SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3)

by Gleaves, Richard

  “It’s… raining.”

  “Just a little.”

  “People will see.”

  “They’ll see what?”

  “They’ll see! You know how people are. And how important image is. They’ll draw conclusions. Don’t make me. Just… you do it.”

  “No. You have to. It’s just trash. When we get it out to the curb, nothing bad’s going to happen. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  They each took two bags in each hand—eight total, though only a fragment of the pile—and carried them out the door.

  “Help me escape,” Zef whispered as they shuffled down the porch steps and across the lawn. “I’ll go to Paul and tell him what’s going on.”

  “No.”

  “He’ll listen to me. He’ll know how to stop her.”

  “He wants me dead.”

  “Not if you help him get Kate back. I’ll tell him you’re a hero.”

  “You can’t trust that man. He wants the Treasure.”

  “What?”

  “Paul wants it for himself. Like he wanted your mother. And you. He’s… not a good man. And Agathe’s watching.”

  “We’ll tell her that we… couldn’t resist the summons. It won’t matter if we can stop her. Let’s just go.” Zef dropped his trash bags at the curb, near the broken mailbox. He shielded his head with the lid of the bin. The rain was starting in earnest. It jangled the metal over his head. “I’m making a run for it. My car’s just over there. Come with me, Daddy.”

  Hadewych’s steps slowed as they neared the curb. “I can’t.”

  Zef put a hand on his shoulder. “Let all this shit go.”

  Hadewych hugged the trash.

  Zef urged him along. “Come on. Put the bags down. On the curb. You can do it. No one’s watching.”

  Hadewych tensed but nodded, his breathing shallow. He knelt and, slowly, as if all his joints were rusting in the rainfall, he bent and dropped his trash at the curb.

  Zef sighed and patted his back. “Good job. That wasn’t so—”

  “GET ON THE GROUND!”

  A blinding spotlight stabbed down at them. They raised palms, shielding their eyes. The light was mounted on a parked truck. A trio of men in black uniforms and ski masks emerged from the shadows, weapons raised. Zef made a shield of the garbage can lid. One of the men rushed forward and snatched it away.

  “I SAID ON THE GROUND!” said the voice, amplified by some unseen megaphone.

  Zef and Hadewych obeyed, crouching next to the trash. Hadewych’s hands began rippling with flame, sizzling the raindrops.

  “Don’t,” said Zef.

  “I will if they force me to.”

  A hand grabbed the back of Zef’s neck and forced him onto his stomach. Thunder sounded, so loudly that Zef thought that one of the men had fired. The air whipped, and dead leaves vomited from the dark mouth of the aqueduct trail. The rain felt like gooseflesh on his arms.

  “Mather,” growled Hadewych.

  The Gift-Catcher strode from behind the truck. He carried a large umbrella with a British flag design. At least a dozen other armed men joined him, appearing from around and behind the house.

  “Let the boy go,” Mather said.

  “What are you doing?” asked Zef, as hands separated him from his father and brought him to his feet.

  “You don’t want to see this,” said Mather. He spun his umbrella absent-mindedly. “Any last words, Hadewych?”

  Hadewych looked confused. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “As good an epitaph as any.” Mather’s men trained their guns on Hadewych’s skull. Mather took Zef’s elbow. “You really do need to go.”

  “No way.”

  “You know what has to happen.”

  “You can’t just kill him!” Zef concentrated, trying to take hold of their brains, to prime them and switch them all off as Jessica would do. But he couldn’t manage it. These men were well trained and on guard.

  “I felt that, Zef,” said Mather, his purple eyes catching the spotlight glare. “Don’t interfere.”

  Hadewych looked up from where he knelt among the rain-splattered trash bags. He’d let his flame go out. He was giving in. Giving up. “Go. He’s right. You shouldn’t see.”

  Zef wiped rain from his cheeks and shivered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Mather sighed. “Suit yourself.” He brought a hand up. Fingers tightened on triggers. Lightning lit the sky. Mather brought his hand down.

  Bang!

  A peal of thunder cut off Mather’s command to fire.

  “How dare you!” someone cried, high above them.

  The group whirled, searching for the source of the voice. A man pointed, and the group raised their weapons toward the house.

  “Put the light up there!” Mather shouted. The spotlight pivoted away from Hadewych. It illuminated the sycamore, then the roof of the house. Rain fell through the light, like heavy snowfall.

  Mather stepped forward, his face full of disbelief. “Miss Usher?”

  Agathe hung in midair above 417 Gory Brook, her arms extended, her clothes whipping about her body, her face as wrathful as the lightning over the Hudson. She wasn’t alone. Dozens of ghostly figures joined her, hovering among the stars.

  She smiled.

  “Get off my lawn.”

  Jason’s shoulder was completely out of its socket and his right arm was now shorter than his left. The pain was mind-numbing, but it lessened if he kept that arm very still. His fingers tingled. The dislocated bone was pinching some nerve. His right palm had grown dim, as if the flow of magical energy had been kinked off. He didn’t want to do anything but lie very still and pity himself. But the sand was running out. The red sand of sunset had trickled away, like the last grains of a witch’s hourglass. Two bright stars had appeared above Nyack.

  And a storm was coming.

  Above his head, the trap hung open: a mysterious black square. Jason rose, whimpering a little, and climbed up. He poked his head through, his eyes adjusting. The fifth floor was small, maybe six feet from side to side, purposed for maintenance and storage. He tested the door to the outside catwalk. Locked, of course. He pulled open a storage cabinet, throwing aside a few cans of grey spray paint and some Pine-Sol. He found a first aid kit, tore open a foil package, and chewed some Bayer, gratefully. He tucked his useless arm into his sweatpants, pulling the drawstring tight. God, he was hurting.

  The ceiling of this room had several portholes, similar to the one below. The lantern would be just above, up that orange ladder. Jason climbed it, slowly, going one-handed, and squeezed his body into the cramped space of the lantern room.

  The walls were iron up to his waist, but the upper half was glass. He was high above everything, up in the night sky, gazing at the constellations below that were the lights of the Tappan Zee, the shops and traffic of Sleepy Hollow. There was hardly room to breathe between the big gold lantern casing and the windows. He moved sideways, searching for an exit, found none, and ended up back where he’d started. He cursed, feeling claustrophobic and panicky.

  He raised his good arm and beat the rain-swept glass.

  “Help! Help!”

  He didn’t know who he thought would hear him. He was screaming to the whole world. To all the billions of people not trapped in this cramped little space. He beat at the glass, like a fly in a bottle, over and over.

  And something laughed.

  Jason froze. The sound was just at his back. The same low laughter that had been haunting his nights. It came from inside the lantern casing. He became aware of a dim glow filling the room, allowing him to see his own face in the glass.

  He turned, with difficulty, and found a tiny latch on the casing. He thumbed it open and a curved golden panel swung aside, revealing another lantern of gold within. It shone with harsh radiance, so brightly that Jason had to shield his eyes.

  The severed head inside the lantern was pink and hairless and raw, like the face of a mole rat, but r
ecognizable—the man from Jason’s nightmares. The handsome Hessian rider of the black steed Mitternacht, who’d reaped heads on the battlefield, who’d seen his friends die at the Battle of Gory Brook. It was the face of his enemy, of William Crane’s victim…

  The face of the Headless Horseman.

  The head scowled, reddening with anger. Even with its eyes closed, it knew who was there. Frightened spiders swarmed its cheeks as the mouth contorted and cried out, loud as a sudden crack of thunder:

  Jason Crane!

  Jason Crane!

  Jason Crane!

  Jason Crane!

  The Horseman whirled, forgetting Kate, and looked west, toward the Hudson.

  His body tensed as he spun; he raised his hatchet and swung at Gunsmoke.

  “No!” Kate cried.

  But the Monster had only cut the reins that tied the animal to the birch tree. He took them in his own hand, dragging Gunsmoke’s head down. He seized the animal’s mane, viciously, and pressed a hand to its forehead. Gunsmoke cried out in agony.

  “Leave him alone!” Kate screamed, but she couldn’t help.

  A black spot appeared on Gunsmoke’s snout, like an oily spread, growing and growing. He tried to throw the Horseman off, but the stain grew, running upward between his ears and downward to color his teeth and tongue.

  Gunsmoke’s eyes began to glow red.

  “No!” Kate screamed, fighting the wind, trying to stay upright.

  Her beloved horse went still. The corruption dashed across his hide, like the blotch that had consumed the forest. Streaks of black ran down his legs, up his flanks, sooting his entire body until he had turned black as midnight.

  “Baby?” Kate gasped.

  The horse gnashed teeth at her, frothing with hatred. His nostrils snorted a hot plume through the rainfall. The Horseman mounted and dug in his heels. Gunsmoke reared and kicked Kate away. With a crash of thunder, the horse took off and sped the Monster down the cemetery road, faster than Kate could follow.

  “GUNSMOKE!”

  Agathe made a gesture, and several of Mather’s men flew into the air, hurled aside by her ghost servants. One hit the trunk of the sycamore with a brutal crack and lay lifeless in the puddling grass. The wind bent, turning the rain horizontal, blasting the men so that three of them fell and Mather’s umbrella flipped inside out.

  Hadewych rose and sent a vicious blast of flame at Mather. Zef saw it coming, grabbed Mather’s elbow and pulled him aside, saving his life. “Dad!” Hadewych slagged the tires of the truck. A column of steam rose above Gory Brook Road as the rain sizzled on newly melted asphalt. The riflemen began to fire, trying to get a bead on Agathe, who strode through the air, lifted by ghosts, laughing at the men below, taunting them.

  Zef screamed into Mather’s face, “They’re shooting at Kate!”

  “Hold your fire!” Mather called, waving his broken umbrella.

  Zef ran onto the lawn, his arms high. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

  Hadewych didn’t hold his fire. He unleashed it, setting a rifleman ablaze.

  “Dad!” Zef cried, horrified.

  “He had a gun pointed at you!” Hadewych spun around and set the trash bags ablaze. He was… enjoying himself.

  Agathe laughed and disappeared behind the rooftop. A few men went running around the house, pursuing her. The wind blew a wall of smoke across the yard, giving cover. Hadewych grabbed Zef’s arm and pulled him into the house.

  Inside, Zef pulled free and staggered to the bay window. The man Hadewych had burned lay dead in the yard, shriveled and blackened. Agathe’s spirits had dragged another gunman into the trash fire. Mather’s men were panicking, Mather himself had hidden behind the truck.

  Crack!

  A bullet hole appeared in the glass, two inches to Zef’s right. Hadewych seized his shoulders and pulled him away. “Be more careful!” As they left the dining room, something shattered above. He turned to the stairs and met Agathe coming downstairs. She clutched a porcelain bowl to her chest. Her face was gleeful and black with soot. “My spirits will hold them off.”

  Hadewych paced the living room, hands ablaze and dripping cinders. He would probably set the whole house on fire. “We need the Horseman.”

  “No Horseman!” shouted Zef.

  Agathe scowled. “I’ve called him, but he doesn’t come. Something else has caught his attention.”

  A bullet struck the wall.

  “Away from the windows,” snapped Hadewych. He led them down the hall, toward Zef’s bedroom.

  “Wait,” said Agathe, sounding confused. She stopped at the bedroom door, her blue and white bowl clutched to her chest. “My Horseman has gone… to the lighthouse.”

  “He can’t,” said Hadewych, eyes wide.

  Agathe rounded on Hadewych. “Why? What is there?”

  Zef punched the wall. “Is that where you’re keeping Jason?”

  Hadewych looked to Agathe and back to Zef, his face full of panic. Zef didn’t understand his expression at first, but then he realized… Agathe hadn’t known.

  “So…” said Agathe. “Jason Crane is alive?”

  “Yes,” said Hadewych.

  Agathe struck him with a closed fist. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll punish you later, liar!” She tore the closet doors open. “Time to fly.” She gathered her bowl to her chest and climbed down the rope ladder into the tunnels below.

  “You next,” said Hadewych, pointing to the hole.

  “I’m staying.”

  “You’re with us now. Go.”

  “You just killed that man.”

  “I was defending you.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “The hell you’re not.” Hadewych grabbed Zef’s arm and tried to push him into the closet. Zef squirmed and broke from his grip. He seized the scabbard from the corner and drew Dylan’s sword.

  Hadewych took a step back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You’re keeping Jason at the lighthouse? Our lighthouse? Where we fished?”

  “We can discuss this later.”

  “No. I have nothing to say to you. Ever again.”

  “Stop being a child.”

  “You’re right. I should.” Zef held the sword up, the tip of it pointed at Hadewych’s throat. “Goodbye, sir.”

  “You wouldn’t cut me.”

  “You want to bet money on it?”

  Glass shattered. The bay window, probably. Mather’s men were coming in. Zef knew he should hold his dad until they could take him into custody. But they’d kill Hadewych. He couldn’t be responsible for that. He wouldn’t be able to live with it. He hesitated, brought the tip of the sword level with his father’s heart, then lowered the sword and gestured to the hole with it.

  “Just go,” said Zef.

  Hadewych took something from his pocket and laid it on the bed. “I do love you, son.”

  “Goodbye, Hadewych.”

  Hadewych gave him a hurt and puzzled look, climbed down the rope ladder, and disappeared. Zef fought an urge to cut the rope, to send his dad plummeting. But he picked up the floorboard and put it snugly in place, hiding the escape route from view. When Mather came in, Zef was sitting on the bed, the sword across his knees, looking at the item his father had left.

  It was a picture of him and Kate, at homecoming. Taken… a lifetime ago.

  “Where’s your father?” said Mather.

  Zef gave a slow nod. “He’s gone.”

  Hadewych raised one burning hand and used it as a torch to light Agathe’s way through the tunnels. She led him through a warren of passages—up stairs, through an iron door, down a hallway of red brick.

  She carried the bleeding bowl under one arm, muttering to herself, endlessly, “Brom, Brom… the water, Brom…”

  She threw aside a gilt door and entered a parlor, dusty and spider-webbed. Hadewych had never seen the place before.

  “Take the books from the shelf,” she directed. Hadewych obeyed, fetching the volumes—Pilgrim�
�s Progress and a treatise on bloodletting.

  “Where is our Joseph?” said Agathe. “He ran, didn’t he?”

  “No,” said Hadewych, at once. “We were separated. The Appointed took him.”

  Agathe patted Hadewych’s shoulder. “They will take him to Lyndhurst. For the summons. We’ll have our boy back soon enough. Come.”

  Agathe took hold of an enormous Van Brunt family painting—a mold-riddled tableau of herself, Hermanus, Brom, Katrina, and young Dylan. She pushed it aside, revealing a passage beyond.

  Hadewych’s flame was insufficient to dispel the gloom of the cavern they entered. He focused his Gift and brightened the torch.

  “Is this… your pantry?”

  “You’ve never been down here, have you?” She beamed, like the owner of a palace enjoying the chance to show it off. The room was cavernous and vaulted. Hadewych gazed at the place with wonder. The pantry of the matriarch, built by Brom. Even Dylan had never been allowed to visit here. He felt strangely honored, as if entering some legendary seat of power, the inner sanctum of some ancient mystery. Hadewych turned, and a wall of skulls and rotted heads screamed at him. He cried out and stepped back. His fire almost went out, doused by terror and tears.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

  He stared at the grinning algae-covered skulls. So this is what lurks beneath Gory Brook. He’d always expected to find power and wonderful magic down here, down in the heart of Agathe’s labyrinth. But he’d found only monsters and death, hadn’t he? What had he been thinking? Why had he searched these secrets out? Now he’d lost the thread and might never find his way back out to sunlight again.

  Agathe hurried to the far end of the room. “Bring your torch, Hadewych.”

  Hadewych tore his eyes from the inscription above the altar of skulls.

  The Sins of the Father shall be Visited upon the Sons

  Even unto the Seventh Generation

  The words chilled his soul, such as it was.

  Agathe stood collecting items from a metal table. She raised a wicked-looking knife, a sort of miniature scythe. “I forgive you, son. For the lie.”