Chapter 1

Hallowe'en.

A cold dark night, hiding darker things. A night when witches and warlocks dance and howl under a gibbous moon; a night when the Wild Hunt rides and the Black Dogs prowl; a night when demons hunt and devils feast on the souls of the damned. A night when all good people lock their doors tight against evil, and cower around their fires. A night when the dead rise.

"Not any more. And that's all superstitious nonsense anyway. Now Hallowe'en's just another excuse for Hallmark to make a fortune out of gullible people and those with more money than sense. Kids get sick on candy and their parents have another set of dumb costumes."

"Beckett, Beckett. There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Beckett, than are dreamt of in your – very mundane and boring, I might add – philosophy."

"They might have believed in all that in 1600 but this is 2009. There's no evidence for any of it."

"At least come to my Hallowe'en party." Castle's big blue eyes were wide and hopeful.

"I already told you no. I've got other things to do."

"But my party will be better than them. Spooky stories, themed decorations, everybody dressed up..."

"No."

"C'mon. It'll be much better than any other invitation."

"So what you're saying is that I should cancel doing something I've already accepted for a better – so you say – offer? I thought your mother taught you better manners than that?"

Castle subsided, and pretended to look hurt. Beckett ignored his faux-pathos, and returned to her work. His words still rang in her head.

A night when the dead rise.

That would be every night, then. And every day. She walked surrounded by the dead, slept within their shrouds – and listened to their stories. They came to her for justice, and justice they would receive. Perhaps it was an unfair advantage, but on balance, she'd rather justice was done than not, and her reputation was merely a happy side-effect. The boys often wondered how so many of her hunches and trails turned out to be right, but they liked the commendations for the team as well as anyone.

A night when the dead rise.

A night when she had a different party to attend.

There was always a price to be paid.

Hallowe'en rolled around, and Castle's importunings became more voluble.

"Just bring them along to my party," he tried, the day before, while making coffee. "Everyone's welcome. We've plenty of space and loads of food" –

"I told you, I've got a prior invitation. I'm not disrupting their plans."

"Pop in beforehand. Just for an hour. Open house from half past seven. You don't even have to wear fancy dress if your other party isn't. You get a pass."

That was...earlier than she'd expected. That might be doable. She'd expected that Castle's party would be later on. She chewed her lip, thinking. A quick drive to her destination, straight up Riverside Drive... yep. It worked.

"Okay. But not for long, and you don't try and delay me when I have to leave." She glared. "And no fancy dress."

"I would never!"

"You would so," she said dryly.

"I won't. Promise. It's great that you're coming." He passed her the coffee cup. "Your hands are cold," he said. "You must be standing under the A/C, because it's colder round you than here."

"We have no A/C in October. You're just hot because you've been playing with the milk steamer."

"I'm always hot," he smirked. Beckett glared, and he subsided. "Guess so." He wandered out.

Beckett looked around at the gleaming coffee machine and dingy walls, the scuffed tiles and worn couch, and took a slow sip of her latte. For an instant, a thin grey veil wrapped around her hands, and dissipated. It could have been steam, to an observer, had it been observed at all.

She clacked out into the bullpen. "Ryan, we need a specific search around 32nd and First."

"How – what?"

"I was thinking. It's not the fastest route, but it's quieter than the others."

"Another hunch?"

"Yeah."

"How do you do that?" Castle asked. "You sit and think and stare at that board – and the way you chew your lip and kick your feet is just so cute" –

"I am not cute" –

"and then suddenly you have a trail."

"It's called experience. Putting lots of little clues together to form a pattern."

"I'm good at patterns and I can't do it."

"You're good at crazy theories which make no sense. Detectives are good at logic and facts, not wild suppositions."

"Oooohhhh, say suppositions some more."

"No."

Castle pouted.

A chilly trail slid against Beckett's cheek, and she shivered.

"You're cold."

"No..."

"You're always shivering. And your hands were cold." He came towards her, and sat down on the desk. "You need to take better care of yourself. Warmer sweaters." He grinned. "Not thermal underwear, though. That wouldn't be sexy."

"Since you won't be seeing my underwear, it won't matter."

"Sure it does. Dreams of thermal underwear aren't interesting."

Beckett shivered again, not listening to Castle but listening to the whispers on the air, staring at the board. Maybe that was why she hadn't noticed his hand surreptitiously sneaking round to cover hers.

"Your hands are still freezing," he complained, as she snatched it away.

"I told you, you're just overheated."

"I'd like that so much better if you'd said I'm hot again."

Beckett made a disgusted noise, for form's sake, and went back to staring at the board.

She was still staring at it fifteen minutes later, when Montgomery shooed them all out. One hunch per day was all she could allow herself, but later she'd sneak back and write up another piece of information which hadn't arrived through regular channels. She shook Castle off, ignored his whimpers, which were entirely insincere, and went home.

The dead went with her. At least they were quiet guests, needing no sustenance of any sort. Of course, they spoke to her, but they were well-mannered, and waited till she could listen. They had all the time in the world, and if she were lonely, they were there to keep her company. Her dead had become her life.

Her only grief was that her mother was never there. No matter how she hunted, no matter how many she gave justice: her mother never came. Maybe there were rules, but still, she grieved and railed against it: to no avail.

The soft veils ghosted about her as she searched her wardrobe for appropriate attire for the following evening. One should respect the occasion, and her apparel would reflect that, while still being unremarkable at Castle's party: a full-skirted, mid-length black dress with sweetheart neckline and small puffed sleeves; a tracery of silvery-black embroidery curling around the hem; black heels. She shook them out, and hung them in a clear space, so that there should be no creases. The garb was perfectly apt for her second appointment.

"You will come, won't you?"

"I said I would, okay? Stop harassing me or I'll change my mind."

Castle's lips clamped shut.

"Shouldn't you be at home anyway, preparing, rather than annoying me?"

"But annoying you is so... much... fun... okay, shutting up now."

He brushed past her, and shivered. "You're cold. How are you so cold?" His mind jumped. "I could warm you up."

"Out. Go carve pumpkins, or something." Her fingers tapped around her Glock. Castle thought, fancifully, that they were paler than usual, but maybe that was simply her crimson nail polish. She didn't usually wear a strong colour... but she was going to two parties tonight, so maybe she'd merely done it early.

"Okay, okay." He pouted at her. "Anyone would think you didn't like me."

"Anyone might."

"I still don't see whose party could possibly be better than mine," he groused. "All your friends are coming."

"You don't know all my friends."

Castle's curiosity roused. Fortunately for his continued life and good health, he didn't say anything more, but wandered home, plotting. Halfway there, it dawned on him that he...um...well...if she wouldn't tell him where she was going, which simply wasn't fair...um...well...he'd talked her into exchanging Find My i-Phone so that she never had to tell him where the crime scene was: he could simply turn up. It saved time. It also let him see if he should go to the precinct or the morgue. He shouldn't do this... but he couldn't stand knowing that someone was throwing a more desirable party than his.

Beckett shouldn't be going to other people's parties. She should come to his party. And then she should stay on for a private party of their own. It would have been a lot easier to convince her if Ryan and Espo hadn't interrupted... Anyway. If he took a quick look he'd know if it was any of his competitors. He knew where all of them lived, thanks to the poker games.

Fixing food; candy for stray children trick-or-treating – and far more candy for his equally sweet-toothed friends and family; ensuring the spooky decorations were suitably gruesome and his costume perfect, took Castle until almost seven thirty. He shrugged into his dull red shirt, tan pants with suspenders, added the boots and belt, and finally the long brown coat.

Not ten minutes later, the door sounded, and people began to arrive.

"You came!"

"I said I would."

"Let me take your coat." Castle slipped it from Beckett's slim shoulders. "You're cold. You need a thicker coat."

"I'm not cold."

He took a better look at her. "You're gorgeous," he blurted out.

"Thank you." Colour sprang to her cheekbones, emphasising the clear pallor of her face and arms. Her father's watch was incongruous: wide across her left wrist. "What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?"

The leer was instant, and expected. "Trick or treat."

"What?"

"Trick or treat?" Castle repeated.

"Isn't that what I should say?"

"Probably, in which case I want a treat." Beckett glared. "Just a little treat." She rolled her eyes with familiar irritation. "Hold my hands."

"What?"

"I want to hold hands. I mean, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to kiss me, but" –

"No."

"I knew you'd say that," he said disappointedly. "No kisses. But hold my hands."

"What are you, three?"

"If it gets you to hold my hand."

Her eyes should have rolled out of her head, but she extended both hands to him.

"They're freezing! Didn't you have gloves?"

She had had gloves, but the dead had coated her all the way.

Castle enveloped her hands in his and rubbed them vigorously, until he was satisfied that they were warm.

"You need better gloves."

She didn't answer. No gloves would warm the touch of her dead. Gloves and coats had no power to warm the dead, cold from their graves. She didn't feel the cold, now; nor did it affect her.

Around nine p.m., a little later than she'd intended, Beckett made her farewell to Castle, who, as he had promised, but to her surprise that he could keep that promise, didn't try to persuade her to stay. He took her hands again before she went, though: his warm around hers.

"If it's boring, come back," he said.

"It won't be. Thanks for a good time. See you tomorrow." She turned to the door.

"Till tomorrow," Castle said. Behind his back, his fingers were crossed.

Beckett parked up on W153rd Street, and, swathed in the same black coat she'd worn to Castle's, went to the entrance she'd sought. The gates were, of course, locked. That didn't worry her. Iron might stop witches, if witches there were (she didn't believe there were), but it had no effect on her, with the dead around her. She walked straight through, and a trail of thick mist followed her. As she walked on, it thickened further, solidifying. She knew where she was going, and what to do. She always had, since the very first time, ten full years ago on Hallowe'en, when the first price was paid.

That time, she had been terrified: startling at shadows and trembling at every noise, convinced that there were ghouls behind her and demons alongside, never there when her head whipped round at some glimmer in the corner of her eye. That time, her dead had led her: here and now, she led them. She knew the way, none better: she didn't need the pale moon to guide her steps. The wind cut through her coat, but it had no power to chill her.

She came to the earliest grave. James De Lancey: at various times, Colonial Governor of New York. He'd died before the United States was ever a country of its own, she thought, but it had to be the oldest grave, even if her dead were new. There had always been plenty of dead, in this land.

She set a small bowl on the grass, and shucked her coat, folding it tidily. The bowl was the same clean white as her skin, and as smooth, no flaw or goosebump to mar either surface. This, too, had terrified her, the first time, when the price had been made plain. She'd thought that she would be joining them.

But no. That price had not been demanded of her, nor, she had been given to understand, would it be. Perhaps, she now thought, that price had been paid by another. It seemed too coincidental: that the dead had come to her hard upon the funeral. Maybe that was enough price for anyone to pay: another's death, her father's fall... and once yearly, when the veil between the living and the dead was gossamer thin and rent to shreds, a further payment.

She knelt by the eldest grave, and bowed her head slightly. Not too much. They might help her, but they needed her as much, and more, as she did them. Respect, but never subservience. She looked at her watch, and removed it, laying it on the coat, revealing the ridges that she hid at every other time. Nine of them. Tonight, there would be a tenth. From a pocket, she brought the bright steel blade.

Bone and blood and iron, they whispered around her. Bone and blood and iron, binding the living to the dead: bone for the dead, blood for the living, iron to bring them together.

"Bone and blood and iron," she whispered back, and the mists caught her words and huddled close, resolving into half-seen shapes: a hint of clothes, of hair, a form. In a moment, everything would change.

She sliced across her wrist, fast and sure. The pain was fleeting: the blade was scalpel sharp – and as soon as the cut was open, she felt no more than her dead would do.

Avidly, they absorbed her dripping blood, and came to life, as she, for this time, became the dead: the two worlds merging on that one night, in that one place: fuelled by her lifeblood, the sharp steel, and their bone. As they drank, they solidified, mist became cold flesh, eyes coloured, hair moved with the wind, their voices became more than whispers in the dark – to her. Only to her. Here and now, caught between life and death, they spoke aloud, telling their stories old and new, and she listened and gave them some few drops of life again.

Back in Broome Street, Castle's party was jumping. Everyone was there, everyone was costumed and drinking and pranking each other. It couldn't have been more of a success.

But Castle himself was skulking in his study, tracing Beckett's movements. Finally, she'd stopped, way up Manhattan, above Hamilton Heights. None of his buddies lived there. He could be perfectly content that his friends weren't trying to steal away his muse. Beckett was his inspiration and they weren't having her.

If only he could have her, but although they were back on friendly terms, it wasn't getting any further, and he knew hardly anything more about her than he had four months ago. He firmly put the phone down, and went back out to the party.

No-one had noticed his absence. His guests were all variously enthralled with each other, even Alexis. A naughty little thought said no-one would notice if you took a time out. He pushed it away, and socialised. It came back, insinuating. It didn't take long for Castle to succumb to its lures. He slipped into his bedroom, and changed – Beckett hadn't been in fancy dress – picked up a warm coat, and slid out without a single person noticing.

Five minutes later he was heading for Riverside Drive and the small dot which represented Beckett's phone. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to find the party she was at, because the dot wasn't helpful. It said that she was in the Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, which was clearly nonsense. Nobody would throw a party in a cemetery. It must be close, or – more likely – she'd left her phone in her car.

He slowly cruised up 153rd Street, looking for a parking space, and for any signs or sounds of a party. There were apartments, but no obvious parties. There was, however – right there – Beckett's cruiser. Right in front of the cemetery gates. Which were shut, and locked. He looked around, but there was no sign of Beckett, and no sign of any party worthy of the name. He checked his phone, which still, stupidly, insisted that Beckett was inside the cemetery. He stared at the gates, and then his phone, and set hand to the cold iron of the gate.

The wind whined. It sounded unpleasantly like who-oooooo-'s thisssssssssssss to Castle's terrified ears. He pushed at the gate, and it opened just enough for him to squeeze through. Of course the lock hadn't stretched. Iron locks didn't stretch. It had been a trick of the light, and it hadn't really been locked at all, merely shut.

He slipped into the cemetery. The thin wind gnawed at his cashmere pea coat, searching for entrance; tugged at the ends of his scarf. The gibbous moon shed little light; the shadows of the gravestones and memorials stretched long and black about him, reaching to capture the few patches of pallid illumination. Attenuated streamers of cloud tumbled through the sky, whipped on by the whining wind: the stars were chill between the clouds.

The trees rustled, a few leaves fell. At every sound, Castle startled, the crunch of his shoes on dead leaves unpleasantly loud: almost, he thought, attracting the chill wind to him. He shook his head. That was fanciful, even for him. He checked his phone. She was definitely here. There was a lot of here, though, and he was scared. Really scared. There was no reason at all for Beckett to be in a cemetery after eleven p.m. on Hallowe'en. None at all.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

My effort for the Castle Hallowe'en Bash 2018. Four chapters. Posting will be Sunday/Wednesday to finish, appropriately, on Hallowe'en itself.