Sharon Ashwood - Ravenous

She closed the phone, gave him a look that was at once hard and yet full of pity. "That was the hellhound Lore. There's hope. We may have a clue to what became of your witch."

As the fey relaxed their cordon, police swarmed to the area, responding to reports of lights and noise. Cop cars flashed like blue and red beacons. Their search would find nothing, but, for Alessandro and Omara, avoiding the roadblocks made progress frustratingly slow.

Eventually they parked at the mouth of a narrow, grimy alley that ran behind the abandoned Empire Hotel. It was downtown, close to the university and not far from Alessandro's apartment. Much of the paranormal community lived and worked in the area, earning the neighborhood the reputation of a ghetto in the making.

The alley had wrought-iron gates, but the padlock was broken. A few feet inside the entry Lore was waiting, leaning against the brick wall. Impassive, he gave Omara a polite nod of greeting. Hellhounds did not bow.

The narrow passage looked as old as Fairview, paved with sagging blocks of cedar. Tiny windows punched through the blackened brick walls, but none were lit. The back door of a Chinese restaurant stood open far down the passageway. Alessandro could smell it, heavy with the stench of human food. Lore beckoned, leading them into the alley.

"The witch made this."

The hellhound stopped before an arched wooden door that was reinforced with black iron straps. The center of the arch was perhaps nine feet high, thick planks of weathered oak arranged vertically. A heavy bolt secured it from the outside. It looked like something out of a children's illustrated fairy tale.

"She made a doorway to the Castle." Lore's voice was full of reverence. "She made freedom possible."

Alessandro closed his eyes, his wound pulsing with new pain as his heart pounded with love and fear. What did it cost her to do this? What happened to her ?

"What's the door doing here in the alley? How do you know it leads to the Castle?" Omara asked.

Lore gestured to two of his men, who were waiting farther down the alley. "My hounds were chasing the ghouls. They saw a terrible flash of light over this alleyway and felt the rush of power in the air. The hounds came here, with the fey, to investigate and to keep the humans from walking into danger. All they found was this door. The fey knew it for what it was. They said spells like this settle where they please. The door found this place to its liking."

Lore touched the wood. "I can feel the Castle behind it. It calls like old, bad dreams." He dropped his hand, stepping away as if repulsed. "I have nightmares enough."

"We thank you for your aid," Omara said after a long moment. "You have done more than enough. Go tend to your wounded."

Lore nodded and left, the other hounds at his heels.

Alessandro crossed to the door, putting one hand flat against the wood. Loss of blood slowed his limbs, adding weight to every step he took, but he ignored the weakness. He had kept going so far. He could go on awhile longer.

Omara watched, saying nothing.

He slid his hand down the wood, feeling its roughness. A long existence had inured him to fear, yet the Castle, as Lore had put it, was like old, bad dreams. It was a hell built for the vampires and the wolves, the dragons, the demons, and the fey, made for their eternal imprisonment. Made to keep his kind trapped forever. The guardsmen were mad and merciless. Holly had made a door, but who was to say that it would work from the inside?

Holly had disappeared. Logic said she was in the Castle, perhaps lost or hurt or worse. He touched the cold iron strapping, the metal dented as if from a blacksmith's hammer. Anxiety pounded like a full-body migraine. Alessandro drew the bolt. It slid without resistance.

Omara broke her silence. "I forbid it!" she snapped. "You need to rest. You'll bleed into insensibility and lie there like a great idiot until a guardsman trips over you."

The door swung out on massive hinges that gave a sighing groan.

"Alessandro!" Omara cried, her voice sliding from command to entreaty.

"I'm sure you'd be happy enough to see me if you were the one trapped inside."

He walked into hell.

When Holly awoke she was sprawled on a cold floor of stone. The chill went bone-deep, the air around her clinging with damp. The light was faint, but enough for her to see that the wall in front of her eyes was stone, too. Where ami ?

She jumped to her feet, then fell against the wall, dizzy. She'd moved too fast. She felt sick, spent. Almost hungover. But she was unhurt and alone. For the first time in days no one was trying to bite her. Sluggishly, memory flowed back.

Sweet Hecate, I'm inside the Castle . Holly looked around. She'd tried to make the portal into a doorway, but there was no doorway in sight. I could have been thrown. Someone could have brought me here. It might not have worked at all, and I'm trapped .

Holly looked beyond the presence or absence of a door. What she saw wasn't reassuring. The picture in Grandma's book was pretty accurate. The Castle was a wilderness of gray stone. Torches set into the walls threw smears of smoky light, but the glow died within feet of the flames.

Every few hundred feet, passageways intersected the hall where she stood, regular and endless. Holly walked to the nearest corner, cautiously peering around its edge. The new passageway looked much like the last, its ceiling hidden in a fog of shifting shadow.

Movement. A few hundred feet away two guardsmen herded a cluster of changelings, swords and whips at the ready. They crossed the hallway, following yet another passage deep into the Castle's maze. Holly pulled back, afraid she would be seen. Prisoners from the battle?

She turned the other way and nearly walked straight into the guardsman with the braid—the same one she had seen in the Flanders house. He had a thing on a chain that was probably a wolf, but looked as big as a bear.

The wolf looked as crazed and brutal as the man.

"Hi," she said stupidly. She reached for magic, but there was nothing there.

Holly spun and took off down the nearest side corridor, lungs burning as she gulped the musty, damp air. She heard the rattle of a chain, and the guardsman released the wolf, shouting something in a tongue she didn't know. The wolf lolloped after, his juggernaut form crashing into corners whenever his bulk refused to turn quickly. The Castle, solid stone, didn't even quiver.

The only thing in Holly's favor was a head start. Using one hand as a brace, she swung around a corner, then raced off in a new direction. She was utterly lost. The wolf's panting echoed behind her, gusting as if there were fifty beasts hurtling along the corridors. Claws scraped as he moved, the sound like the drag of chalk on slate.

Cold stone smacked against Holly's sneakers, hard even through the cushioned soles. If she could find a room, some doorway too small for the wolf to pass through, she would be safe.

Before her she could see the foot of a stairway. The light barely touched it, showing only a few horizontal edges highlighted against the prevailing murk. She hurtled up the stairs, using hands as well as feet.

Her fingers slipped on slime—some mold that grew in the dark, or else the trail of something she did not care to meet. Shuddering, she pulled her hands away and tried to ignore the slick sensation beneath her running feet.

The stairway was steep, going up and up an irregular slope. At the top of the stairs she froze, counting on the darkness to hide her. Slowly, careful of the long drop at her feet, she turned and looked down, her stomach cold.

The wolf was nosing the bottom step as if it wasn't sure it wanted to make the effort to climb. From Holly's vantage point he was a shapeless mass of dark brown fur, his head a matted wedge. He put one massive paw on the bottom step, and she could hear the clack of the scythe-sharp claws over his wet, slurping snuffle.