead, I could still stub my toe.

  “Since I know you so love facts, daughter,” Daigh drawled, fluttering his hand and making the stools slide after us as we backed away. “I will give you one before I take your souls so you will remain by my side. I did not kill the demon king, for there is no king to kill.” He patted the crown on his head and smiled his cold, dark smile, and a rage such as I’d never felt before surged through my core.

  I wanted Daigh to burn. I didn’t just want him to die, I wanted to watch his face as he realized he was about to die, and I wanted to twist the knife into his skull myself and feel his life draining from his body. I wanted him to suffer, as he had caused everyone I loved to suffer.

  Daigh tossed his head back, his laugh booming through the cavernous space. He spread his arms wide, like a corruption of Christ’s passion. “If you want to kill me, daughter, come. I accept your punishment.”

  I broke into a run, my boots clattering across the bridge. My hatred bubbled up inside me, flaring through my body with a magic that was stronger and sharper and more real than any power I’d felt before. My veins lit up, my teeth clattered, my eyes burned with rage and lust. My whole body flared with white hot power. I had Daigh in my sights and I believed I would have my vengeance.

  Hatred is just another side of love.

  Arthur’s words echoed through my head, followed by Kelly’s sickened face as she begged me not to kill Daigh. Bile rose in my throat. I tried to push the sensation back down, but my stomach lurched, causing my magic to flicker.

  No. I will not feel guilty for doing what is right. For everything I’ve lost, and for everything he’s taken from the people I love. I will finish him.

  I slammed into Daigh, knocking him back against the steps. He raised his hands and flung his dark tendrils around me. They tightened against my skin, burning and flaying my flesh. But the pain only fueled my fire.

  I pressed my hand to his temple, and I loosed everything I had.

  33

  ROWAN

  “Ah, yes.” Clara leaned forward in Corbin’s chair and ran her fingers over the cover of the book. “Trust Corbin to bring to light what has long remained in darkness.”

  Flynn leaned over her shoulder and nodded his head, rubbing his stubbly chin as if he could read archaic Latin and had discerned Clara’s cryptic comment. The others crowded into every corner of Briarwood’s library. All except me. I waited in the hall, my anxiety flaring up my spine like needles, stopping me from crossing the threshold into that space that smelled of Corbin. The books from my counting shelf were still scattered across the floor. I couldn’t cross without counting them, not when I was this fired up.

  I gritted my teeth as Clara continued to pore over the book. We only had a day left to bring Corbin and Maeve back. Every minute counted, and we’d already lost a precious few waiting for Clara and the others to meet us at the castle. The reporters had returned to camp out outside Ryan’s gates, and they’d been joined by more of their ilk from London and Dublin and Glasgow and Europe. Grainy photos of the demonic riders were blowing up the internet, although the rumor was that it was a publicity stunt from Ryan Raynard.

  Aline grinned as she told us how they eventually bested the press by sending Simon out the front gates in Ryan’s car with a bunch of his clothes stuffed under a black hoodie in the passenger seat. The reporters chased the Jaguar into the village, and Aline snuck out behind them in Simon’s own car with the whole crew jammed in the back and Smithers singing ‘Spirit in the Sky’ at the top of his lungs.

  I would’ve laughed at the image if not
for the fact that the retelling of it took yet more precious minutes.

  “What has remained in darkness?” Arthur growled. He was already losing patience. I didn’t blame him. Inside my head, a clock ticked down the seconds until our fourth day was up and we lost our window to save Corbin and Maeve.

  “Rumors have circulated over the centuries that if you wore the blood of all three magical creatures – fae, demons, and witches – and knew the proper incantation, you would be able to walk through the worlds unbidden.”

  “In non-magical gobbledygook, that means you could be raised back to life from the dead,” Aline said from the her spot beside the globe bar. She tapped her fingernails on the lid in a steady rhythm, as if she too was counting down the seconds.

  “You’re not suggesting that we might be able to recover our son and Maeve from the underworld?” Andrew Harris asked, his arms around his wife. His voice was stern, but the lilt at the end of his sentence betrayed his hope.

  “That’s what Corbin has led us to believe.” Clara flipped to the page in the book with the picture of the alchemical diagram. “Here, the writer recounts a famous Orthodox tale about Lazarus’ life after he returned from the dead. Apparently he was forced to flee Judea for Cyprus, where he became the first Bishop of Kition. He never smiled in the thirty remaining years of his life, as he was haunted by the visions of the unredeemed souls he’d seen during his four days in the underworld. The only exception was one time when he caught a thief stealing a pot from the market, and he remarked, ‘the clay steals the clay'.”

  “Corbin said that,” I whispered, gripping the doorjamb. I tried to force my leg over the threshold, but it wouldn’t budge. “In Maeve’s dream.”

  “Some witchcraft scholars believe – and the writer of this page agrees with them – that Lazarus’ comment carried a double meaning. He referred in the first instance to the transience of man, and of life. That in the grand scheme, the thief’s life was no as dirt between the fingers. He was part of a greater whole, a building block of the world, crafted by God for his own divine purpose. The other meaning refers to the mysteries of Lazarus, to the spell that brought Lazarus his eternal life. For as clay is a raw material that must be moulded by a creator, so too is blood in ancient medicine the raw material, the carrier of life. And who was it that granted him this everlasting life? Jesus, the blood of God, who would wash away the sins of the world. The son of God was the clay who stole the clay.” Clara pounded the book with her tiny fist. “Don’t you see?”