The first thing Demona noticed as she glided past the castle was how dark the entire building was. Where the tallest building in Manhattan—let alone the world—should have stood, an enormous black hole of iron, glass, and stone rose up instead. All of the lights were out in the entire Eyrie building, and there were no lights illuminating the exterior of the castle. Strangely, only a soft blue light emanated out of the windows in the Great Hall. It was only visible because she was now hovering so close to the stone exterior.

Demona landed unimpeded in the castle courtyard, and she paused in a crouched and ready position as she cast her gaze about for any sign of Xanatos's castle defenses, such as his goons or the laser turrets in the towers. When nothing happened she moved to the Great Hall's windows and peered inside.

She heard the panic long before she saw the chaos within. Ghostly figures whirled about the Great Hall causing mayhem and destruction. She stared in shock as she could make out a few familiar shapes in the dim emergency light, the ethereal forms of her long-dead kin. She hadn't thought of those faces for so long. She'd blocked them out, repressed them, refusing to recall their faces. But now, seeing them in the flesh—or spirit, rather—overwhelmed her with a surge of memories, both pleasant and painful.

She quickly shoved those feelings down, and slammed the door shut on them. She'd had hundreds of years of practice doing so. She wouldn't let that change now.

She focused on the fact that her daughter had been right, that the castle was haunted afterall. But for ghosts to manifest like this and cause this much mayhem, a magical conduit should have been required. But tonight was also Samhain, when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest, when once-dormant wraiths could be awoken and empowered again.

She smiled as she watched a human get tossed across the room by the spirit of one of her kin, and thought perhaps she would allow her now-risen clan some uninterrupted revelry for a time while she searched for her daughter.

She needed to get inside without bringing attention to herself, and she ran up to the battlements and leapt off the edge of the castle, tucking her wings in close as she dove off the side and soared toward the bottom of the castle proper. What appeared to be an enormous chunk of exposed rock and earth beneath the castle, actually contained the cavern her clan had used as a rookery for centuries. Demona knew the castle like the back of her hand, and she slipped through a small crack in the stones, hidden behind a large rocky outcropping.

Xanatos had closed up a lot of the secret entrances to the castle after she had snuck in once to prevent him from sabotaging her spell that turned the entire city to stone. Her attempt to destroy the humans of Manhattan had cost her a decades-old alliance with Xanatos, but she had intended to cast him off at some point, anyway. Her main goal had been to take the castle back from Xanatos when the time was right, and that still remained a possibility. She had seen other empires rise and fall in her immortal lifetime, and she knew she had to only wait for his impending dotage, or merely outlive him, and then take it back from his descendants.

She crawled through a narrow opening in the rocky base of the castle, and eventually made her way into the rookery. When the castle was relocated, she had insisted on the rookery being moved as well. A naive part of her had hoped that when Goliath awoke they would resume their love affair, conceiving another egg in a few years' time to replace the one they had lost.

Alas, his foolishness and his stubbornness, as well as that treacherous human whore of his, had turned those plans to ash. She now wanted nothing but death and destruction upon them both.

But there was Angela to consider now. She would have to plan and plot carefully so as not to raise her suspicions. And she was. Angela was none-the-wiser to any of the plans that Demona had been carefully putting into place, bit by bit.

Demona passed the creche where eggs were once tucked away safely. Tonight it was empty. That surprised her as she knew there should be at least one egg in the rookery. Earlier in the year she had seen the news and had witnessed her former clan foolishly attempting to intercept the Pack in Times Square. She had seen the sky-blue female with an egg strapped in a carrier on her back. Demona wondered where the egg was now. Perhaps the female did not feel comfortable leaving it alone in an otherwise empty rookery. She could understand that. However, if the egg had been there, Demona might have entertained deviating from her schemes for the evening and taken the egg for herself. But alas, it was absent, and so she carried on with her original plan.

She swept up the stairs to the castle proper, a shotgun in her hands and a blaster strapped to her back. She emerged at the top, shrouded in her wings, silently stalking through the hallways like a cat looking for trouble.

...

...

Once all of the guests able to leave via the emergency exit had gone, including Margot Yale, who was the last to depart and threatened to sue Xanatos for every penny he had, the clan turned their focus back on the ghosts that were still causing mayhem. Goliath, Elisa, Brooklyn, Katana, and Xanatos hunkered down behind some turned over tables to regroup and strategize. The ghosts seemed to have settled down a little without the party guests to harass, and they drifted about the center of the Great Hall somewhat aimlessly.

"Anyone know anything useful about fighting ghosts?" Brooklyn asked.

All eyes turned to Goliath as the one amongst them who had any real experience in that area.

"I know very little, I'm afraid," he offered remorsefully. "They seem to need some kind of foci to remain in one place, a power source of some sort. Among the cliffs at Wyvern, it was the enchanted neolithic monument and carvings beneath the hill, along with their anger and hatred, that held the Captain's and Hakon's ghosts in this plane. I don't know how Hakon was later able to get from Scotland to Manhattan, but Hudson and I assumed it was through the axe Wolf wielded. When we destroyed the axe, his tether was severed from this plane of existence," Goliath explained. "I'm still puzzled by how Wolf came to possess the axe in the first place, but that's of little consequence now."

He sighed deeply, forcing himself to revisit the memory of that night. "As for the rest of the clan I saw at Wyvern, they were all illusions. I know not what these beings are," he said, gesturing around the Great Hall. "But we have no reason to believe that they are not our fallen brothers and sisters."

"So what do you think is keeping your clan here now?" Elisa asked.

"My guess would be that it is the castle itself," Goliath replied contemplatively. "Who knows what magical properties are imbued within its stone foundations."

"Well, that's no help unless we want to tear down the whole building," Brooklyn quipped.

"That's out of the question," Xanatos replied. "Besides, I quite literally did that, and your clan still came with the castle across an entire ocean."

"How do we fight them then?" Katana asked.

"I am not sure," Goliath grumbled. "When I fought the spirits of the Captain and Hakon, it took reasoning with the Captain—reminding him that in our former lives, he had been my friend. The one I once knew as Robbie, who held honor above all things. Only then could I make him see the error of his ways. That's when he turned on Hakon and brought down the monument that would have held me there forever," Goliath said thoughtfully.

"Have any of you guys noticed that they don't seem to be doing much at the moment?" Elisa said, interrupting the current conversation. She had been watching the ghosts carefully for any sign that they would start their violent behavior again, but they almost seemed lost and adrift at the moment. "They're just circling around the room right now."

"Yes…" Goliath replied thoughtfully. "Almost like they were—"

"A distraction," Xanatos finished as he was struck with the same realization.

"But from what?" Elisa added.

A bright light flashed in the entryway left of the fireplace. Elisa readied herself for a fight, and shielded her eyes from the light, when she recognized the familiar silhouettes of Hudson and Lexington.

"What the devil?" she heard the former leader shout.

Hudson saw where the others had hunkered down behind some fallen tables, and he and the smaller gargoyle, who he'd encountered in the hallway, made their way around the perimeter of the room to join them. The ghosts ignored them the entire time, but Hudson switched off the flashlight, just in case it brought them any unwanted attention, especially since the spirits and emergency lights emitted enough light that he could see well enough.

"I'm glad you're alright," Elisa said, addressing the elder gargoyle. "Where's Jeffrey?"

"He's—"

"Have you seen Fox and Alex?" Xanatos cut in. "Or Owen?"

Hudson gave him a withering look.

"Yer wife and child are in the safe room along with my friend Robbins," Hudson said, answering both questions. "I haven't seen the trickster."

"At least my family is safe," Xanatos said as he breathed a sigh of relief.

"The reason they're safe is because Bronx defended yer wife and child at a great cost to himself," Hudson growled.

"Is he—" Goliath asked, heartsick.

"He was injured, but he'll be alright, come the dawn," Hudson said.

Goliath bowed his head in relief, and Elisa gave his arm a gentle squeeze.

"I'll let him eat everything in the meatlocker later as thanks, but right now I have a ghost infestation in my castle to deal with," Xanatos replied.

"It's worse than that," Hudson said cryptically. "But what on earth is happening here? These spirits cannot be who I think they are… can they?"

Goliath gave him a commiserating look.

"Apparently, we are not the only ones who came back with the castle," he said.

"By the dragon…" Hudson muttered.

"I am going to try and communicate with them, reason with them somehow," Goliath said. "Perhaps we can figure out what their objective is and whether there is a way to bring them peace."

"Be careful," Elisa said. "They seem hostile and violent to everyone—humans and living gargoyles."

Goliath nodded and then stood up and cautiously walked out toward the raucous whirlwind of ghosts.

"We have bigger problems than ghosts," Hudson said to Elisa as they watched Goliath face the spirits. "Mab is here."

"What?" Xanatos said sharply.

"Queen Mab?" Elisa asked rhetorically.

Hudson nodded gravely.

"She's the one who injured Bronx," he growled.

Xanatos cursed Owen for his absence, but knew that was folly. He was sure Owen would not have abandoned him, and more importantly, would not have abandoned Alex, if given the choice, which meant that he had been detained or incapacitated… or worse. But he didn't have time to worry about Owen at the moment. He had to hope that he could fend for himself. Right now, he had bigger concerns. Like how to deal with a fae queen, who was apparently loose in his castle, as well as a violent haunting from massacred medieval gargoyles.

He furiously tried to think his way through both problems as Goliath addressed the congregation of ghosts.

"My friends… my family," he boomed, "I beg of you, please, let us speak."

For a moment, everyone wondered if just reasoning with them would actually work as the room went momentarily still and quiet. The ghosts stopped their careening and turned toward the sound of their former leader's commanding voice, a voice they had trusted for a decade… before their doom. The spirits of the Wyvern Clan hovered in place, slightly bobbing up and down like buoys in the ocean. Goliath could make out their forms better now. There were females and males, bent shapes of elders down to the smaller, youthful younglings. They were his friends, his family. Loved ones they had all lost in a moment of unfathomable cowardice and cruelty.

"Why do you attack us?" Goliath implored compassionately.

There was no response. The ghostly forms merely hovered and watched.

"We want nothing more than to help you," Goliath continued.

A spirit moved forward peering closer at Goliath.

"Rookery brother?" the spirit said.

She was tall. Almost as tall as he was. Her head was hairless and had a crown of ridges that decorated her scalp. Elisa thought she recognized something of Hudson in her.

"My sister," Goliath said forlornly. "How do we end your suffering?"

She looked at him with something like sorrow and regret on her face, and then her features twisted with fury and rage.

"You," she said, her voice dripping with venom, and a chorus of roars and wails went up through the spectral clan. "You are why we suffer!"

Goliath looked at them, his face anguished, saying nothing in his defense, and Elisa's heart shattered. He had already suffered so much. She wanted to shield him from this. To tell him words of comfort that would drown out the untrue words from the souls of his deceased clan. What happened so long ago wasn't his fault, but she knew he still internalized a lot of guilt and shame about his clan's death, and this was going to set him back and reopen wounds that he had tried for years to close.

"Because of you we have languished here forgotten," the spirit of his sister continued.

"Our cries of anguish unheard," another said.

"Ignored," yet another spirit said.

"Unknown," said another.

"Unchanging," a small gargoyle hatchling said.

"And you…" his sister said, once more addressing Goliath, her voice filled with contempt. "Here you still stand. Breathing. Fighting. Fucking. Living."

The last word was shouted with such force and supernatural power that Elisa had to cover her ears. And then all of the souls surged toward Goliath in a blast of energy, light, and force that knocked everyone back. Goliath took the worst of it and hit the wall with a grunt, the back of his head cracked hard against the rough stone, before falling to the floor where he lay motionlessly.

Elisa found herself staring up at the ceiling, shocked by the sudden attack. Her ears were ringing, a high-pitched tone that slowly receded along with the sensation of being underwater as her hearing slowly returned.

She took a moment to take stock of her own body's damage, noting only a few bruises before she winced and sat up. She looked over where her lover had been and saw the spirit of his tall sister hovering over his prone body, looking as if she was about to strike again. Terrified, Elisa half stumbled, half crawled across the floor in a desperate attempt to get to him. Memories of the year before, of Goliath lying on the floor bleeding out as Thailog stood over him with a crimson-stained knife flashed through her mind. She didn't know what she could do against a ghost, but she had to try.

"Goliath!" she called out to warn him, but he was completely unconscious and utterly vulnerable.

And then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her gaze, expecting another spirit, but instead she saw the very last person she would ever expect to see at that moment.

Demona stood a few yards away, a shotgun in her hands. She held it up and looked down the sights, aiming for Goliath who was still unresponsive on the ground, a veritable sitting duck.

"NO!" Elisa cried out and she threw herself over her lover's body, shielding him with her own.

The crack of Demona's shotgun reverberated loudly through the Great Hall.

Elisa felt something spray against her skin and clothing, pelting her like tiny, brittle pebbles. Realizing she was unharmed, she lifted her gaze up to Demona who stood with a defiant smirk on her face, shotgun still lifted. The ghost who had been poised over Goliath, was gone.

Goliath began to stir beneath Elisa. He managed to slowly open his eyes and immediately saw his current mate draped over him and his ex-mate staring down at them both through the sights of a shotgun.

"It's loaded with rock salt, you fools. Do none of you know how to deal with ghosts?" Demona said snidely as she turned and fired the shotgun at another ghost that had gotten too close. The spirit's form blasted apart like smoke in front of a fan as the sodium ammunition passed through it, but then it slowly began to draw itself back together, though some distance away.

Goliath said nothing for a brief moment. He just slowly blinked at Demona as he processed what was happening.

"How hard did I hit my head?" he rumbled as he winced and touched the back of his scalp. His fingers came away wet and stained with blood.

"Here, let me help," Elisa said as she tore the hem of her skirt and then used it as a makeshift bandage as she wrapped it around his head to stem the bleeding. Then they looked to their living clan to ensure no one else was badly hurt. There were multiple groans in pain and protest as everyone was trying to stand, but no one stayed down, so she assumed they were all in one piece, more or less.

"What are you doing here?" Goliath demanded of Demona.

"Please, don't sound too grateful for my help," she replied scornfully. "Angela came to me with concerns about paranormal happenings at the castle. It's Samhain, so if the threat was real, the danger obviously would be greatest tonight. I came here wanting to ensure her safety or relieve her fears if my investigation found nothing… though I am not surprised to see that she was right after all."

"Angela has really good instincts," Elisa said.

"She gets that from me," Demona and Goliath said in unison, and then they glared at each other.

"Well, this is certainly fun," Brooklyn said sarcastically as he helped his mate up to her feet.

"Have you seen Angela?" Demona demanded. "I have not been able to find her."

"Last I saw, she and Broadway were taking injured guests to the infirmary. She must have stayed to aid Dr. Sato," Goliath said.

"Wasting energy on worthless humans," Demona spat, then she turned to her former ally. "This castle needs an exorcism, Xanatos."

"Are you offering?" Xanatos responded coolly.

"Did you even consider you were being haunted?" Demona said scornfully. "Did any of you listen to Angela?"

"I'll admit, I believed the problems were more likely caused by my current living residents," Xanatos replied pragmatically.

Goliath gave him a withering glance that Xanatos ignored.

"You're going to need more than an exorcism," a new voice hissed—as dark and bitter cold as a mid-winter night. "Far more."

And then laughter peeled throughout the Great Hall, reverberating against the walls, sharp and cruel. The ghosts of the massacred clan returned to the center of the room, resuming their circular orbit as if an unheard whistle had called them back to heel.

In the center of the ghostly maelstrom, a figure appeared, and the spirits spiraled around it, forming a protective barrier. She was female in form and deceptively petite. From a distance, one could almost assume non-threateningly so. But up close, there was something about her that made one's skin crawl and pebble. Something that makes that deep, primordial place in the back of the mind scream in terror. The fear she elicited had nothing to do with her extra set of arms, her inhumanly pale blue skin, or the various weaponry she carried. It was something grotesque and other-worldy that emanated from within her, permeating the room. Like a rotting soul whose putrefaction was contagious.

"Drop your weapon," the newcomer ordered Demona, aiming a blaster at her.

"And who exactly are you?" Demona demanded, ignoring the order.

The new arrival instantly fired her weapon in response. The shot struck true and knocked the shotgun out of Demona's hands, sending it flying across the room where it skidded along the floor, out of reach.

"I am Queen Mab," the being said, her voice clear and as cold and cruel as her laughter. "The rightful ruler of Avalon and the Third Race."

Mab.

Goliath's eyes grew wide in horror. This was the fae queen they'd feared he'd unwittingly released upon his clan, upon the world, several months ago when attempting to save Cagney from the Shadow Realm. Part of him had hoped it was not true, but here she stood before him, menacing, cruel, and terribly, tangibly real.

"The Queen Mab?" Demona said doubtfully as she rubbed at her still smarting hand.

"I fear she is speaking the truth," Goliath rumbled.

"What?" Demona said, looking sharply at him.

"Well, now I know where my stolen rifle and blaster went," Brooklyn pointed out, casting a resentful glance at Mab's weaponry.

"Do you think she's responsible for stealing everything else, too? Like my laptop?" Lexington said remorsefully.

Mab smiled, and it was a sharp smile, full of glinting teeth.

"Your pathetic little clan was so easy to pit against each other. I have been listening in on your insipid conversations, watching your meaningless little intimate moments for months now… pulling the strings," she cackled.

"Gross," Brooklyn said, scrunching up his nose as he thought back on every interaction he'd had at the castle since May. Every private moment with his mate. "And I thought Xanatos's cameras were bad enough."

"You. You are the cause of the months of mayhem and discord," Goliath growled. Owen had told him Mab was powerless, but she had found ways to cause harm despite that.

"I have had the most fun I've had in ages," Mab said with a soft sigh. "And to think, all it took was a few suggestions in your sleep here, a few misplaced items there… and you were at each other's throats. You were all just so eager to turn on one another."

"Why would you do this?" Goliath demanded.

"Why?" Mab repeated scornfully. "Because I wanted to. Because I can."

"Not content to torment my living clan, you dare torture the souls of our fallen for your amusement?!" Goliath roared, his eyes glowing white hot.

"Torture? No, no, no. All I did was talk to them. It was easy, really," Mab's voice took on a sudden hard and bitter edge, like it was soaked in venom, "Especially after they were left to languish, forlorn and forgotten for centuries. I know something of what that feels like, due to my prolonged imprisonment in the Shadow Realm."

"They were never forgotten," Goliath said passionately as he pressed a large fist to his chest. "Each of their faces is etched upon my soul!"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Goliath," Demona groaned, rolling her eyes.

"See? You're all so easy to manipulate, and you don't even realize it," she crowed, looking from Goliath to Demona. "The same was true of your slaughtered clan. It was no challenge to convince them you were to blame for their demise. And naturally, they became all too desperate to aid me given their thirst for revenge," Mab said with a devilish smirk. "And then all I had to do was wait for the perfect night, a night when the veil between the living and the dead was at its weakest to strike. Tell me, mortals, do you know what night it is?"

"It's the night we send your ass back to the Shadow Realm?" Brooklyn replied with a growl.

Mab scowled, and aimed the blaster at Brooklyn.

"I dare you to try!" she barked.

"What is it that you want, Mab?" Goliath demanded, tired of the games.

She turned her cold gaze back on him.

"I want the child," she sneered.

"Does she mean Alex?" Elisa asked Goliath quietly.

"I assume so," he rumbled thoughtfully, speaking softly back to her. "We must thwart her any and every way possible. Mab was stripped of her power by Oberon, she is defenseless without the weapons and the spirits of our clan guarding her. Somehow, we need to contain them or draw them away so that we can disarm her and then take her down."

"Amateurs. I already have a plan," Demona hissed under her breath, her keen hearing picking up Goliath and Elisa's discussion. "But I need a distraction and a few others willing to help." She looked pointedly at the others. As if on cue, they moved in closer, signaling their readiness to help.

"Leave the distraction to me," Xanatos said.

"Count me in," Brooklyn volunteered, which surprised Goliath considering Brooklyn hated Demona to almost a blinding degree. But that was before he traveled through time with the Phoenix Gate. Perhaps he had mellowed with age… or perhaps something else had changed. Goliath would have studied his second's expression a bit longer, but there was no time.

"Where you go, I go," Katana said to her mate, and Brooklyn smiled softly at her.

"I'll help, too," Lexington chimed in.

"Enough chattering and scheming amongst yourselves!" Mab roared. "Bring me the child, or I will destroy each and every one of you where you stand."

Xanatos picked up a fallen salt shaker lying on the ground next to one of overturned banquet tables and tucked it into the back of his belt. He boldly stepped out toward the ring of ghosts that swirled in two concentric rings, one going clockwise and the other counterclockwise like a glowing spectral shield.

"Why do you want my son, Mab?" Xanatos demanded loudly as he stepped forward and engaged with her, slowly gaining her attention.

"Queen Mab," Mab snapped before switching moods suddenly and cackling madly. "And wouldn't you like to know. I want him, so I will have him."

"You know, Oberon once tried to take him from me as well," Xanatos said as he casually put his hands behind his back and slowly walked to his left, forcing Mab to look away from the rest of the group. "He did not succeed."

Mab visibly bristled. Her cold features turned sharper with rage.

"Oberon is weak," she spat. "I should have dashed his brains out when he was a mewling brat at my breast."

"Wow," Elisa said under her breath. "I'm no fan of the guy, but… yikes."

Goliath grunted in agreement, honing in on Xanatos's body language.

Xanatos made a discreet gesture with one of the hands behind his back, unseen by Mab. A clear signal to move now that he had the dark fae queen's full attention.

"Do you honestly think you are strong enough in your current powerless state that you can do better than Oberon at his prime?" Xanatos said, goading her further.

With Mab distracted, Demona slunk away, with Brooklyn, Lexington, and Katana following quietly behind. They silently slipped through the door and down the east corridor toward the kitchen. Goliath, Elisa, and Hudson stayed to aid Xanatos in his stand against Mab.

"I have more strength in my thumb than Oberon has in his whole being," Mab hissed.

"Had… perhaps," Xanatos countered, carefully pulling his hands away from his back. He had been loosening the cap off the shaker of salt the whole while, and now with it open, he quickly poured salt into both palms. He moved swiftly now, without hesitation, flinging one handful of salt at the ghosts in the first defensive ring. They recoiled before him, their forms scattering and dispersing, then he tossed another handful, hitting the spirits in the second ring. Their forms shrieked and disseminated as well, leaving an unguarded path right to Mab.

Xanatos unsheathed the short sword at his belt. Most would have assumed it was merely decorative, but it had been gifted to him by Prince Malcolm, and though it was beautifully wrought, the blade was deadly sharp and made of cold iron. If he struck true, it could kill a fae, even an old powerful one, but especially one in Mab's weakened, powerless state.

"If it is death you seek," Mab shouted, and she held up Brooklyn's rifle. "Then death you shall have."

Xanatos knew it was coming, and he managed to dodge the first blast, but he was too far out of range to strike. But he had to try. He would do anything to protect his son. He'd had some practice throwing knives, enough that he knew how to hold the blade, to throw with the arm and stop sharply with the wrist so that it sent the blade slicing through the air. He used his mind and instinct to quickly calculate distance, and then he pulled back his arm and released the blade. His aim was true, but Mab held Brooklyn's rifle up like a shield. With a tidy sound, like a carving knife plunging into a tin can, the blade sunk deep into the body of the weapon instead of her head, as Xanatos had intended. Mab shrieked and angrily cast the ruined rifle and sword aside.

The ghosts had recovered from Xanatos's assault and they swarmed him, knocking him back away from Mab and across the room. His body seized from the overwhelming chill of their ethereal forms, unable to control his body through the fall, and he hit the ground with a grunt and stayed down.

"GIVE. ME. THE. CHILD!" Mab shrieked.

The ghosts surged forward, even more agitated than before. Their ghostly luminance surged brighter as they grew more terrible and frightening. They bore down menacingly upon the group forcing them to pull back, to retreat, as the vengeful spirits prepared to attack.