Chapter 2

Thick silence suffocated him. He didn't dare use the flashlight on his phone – something might have found him, there among the dead late on the night of Hallowe'en. Despite the moon, the world was very dark around him. A frightful fiend doth close behind me tread, he thought, and shuddered in terror that it might be true. He flicked around, but nothing was there. Nothing was visible. If only he couldn't half-hear movements, small sounds in the deathly stillness. His heart hammered – but his curiosity hammered harder. Curiosity killed the cat, he thought. Or maybe in this case, the Castle.

He walked on, through the graves. The chill in the air wasn't simply the sinking temperature. Each headstone, each tablet, each looming monument and granite-cased memory added its weight of grief and misery, pain and suffering, to the atmosphere. The shadows reached and grasped: long, distorted skeletons. No light-hearted decorations here. No pleasurably shared shivering, nor warmth of another life. Only the lazy wind whining, and the chill dread of a cold grave waiting. He checked his phone, again, and found that her small blue dot hadn't moved. His hands shook in his pockets as he returned the phone, terror coursing through him. Why, why was she here?

And then he saw her, and stopped dead.

She was surrounded by a cloud of mist: kneeling on the grass, head a little bent in ghastly reverence, left arm some way extended.

Her face was white and gaunt. Blood dripped from her wrist into a small bowl on the grass before a grave. The skull beneath the skin, he thought, terrified. The wind whipped up the trails of mist. It must have been mist, because there was nothing else it could be: thin shreds of vapour swirling – but when he looked around, they were only here: only around her, thicker around the bowl.

The blood was dripping, but the bowl was clean: white as bone. Bone china, he told himself, and knew it for a lie. She still wore the same stark black as she had when she had left his loft: her coat laid aside. Her skin was as sickly pallid as her face, but her eyes gleamed in the cold moon's light.

On All Hallows' Eve, the veil is thin, for those who have eyes to see and strength to look.

He couldn't have said from where the words arrived in his head, for surely none had spoken them. He took another step, and another. The dead leaves rustled, but she didn't hear, as she hadn't seen. Her eyes were elsewhere, looking at another world. From the corner of his eye, he could almost see forms: transparent, grey, and ghastly. Still her blood dripped, thick and slow, and surely it should be clotting? Surely it should stop? And yet, it flowed, as dark as the night around them; and yet the small bowl remained pristine, unstained; and yet the mists ebbed and rose.

He looked much harder, and the mists began to change shape: to form, and reform, into figures. Movement was impossible: his feet frozen to the ground, his heartbeats measured out in the blood dripping from Beckett's left wrist.

Suddenly, it all came into focus. The mists became solid: people, clothed, and speaking. These were no skeletons or ghosts, now, but ordinary people.

If, that was, he discounted the presence of the wounds that had caused their deaths.

A susurration ran through the air, and the dead turned to Castle. He would have turned and fled, if only he could force his feet to move. Instead, he stood, petrified, and watched the dead approach.

He sees us.

Why is he here? He doesn't belong.

He sees us, though. He must belong.

He hasn't paid.

She pays. Look how he watches her. She pays. Can't you see it hurting him?

He's not like her. He should pay.

The ghastly forms surrounded him, closing in, covering him.

He should pay!

"No." The word fell as heavily as death. "Leave him be. I pay. At the end of the night, you will be with me, and I am paying, as I always have, as I always do, as I always will. Leave him be."

But he sees us!

"I said No."

The dead fell back, and Castle breathed again. Beckett still knelt on the grass.

"You are mine, not his. Leave him be." Cold command backed her words.

We are yours.

He doesn't belong.

"He belongs to me." Castle startled. "Just as you do. I have paid."

He should pay too.

"No. One payment. One that pays for all. Take your payment. Time is running down."

The forms coalesced around Beckett again. In all that time she hadn't looked at Castle once: her focus and will entirely on her living ghosts. They – oh, thank Christ, he couldn't have borne to watch that – touched the blood, they didn't drink it. But still, they weren't satisfied.

We belong. Prove he does.

"I need prove nothing to you. Who gives you a night's life? Who finds you justice?"

We help you. We give you answers.

"I would find them myself. I don't need you. I give you justice because that is my life."

The ghosts were silent, assessing, still absorbing Beckett's blood: the slow drip uncanny and unreal. Blood didn't flow like that: steady drops; it should gush, then slow, then stop. She should be affected by the loss, and yet, apart from the marble whiteness to her skin, there was nothing: no tremor, no weakness.

Prove he belongs, they insisted.

Gleaming eyes, more green than hazel, flashed. "You ask too much. You're mine. You know it."

Prove he is too.

She sighed. "If you want to waste your time on this..."

Prove it! We're hungry.

"Then feed. That was the deal. I pay. No-one else."

No. He's here. He sees us. He could pay too.

"No. He won't pay."

He has to. He came here. He has to pay. There are rules. If you want him to leave, he has to pay.

"He's mine."

No matter. There are rules to be followed. If he could enter, and see, then he can pay. Those who see, must pay. He must pay. Or never leave.

Her head turned to Castle: eyes hard in an alabaster face.

"Come here." He went. "Kneel." He did. No thought of disobeying crossed his mind. Danger surrounded him: and the dead were hungry. He realised, trembling, that he was in too deep to save himself. "You shouldn't have come here." It was a bit late for that now. Her face was set, unsmiling. "Do exactly as I say. Don't speak. Don't hesitate. Don't flinch."

The shadows puddled round him, grasping; the dead encircled them. He didn't dare to look at anything other than Beckett's chill, pale face: as if she were as dead as those which – not who – surrounded her.

"Take your coat off." He did, folding it neatly and setting it by hers. "Now your watch." It followed. His gaze flickered to her bloodied wrist. She set the bowl between them, facing him. "Give me your hand."

The ghosts closed in: avid, staring, desperate. The moonlight was reflected in the keen blade in Beckett's hand.

She slashed across his wrist in one sure movement, and then pressed her own opened wrist to his. Mingled blood fell. He felt no pain, nor cold.

"It's done," she said. "He pays too."

Her face changed. "What..."

Castle simply stared at her.

Around them, the dead fell silent: no whispers, no movement.

"What just happened? I can feel your heart beating."

"I...I can feel yours." He gulped.

Around them, the dead absorbed the dripping blood, and returned to the shadows, sated, watching and waiting.

We're his too, now.

Two of you.

Two...oooo of yoooooouuuuuuu.

The voices faded, leaving only mists around them.

"Put your coat on. We need to go."

"Uh?"

"It's after midnight. We need to go. Well, I do. You can stay if you like." Beckett had already clasped her watch and donned her coat.

"But..." Castle looked at his wrist. The wound had closed, with only a tiny roughness when he ran fingers over it to mark the slice. "Oh."

They walked out together, a fine mist trailing them.

"Hold on," Castle said, as they reached Beckett's car. "How did we get out?"

"Through the gate."

"I... but I don't remember opening it."

"You didn't."

"But you didn't...I walked through it? I thought you meant I'd be okay! I don't feel dead! Am I dead?"

"No more than I am."

Which Castle did not find reassuring, after midnight on Hallowe'en. "Are you dead?"

"No. Don't be ridiculous."

"I just watched you lose a pint of blood in a way that's totally impossible" –

"There's something you don't believe?" –

"Totally impossible and I saw ghosts and now I've walked through an iron gate and I can still feel your heartbeat and what is going on here Beckett because I really don't like this." He finally drew breath.

"Get used to it."

"What did you say?"

"Get used to it. This is your life now."

"My life?"

"You shouldn't have followed me," she said wearily.

"But what is it?"

"The dead."

Castle shivered. "The dead?"

"What did you think they were? And now they're yours too. Enjoy it."

She turned to unlock her car.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"But..."

"You'd better go back to your party. They'll be missing you."

"But... what's happening? I can feel your heart." He reached for her hand. "Something happened."

She didn't say anything. Shadows shrouded her face, and once more the mists laced around her. The street seemed darker, suddenly, and the wind whined.

"Something...happened," Castle said slowly. "And..." he concentrated, still holding her hand. "You know what happened... uh..." He concentrated harder. "Oh. Oh my God. OhmyGod. Blood brothers? Well, siblings."

She yanked her hand from his. The mist closed around her, shielding her. Hostility thickened the air. Castle focused. That wasn't all there was. Hostility, sure; anger – nothing new there, then – and... fear? The feelings were severed as her hand left his, before he could identify them all.

"Go home. See to your guests."

Her car door slammed shut, and she took off. Castle watched the red tail lights until they turned off, and then slowly paced to his own car. The wind whined and whispered some more, and the streetlights didn't pierce the darkness thrown by the grasping tree branches. He shivered again, and pulled his coat more tightly around himself. The night was full of half-heard sounds and half-seen movements, plucking his taut nerves. He was very alone.

Not alone.

He jumped like a jackrabbit and practically ran to the car, huddling into the driver's seat and locking the door behind him. Suddenly, he wanted to be home, where there was light and life and warmth and happy noise. And whisky. He badly needed to have a drink.

We're with you, slithered by his ears. He ignored it, all the way home. Sure, he was open-minded. But not that wide open. Beckett must have been pranking him. He completely disregarded the unlikelihood of Beckett arranging for the three-D sound and light show that the prank would have required.

At home, the party was still in full swing, and – astonishingly – no-one had noticed his absence. He changed back to his space cowboy outfit, threw himself into the remains of the festivities and resolutely did not think about a single second of the last two hours or so, even when it seemed that the windows were cloudy and the fake cobwebs were rather larger than he remembered.

The last revellers evicted, he washed, wrapped himself in a warm robe, and repaired to his study for a nightcap of his best Scotch. The fine spirit warmed his throat, and he relaxed, safe in his sanctuary, and then went to bed.


Beckett drove home through the darkness and the sullen sodium streetlights, still chilled in body and soul. She shouldn't be chilled: she never felt the cold, now. But Castle did, said a small clear voice in her head. She flung her coat down and poured herself a stiff drink, throwing it back, desperate for the burn. What had happened?

You know what happened.

She did. Castle's insane curiosity had got him into yet another dangerous situation. Once he'd walked into the graveyard, close to midnight on Hallowe'en, once he had looked and seen the dead, living; seen her payment – she'd had no options. She'd taken the only action that could possibly have saved him: spending her own blood and praying that she wouldn't be leaving him there, with her other dead: she had had no idea whether it would work and what the consequences might be. Because she knew that there would be consequences. There were always consequences to consorting with the dead.

And now she could feel a second, slower, heartbeat alongside her own, and when he'd touched her she'd felt his thoughts and panicked.

We're his too, now.

So are you.

Oh, shit.

And he is yours.

Blood bonding.

Oh, fuck. What had she done? But she knew. Hallowe'en wasn't simply superstition and trick-or-treat: it was older than most living persons dreamed, and carried weight, for those who were...otherwise. For those who, as she had had, eyes to see and strength to look; for those who paid a price for their...companions.

She'd had to save him: out there in the dark where the dead had roamed, hungry and searching; she'd had to pay their price, this year as every year. But this price too? This strange connection; this other heartbeat next to hers? This bittersweet knowledge?

We were stronger, with both of you.

Her dead sounded profoundly satisfied. She shuddered.


When he woke in the morning, he was convinced that it had all been a dream.

Right up until he found a faint white line slashing across his left wrist. He hurried to put his watch over it, and hastened to the bullpen where he would find Beckett and prove that it had all been a total illusion. He was really looking forward to their coffees: in fact, he could almost taste it.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"Coffee service," he said happily.

"Thanks."

Castle sat down. Everything was just as usual. It had all been a dream – he'd nodded off when he took a short break from the party and imagined it all. Beckett was glaring at the murder board, just as usual; tapping impatient fingers, just as usual; drinking her coffee, just as usual...

What the hell? He could, very clearly, taste vanilla in the back of his throat. And he could feel a second pulse...

No no no. This was not happening. He was imagining things. Not enough coffee. Or too much coffee. Or not enough sleep. A draught skimmed his neck, and he shuddered. He was cold. Maybe he was sick. Another coffee would help. He gave the murder board a last glance, and trudged off to the coffee machine.

Look for the blue van with Pennsylvania plates.

"What?"

Silence answered him. He picked up his coffee mug, and the steam writhed around his hands.

"Can I get one too?"

Beckett had come in.

"Sure."

He fussed with the machine, and turned to her while it steamed and dripped. He'd almost think there was a hint of fuzziness around her, but when he looked properly, it was gone. A wisp of steam from the machine, that was all.

And yet, he could feel a second pulse, a little faster than his, beating in his veins. Suddenly his favourite song was very, very scary. He handed over her mug, touching her cool fingers – and just for an instant his vision doubled and he could see himself... but not quite himself. He shook his head, and the doubling disappeared.

"Something wrong?" Beckett asked.

"No..." he said, but even to himself he didn't sound certain.

Beckett drained her mug without a care for her throat lining and rinsed it out.

"Beckett..."

"Yeah?"

"Last night...um...I had this really weird dream... at least I think it was a dream but it felt really real."

She raised an eyebrow. Cold dread chilled her.

"Are you okay?" Castle asked.

"Yeah, why?"

He shook his head again. "I think I'm sick."

"More like tired. If you will throw late night parties on a school night..."

"It's not that."

She quivered. She knew what was happening. Tiny curls of mist pretended to be steam from the coffee machine. Her pulse raced.

Blue van. Pennsylvania plates, the dead whispered to her.

"I... look, this sounds crazy, okay, but... I think I can feel your heartbeat." He hitched. "It's going really fast right now." He hesitated again. "What happened last night?" he blurted out.

"This isn't the time or the place."

"I need to know."

"Later," she said, as spare and clean as the bones of the dead in their graves. "After eight. My apartment."

She stalked out again. Faintly, Castle heard her talking to Ryan. "That blue van – Pennsylvania plates. Run it." He startled. How had she known? He hadn't told her.

How had he known?

You are ours.

We know things.

We tell things.

We want justice.

He was, quite definitely, going crazy. He went back to his chair at Beckett's desk, and stared at the murder board, seeing nothing. The cops were buzzing round getting traffic footage and running the van, and there was nothing he could do but fret and fidget. Before that could annoy Beckett to the point of murder, he left.

With Castle gone, Beckett breathed a huge sigh of relief that she could bury herself in work and not think for one moment about the looming explanation.

After an intense shift chasing down the blue van, she trailed home, and hunched into her couch, unhappy. Wasn't it bad enough that she had this...accompaniment, without having to explain to Castle – and worse, to feel his heartbeat alongside hers; and sense his emotions. It wasn't that she didn't know: Castle wore his emotions on his sleeve most of the time, and he hadn't taken any trouble to disguise his desire for her.

And yet. There had been something more; something that scared her. More, if she could sense his emotions – then could he also sense hers? He'd said he could feel her heart...

We're stronger when you're both there.

That was not something she wanted to hear. "You had no right," she said, bitterly.

The rules are the rules.

"And is it in the rules that you help solve your own murders?"

It always has been.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

What better revenge than seeing our murderers go to jail?

Apart from rising from the dead?

Beckett raised an acid smile of appreciation. Her dead tended to the sarcastic, except on Hallowe'en itself, when they became formal. Like called to like, she supposed.

"I see."

He saw. So he pays.

She shrugged, resigned, pulled her sweater around her. "So now I get to explain."

Yes.

"Great."


Thank you to all readers and reviewers.