Give the Devil His Due

by Blackwell, Rob

  The person who had left was confused, edgy and distracted. But as soon as she walked through his door, Tim could see that was no longer the case. She didn’t seem suddenly cheerful, but she was calm, serious and focused. Her eyes no longer wandered off, looking at people who weren’t there. When she greeted Tim, her body was still.

  Tim realized it was the first time Kate had seemed calm since Quinn’s death. She still looked sad, but no longer out of her wits.

  “What happened to you?” Tim asked after a moment.

  She nodded at him.

  “Very observant,” she said simply.

  Kieran entered the room, obviously having just woken up.

  “Is she back yet?” he asked and the question died on his lips when he saw Kate.

  “I’m back,” she said and the double meaning was clear to Tim. Whatever hell she’d been through appeared to be over. “It’s time to get down to business.”

  Kieran looked at Tim in obvious surprise, but for once held his tongue.

  “Okay,” he said. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “I want to know everything,” she replied. “But primarily, I want to know where I need to go.”

  “Well, first you need the spirits,” Kieran said, “and I thought we could...”

  “That process has already started,” Kate replied crisply.

  Tim realized that Kate’s approach to Kieran had shifted as well. She wasn’t exactly warmer to him, but her voice had a more business-like tone to it. The obvious hostility was gone, or at least submerged.

  “Uh, when?” Kieran said. “We thought you were out killing hobos or something.”

  Before Kate could respond, the light bulb above her burst.

  “Odd,” Tim said, “I just replaced that.”

  It was rapidly followed by the lamp next to them and then the light in Tim’s small kitchen. Within a minute, the power in the building flickered off. Tim looked at Kate expectantly.

  “I’m going to assume you had something to do with that,” he said.

  “Not directly,” she said. “You may not see them, but we have company now. They took a bit of time following me from the battlefield.”

  Kieran looked from Kate to Tim.

  “There are ghosts? Here?” he asked.

  Kate nodded, and seemed to take a certain pleasure in his discomfort.

  “How many?” Kieran asked.

  “You probably don’t want to know. The question I have is, how many do I need?”

  Kieran’s eyes widened.

  “It was that easy?” he asked.

  From across the street there was a loud bang and Kieran jumped. Tim looked unperturbed.

  “That was the transformer across the street,” he said. “The entire block is going to be without power.”

  “I’d wager that the entire city is going to lose power in a matter of hours,” Kate said. “Spirits can wreak havoc with electronics. Something to do with electromagnetics. Terry Jacobsen told me that last year. I’ll try to have them wait for me a little further from civilization next time.”

  “They’re coming to you?” Kieran asked.

  “Yes, but I’m not going to wait for them,” she said. “Starting today, I'm taking a tour of every Civil War battlefield in the region. As the Horseman, I can travel quickly. Once I put out the call, they’ll respond, and they’ll bring others. But that raises the question of how many I need.”

  Kieran ran his fingers through his hair and looked perplexed.

  “You’re the only Prince of Sanheim to do this by yourself,” he said. “I don’t really know. I’d say the more the merrier. Maybe five hundred would do it?”

  Kate laughed out loud.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I can do a lot better than that.”

  “Isn’t this going to tax your energy?” Tim asked. “Kieran said it took a lot out of you to raise the dead last year.”

  “The raising takes energy, but once they join her, they actually add to her strength over time,” Kieran answered. “In theory, the more she calls to her, the stronger she’ll be.”

  “And she needs them to open the doorway to hell… I mean the underworld?” Tim asked.

  Kieran nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “But if she’s talking big numbers, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Which leads me to my second question,” Kate said. “Where do I take them?”

  It was Tim who answered her.

  “We discussed this earlier, but you seemed... unfocused,” he said. “Kieran has identified several places where he feels the walls between this world and Sanheim’s underworld are thin, particularly around Halloween.”

  “There’s the Kostnice in the Czech Republic,” Kieran said. “Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye, St. Mary’s Close in Edinburgh. All of these spots have experienced significant ghost activity, combined with a tragic history. Any of them could work. Crowley used Dunvegan, for the record. But there does seem to be one place with an even weaker barrier than those. It’s arguably our best bet.”

  “Oweynagat,” Tim said. “It’s translated from Gaelic as the Cave of the Cats.”

  “I remember your mentioning that before I left,” she said, “but I admit I wasn’t listening. Is the cave filled with cats or something?”

  “No, I think it’s just a name,” Kieran replied. “The ancient Celts believed it was a holy cave that led straight into Mother Earth. More important for our purposes, they thought spirits and ghosts came out of it every year on ...”

  “Sanheim,” she finished.

  “Exactly,” Kieran said. “It became a place of worship. The Celts believed it was a doorway between this world and the Land of the Dead. And Kate, I’ve been there. After I...”

  “Killed Quinn and ran away like a coward,” Kate said, but her tone was matter-of-fact.

  “Right,” Kieran nodded. “After that, I flew back home. Once I started doing some research, I learned of this place and went to visit. It’s in County Roscommon in Ireland. It’s basically a big mud pit now, but the cave is still there. Well, a part of it is anyway. There was a cave-in at some point when they were installing some electric power-lines above it.”

  “So much for respecting their ancestry,” Tim said.

  “Anyway,” Kieran continued. “I went there and... I felt its power, Kate. I walked in and I’d bet my life it’s the doorway we need.”

  Tim resisted the urge to remind him that he was, in fact, betting his life. If this didn’t work, Kate might not be crazy anymore, but he suspected her capacity for mercy would be limited.

  “So that’s where we’ll go,” she said. “When?”

  “When in doubt, go with a classic,” Kieran said. “All the legends say Halloween is the weakest point between our world and the afterlife. Seems to me it’s our best chance.”

  “That gives us 21 days,” Kate said. “I plan to make the most of it.”

  “One practical question,” Kieran asked. “How are you going to get these ghosts over there? It’s not like they can take a plane. They’d probably kill the power before it ever got off the ground.”

  “We won’t need one,” Kate said. “I’m not sure we can fly exactly, but hovering above the water doesn’t appear to be a problem. I tested it on my way back from Ball’s Bluff, just to be sure.”

  Kieran looked at her, clearly impressed.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “When you left, you were all... well, I don’t want to say batshit crazy, but... actually, I do want to say batshit crazy. And now?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kate said. “The point is, I know what I want to do now. I just need you to tell me how to do it.”

  They talked for a few more minutes before eventually Kieran bowed out, insisting he needed a shower.

  Kate and Tim watched him go. When he shut the door, she turned to Tim and spoke quietly.

  “I still don’t trust him,” she said.

  “You think he’s working for Sanheim?” Tim asked.
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br />   “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Kieran seems to always work for himself. But he’s playing an angle, I can sense it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Tim nodded. “I’m just not sure what his game plan could be. Surely it’s not in Sanheim’s interest to encourage you to open the gateway to the underworld and march on through?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, but...”

  “If it helps, I’ll keep a close eye on him,” Tim said.

  Kate looked surprised.

  “I thought this would be the moment when we parted ways,” she said. “I want to thank you for your help. Without you, I would’ve killed him. And I’m more convinced now that would have been a mistake.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I want to keep helping,” Tim said.

  “Don’t you have a paper to run?” she asked.

  “I left Rebecca in charge,” he said. “By the time I get back from my extended vacation, the staff will have extra appreciation for me.”

  Kate gave him a searching look.

  “Why?” she asked finally. “Why help me? Or is this about helping Quinn?”

  “There are a lot of reasons,” Tim asked. “Some of it is guilt about Lord Halloween...”

  Kate waved her hand to protest, but Tim continued.

  “But most of it is simpler than that. I’m a reporter. I follow the story. And this is the best, most important story I will ever cover, even if no one believes a word of it.”

  *****

  Kieran listened to them from the bathroom. They talked in low voices, but he was practiced at the art of eavesdropping.

  Not that he really needed to know what they were saying. Of course they didn’t trust him. He wasn’t hurt by that in the least. They were right to suspect him.

  When he was satisfied they were no longer discussing him, he turned on the shower and stepped into the hot spray.

  The tough part about making risky plans wasn’t the fear of failure. He’d come to expect failure. His problem was always when things started going well. He had gone into this venture almost sure that Kate would kill him on sight.

  But she hadn’t, and the next part of the plan had been to make her sane again, which he viewed as likely impossible. When Grace died, he’d talked to her constantly for at least three years, a habit Sawyer eventually demanded he stop on pain of death.

  But now here was Kate, apparently cured — and Kieran hadn’t lifted a finger. She had already even embraced the next part of the plan.

  Things were going so well that Kieran started to worry that he would actually have to follow through on his own mad idea.

  Kate was right of course — Kieran had his own angle to play. And everything depended on it.

  Chapter 18

  Quinn had been walking for three days and he still found the world here impossible to understand.

  It was given to abrupt and confusing shifts, like when he’d run through the mountain door and emerged at the entrance to the abandoned amusement park. When he was inside one part of it, like the cornfield, it was all encompassing. The five of them had walked for half a day under a bright blue sky through rows and rows of corn until they finally emerged.

  Suddenly they stood at the edge of a wide open, strangely colored valley buffeted by fierce winds.

  “Welcome to Ireland,” Carol said behind him as he looked over the alien landscape. “Or at least Sanheim’s version of it.”

  Quinn never liked the cornfield, finding it creepy even after Kyle died. But now he would have preferred walking the whole way to their destination in the corn. At least it felt familiar.

  The new landscape was almost pretty. They walked in tall grass that was often over their knees, followed gurgling hillside streams and saw a huge snow-capped mountain in the distance. It was a world devoid of civilization. There were no roads, signs, houses or strip malls to mar the landscape, just a picturesque land of hills and valleys.

  Except what made the landscape alien was also alarming.

  The tall grass was red and sharp. Quinn scratched his hands more than once when he dropped them to his sides. The streams were brown and muddy, and Quinn could swear he heard whispers coming from them.

  As they walked, they sometimes heard shrieks and other scary and unfamiliar noises. They never saw anything, but it was a constant reminder that, as Janus said repeatedly, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

  They found a house on the second day, a small cottage that might have seemed cute if its walls weren’t blood-stained. Its attic gave off an odor so sickening that none of them dared to investigate. On day three, Buzz stumbled across a body that was half-decayed, its eyes eaten out of its sockets. There was no sign of what had killed it.

  Instead of a stark but beautiful landscape, the world around them seemed to hum with violence and malice. The dark purple sky above them reinforced this notion. Quinn felt like it was just biding its time before springing a deadly assault on them.

  Just the five of them were traveling: Quinn, Buzz, Carol, Janus and Elyssa. Buzz had wanted to take more scarecrows with them, but Quinn had decided that a large host of traveling straw men was likely to bring them too much attention.

  While it was possible Sanheim knew everything that happened in this world, Quinn doubted it. Sanheim clearly was informed that Kyle was dead, but beyond that, he probably didn’t know where Quinn was headed next. Or at least Quinn hoped so. It was best to try to keep a low profile, one that didn’t include marching with a small army of scarecrows.

  Reluctantly, Buzz had left them behind, after putting one in charge he deemed “trustworthy,” a process that took several hours and included multiple interrogations to ensure the scarecrows would not flee or turn on them after they left. But their religion, it seemed, had morphed into worshiping the Prince of Sanheim, something that made Quinn uncomfortable but pleased Buzz.

  “There’s no better way to ensure loyalty,” he said decisively.

  “Just like they were loyal to Kyle?” Quinn asked sarcastically.

  “He abused, tortured and killed them,” Buzz responded. “You can hardly blame them for not mourning his loss.”

  Quinn didn’t give it much thought. He was far more concerned with where they were going — and whether they could even get there — than he was with what happened afterward.

  His worst fear was probably the most practical and mundane: what happened if they got lost? With no roads or signs, it was impossible to know if they were going in the right direction. The stars in the sky were unfamiliar, and for all Quinn knew, the purple sun rose in a different spot every day.

  Quinn might have been more concerned if not for Janus’ presence. After Carol outlined where they were headed, Janus had inexplicably and confidently taken the lead. Quinn had no way of ascertaining if he was right, and when he questioned his friend, he received monosyllabic answers. Yet he remembered how in the cornfield maze Janus had led the way. At every crossroads, he always chose correctly. And since Quinn had no alternative, he had to trust that Janus was right.

  Quinn dropped back, ruminating about the dangers around them. Buzz had found the body only a couple of hours ago and it still bothered him. He noticed Elyssa had drifted off from the others, while Buzz stayed behind them all, “watching our backs,” he said.

  “So what lives here exactly?” Quinn asked Carol.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Well, there’s a lot more than just people here,” Quinn said. “I’ve seen some strange stuff, not including the walking scarecrows. There were the… what did Janus call them? The sluagh? The creatures that flew like birds?”

  “The spirits of dead sinners,” Carol said. “Never seen any, but I’ve heard of them.”

  “There was a giant white Wyrm when I first got here too,” he added. “And I keep hearing animal sounds. Where do these monsters come from? Are all of these things created by Sanheim?”

  “I don’t really know, but I have some guesses,” Carol responded.


  “You know more about this stuff than I do. I’d take any theory you have.”

  “Well, I think they’re all people,” she said.

  “The sluagh definitely weren’t people,” Quinn said. “Or not anymore.”

  “That’s my point,” Carol said. “From what I can tell, when we arrive here, we’re all human. But then I think eventually we get pulled off into different areas of control.”

  “Areas?”

  “Like Halloweenland,” she said. “Places under the direct control of a person given power by Sanheim. Kyle was nothing on his own. Sanheim clearly acquired him for the express purpose of eliminating you and, eventually, Kate. He gave him power and, by proxy, Kyle exerted some control over others.”

  “That’s why his followers turned into scarecrows like him,” Quinn said.

  “Exactly,” Carol said. “But I don’t think Kyle is the only one. I haven’t been here that long, but I’ve already seen enough creatures to give the people of Leesburg nightmares for years. I bet Sanheim would say they’re real monsters. But my guess is they were once people too, and have fallen under the sway of one of Sanheim’s lieutenants.”

  “Lieutenants?” Quinn asked. “Is that Buzz’s military influence on you?”

  “Probably,” she smiled and looked in Buzz’s direction. “But it fits in a way. As far as I know, no one here has power except for what Sanheim gives them. So he parcels it out to a few people he finds interesting, and they form a cult around themselves. The sluagh, for example. I’d wager Sanheim turned someone into the first one, who then recruited others.”

  “I saw a whole pack,” Quinn said.

  “There’s a constant supply of new people,” she said. “How many people die each day in the mortal world? Again, not all of them come here. If they did, I think poor Ireland would be rapidly overpopulated. But there are still plenty of new arrivals all the time. They show up as human and either fall in with a group that turns them into something else, like sluagh or scarecrows, or…”

  “They die,” Quinn said. “So that corpse back there?”