Page 70 of The Howling
The door is sucked closed behind me with a bang. I jump, clutch at my chest, and then laugh at myself. Of course this place is haunted. I know most of the ghosts personally.
Other than Linton, the super creepy mothman assassin, there is nothing scary in Reavely’s castle.
Save for the devilish face peering at me from outside the battlements, the fortifications which have a sheer drop of forty or more feet on the outside. A set of long, horrible, clawed fingers curls over the stone as the face is joined into a wizened body, covered in grey fur. A set of black eyes glitter at me menacingly.
I retrace my steps to the doorway, but as I do, I hit something hard, like stone. I turn with relief to what should be the doorway.
But there isn’t one. Instead there are vast stone legs. As I lift my head, I see carved armour, a great stone sword, and it’s quickly clear this is a stone knight, at least nine feet tall. He has no face, no expression, nothing but the radiating evil which flows from him.
“Come, little hinnie,” the grey devil rasps from behind him. “Do not anger the knight, or he will remove your head with his sword.” He cackles like old Nick himself. “Which won’t please the master at all.”
“I’m not coming with you. This is my home.” I stumble over the words, fear spiking in my breast.
After everything I’ve been through, I feel horribly guilty for even wanting Reavely to come save me…again. But in the face of these…creatures…I don’t want to have to deal with them on my own.
“You have a new home now, with Lord Soulis.” The creature laughs wetly. “And while he’ll probably not be happy to have you without a head, he can make do with fewer limbs.”
I’m about to scream when a thick stone hand grabs my neck and squeezes. It’s enough to choke me but not kill me.
The creature leans into me as another hand grasps my wrists, whereupon he winds a thin piece of red string around them. The enchanted skein feels like iron cutting into my skin.
“Now, now. There’s no point calling for your Barghest. Lord Soulis already has him.”
“I wasn’t going to call for him,” I pant out. “I was going to call for Lilburn.”
I scream her name as loudly as I can.
There’s a pop as she appears, slams an elbow in the side of the foul grey creature, and grabs my hand. I feel like my head has imploded as everything goes dark around us.
“Ah,there she is, waking up now.”
I flutter my eyes open to see Lilburn and Lorelei sitting side by side.
Lilburn leans forward and puts a cup into my hands. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better,” she says.
“Where.” I twist to look at my surroundings because we are most definitely not in the castle anymore. “Where am I? Where’s Reavely?”
“Drink your tea,” Lorelei says kindly.
I don’t look at the cup as I raise it to my mouth and take a sip. It’s pleasant enough tea, slightly sweet, as if sugar has been added.
“What happened?” I’m not entirely sure, but it looks like we’re in some kind of cave, albeit one cleverly carved to look like a dwelling. The large stone windows to my right look out over a wide river which meanders away down a valley, one side steep and the other a flat flood plain.
“I don’t want to worry you, my dear, but Reavely’s been taken by Lord Soulis,” Lorelei says.
“And he wants to marry you, or he’ll kill the Barghest,” Lilburn adds.
The only sound is the cup clattering to the floor.
REAVELY
I’m trying to snarl as the wolfsbane courses through my system. The rare substance was enough to incapacitate me but not enough to stop me from being aware of my surroundings as I was pulled from my castle, thrown into a large gilded cage on the back of a cart, and trailed away from my ancestral home as the Reivers cackled around me and the stone knights under the control of Lord Soulis stomped along behind.
Of Wynter, of Linton, and the Hedley Kow, there was no sight, sound, or scent.
I watched but couldn’t do anything as we went through a portal and out the other side, magic crackling unpleasantly through my fur, the wolfsbane holding me in my were-hound form.
From the portal, we travelled through land which had no features until, eventually, a huge cliff rose up ahead of us. I have heard of this fortress, the Vindolanda, the ancient place, where humans once were and left their mark in the form of a long ribbon of stones stretching away into the distance. Their once powerful magic, all now forgotten, lingers here, I can smell it, old and twisted by time.
