It was Quinn. Sawyer was killing him.
*****
The Horseman didn’t hear the flute exactly. But he sensed its presence like a beacon in the night.
He took off in the direction of Ashburn Village where the music was coming from. A dim memory of one of the Crowley books came to mind. The sign of one of the Princes of Sanheim was a flute, or an Irish whistle. Whatever Sawyer’s cennad was, clearly that symbol represented it.
The Horseman raced through the forest, effortlessly dodging branches and anything else that could slow him down. He came out on a cul-de-sac.
A man stood in the middle of the street, flanked by at least three dozen of the animals the Horseman had fought earlier. They hissed as the Horseman approached. By the man’s side stood one animal much bigger than the others. The others all had fur of different colors, this one was almost entirely black. Its yellow eyes shone as it opened its mouth and howled. Saliva dripped from its front teeth, which looked like a row of kitchen knives.
“You like my pets?” the man said. “They’re called the dobhar-chu, from an old Irish myth. Just like the Prince of Sanheim.”
But the animals weren’t what drew the Horseman’s immediate attention.
He finally got a good look at his opponent. The man who stood in the street was well-dressed, but his clothes were old. His face was white, his eyes blood red, and his hair… his hair was a mix of colors. There were streaks of red, blue, a shock of white, dark black and even green. Each color had its own stripe.
The only weapon he held in his hand was a small flute.
“You killed one of my tribe,” he said. “That was a bad mistake, my headless friend.”
The animals around him started hissing again, the sound building at the back of their throats into a caterwaul. The larger dobhar-chu beside the man stirred.
The Horseman greeted them with silence.
“What? No witty rejoinder. I guess with you missing a head, it does make it rather hard.”
As if in response, the Headless Horseman dismounted, drew his sword and approached on foot. The animals around him tensed, hissing even louder. The lead dobhar-chu put its head forward protectively, as if to bite anything that came too close.
The Horseman strode forward, undaunted.
“You don’t seem to realize that we vastly outnumber you. I also know your weakness. And unfortunately for you, it’s the one thing that I have in great supply.”
The Horseman brought his sword back, intending to kill his opponent in one powerful stroke.
“Do you know what it is?” the man said, his face alighting with a cruel smile. “Fire.”
As the Horseman swung his sword, the man opened his mouth and a jet of hot flame shot out. It hit the Horseman like a furnace blast to his chest, engulfing him in searing heat.
The person who was still Quinn started screaming then, feeling the flames burning him from the inside out. The Horseman stumbled back, his entire body on fire. Quinn had never felt such pain before. Every fiber of his being screamed in agony.
*****
Emotion was the key. Kate could hear the mantra repeating in her mind as she heard Quinn screaming in pain.
She stopped thinking about what she was doing, pushed doubt and fear to the side, and just reached out with her mind.
In sheer panic, she called out, “I NEED HELP. THEY ARE GOING TO KILL HIM.”
In her mind’s eye, she pictured Quinn as she had seen him that morning. To others he might have seemed unremarkable, a 31-year-old of roughly average dimensions. But she remembered his eyes—his electric blue eyes that seemed to see right through her. She thought of his smile, his laugh, his touch. He was the love of her life—and she was about to lose him. She surrendered to desperation.
All at once she heard voices around her. She sensed them, felt them touching her, pulling her. The words tumbled out from them.
“Who is he?”
“Who’s hurting him?”
“Who are you?”
“Why have you come?”
A hundred questions pressed around her and Kate had to work to concentrate.
“He’s my love,” she replied. “My fiancée. My betrothed. And they are killing him.”
The answers came then, some expressing disappointment, dissatisfaction, as if what she said made little difference to them. Those voices drifted away, lost in the night.
But there were others, voices that now suddenly had shapes. A woman appeared before her, clothed in a black mourning dress.
“My lover died on the battlefield,” the woman said. “He died calling for me.”
“My husband never came home,” another voice said, and a young woman appeared. “I waited and waited.”
“My wife died giving birth to my son,” a man’s voice said. “We were only married one year.”
Through it all, she sensed grief, regret and anger. These people had waited and lost in life, and never moved on.
“Help me,” Kate said to them. “Help me save him.”
She heard more voices now, six at least.
“What must we do?” they asked.
“Follow me,” she said. “And pray it’s not too late.”
*****
The Headless Horseman fell to the ground and tried to roll, but the pain was unbearable.
“You were so full of confidence a moment ago and now… just look at you,” the man said.
Quinn forgot who he was, what he intended to do and just wished for anything to make the pain stop.
“Put him out,” the man said.
One of the animals changed into a human form again and stepped forward with something. Quinn felt something stamping out the flames. After a few minutes, the fire was gone, but the Horseman lay on the ground, smoking.
“If you even make a move, I’ll burn you again,” the man said. “And this time I won’t stop.”
But Quinn was in no condition to get up. He didn’t even think it was possible. He was afraid to turn back into his normal self, sure that only a charred ruin would remain.
“You should have surrendered, Quinn,” the man said. “It would have been much easier on you. Now I’m going to show you the cost.”
The man turned and looked at the neighboring houses. It was a normal suburban street, with a cluster of homes around a cul-de-sac. The man took a few strides to the nearest house, opened his mouth, and another jet of flame shot out. The house was on fire within seconds, flames licking up the siding, already spreading to the front porch.
“There are three children in that home, Quinn,” the man said as he walked back toward him. “They’re all sleeping and they won’t wake up. In fact, no one on this street is going to wake up to save themselves. That’s why I played the song you heard earlier. Wonderful music. Such a great lullaby, you can’t wake up—even as you burn.”
The man held up his flute again and started playing a song. Quinn couldn’t hear, could only sense it through the Horseman’s burnt frame. But he knew it was sad, a funeral dirge for the family about to be burned alive.
The man stopped playing and looked at the Horseman on the ground.
“You killed them, do you know that?” the man asked. “Just like you killed everyone in this neighborhood. I’m going to let you watch them die before I finish you off.”
The man looked at the lead dobhar-chu next to him.
“Keep an eye out for the girl,” he said. “Not sure why she isn’t at this party yet, but I can’t imagine she’ll sit the whole thing out.”
The man started to walk off, but paused when he heard sirens close by.
“Interesting,” he said to Quinn. “Did you warn them I was coming? It won’t help, you know.”
He held up the flute.
“When they arrive, I’ll just put them to sleep and let them die too,” the man said. “You should have quit when you had the chance.”
He turned and walked down the street, approaching the next home. When he was a few feet away, he let loose
another shot of flame. Quinn watched as that house too began to burn.
*****
Kate rushed down the street. She counted six ghosts with her—no match for the tribe she saw assembled watching the flames consume the houses. A frontal assault would fail. She saw the thing taunting Quinn, holding its flute.
Inspiration hit her in a flash.
“Go inside the houses,” she said to four of the ghosts. “Get the people out of there—save the children first.”
“We can’t,” said the man who had lost his wife. “We can’t touch anything now. All we can do is watch.”
Kate concentrated and looked at them. Where before they had been insubstantial, faint outlines of a person, now they looked real.
“Not anymore,” Kate said. “Go! Hurry!”
Some of the ghosts broke off and moved toward the houses, while two remained with her.
Kate stared down the street, saw the monster Sawyer had become walking to a third house. The animals around him were all caterwauling, shrieking at the moon in rejoicing.
What bothered her was how drained she felt. She could feel the energy of keeping the ghosts solid pulling at her, dragging her down. She hadn’t felt like this in the graveyard; she had felt limitless. She wouldn’t be able to hold them to her much longer.
“Save my love,” she told the remaining spirits. “You’ll know when it’s safe. Wait then, and save him. Bring him to safety.”
They didn’t ask questions, didn’t hesitate. They just obeyed.
Kate went to where Sawyer was heading. As he stepped up to the house, he opened his mouth—and Kate stepped in front of him.
“Nice hair,” she said.
The man shut his mouth and glared at her. The animals, which had been slinking around the streets, suddenly snapped to attention, and ran over to where Kate and the man were standing. They growled, but she ignored them. The larger creature came over behind them.
“So you’ve come to die as well,” Sawyer said. “Where have you been? I was so anxious to fight you both at the same time.”
“Meeting with some old friends,” Kate said.
She watched his red eyes. He was so confident, so cocky. He’d won and he knew it. Worse, he was enjoying this, enjoying the feeling of burning people alive. She watched him hold his flute in his right hand, as if he had momentarily forgotten about it.
“Okay then,” he said amiably enough. “Die!”
The thing opened his mouth and released a jet of flame.
*****
As the fire came toward her, Kate felt herself change.
One minute she was Kate Tassel. The next, just as the flames were about to reach her, she transformed into an ancient spirit of myth. Her form was human, almost like a woman clothed in white. But instead of eyes, there were hollow sockets. Her skin was spotted, old and stretched thin, showing chunks of bone underneath. She had no lips, only a skull’s grin.
The flames passed right through her.
The thing looked at her in shock.
“What are you?” he asked.
The spirit didn’t respond. She felt her energy slipping away, knew that whatever power she possessed was draining out of her.
She glared at the man in front of her, who had dared to attack her lover, her home. She let her hate for him bubble inside her until it was a cauldron ready to explode.
And then she screamed.
The sound was like a sonic explosion of pain, anger and raw hatred. The spirit poured everything she had into that scream, which rolled out across the countryside like a terrible, black storm. For miles around, people woke in their beds terrified that something awful had just happened.
In the cul-de-sac, the scream was powerful enough to break the flute’s spell. The families whose houses were burning woke up, scrambled to make sense of what was happening, gathered their children and fled into the night. The spirit Kate had become looked across the street to see two of her ghosts—apparently entirely unaffected—gently laying children on the grass away from one burned home.
The animals surrounding the man shuddered in agony, kneeling in the grass and putting their paws to their ears in an attempt to shut the noise out. Their noses began to bleed.
Sawyer put his hands to his ears too, but refused to kneel before the spirit. Instead he glared at her with a cold, alien fury. The scream echoed inside him, tearing him apart.
It was a duel then. The spirit knew her scream couldn’t last, could feel her energy melting away from her. She looked into the man’s eyes and knew it was a test of wills. She had put everything she could into this. If she gave out before he left, she would have nothing remaining. She would be Kate again—and helpless. But Sawyer was clearly struggling with the effect of her scream. She could see blisters beginning to appear and pop on his skin. If she could just hold out, the scream itself might kill him.
He pulled a sword then, swinging it uselessly in front of him as it went through nothing but air.
The two stared at each other for what felt like hours or years. Around him, his animals could no longer stand it. They began crawling away until finally they were far enough from the source of the destructive scream that they could run. The largest dohbar-chu was the only one who stood its ground.
With the welts on his skin growing larger, it was the man who finally gave ground. He gave the spirit one more furious look and then signaled to the animal next to him. The two quickly turned away from the spirit and hobbled off down the street.
She screamed until she saw them disappear out of sight. She felt it tearing her up from inside and knew that if she didn’t stop soon, it would engulf her completely.
The spirit stopped screaming, the pulse of it abruptly cutting off.
In a second, she was Kate Tassel again. She wanted to find Quinn, get them away from here. But as she returned to her form, her head buzzed with pain. She put her hand to her nose and felt blood. The earth suddenly began spinning around her.
She was faintly aware that firetrucks and police cars had arrived.
Thank God they didn’t see me as I was, she thought.
Then she fell to the ground and passed out.
Chapter 28
October 24, 2007
Kate awoke in the dark.
Around her there was a glowing red light that pulsed. She could hear a steady beeping sound. She looked down to find a needle stuck in her arm. It took her a moment to register she was in the hospital.
She looked around her to see if there were police nearby. She was worried they had been arrested. With no one else there, the police were sure to blame her or Quinn for the fires. But there was no one else in the room.
Even the light in the hallway was dim. She concluded it must be the middle of the night. Maybe the police would come in the morning—or maybe they didn’t blame them at all.
She reached out with her mind to see if Quinn was safe and was alarmed she could sense nothing.
He can’t be dead, she thought. I would know.
The thought was too awful to contemplate. She had to find him. She felt exhausted and yet strangely exhilarated. She finally understood what had eluded her for the past year. She knew what she was.
Whatever energy had drained out of her in Ashburn, enough time must have passed that some was back again. She leaned over to rip the IV from her arm, but then thought of a better plan.
She leaned her head back, let her emotions carry her on a wave. Kate shimmered and disappeared. In her place was the woman in white. The IV fell onto the bed, no longer attached to anyone. The machine with its steady beeping let out a large squawk, then sparked and died all at once.
She didn’t wait to see if any nurses would come. Instead, she floated out of the room and into the hallway. All around her she heard voices, some loud and some faint. She realized it was other patients sleeping. She could hear their thoughts. Not everyone, certainly, but some.
She narrowed in on the one she wanted to hear. She looked at the hallway in front of her
, but she didn’t know the direction she needed to go to reach him. Then she smiled to herself and stepped through the wall.
It was like pushing her way through water. There was substance there, but it moved around her, filling the space behind her as she made her way through. It was startling at first, but within a few seconds she was used to it.
The spirit walked through another wall, emerged into a new hallway, readjusted course and walked through another wall until she came to a room.
Quinn lay on the bed—alive. Her heart rejoiced as she watched his chest rise and fall in sleep. But his body… his body was scarred and covered in bandages. His once handsome face was covered in searing scars.
“Oh,” the spirit said. “Oh my love.”
She went toward him and laid her hand on his cheek, making it solid again so she could touch him.
He was among the living, but he was weak, she knew. She called to him in her mind, using what strength she could gather to summon him from his dangerous slumber.
“Quinn,” she called. “Come back to me.”
Impossibly, he stirred. The beeping of the monitors next to him got louder. And though she was sure he was sedated, Quinn opened his eyes.
And screamed.
*****
Quinn was in pain, his entire body in agony. But he heard Kate calling him and he obeyed.
He struggled to lift his eyelids. But when his vision cleared, Kate wasn’t standing there. Instead it was some kind of nightmare, a ghost in a thin white gown with hollow eye sockets, long white hair, and only patches of skin. As soon as he saw it, he let out a scream.
The ghost looked momentarily startled, looking behind it as if Quinn was screaming at something else. When its empty eyes returned to Quinn, he saw it smile—and then transform.
Quinn let out a gasp. The woman in white was gone, replaced by Kate.
“Oh my God,” he said, and the words were an effort.
“Quinn, I’m so sorry,” Kate said and leaned over him to gently kiss his head.
Several nurses ran in, drawn by his screams. A large heavy-set woman in her late 50s stared at Kate.
Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles Book 2) Page 28