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

by Gleaves, Richard

  He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Break the dam, Joey!”

  “What?” Joey broke from the guards and splashed down to the shoreline, incredulous.

  “Break the dam and we might break the spell! Quick! He’s killing her!”

  “What about you and Zef?”

  Jason screamed. “Do it!”

  Joey raised both hands, concentrating on the huge structure, trying to picture it, the pilings thrust into the muddy depths—so deep, so heavy—into stone and silt and concrete. Metal bracings, screws and bolts and boards and slats. Wet tons of dirt, like sinking his fingers into steel. But he could feel it deforming, twisting…

  He groaned. “Aaurgh!”

  He was cursing himself, feeling weak, but heard Zef at Lyndhurst shouting: “You can do anything!”

  If the man says so, it must be true.

  His Gift swelled inside him and some structural beam groaned in answer as the earth lurched somewhere far below the red water. The pond sloshed, the ground shook… and the Philipsburg dam cracked down the middle.

  “Get off the dam, Zef!” Jason cried, waving from the raft, screaming to be heard over the dissonant song of the flame-eyed chorus. “Run! Run! Run!”

  The choking spell broke and Zef struggled to his feet, the boards wrenching beneath him, the whole dam shuddering, bent by the incredible pressure of the pulsing red water. Something cracked, throwing him down. He scrabbled for safety. His father was doing no better. Hadewych careened into the rail, lurching helplessly, trying to find his sea legs as the slats twisted. The center of the dam spit boards and burst through with a gush of water and corpses. THE GREAT JACK-O’-LANTERN BLAZE broke at the apostrophe. Father and son locked eyes as the gulf between them widened, impossible to cross. Hadewych got an arm around the railing, but Zef lost his grip and began sliding toward the spill, where a broken green electrical cable slapped water, dimming the lights around them with each splash. Zef slid and went tumbling off the dam. He plunged into a current of blood and electricity, every muscle tightening, his body spinning helplessly, end over end.

  So this how I die, he thought.

  “Zef!” screamed Joey, shivering and wet, but there was nothing he could do. He’d killed his boyfriend. Oh, God. He’d killed Zef. But he had no time to think, no time to grieve. The monsters had stopped their singing and were coming after him now, arms raised.

  “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  Joey sent up a spout of dirt, ducked a branch, and ran.

  “Zef!” screamed Hadewych, struggling to his feet. The water churned below, a torrent of brilliant red, twisting like a magician’s smoke, making his son disappear. He hesitated, about to jump, when hands seized him and spun him around. The remaining Gifted had awakened from their trance. One of them snatched the embedded knife from the rail. Another, one of Usher’s men, a burly fellow with one bent ear, drew back a fist—“You son of a bitch!”—and punched Hadewych in the nose.

  The heavy pumpkin raft began to turn under Jason’s feet, but he didn’t notice. He crouched by Valerie’s lifeless body, protecting it, watching the scene on shore with horror. Agathe had grown weaker and weaker. She was losing consciousness, or maybe just giving up. Her eyes searched the Horseman’s face, with a look of ungodly pain and grief. Her expression was reflected in the face of her Horseman, but reversed, as all reflections are. His eyes were gleeful, his smile triumphant, as if all his hopes were here fulfilled, and he would give this witch who had tormented him the kiss she deserved. The kiss of death.

  But the spill of magic had reached some critical point. The millpond flickered and its light went out. The reliquary went dark in Lisa Mayfair’s arms. The Horseman’s eyes rolled back in his head suddenly, just as the Tarrytowners ceased their singing. He released Agathe, and she dropped to the ground, limp and tearful. The Horseman’s fingernails came to his own throat. A slit had opened there, as if he’d grown a gill, like the shark he was. Blood trailed from it—slow, endless blood, not as if pumped from a heart, not spurting or splattering, but blood as from a spilling paint can. Pouring down his shoulders and chest as his lid came loose, as his head and body began moving independently, lurching in opposite directions. He fell to one knee, and as his chin dropped, so did the rest of his head, severed again, striking the ground and rolling away.

  Agathe caught the severed head by the braid at the back and reeled it in like a pumpkin on a vine, gathering it into her arms. She had no voice with which to scream.

  Jason took a deep breath. Now that Kate’s body was okay, he had other things to worry about. The dam had cracked fully open, the pumpkin raft lurched, and he braced himself for a possibly deadly plunge, over Niagara in a barrel. The smaller pumpkin floats, many still alight, spun like tops until caught by the sluice. One turned back to grin at Jason, as if declaring, “You’re next!” and dropped away.

  But just as Jason’s raft reached the plunge, its drifting ceased. It hung precariously, half over the plunge, and Jason wondered if by some stroke of luck it had snagged on some submerged piling. But, impossibly, the raft began moving, against the current. As if by… magic.

  He turned and saw Valerie coming to one knee beside him, one hand raised, the front of her throat and chest livid with gore. Her eyes were bright and fierce. She pushed with both hands and the raft pulled away from the spill, farther and farther, crossing the entire length of the pond, all the way back to the tunnel. Jason snagged a root to anchor them and pointed at the bone bag on the shore, forgotten next to the throne. Valerie reached out with her Gift. The bag flew across the water to land on their raft.

  “Don’t you remember the spell?”

  She nodded.

  “Then do it!”

  She spread her hands helplessly, trying to make him understand.

  “Why can’t you?” he said.

  Valerie clapped a palm to her bloody throat and shouted, “I’ve lost my valve!”

  She froze.

  Her eyes widened.

  She bent over the edge of the raft, searching her reflection, cupping water, wiping her neck, testing her throat with both hands. She straightened, her face full of fear, as if terrified to wake from a beautiful dream. “Jason… I can talk,” she said, clearly, in a soft feminine voice. “I can talk!”

  “I’m so sorry! I should have thought to heal you months ago!”

  “I can taaaaalk!” she cried, wracked with sobs but making a song of the precious word.

  “But can you cast the spell?”

  Valerie shot to her feet, legs spread wide to balance on the raft. “I have my voice!” She threw her shoulders back. “Now hand me the bitch’s bones!”

  Agathe had lost her own voice. She could whisper no spells, no spells at all. He’d almost choked the life out of her. And now… Oh! His handsome head was rotting again. She bent to kiss his mouth but found no lips there, only eyeteeth. She tried to kiss his cheek but found only bone. His eyelids sank at the touch of her lips. She kissed his forehead and found only chalk. He was a skull again, after all her work, after all her work!

  But no matter. She would start over. She would bleed him to beauty, again and again, as long as it took. She would make her sacrifices. In this century or the next. She would kill every Gifted she could find, worldwide, until she claimed the title Mother Hulda had promised. She would repair her relationship with her love. Their… misunderstanding. Yes. Then they would be together. Together at last.

  But the Horseman rose, headless. His hatchet leapt from the throne and into his left hand. He raised his right and summoned a pumpkin—a buck-toothed, jolly thing. He cocked that arm back and hurled the jack-o’-lantern at her. She leapt aside, and it struck the ground with a streak of mush and flame.

  She could speak no spells.

  And her Monster had unlimited ammunition.

  She clutched his skull to her chest, grabbed a bewitched Tarrytowner and heaved him into the pa
th of the Horseman’s next throw. The pumpkin struck the man and he went limp, his flame going out. A potential Founder, if ever he woke. Agathe let him drop and reached for another minion. She had as many human shields as the Horseman had missiles. She dodged fanged pumpkins and laughing pumpkins and intricate Celtic weaves. Her flame-eyed servants saw her danger and rushed the Monster, buying her time. He struggled as they seized him. They blew fire and ash and cried “Pumpkin blaaaze,” but he had no eyes to catch fire, and no lips to breathe smoke.

  Agathe needed to bring her Monster to heel. She still possessed his enchanted skull, clutched to her heart. Yes. She would bleed it and command him to cease his attack. She staggered to the empty throne and seized the reliquary from Lisa’s grasp. It fortified her magic, and bright green sparks bit her skin. She shoved the skull into the lantern and snatched up a carving knife to cut her own flesh. But as she brought the knife to her arm, a blinding pain took her. She dropped the knife and cried out weakly, back arching. What was happening? She’d not cut herself. She’d not been struck by the Horseman. What was this new attack?

  A strong female voice echoed across the water, speaking the ancient Hexenwerk. The Deep Witch Valerie Maule stood on the pumpkin raft, raising a skull of her own, Agathe’s skull, doing to Agathe what she had hoped to do to the Horseman.

  Agathe dropped the reliquary, focusing as much attention as she could muster. The witch was powerful, the binding spell true. But the spell came from Mother Hulda’s grimoire—Agathe recognized the weave of syllables—and she had long studied that book. She knew counter-curses this novice witch could never dream of mastering.

  But she’d lost her voice, and was helpless.

  Valerie had found her voice, and was pissed. She growled the incantation, over and over. Jason could feel magic knotting in the air over his head. The sky rippled, and the raft beneath his feet rocked crazily, spilling pumpkins. He knelt, grabbing the edge, trying not to be thrown off. Valerie pressed her eyes tight, concentrating. Jason urged her on, desperately wishing for success.

  Come on Valerie… Bind the bitch. Bind the bitch. Bind her to her bones. Bind the bitch. Bind the bitch. Bind her to her bones.

  “I have her!” Valerie shouted through gritting teeth, arms outstretched. “I have her!”

  The skull in Valerie’s hands exploded into sparks, as if she’d lit a firework. She struggled to maintain her grasp on it. Agathe’s skull jerked back and forth, trying to escape her grasp.

  Jason searched the shore. Agathe fell limp in the weeds, leaning against the throne of Satan. “Is she out of Kate?”

  “I think so,” Valerie wheezed, struggling with the skull.

  The Horseman threw off a cluster of attackers and flung them to the ground.

  Jason pointed at the scene. “Then why’s everybody still under her spell?”

  “She’s too strong!” Valerie fell to one knee, wincing as sparks flew from the eye sockets of the skull. “This isn’t going to work! I’m losing her! Sorry. We need a more permanent solution here!”

  “Shit. Shit. Okay. Give me a second!”

  “Hurry!”

  The Blaze soundtrack played a rapid, angry piece for solo bassoon and pizzicato strings.

  Jason tore at his hair, trying to think. What could they do? If Valerie couldn’t keep Agathe bound, she would take Kate back, and then the reliquary. If that happened, she would regain control of the Horseman, and she wouldn’t be distracted by multiple enemies. She’d soon have Jason and all his friends run through with carving knives.

  But this was the only plan they’d had! Everything he’d gone through in the aqueduct—had it been for nothing? Did they have no choice now but to cut their losses and run? No. There had to be a way to end her for good.

  He searched the moon in the water, hoping for some moment of deep intuition, but it didn’t come. The Horseman balled his fists and howled with rage, fighting his attackers, struggling to reach Kate’s fallen body, still mistaking her for the witch, determined to kill her and have his revenge for years of suffering under her control.

  Her control… her control…

  “Okay,” Jason said, looking up at Valerie. “What if the Horseman controlled Agathe?”

  “What?” Her bloody clothes were catching fire now.

  Jason swatted the sparks away. “What if we enlisted Agathe in his army?”

  Valerie understood. “Put her under his dominance.”

  “Exactly. Look at him. He’s dying to beat the hell out of her.”

  “It won’t work. She would need a grave of her own in his cemetery.”

  “Brom built her one. Down below the Van Brunt tomb!”

  Valerie looked at Jason with a touch of pride. She was impressed. He was getting the hang of this magic stuff after all. “We’ll take her bones to the tomb.”

  “You go. I’ll get Kate. Throw me onto shore.”

  Valerie gave Jason’s cheek a brief kiss, her eyes still on Agathe. “My voice. I can’t begin to thank you.”

  “Bake me a freakin’ cake! Now throw me!”

  She kept the skull aloft and threw Jason onto shore telekinetically. It wasn’t an elegant landing. Jason struck hard, smashing through jack-o’-lanterns, and stumbled to his feet. He turned to look back. Valerie gave a thumbs-up and pushed the raft into the tunnel, disappearing, bound for the tomb.

  Jason sprinted for the throne and fell at Kate’s side. She lay limp and unconscious. He bent and got his arms under her, but the moment he tried to lift her his dislocated shoulder screamed with pain and he had to lower her again. His legs began cramping too. He’d walked so far today. He dropped to the ground next to her.

  No. Not now. Not Now.

  Lisa Mayfair stood possessed nearby.

  “Wake up. Wake up.” Jason groaned. “Lisa, help me!” But the words didn’t penetrate. He couldn’t lift Kate, he couldn’t leave her, and the Horseman was breaking free. He’d be after them soon enough.

  The reliquary on its side whispered JASON CRANE…

  Now what?

  He fought through the cramps, got his arms around Kate, and dragged her away from the throne. Pumpkins fled before them, tumbling into the water. But Jason barely made it to the fence of the old herb garden before he collapsed again, panting, his legs and arms giving out, his heart racing in his chest, pumping blood and adrenaline and fight-or-flight and fear right through him. But his body simply would not respond. He’d failed Kate again.

  With a deafening whinny, a black horse leapt the garden fence, right over Jason’s head. Gunsmoke. It sped to its master’s side, reared and kicked, knocking Agathe’s minions to the ground. The Horseman got his hatchet arm loose and cut a Tarrytowner off at the knee. The man fell, bleeding out.

  The soundtrack of the Blaze began a slow churn of menacing cellos and double-basses, like the two-note theme of Jaws.

  The shark was coming.

  Jason tried again to lift Kate. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up…” It was no use. He collapsed against the fence, shivering, his eyes on the Monster.

  Where the hell are Joey and Zef?

  Zef had never drowned before, but he discovered he had a talent for it. He’d swallowed more water than he thought possible, up his nose and down his throat, into his stomach and lungs. It clapped his ears and washed his eyes and froze his skin. He was digesting it, pissing it, and passing it. He was nothing but a water balloon, spinning through space to burst at the first touch of land.

  Something grabbed his leg and he thrashed in the current. Something… no, someone, had him. Had Joey come? Jason? Had his dad rescued him? He rediscovered gravity, gained the shore, and flipped over onto hands and knees, expelling bucketfuls.

  Someone murmured in his head. He couldn’t make out the words, but he recognized the telepathic color of it. Who else could it be? He blinked, wiped his face, and looked up.

  “Mom. Thank God.”

  Jessica bent to him, her eyes unnaturally bright, and telepathically whispered, “Pumpkin blaaa
aze.” Her lips were painted with blue flame and spitting embers.

  Zef fled his mother, avoiding her fiery breath, blinking it from his eyes, dashing back up the muddy shore. The spill from the broken dam had lessened, and debris had fallen against the side of the old grist mill itself, choking the machinery. Zef climbed the millwheel, making a ladder of it, pulling free of his grasping mother. When he reached the top, he turned a circle, looking for Joey and Jason, seeing only chaos.

  An animated corpse lunged out of the millhouse—the corpse of an Usher security guard, half his jaw missing and drooling rivulets of spit. It seized Zef’s arm. Its grip was weak and slimy. Zef tore free and pushed the thing over the side. Its spine snapped on the millwheel and it fell on Jessica, pinning her in the mud, her legs kicking and her lips spewing sparks of indignation.

  HELP! DANGER! RUN! NOW!

  Zef spun and cupped his hands around his mouth: “Joey!”

  Joey was running out of dirt. He’d climbed on top of the old hearse wagon, summoning splashes of mud like Mickey in Fantasia, digging a moat around himself. The fire-eyed townsfolk reached for him, hands balling as they clutched the air. Mayor Nielsen had fallen into the pit, and a blotch of mud had put the flame out of one eye, as if he’d gone pirate.

  Mrs. Thorstenson groaned, “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  Jennifer the waitress wailed, “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  The Spock-eared DJ shouted, “Pumpkin blaaaaze!”

  And a bewitched event worker added, “No flash photographyyyy!”