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Chapter One
Gabriel
"Keep climbing! We're almost there." I latch on to a handhold in the cliff and pull myself up another a few feet, then repeat the process again and again as I inch upward. Sweat pours down my face and soaks my shirt. Damn, this is taking too long. The monsters below us will catch up soon. "Faster! No time to waste, people, keep moving."
I risk a glance downward. My friends are still climbing, but some have begun to fall back. I know they can't help it. None of us trained for climbing up a sheer cliff in the dark. Doing this in the daytime would test the best climber's skills. We are not the best of the best. We're only the best this world has got right now. At least the cliff offers a ton of natural handholds. But our job is still a damn hard one.
A scream echoes below me, receding swiftly.
No, no, no.I glance down, and my heart thuds.
Below me, a figure tumbles toward the ground.
I catch a glimpse of Rafiq's terrified face, and though my first impulse is to look away, I refuse to do that. My team, my friends, followed me onto this cliff without reservations. Losing even one person hurts like a knife driven into my heart, but I can't stop to grieve. Not right now. My friends have stopped climbing, frozen in place as they stare at the ground far below us. That's the last thing they should do right now.
"No gawking," I shout. "We have to keep climbing."
Everyone starts moving again, one handhold at a time, slowly making our way toward the summit. Fog shrouds it, but we know what lies on top of the cliff.
The castle created by Sefton Stainthorpe, the architect of the apocalypse.
I reach up, feeling for anything I can grip, and my palm lands on a flat surface. Peering up through the fog, I can just make out the ground. I've done it. I've reached the summit.
"Come on, guys!" I holler. "I'm at the top. You can make it too."
I find a foothold and push my body up, over the edge, landing face-first on flat ground. For a moment, I just lie here, catching my breath. My pulse pounds in my ears, but gradually, it slows down and becomes almost normal. I roll onto my back, wiping sweat off my face with my shirt. Just as I sit up, my friends begin to pour onto the summit.
Kai crawls toward me on hands and knees. Though he looks exhausted, he manages to grin. "We're here. We made it, sir."
I can't respond, not yet, not until I know the rest of my crew has reached the summit. I rattle off their names in my head as each one climbs over the edge, onto flat ground. Once they've all arrived, I relax a little. Can't relax all the way. We lost a member of our family tonight.
And the battle hasn't even begun yet.
Despite several hundred feet separating us from the street below, I can hear our enemies clamoring at ground level, desperate to reach the summit. They've only just arrived at the cliff's base, though.
"What now?" Kai asks.
"Let's go inside. That's what we came here for—to seize control of the castle. Sefton's palace belongs to us."
I get up and offer Kai my hand, helping him rise too. The rest of our friends lie on the ground or slump on their knees. I'd liketo give them time to recover from that climb, but I can't do it. The monsters below will not give us a chance to catch our breath.
"Time to get moving again," I shout. "Into the castle. Now."
Nobody complains. They all get up and follow me and Kai as we approach the castle. The structure hunkers on the summit like an abandoned castle from a fairy tale, with sloping lines and rounded turrets. The whole thing feels off, though, like a painting with another picture hidden under the surface paint.
The wooden gates hang open.
Yeah, that's just creepy enough to give me pause. I've fought more battles with Echo creatures than I can count, and I've walked into some of the freakiest quadrants in this world. Yet the fact the castle doors are open, as if they were waiting for us, makes me uneasy.
But we have no choice. We can't turn back now.
I slowly walk through the open doors and into a large, empty entryway. A staircase winds its way up to the second floor. Doors on either side of the entryway stand closed. Light that seems to come from nowhere illuminates the interior of Sefton's palace. It's a castle, really, but apparently the mad architect of doomsday labeled it a palace.
The man who created it is dead. Even his Echo is dead. Sefton cannot ever return to reclaim this place.
Do I have an Echo? If I do, I haven't met him. All humans on Earth supposedly have twisted copies of themselves running around in the Echo or in the normal world, beings who have scaly skin, horns, or a thousand other aberrations.
And yes, that includes my friends.
