“The…Seven Sisters…”
I lifted my foot and stared at him, not sure I was hearing him right or if I’d started hallucinating.
“What did you say?”
Another bullet whizzed by me, and from overhead I heard Holden shout, “Secret move.”
“Seven…” Parker said.
The motorcycles roared into the clearing, and one, expertly piloted by one of his risen pawns, drove straight into the side of the castle as Parker’s life blinked out.
Sutherland was standing next to me, pulling my arm. “I told you,” he mumbled as he ran with me towards the castle steps. “I told you I could see them.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The castle was overwhelmed by chaos.
Fire and gunshots drowned out the din of bellowed orders and screams of pain. I’d killed one necro, but we still had to take care of the one we’d come for. What’s more, I had to figure out what the hell these Seven Sisters were. But the time for unraveling mysteries would come once we killed Bill.
Sutherland practically dragged me up a flight of stone steps and slammed a door behind us just as bullets splintered the wood over our heads. We dropped to the floor, protecting our heads as a shower of gunfire rained down.
“Go. Go.” He pushed me towards the stairs, and we crawled up them on hands and knees, hugging the wall until the bullets stopped.
At the top of the stairwell the passage opened onto the first observation deck. Glancing out, I counted three bodies lying prone, their weapons discarded. Holden and Desmond were nowhere in sight, but they weren’t among the dead, so for the time being I could breathe easy.
“We have to get upstairs before they get inside,” I said, no longer needing my father’s guidance to make my brain work.
He’d saved my life.
Guess he was a good addition to the team after all.
“Might want to use the sword from now on,” he suggested.
Given the way bullets had bounced off the walls downstairs, he didn’t need to tell me twice. Using a gun up the corridor I was as likely to shoot myself as I was to hit anyone else. I holstered my gun but left it armed, and drew my sword.
Up here the din sounded like it was happening on a different planet. Sutherland and I were in the eye of the storm, with waves of violence swelling up above and below us, threatening to meet in the middle and obliterate everything.
We jogged up the narrow stairwell leading from the first observation deck to the second. It was as tight and dark as I’d feared. I couldn’t see anything coming at me from above, and only knowing Sutherland was behind me helped me keep my cool. The wall curved, guiding us up in a steady circle, until at last, light was visible, letting me know we’d reached the end of a seemingly eternal upward climb.
The staircase was short enough by standard opinion, but when small spaces were a source of intense panic, even a few seconds of discomfort felt like hours. Luck was on our side getting to the top of the tower, as we didn’t encounter any of Bill’s remaining men. We came out onto the second level in a small antechamber, where another body was lying facedown on the stone. Outside, the sounds of scuffling sounded closer than before.
“Here.” I handed my gun to Sutherland, and he paused for a moment before taking it. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of arming someone as unstable as my father, but he did have the wherewithal to save me, so I was going to have to trust he could manage the weapon without shooting himself or someone on our side.
Sticking close to the walls and avoiding the open mouth of the stairwell, we moved towards the second observation deck, this one much smaller than the first. Outside, struggling to find space, were Holden, Desmond, Bill and two armed men. I guessed the men to be Bill’s personal risen guards, because one of them had a massive bullet wound in his face and was still fighting Desmond like he hadn’t noticed. Holden had his hands around the other guard’s throat, but the man was using his arms as bludgeons, flailing against Holden’s efforts.
Maybe the dead guards really were more of a threat than the live ones.
Bill shoved one of the guards into Desmond, knocking the two down with the hulking mass of the dead man landing firmly on top. While Des struggled to get the corpse off himself, Holden continued to be pummeled by the other.
“Holden, down,” I shouted.
He complied, though it wasn’t easy with the guard smashing him in the face repeatedly. The blows fell at such a constant pace and so heavily, a human man would have long since passed out. As soon as Holden was out of the way, I lashed out with my sword, cutting the corpse’s head off.
Even headless he kept trying to hit Holden. But without the brain attached, soon the necromancer’s commands failed to ignite the creature’s spark, and his strikes became weak and useless. Holden shoved the body over the edge of the observation deck where it fell to the stone below with a sickening crack.
The vampire grabbed the writhing body pinning Desmond down and set to work helping pry it off.
Bill, seeing he was now outnumbered, looked around the deck and fixed his attention on me. Bold choice. Maybe he