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

by Gleaves, Richard

  I can’t kill Valerie, Zef thought.

  Make Agathe wake her up first. I have the bones. Quick. Do it!

  “I choose Valerie,” Zef blurted.

  “What?” said Hadewych.

  “An interesting choice,” Agathe said. “May I ask why?”

  “You said I had to prove myself. Valerie’s like a mother to me.”

  Hadewych scowled at Zef. “I can’t let you do that.”

  Zef adopted the harshest tone he could. “God, you’re weak! Go get her.” He brandished the knife. “I’m going to slaughter that cow. She’s good blood! Now go. Or I will choose you.”

  Hadewych backed away with a look of confusion and fear, and went to fetch Valerie.

  “Only the first kill is hard,” said Agathe, patting Zef’s arm. “After that…” Agathe raised a hand, magically fishing a corpse out of the water. She twisted its spine, to wring blood out of it. “It’s like doing laundry.”

  “I want to kill her. But… wake her up, first? I want her to know it was me.”

  Agathe sighed. “So transparent.” She let the body fall with a splash. “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Your ‘friend,’ Joey.” Agathe searched the grounds. “Where is he? He’s the only one left. He’s brought my bones, I suppose.” She whirled and struck Zef across the face. “Do you think me a fool? You’d wake the witch and bind me!”

  The Blaze soundtrack played a growl of low, dissonant brass.

  “No!” Zef’s mind raced. “I’m loyal to you.” Agathe stood so near. He could stab her, kill her. But he’d only kill Kate. Damn it! He’d only kill Kate!

  Her eyes glittered. “You want to prove yourself?” She marched back to shore. “We’ll make it a real test.”

  “I have her,” Hadewych said, marching blank-faced Valerie to the center of the dam.

  “I don’t think so.” Agathe regained her throne. “You say she’s like a mother to you?”

  “Yes,” said Zef.

  “Not good enough.” Agathe raised a hand. An animated mannequin dragged Jessica onto the dam and threw her at Zef’s feet. “Kill your real mother.”

  Jason’s mouth flew open.

  What do I do? Zef called mentally. What do I do? This was your idea.

  I don’t know. I don’t know! I’m sorry, Zef! Jason searched for an answer. If Zef didn’t kill his mother, Agathe would kill him on the spot. The next fling of the knife would go through Zef’s heart and his cousin would bleed out for Agathe’s amusement.

  Jason searched the crowd. There is always hope. There is always help. Eddie? Eddie had helped him in the lighthouse… But he was possessed and bridled now. Jason couldn’t get to him or wake him up, and the punk would probably run anyhow. Lisa was possessed… Joey was back in the tunnel but…

  “Kill her!” cried Agathe.

  What do I do? Zef called.

  I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just don’t know!

  “She’s mine!” shouted Hadewych, ripping the knife from Zef’s hand, cutting Jessica’s bonds and bending her over the rail, over the rushing water on the downstream side. “No one kills this bitch but me!”

  Agathe applauded. “At last! Some enthusiasm!”

  “But she should see it coming!”

  “This one… I’ll release.” She gestured.

  Jessica woke, eyes wide, bewildered and afraid. She saw the knife in Hadewych’s hand and froze.

  “No, Dad!” cried Zef. “No! No! No!”

  Hadewych pushed him away, turning his back to his son and the witch. “One last chance,” he growled. “Tell me you love me, Jess, and mean it, or I’m shoving this knife through your black stone heart!”

  Jessica’s face became soft and forgiving and her hand went to her bosom. “You know how I feel, Dutch. How could you ever doubt it?” She reached into her cleavage and drew out a little black stone. “Sinochitis,” she said, grinning, and tossed it into the millpond. “Oops.”

  Hadewych laughed and shook his head. He put his lips to her ear, whispered something, and with a passionate embrace and a kiss on the cheek that was almost a bite, he raised the knife and brought it down viciously into her bosom. Jessica cried out in agony. Hadewych heaved her up and, with a cry, flung her over the rail. She fell away, and he threw his knife in after her.

  “Not downstream, fool!” yelled Agathe. “You’ve wasted the blood! They must bleed into the millpond! You know that!” She sighed. “No matter. The boy can kill the Deep Witch next." She searched through her knives. The crows perched on the back of her throne laughed and stomped their feet.

  Zef fell to his knees, wailing, “Mom!”

  Hadewych turned to face Zef. “That slut abandoned you! She deserved it!” He scowled over the railing, panting hard, his face as distorted as one of the gargoyles’.

  Oh, Zef, Jason thought. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

  It’s okay, Jason, came the reply. Zef winked down at him, even as he continued to rock and sob. He was… pretending.

  Okay? asked Jason. Hadewych just killed your mother!

  No. He didn’t. I never got an alarm bell. You there, Mom?

  Barely, replied a third voice. Jessica. Alive, somewhere beyond the dam. This water is disgusting.

  What happened? thought Jason.

  He told me to fake it. He turned the knife. The bastard actually turned the knife.

  Jason glanced up at Hadewych, who stood at the rail fiddling with his ring finger. Their eyes met, and Hadewych straightened, startled. He made fists that began to smolder.

  Shit! Jason thought. Hadewych saw me! We’re out of time. Can we break the hold on Valerie?

  We need Valerie? called Jessica.

  Yeah. Like now, thought Zef.

  Valerie still stood on the dam, face blank. Any moment Agathe would wrench her into the sky, kill her, and drain her, and their only chance would be lost. No one else could perform the spell.

  Give her a wake-up alarm, thought Jessica.

  How? thought Zef.

  Like a hard slap. Scream “wake up” in your head! Like the danger alarm. Loud as you can. All three Pyncheons at once. Now.

  Jason pressed his eyes shut, adding what he could.

  WAKE UP! They cried in unison.

  “This will do nicely!” Agathe said, raising a knife.

  WAKE UP!

  Agathe’s voice sharpened. “What is happening? There’s magic here.”

  WAKE UP!!

  Jason opened his eyes. He felt the psychic alarm reversing, the shared connections all surging into Zef, who loved Valerie most. Zef grabbed Valerie’s hand—WAKE UP!—and she lurched into consciousness, as if surprised in bed by a burglar. A red firefly darted from her chest and disappeared into the sky. Her eyes whipped left and right, helpless to understand her predicament.

  Jason broke from cover and kicked furiously for the milldam. “Valerie! The bones! The bones! The bones!” He threw the bag to Zef.

  Zef ripped the bag open and pressed the skull into Valerie’s hands. “Do it! Do it now! Bind her!” He put his body between Valerie and Hadewych, in case his dad tried to stop them.

  Agathe screamed, realizing what was happening, but a blast of dirt caught her and knocked her from Satan’s throne, scattering crows. She rose to her knees. “Who. Did. That?”

  Valerie trembled, eyes wide and afraid. She brought fingers to her valve and took a breath, raising the skull. But she stood paralyzed as Agathe flew into the air, her white gown trailing dirt.

  “Bind her now!” cried Jason. “What are you waiting for?”

  Valerie tried to concentrate.

  The Blaze soundtrack throbbed with pulsing war drums.

  Agathe bared teeth. “She’ll cast no spells if I take her voice!” Then, with a swoop like a bird of prey, she threw herself at the frightened, paralyzed woman, raised a talon…

  … and ripped out Valerie’s throat.

  Zef and Jason screamed in unison. Joey did a second later, his voice echoing from
the tunnel. Valerie went slack, and Agathe tossed her over the rail and into the millpond. Agathe was laughing, raising a fistful of gore and plastic pipe, like a witch doctor who’d ripped out an enemy’s heart.

  She snatched the bag of bones from Zef and raised her own skull. “Ahh! There’s a face I haven’t seen in ages.”

  She threw it back into the fertilizer bag with the rest of the bones, indifferently, and carried the bag away. Zef lunged for her, his hands out to throttle her, but she whispered a curse and he fell to his knees, choking, before he ever reached shore.

  “Betrayer,” she hissed.

  “Let him go!” cried Hadewych.

  “I need you even less.” She snarled a curse, and Hadewych flew backward down the bridge, crashing against the boards, hands clutching his own throat.

  “But…” Hadewych sputtered. “Look to family!”

  Agathe threw Valerie’s tracheostomy valve into the mud. “The Horseman and I shall start a new family. A stronger bloodline. Without fools or perversions.” She threw her bones down at the foot of the throne with a shrug.

  Jason swam for Valerie’s lifeless body, desperate to save her. He snagged her limp arm and kicked, fighting the current, and managed to heave her up onto the biggest pumpkin raft. Happy jack-o’-lanterns tumbled aside, splashing and drowning. Valerie lay on her stomach, convulsing, bleeding from a mortal wound. She wouldn’t make it. Jason stripped his gloves and pressed glowing hands to her skin. “Come on! Come on!” They flashed, but Valerie went motionless. Did he get to her too late?

  “More blood!” Agathe gestured, and a noose of magic caught Jason by the throat and dragged him, dripping, into the air. He kicked and fought. Joey screamed his name, but Agathe snagged Joey from the tunnel and pinned him to the balustrade of the Horseman Bridge. Zef struggled, his face gone purple. No one could help Jason. The flame-eyed watchers smiled, and the pumpkins nodded in the water, ready for her next kill.

  The soundtrack of the Blaze played a long sinister organ note.

  Agathe raised her knife, prepared to hurl it, but at the last moment the reliquary burst with red light. So did the millpond, bright as a lava lamp from shore to shore. The floating dead were visible as silhouettes now. Far below Jason’s kicking feet, the red stain had covered the moon, and the moon had shifted into precise alignment with Orion, giving the hunter his head at last.

  “It’s time,” whispered Agathe. “The Deep Witch was enough.” She gestured. “Too much is worse than too little.”

  She let Jason fall and hurled Joey onto the shore, where he was immediately encircled by fire-eyed guards. Jason thrashed and sputtered and pulled himself onto the raft as swiftly as he could. The water burned his skin, like a bath of battery acid. He curled into a ball next to Valerie, shivering among the pumpkins, holding the body of his friend. No. The corpse of his friend.

  Even though choking, Hadewych rose and gripped the rail of the milldam, fascinated by the display. Zef looked across at his dad, his tearful eyes reflecting the red water.

  The magic intensified. Faces appeared like steam over the millpond. Captured souls. One-eyed Darley and Debbie Flight and so many others, their faces swirling over the congealed cauldron of blood. On shore, the flame-eyed Tarrytowners began to sing wordlessly. Mr. Smolenski and Mayor Nielson and Jennifer the waitress. All their voices rose over the incessant Blaze soundtrack and overlapped without harmony or tune—discordant as an organ with all its keys caught. Pumping and pumping their mad music. Vox Humana.

  “By my blood!” Agathe pronounced, raising the reliquary. “A necromancer shall be born!”

  Agathe gazed into her old lantern, stolen from the porch of this manor house, gilded with gold taken from poor Katrina’s pockets, the pure glass stolen from the windows of the Old Dutch Church. Fit for a god. And the god inside was so handsome. As handsome as when she’d first seen him in the woods, had stood naked, offering herself, and had been robbed of her kiss. She would have that kiss, now. She would take her satisfaction. By force.

  “I am special too,” whispered young Agathe Van Ripper, proclaiming her oath in the cemetery as she watched Cornelia and Gerard Beekman kiss. “I wear no emeralds, I wear no silk, but I trail fireflies. I deserve such a perfect kiss. I deserve such a perfect man. And if I cannot win a God by grace…

  “… I will seize one by sorcery.”

  “Oh, my love,” she groaned, caressing the Horseman’s Treasure. “How I have bled for you.”

  She took up a carving knife and, slowly, broke the seal of the lantern. No smell of corruption greeted her, only the perfume of the hyssop sprig she’d slipped inside when she’d buried him beneath Mother Hulda’s hearthstone. She inhaled that perfume and held it in her lungs as she peered within. Did she dare remove the head from its lantern? Would it crumble to dust as it had before? Would all her sacrifices be refused by an unsatisfied god?

  She reached inside and caressed his fine black hair. She’d not touched it for centuries. Oh, to stroke her Horseman’s hair again! She tangled her fingers in it and whispered, “Make me a necromancer.” She closed her eyes and lifted the head from the blood-tinged reliquary.

  He not crumble. He did not rot. Her long efforts had come to fruition at last. He was ruddy-cheeked, made of ivory and rose leaf, his lips full and waiting for her. Her heart pounded. Now now now. Have him now.

  She gave the empty reliquary back to Lisa, seized Eddie’s leash, and gave a hard yank.

  Eddie stumbled to his feet, waking fully to the horrors all around him: two bodies on the raft, two men choking on the dam, and Agathe, a severed head dangling from one hand, leading him to a glowing red pool. Pumpkins tumbled aside, with a splash, rotting at the water’s touch. He tried to run, but the leash and the bit refused to rip from her hand.

  “Drink,” she said.

  “You can’t make me!”

  She yanked his reins and pushed his head under.

  Eddie held his breath, lips pressed tight. He was not here. He was riding atop a fire truck after the Horsemen beat Croton 41-0. He was riding down Beekman Avenue in his red uniform, number twenty-five, his horseshoe-emblazoned helmet under one arm, waving to the roaring crowd, waving to his envious neighbors, standing next to his father, who kept slapping his back and saying, “Proud. Proud. Proud.”

  He held his breath, trying to hold out, trying to stay on that fire truck, in that safe little huddle of memory, and forget everything else he’d done. But he couldn’t. He was helpless. What are you going to do now, son? Huh? Huh? What are you going to do now?

  The huddle broke and he swallowed blood.

  Agathe watched with satisfaction as Edward’s head rotted off. She’d never liked his brutish face. He was not handsome enough, just as Baltus had been too fat and Ichabod too skinny. She was glad to see Edward’s head go. She hoped she could forget it, when the Horseman lay with her. She had so much to look forward to. This was her wedding night. And she was a virgin again, was she not? A virgin with ninety years of experience, two hundred years of waiting, and vast expectations. She grinned, heaving Edward’s torso up to rest against the trunk of a pumpkin-laden oak. The last of his old head fell away. She snatched her veil from the mud and cleaned his neck-stump, then raised the new head, fitting it loosely to the neck. Yes. It would be a fine fit. A fine transplant.

  She backed away, bent, and took a swallow of the glowing water herself. Its familiar magic filled her stomach and tickled her palms. She began her incantations, the mist off the millpond swirling scarlet and wreathing her, pouring through her, channeled by her, wringing her white wedding gown. She touched the reliquary, raising sparks. The magic poured into her and with her free hand she hurled it like rose petals at her Horseman’s feet. The scarlet mist broke against his chest, whipped around his body, and the seam between head and neck… inhaled that bloody incense.

  She could feel the moment coming.

  Oh, yes. Her kiss. Soon.

  The grinning pumpkins high in the tree roared with fire. Th
e spell bubbled from her, that same glut of words and tongues she’d spoken on the day she’d bound him. The reliquary blazed with crimson sparks. The seam through the flesh of his neck began to close! The seam between head and shoulders, mind and body, sealed perfectly. Only skin remained, and a taut line of neck muscle. She went to him, bent, and licked stubble from his broad chest to his earlobe.

  He was perfect.

  The Horseman, no longer headless, opened his eyes. They were green, as she knew they would be.

  “My love,” she whispered.

  His hand came slowly to his throat. His brows knit, studying her.

  “Here is Agathe,” she said, pressing her heart. “Your Agathe.”

  The Horseman raised an eyebrow. “Agathe?”

  She nodded through her spill of tears. Her heart danced. He’d never spoken her name before. Oh, to hear it from those lips! Those lips she would kiss at last.

  He rose, standing before her. She brushed leaves from him, caressed his strong arms, pressed a cheek to his bare chest, feeling the pulse there, the rage of life. She gazed up into his eyes. The man of all her mad desirings.

  “Kiss me, my Horseman.”

  He smiled, bent to her…

  … and spat in her face.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  “The Pumpkin Blaze”

  Jason laughed at the witch when it happened. He couldn’t help himself. He rose unsteadily on the pumpkin raft, straddling Valerie’s lifeless body, and roared with laughter to see Agathe humiliated in her moment of triumph.

  “No! No!” Agathe cried, in agony, all her hopes flayed away by the acid of the Horseman’s spittle. She fell to her knees, wiping her cheeks, gaping up at the handsome Monster she’d never really known. “Why?”

  “Agathe,” he growled, falling on her, wrapping his strong hands around her throat, hard enough to silence any spell. Agathe scratched at his arms, drawing blood. She kicked her legs but couldn’t escape.

  He’ll kill Kate, Jason realized. He’ll kill Kate! He’d never reach her in time. He searched for a solution, gazing into the glowing water, the clot of magic and captured souls. The moon was still barely in alignment. Was this the Moon? The tarot card? He didn’t think so. He felt no bubble of deep intuition, only desperation. He had an idea, though. It was a crazy idea, but to save Kate he would try anything, anything at all.