Chapter Twenty #2
“Now we just need find where they are keeping the Centre’s and hopefully my parents.” I say. “Ghost see if you can find the Centre’s.” I ask him and he takes off.
It feels strange.
My parents are missing and yet I don’t really know them well enough to have strong emotions about it.
Obviously I don’t want them hurt and I want them safely home but it’s almost like I’m rescuing a friends parents.
I’m emotionally invested and want to bring them home but not to the same extent that I should be considering they are my parents.
I hope that after this we can build our relationship and get to a point where I do feel that strong connection to them.
I think that its going to be even harder to achieve now since they neglected to tell me that they had told everyone that I was their adopted child.
I’m sure they had good reasons for it but they still should of told me they did it in the first place.
I refocus as Ghost flies over the city. He’s moving too quickly, sticking to the early morning shadows and ghosting when he’s going to be seen, clearly following some sort of trail to the Centre’s because he’s moving so fast, I can’t tell much about the Cursed City but what I can see is that its cramped, the streets are small and close together, some of the buildings close enough that you’d be able to hop across them quite easily.
It resembles a rat run, and looks as dirty and filled with trash as one too.
I only catch sight of a few people it’s still early enough that there aren’t too many about and there is a clear distinction between those in charge and those forced to work for them.
The ones in charge are cleaner, standing tall and some even smiling as they go out about their business.
The others though, they’re dirty, wearing rags instead of clothes and are covered in injuries, its obvious that they are used as punching bags as well.
My blood boils.
“We can come back. If we can successfully get in once we can do it again, Darling. But one thing at a time.” Levi says picking up my thoughts through the Bond lines.
“You’re right. One thing at a time.” I agree forcing myself to focus on rescuing the Centre’s. Unlike them there is no risk of the people being forced to work here getting moved. This city has become a safe haven from criminals and they would be hard pressed to find another one like it.
“Wow. Look at that.” Kysen exclaims as Ghost flies towards a castle that looks straight from a fairy tale, especially with the morning sun raising behind it. It looks like the one from Beauty and the Beast and I desperately want to explore it.
Even how run down and needing repairs it is, is reminiscent of the Beauty and the Beast castle in the beginning and in complete honesty it makes my heart hurt to see it in such disrepair. It could be truly beautiful if it was properly looked after.
“Nyx’s castle.” Kysen says reverently. “No one has seen it properly in decades thanks to the criminals surrounding it.”
The castle is actually not too far from the back wall and is around about a mile from the entry point.
It has a wide sweeping driveway with patrolled gates at the front, although they have beautiful carvings of flowers and vines woven into the metal work they are rusted and worn and chained shut with thick heavy chains.
We won’t be getting in that way then.
Ghost flies around the perimeter of the enormous castle and the high imposing wall surrounding the front and meeting the outer wall of the city on both sides.
Meaning that spans the top third of the city, like I said the castle and its grounds are enormous.
Inside of it the back half of the castle is completely surrounded by a thick forest of trees, with the front driveway the only part that is clear of tree’s.
It means that we are going to have another wall to try and get over since it doesn’t appear that there’s any other way over and we’ve already had Ghost fly around the back wall and there’s no way we can get over there.
“I think we might have to chance it trying to get over that wall. There doesn’t look like any weak points that I can tell from this viewpoint anyway. We’re just going to have to hope for the best, when it comes down to it and hope we can get in.” Jax says.
“Yeah I agree. I can’t see any points of entry either.” Levi replies thoughtfully.
Ghost flies the length of the castle wall one last time to give us another chance to study it before he flies straight towards the castle.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any magic in place to stop intruders or anything even vaguely similar. Either they really are that arrogant. . .” Kysen starts.
“Which wouldn’t surprise me.” Kai interrupts snorting.
“True,” Kysen agrees before continuing, “Or they have them disguised and I can’t locate them observing like this.”
“So that’s something else we will have to deal with when we’re actually there rather than being prepared for it.” Levi mutters not sounding pleased at all.
“Yes and no. I can ask my brothers to bring certain spell stones from the armoury at the academy that should be able to help against most defensive locks and guards.”
“Good, wait until we’re set up in camp first.” Levi orders.
“Got it boss.” Kysen replies, automatically.
“Guys look!” Kai interrupts.
We all re-focus on Ghost not that we could really look anywhere else but we were focusing on the conversation more than where he was taking us.
He flies straight towards the castle wall and I brace myself despite knowing that he can ghost through things.
Sure enough he disappears through the wall and reforms on the other side staying in his ghosted form and sticking to the shadows.
The inside isn’t as bad as the outside of the castle but it definitely hasn’t been well looked after.
Beautiful and ornate wallpaper is faded and torn, the paintings haven’t fared much better and the figures within them are unrecognisable.
The carpets are ruined and some of the furniture broken and none of it cared for.
There are piles of random things along the wide hallway Ghost is currently flying down and it all just looks rather depressing.
As he flies through the many and vast hallways its clear to see where the most used area’s are, they are in slightly better condition.
Ghost is still following something that we can’t see and he flies rapidly through the walls of many rooms giving us small glimpses of what’s going on inside. Many are empty but we do fly through a ginormous dining room filled with people eating, drinking and generally just being loud and obnoxious.
Ghost stops going through the hallways suddenly and changes his trajectory so that he’s going down through the floors instead.
I see far more of a random guy pounding into a woman, who is clearly faking it, than I really wanted to.
As we go down, the castle changes again, from places that although rundown are functioning and clearly meant to be lived in to bare stone walls dripping with water and dark recesses, it gets super creepy.
The dark feeling gets exponentially worse when we drop through a room with screams of terror echoing loudly around it, Ghost moves too fast for any of us to really see anything but all I do see is blood.
So much fucking blood.
“Fuck.” Maverick growls.
Finally Ghost comes to a stop, landing on the floor outside a huge door carved right into the rock of the castle.
The wooden door is crossed with heavy bands of black metal and decorated in multiple runes, none of which I recognise.
As we study the door two guards appear and take up positions outside the door.
“I don’t know why we still have to guard the fucking thing. Its not like anyone is stupid enough to try and get in and the Centre’s are in no condition to get themselves out.”
“I know but that’s what the boss wants. Do you want to go up against him?”
“Fuck no. Scares the fuck out of me.”
“Me too man.” The other guard chuckles lighting a cigarette.
Fortunately none of them notice Ghost’s ghosted form even though he is directly in front of him.
“Well at least we can be pretty damn certain that they are in there although not in great condition from the sounds of it.” Kysen says. “That door is heavily warded with magic it’s not going to be easy to get into and will probably have to be a joint effort.”
“Alright.” Levi agrees. “Lets get a camp set up and you can get a message to your brothers. Hopefully it’s still early enough that they can get to us before nightfall and with enough time to brief them, that we can get the Centre’s and their Bonded out tonight.”
“Ghost come back before you get caught.” I say feeling like we’ve pushed our luck enough for now.
I watch as he takes flight leaving the castle quickly and my eyesight suddenly returns to normal leaving me feeling completely disorientated. I clutch my head as the world spins, vaguely aware of the guys doing the same.
“Wow, pretty Sage.” Jax murmurs, his vision clearing before mine.
I rub my eyes to finally clear them properly and see that in order to protect us whilst we couldn’t see my magic has weaved a web of purple and black strands over the top of us encasing us in.
“Subtle.” I chuckle.
“I doubt it can be seen from the outside magic is funny like that.” Kysen reassures me.
“Hunt call back the horses and then let’s get a couple of miles away so we can set up camp safely.”
“I don’t need to,” Hunter replies as he gestures to just outside my magical barrier, the horses all graze calmly.
My magic drops the barrier and I slowly get up off the floor my body slightly stiff from staying on the ground for a while.
Thankfully it’s not like when I’m in a vision sometimes and time is the same now as it was when we were seeing through Ghost’s eyes.
We all get on our horses and Levi leads us through the woods this time keeping a look out for somewhere that’s safe enough for us to rest up and for Kysen to contact his brothers and ask them to help.
“Here should work. Not so far away that it will take us too long to get back but not so close we’re going to be easily found.” Levi says pulling his horse to a stop in a small clearing with a stream running through it.
“That should be enough to get me up to full strength.” Jax says as he dismounts his horse and walks over to the stream, taking off his boots and socks as he goes. “At least I think it will, I’m still in the dark on most of it.”
“Good, hopefully it will work, everyone needs to be at full strength if we’re going to pull this off.” Levi says.
“I’ll get a fire going and catch some lunch. I know it’s not time yet but it’ll save time later on if we’ve already got it caught and ready to go.” Hunter says.
“Good plan.” Levi agrees. “Kysen can you contact your brothers?”
“On it.” Kysen replies.
He sits down, Ghost and Knot flying into the clearing and landing next to Kysen. I watch as his eyes glaze slightly, he’s still aware of everything like we are but is talking through his bond lines. After a while he refocuses and scrubs a hand over his face.
“Are you ok?” I ask him.
“Yeah, they’re coming. They’re hiding something from me, it’s probably nothing to worry about but it’s still pretty obvious.”