Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
She nodded. “You’d be amazed at what those two elements can do. Talk about a haunted house with a history.”
“Then where’s the subject? Was that its blood on the door?” The unspoken question: Is it inside with us?
“It can’t still be alive, right? It’s been locked in here for potentially decades. There’s no food. Even the spiders and rats all died out.”
“None of this is in my wheelhouse.”
She and Rök edged past the gurney. Behind it sprawled a decapitated corpse in a bloodstained lab coat. The severed head lay nearby. White hair covered the scalp, the gnarled face frozen in a macabre scream.
Poppy said, “Meet the castle’s owner.”
“And more.” Rök pointed to a long, lumpen form not far away on the platform. “That was the subject.”
An emaciated body lay facing away from them, clad only in tattered pants. Its bare back revealed crisscrosses of staples across its discolored skin. Had the wizard created it out of . . . male Loreans?
Rök whistled low. “Looks like a revenant went through a blender. So this wretch killed its creator, then died? At least it didn’t have to tangle with a mob of torch-bearing villagers.”
“They would’ve come in the shitty sequel.”
When Rök started toward it, Poppy said, “What are you doing?”
“I can’t not see it.” He seemed entranced, smoke rising from his skin.
“Take it from me: you won’t be able to unsee it either.”
Rök continued forward, caught in the horror-flick tractor beam. . . .
ELEVEN
Curiosity goading him, Rök approached the body, taking in the stapled skin and wasted muscles. Were those metal bolts on the wretch’s neck, like a car battery? “You sure this one isn’t yours?”
“My Frankenstein’s monster is more creature-feature, all forehead, with green skin like my witches. This one looks somewhat human.” She sounded unfazed by their gruesome find, but after the visitors, this must be nothing. “Why hasn’t it decomposed more?”
“No idea.” Rök stepped closer, had to see its face. He muttered a curse. It was a death mask of anguish: brows drawn, cheeks sunken, teeth clenched. What had this creature gone through? Was its first memory one of electrocution?
Lightning struck the rod yet again, and wires pulsed. A current leapt from a coil to fork out like roots toward the creature. Those neck bolts sparked, and the body convulsed, its spine bowing.
Rök stumbled back. “Holy fuck, it’s alive!”
“It’s alive?” Poppy asked from behind him.
“It’s alive! ALIVE!” Rök went for his sword.
She reached around to snatch his hand. “No conductors!”
With a nod, he yanked Poppy into his arms and leapt to the floor. They watched in disbelief as the creature rolled from the sparking platform onto the ground.
The thrashing ebbed. With the current disrupted, the body stilled. No breaths moved its chest. No heartbeats sounded. Only a residual spark or two crackled around those bolts.
“Or not alive.” Rök glanced back at that leg in the tank. “The body was jolted.” Even so, he squired Poppy away, putting distance between them and the wretch. “That . . . got my attention.”
She allowed him to guide her, nonchalant about what they’d just witnessed. “You really are scared of things that come back to life. You screamed like a child.”
“Thanks for the memo, Red.”
Imitating him, she cried, “It’s alive! ALIVE!”
“You done?”
“Never!” Growing serious, she said, “I do feel sorry for what it went through. Can you imagine what a true resurrection must feel like?”
Rök could. That was the problem. . . .
In the last unexplored section of the lab, they came across the wizard’s drafting desk. Its surface held ghastly sketches of a cobbled-together man, like an architect’s plans.
A leather-bound journal to the side caught their attention. Rök gazed on as she brushed dust from the cover and flipped through. Blood smeared most of the pages, obscuring the writings, but a raven’s feather marked one semi legible entry. It had a date from the last century and a heading.
“The Ending of Everything,” Rök read. “What does that mean?” And why did it give him chills?
“I remember that date. It was four Halloween full moons ago. That must have been when his family died.” Poppy glanced up at Rök. “Everyone believes the castle opens because the veil between worlds is thinnest on this date. But what if it opens because it’s an anniversary of significance?”
They read further: Four calls of my raven always beckoned them inside. Four calls of the raven came and went, but my family never returned from their nightly play among the tombstones.
Rök tapped the page. “The castle door opened for us at sunset like it used to, to let his family out to play. In the morning, to the sound of a raven’s call, it will open again to call them home to their beds.” Not much was random in the Lore. “Only they’re never coming back.”
“So what happened? Did a rival wizard strike? Or maybe vampires descended on them.” She hastily flipped the page.