Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Two) (25 page)

“I wanted to set the record straight,” she said.

“Liar,” he responded. “You were acting on instinct. You were acting out of anger. Why were you mad?”

“The police had failed me, had failed all of us,” she said. “I wanted them to know…”

“That something else lurked in the dark,” Sanheim said.

“Yes,” she said.

“I can put your fears to rest, Kate,” Sanheim said. “I can tell you what you want to hear.”

Kate looked away from him, across the wide ocean. She knew what he was going to say—and it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“You’re not Lord Halloween, Kate,” he said. “You’re something much worse. You have no idea how powerful you are. Quinn alone can’t win this fight, but you can. But only if you accept what you have become.”

“Enough!” Quinn said. “She’s not like him. She doesn’t kill innocent people for pleasure. She hasn’t killed anyone, remember? I was the one who killed Lord Halloween, not her.”

 The man turned back to Quinn.

“You may have struck the blow, but it was Kate who found him, Kate who hunted him in the dark house, and Kate who wanted him dead,” the man said, and smiled with malice on his face. “It’s even possible the Headless Horseman might have just wounded poor Lord Halloween that night. But that was never Kate’s agenda, was it? ‘I want to be there when you kill him.’ Isn’t that what she said?”

“So what?” Quinn said. “He deserved to die. That doesn’t make her a killer. It doesn’t make her a monster.”

“Listen to you,” Sanheim replied. “‘He deserved to die.’ How sure you sound. But that isn’t what you told Elyssa, was it? ‘Whoever killed Lord Halloween should be brought to justice.’”

Quinn opened his mouth to retort, but couldn’t think of a response.

Sanheim smiled at him.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, sounding smug. “The only way she can save you is to use her most powerful emotion. She needs to embrace it, not fight it.”

Sanheim turned back to Kate.

“You are what you fear?” he said. “Not in your case. Our past dictates what we are. For you, you are what you hate.”

Chapter 23

October 17, 2007

Kieran sat on his balcony looking out at the landscape beyond. If he didn’t think very hard about it, he could almost imagine he was back home at some country estate in England. Almost, but not quite. Virginia was pretty in its own way, but it had a distinctive look. There was no confusing its rolling hills and thick forests with English moors and countryside. Still, it never hurt to pretend. Kieran didn’t fancy himself the homesick type, but the longer he stayed here, the more he had come to reevaluate that. He missed home.

“Why in the world are you holed up here?” Elyssa said behind him, and Kieran jumped in his chair.

He turned around and glared at her. She smiled innocently.

“Sorry,” she said. “Thought you heard me come up.”

She was dressed, as she often was, to the nines. This time it was a short, colorful skirt with ruffled edges paired with a pale blue top. As usual, the flirty outfit showed off all her attributes.

So she’s trying to seduce me… again
, Kieran thought. He wondered why she bothered. The two of them were long past the point where it would mean anything.

“What do you want?” he asked evenly.

“What do you call him?” she asked. “‘Our fearless leader’ wants to talk.”

“Have they made a decision?” Kieran asked, and he tried to sound nonchalant about it. He had been assured that Kate and Quinn would reject the deal, but what did his source really know? It was all guesswork and deceit with him. And it would be Kieran who paid the price if he was wrong, of course.

“No, they haven’t,” Elyssa said. “And Sawyer thinks they won’t go our way.”

“I don’t know about that,” Kieran said. “Quinn seemed to be openly considering it. Sawyer should let it ride, see what happens.”

Elyssa walked up to him—sidled up to him was more like it—and stood in such a way that Kieran could either look up at her breasts or down at her legs. He doubted it was a coincidence. She reached a long finger down and caressed his cheek.

“Since when does Sawyer let anything ride?” she asked. “He wants results. He wants to ‘raise the stakes,’ as he put it.”

Kieran tried to ignore her touch and remain calm, but his insides were seizing up. He had been playing the game for so long, he thought he was long past nervousness. His worst-case scenario was that he would die, probably painfully, and he was surprisingly accepting of that. What he feared was allowing himself to hope that he might actually succeed. Surrendering to failure… that he could do. But actually pulling off his plan? He dared not hope for it. He tried to assume it would all go wrong, so that way he wouldn’t be disappointed when the fatal blow finally came. And yet hope kept arising.

“I thought you already did that,” Kieran said, trying to focus his eyes on anything but Elyssa. “You talked with that reporter, right? She was going to put the screws on them.”

“Didn’t work,” Elyssa said, and her voice was smooth, silky.

She’s definitely trying to seduce me
, he thought again, as if it weren’t obvious by now.

“So what’s the new plan?” Kieran asked.

He was having trouble concentrating. He had forgotten how persuasive Elyssa could be. Just what she was doing—or why she was doing it—was beyond him. It was probably just to piss off Sawyer.

“We’re going to talk to the reporter again,” Elyssa said, and as she said it, she slowly lowered herself onto his lap.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Elyssa kissed him, slowly. He surprised himself by kissing her back. He hadn’t meant to—didn’t think he wanted to—but he did anyway.

It’s been so long
, he thought.

Elyssa’s tongue darted into his mouth and he responded. Kieran hated her, had despised her for years, decades. And yet he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. He wanted to push her away, but instead he pulled her forward so she straddled him. She felt so good and it was surprisingly easy to let the bad blood between them fall away. And was that all they had? Didn’t Elyssa and he share something else? Both caught in Sawyer’s web for years—his mad plans—without being able to break free? Kieran usually saw Elyssa as one of his jailors, but in that moment she felt like a fellow prisoner.

Kieran broke off from the kiss and stared at Elyssa. He thought she would be angry and might even protest. Instead, she looked almost vulnerable.

“Why do you hate me so much?” she asked him.

Kieran stared at her in shock. It wasn’t that he didn’t expect her to know how he felt—it was that she cared enough to ask.

“We weren’t always enemies,” she said.

“I don’t,” he started. But he did. He really did.

“You do,” she said. “I’ve just never known why.”

“You know why,” he said quietly. “You were there.”

“I didn’t…” she said. “You know that wasn’t my idea. He never told me what he was going to do. He blocks me out most of the time, even back then.”

“But you guessed,” he said, feeling the old anger stir in him again.

“No,” she said firmly. “I didn’t want her to die. You have to believe me. She was… like a sister to me. I never wanted it to happen.”

Did he believe her? They had never talked about it, had purposely avoided the subject. So why now? Why bring this up when the end was so near, when it would be so easy to go on hating her? Maybe it was genuine and she was as nervous as he was. Or maybe… maybe this was part of Sawyer’s plan, trying to ensure he had no vulnerabilities before he went into battle.

“And yet you’re still his,” Kieran said, and it came out bitter. Not that he wanted her. No, he wanted what he had already lost.

“Because I don’t have a choice,” she said.

Elyssa leaned in and kissed him again and this time it was surprisingly gentle. Kieran kissed her back.

Elyssa stood up and backed away from him. She slowly pulled off her shirt. She put her hands behind her, and unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor.

“I thought you said our fearless leader wanted to see us immediately,” Kieran said.

“I did,” she responded, and a genuine smile played on her lips. “But it wouldn’t hurt him to wait a while.”

Kieran stared at her. Choices and consequences. Everything used to be so simple. But now he stood on the edge of a knife, uncertain which way to go.

“If we do this, don’t go into my mind,” Kieran said.

Elyssa smiled again.

“I don’t think I could with you, anyway,” she said. “Not anymore.”

He nodded at that. He stood up then and walked over to her.

She slowly undid the buttons on his shirt and slid it off him. Still looking at him, she unbuckled his belt and pulled off his pants.

Kieran was surprised how much he wanted her.

“Why now?” he asked. “How did you know I would say yes?”

The two of them stood naked on the balcony.

“Because,” she said. “The only person you enjoy pissing off more than me is him. And just think of how mad he is going to be waiting for us while we… entertain ourselves up here?”

She had a point.

Fuck it
, he thought and laughed out loud.

Elyssa looked at him with a strange expression and then he kissed her. Hard. She broke away from him, stepped inside his room and pulled him onto the bed with her.

*****

October 18, 2007

Summer Mandaville was shivering. She tried to tell herself she was just chilly, but she knew better. She was nervous.

Summer hated being here. It wasn’t just that it was isolated and creepy. No, the house in front of her felt like a monument to her greatest failure. It was still intact, but barely. She wondered why the county hadn’t torn it down already. Its last occupant, Lord Halloween, had died near the front steps, his head found 17 feet from his body.

It should have been her story. For four years, she had worked for
The
Washington Post’s
Loudoun Extra
, the small tabloid-sized foldout tucked inside for every subscriber in the county. While she technically worked for the
Post
, it didn’t exactly feel that way. She spent most of her time in a small, crummy office in Leesburg next to a dry cleaner, McDonald’s and the local Department of Motor Vehicles.

But the
Extra
was supposed to be a stepping stone to the full paper. She had her career all mapped out. Like every other self-respecting journalist in the Washington area, she had visions of being the next Bob Woodward. Of course, she had to actually work at the paper proper for that to happen. As it was, they pulled a few of her stories a year for the back of the Metro section, but nothing substantial. And when there was a vacancy, the
Post
seldom hired from its outlying offices, instead picking new blood or reporters from other papers.

She had hoped Lord Halloween would change all that. His return last year was the first—and only—time that Summer had found her byline on
The Washington Post’s
front page. Her mom had called that day to congratulate her and had sounded so proud that Summer felt she might have finally won the age-old argument between them about whether her choice of career was a waste of time. After that, she had several other stories that weren’t featured quite as prominently, but still made the full
Post
. Even her old friends from high school and college were reading her now. She was on her way.

But then it all went wrong. 

In the space of a week, she had gone from the front of the pack to the back. Kate and Quinn uncovered not only the identity of Lord Halloween, but every apparent detail about his activities over the past few years. Their scoop had been amazing—putting the
Loudoun Chronicle
on the map in a way that hadn’t seemed possible a week earlier.

It had left Summer out in the cold. Her editors never upbraided her, never told her she should have had the story—and that only made it worse. She was like the proverbial KGB agent who messes up and suddenly finds himself posted to outer Siberia. No one at the
Post
ever got mad—they did something worse. They started ignoring her entirely. In the year since Lord Halloween’s death, she had only a handful of bylines in the
Post
.

Of course they were angry. Why shouldn’t they be? Lord Halloween had been her story and she blew it. A part of her blamed Janus. It was stupid, she knew that, but his death had sent her into a tailspin of unexpected grief. If she hadn’t been so upset, she might have uncovered the truth.

But even that was a lie she told to make herself feel better. Quinn O’Brion was Janus’ best friend and apparently he had no problem finding the real killer. Maybe he got a lucky break. Maybe Kate Tassel helped him with her blonde hair, dewy blue eyes and flashy legs. In the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was Summer’s job to get the story and she had failed.

So why was she here now, at almost 9 p.m., near a deserted building that had probably not been visited since Lord Halloween’s death?

Because she was going to be damned if she lost again.

Quinn O’Brion was the Prince of Sanheim. She knew it. She felt it in her bones when he attacked the kid dressed up as the Headless Horseman. Maybe he had worked with Lord Halloween or maybe he had just caught a lucky break, disposed of the serial killer himself and then decided to create another local bogeyman. She didn’t know and didn’t care. Whatever his reasons, he was her man.

After the interview, she had felt discouraged. Maybe her trusty reporter’s intuition had been wrong. Perhaps she had gotten played by an ex-girlfriend out for revenge. She could believe Quinn was the type to stray. She had seen how he looked at her. Men were all the same—commitment wasn’t in their nature.

But the call last night had changed her mind. It had been the woman again—Elyssa. Only she claimed she wasn’t an ex-girlfriend of Quinn’s. She told an entirely different story than Quinn, saying that the man she had seen dressing up as the Headless Horseman was now stalking her. She said she was afraid for her life. Even more intriguing, she said she had proof this time—proof that Quinn was the Prince of Sanheim.

She had refused to meet at her home, instead picking this location. Summer was so desperate she had agreed.

As she waited in the dark and cool October air, she thought about what a dumb decision that was. She didn’t know anything about this woman. She had never thought of herself as particularly vulnerable—it had never occurred to her that Lord Halloween might target her, for example—but now she felt anxious. Quinn had insisted the woman bore him a grudge, and it was true that something felt off about her story. What if this was a sick joke?

She had just made up her mind to leave when she heard movement in the forest. It was sudden and startling, the sound of something running rapidly around the side of the house.

Summer didn’t wait to find out more. She had no intention of playing some kind of horror movie game where she wandered around the outside of an old house calling out, “Anyone there?”