“So, you’re challenging us now? Is that it?” John is holding up his hands. “You guys have got to be the craziest, professional investigators I’ve ever seen.”

  “We’re special that way.” Richard concludes dryly. “If you want to find us, just go to our channel.”

  “Anyway, ghost hunters, maybe we should let you get back to your personal investigation.” Theordore waves them off. “I’m sure we’ll see you around, eventually.”

  As they draw away to their own personal investigation, Harley shakes her head.

  “I can’t believe we ran into people that are as crazy as we are.”

  “If it’s a competition, we’re winning. I don’t want the prize at the end.” Nathen replies dully.

  “What? A mental asylum – sounds about right.”

  “Since they're covering this spot and struggling, I say we turn our attention back to the castle.” Vukosava concludes. “Back to the ancient city that surrounds it.”

  “Just like that, we’re going back?” Amber fixes her eyes onto Vukosava’s.

  “Yeah, but this time, we’ll be ready.”

  “How are we going to be ready?” John asks.

  “There’s one weakness that the Eternal Prince has. It’s silver.” Vukosava automatically reaches for her neck, but the horseshoe neckce isn’t there. She left it at home - still the point is clear enough to the others. It’s having proper protection. “It caused him to burn up, an impure soul can be affected and harmed by it.”

  “You’re saying if we wrap ourselves up in silver, the prince and his dogs can’t do shit?”

  “I’m saying that other entities will probably follow the same logic – we arm ourselves with silver, the prospect of injury goes down.” Vukosava looks over to John. “I don’t have a better idea than that.”

  “There’s one thing that I have a lot of. Jewelry. Specifically, being my mum’s. I’m sure she wouldn’t notice.” John ughs casually. “She’s got too much of it anyway.”

  It’s heading back to his house that the group seems to get a second wind.

  “Now, I don’t exactly have permission from my folks to buy badass swords, so these baseball bats will have to do. I got double sided tape, and we can start fashioning our ghost killers.” John is thrilled with the idea of getting one back on the vicious monsters that took his friends.

  “So, how are we going to do this? Just rock up?” Nathen interjects, fiddling around with a pearly, silver neckce, looping it around the bat over and over.

  “If we have silver. We should be okay. We’re checking the area quickly, then getting out.” Vukosava states pinly. “We’re not having a repeat of st time, also, we keep our phones handy, if we get split, bunker down and bar the door. The castle dungeons can be secured fairly easily - just make you stick the bat in properly. We have salt, crosses and other deterrents.”

  With the pn clear in everyone’s mind, they head back to the ancient city, with the castle looming above them. John steps out of the car, his glowing silver firebrand at the ready. It’s a mishmash of different trinkets over his mum’s long history of collecting things from international adventures. With how much he’s put on it might as well be chainmail, there’s more silver than duct tape. Vukosava raises an eyebrow in his direction. “Are you able to actually swing that thing?”

  “I got the physicality for it - I’ve done baseball before.” John seems mortally offended.

  “Has he?” Vukosava asks Nathen.

  “Yeah.” Nathen’s voice pitches slightly. “He’s good.”

  “So, he’s a big steaming pile of crap is what you’re saying?” Harley transtes irritably. “Just make sure you’re caving in their skulls, not mine.”

  “Can we get back to the reason we’re here? I’d like to know what I’m swinging at.” John looks over to Vukosava, who didn’t take up a bat of her own. She’s running the research side of things, and it hurts just like the neckce. A stinging pain that is starting to increase - day by day, night by night.

  “Right - everyone fold in.” Vukosava and John take the lead, everyone is watching each other’s fnks – so that nothing can get through. “We need to get to the room where I summoned the Red Queen.”

  “So back to where all this shit started - I hate this.” Harley curses loudly.

  “Tell me about it.” Amber’s voice shakes, rage, sadness and sorrow correting together.

  It’s an awful feeling to be back in Duskenveil - the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Avaron. The castle holds onto a new tragedy. Vukosava takes in a deep, calming breath - no she won’t lose control. She needs to focus.

  John is struggling with a mental battle of his own. “It’s like it never happened.”

  He isn’t wrong. The entrance is clean, spotless even. No blood, no gore or broken bones. The graffiti remains in pce. It’s crazy - that they’re the only ones that know the truth. Not that it matters now.

  “If anyone is going to check it out. They can’t leave anything behind.” Amber replies emotionlessly.

  They pass through the big doorway, Vukosava looks around. Carlos and Alexi - the meticulous duo did a great job cleaning up. Their old equipment is gone. Despite their urgency, they stop, taking in the scenery where their lives went to the shitter.

  “It’s only up from here.” Nathen is keeping his bat in front of him like a spear. “Do you think anything is here waiting for us?”

  Vukosava couldn’t outright dismiss it. “Stay on guard.”

  upstairs from the main hall, towards the spiraling towers of metal and mortar. At the peak of one of these leading towers, is the Prince’s personal pyground. His corner of creativity - paintings, sketches, stage works, all of it an attempt to pce his name in the fabric of history. To conquer what he deems his.

  “If there’s something here, we deal with it.” John is holding his bat back, ready to score a homerun on whatever monstrosity might pop into his line of sight.

  As they walk up the stone steps, a coldness seeps into their bones. That’s the thing about castles, especially those that didn’t have anyone keeping them as a tourist spot. It’s nothing but pin, dull stone - reeking of death and sadness. On either side is more graffiti.

  Fodor is gone.

  You are the paint. He holds the brush.

  There is no one who can hear you.

  “I hope they find peace in their next life.” Nathen mutters.

  “It’s the least that anyone can hope for.” Vukosava says.

  At the back of the room stands the biggest canvas of all - a giant blood painting of Catherine Mallory flying high above the filth and squalor to stand alongside her worthy savior. The Prince is smiling and it sends a rush of vomit up Vukosava’s throat. She swallows deeply - this pce is repulsive and vile. It’s nothing, she tells herself, just a freak and his obsession. A hideous imitation of real love. There shouldn’t be a reason to be on edge, yet Vukosava cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. Her instincts are screaming at her.

  The wall, where she put her hand against it - something doesn’t feel right.

  “Hey, Harley, Nathen, what are you two picking up?”

  The two mediums frown at each other.

  “I don’t think the seal was ever restored.” Nathen quietly admits.

  “It was a fake out, a fricking illusion. How could they all fall for it?” Harley yells.

  “The Red Queen has an ability that can make the abnormal look normal. Her power can be amplified by the emotional state of those that are around her. Whatever is seen as a passionate want or need, she can make it manifest into reality for the most part.” Vukosava answers studiously. “In some stories that were tied into her powers as a Fae, it’s a direct conversion of our natural world into that of the Twilight Court, a world of ambition and power. Another tale indicates that she joins the natural world to the court - bridging them together.”

  “Okay, can you speak English, Vukosava?” Harley asks impatiently.

  “Focus on looking through it, and you should be able to see what’s actually there.”

  Harley and Nathen’s supernatural sensory radars are going off in rapid succession - she knows that Harley possesses a stronger grasp on cirvoyance. Her eyes are widening at the sheer scale of the other realm, she’s always been able to see images, symbols and visions not just in reality but within her own mind with vivid accuracy. Nathen is grasping at his ears, he’s stronger on the other side of things, Vukosava notes distractedly, he’s got ciraudience clearly. The ability to hear voices and messages from the other side. Whatever they sense is truly horrifying in its scale and power, yet Vukosava can feel herself being pulled over.

  John, who's busy looking at the two of them sighs heavily. “We are so fucked.”