Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Two) (30 page)

“It’s a start,” Tim replied. “You have to stop thinking you can handle this all on your own. Let others help.”

“The Loudoun police weren’t what I had in mind,” Kate replied. “They didn’t help us much with Kyle, as I remember.”

“Doesn’t make them all bad,” Tim said. “We don’t have to do this officially. I can let Brown know we had an anonymous tip that something was up.”

“It could just make the situation worse,” Kate replied. “The police won’t be ready for what they’re facing. Might make more sense to have the fire department ready.”

Tim looked sharply at her.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“It’s just…” she trailed off. “When we met this guy, he threatened to ‘burn’ Leesburg. He could have said level it, attack it or any number of things. Instead, he said ‘burn.’”

“Plus, I did some reading the other night about a town called Crail in Scotland,” Quinn said. “That’s what happened there about 70 years ago when residents defied these people.”

And something must have happened about 30 years ago—another Prince of Sanheim was defeated then—but Quinn still could find no record of it. The absence of any public clash bothered him. He felt like he was missing something.

 “Really?” Tim asked skeptically. “These people burned a whole town 70 years ago?”

“Last time you didn’t believe us, you ended up shooting my girlfriend at point blank range. And yet she’s still here. You want to test us again?”

“Not particularly, no,” Tim responded.

“Good,” Kate and Quinn said together.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tim said, waving his hands. “Unless you’re going to physically restrain me, I’m going to warn Brown. I won’t have some murderer running loose near here and not do a damn thing to stop it.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “Just remind them that there are two players in this game. The ones who attacked Maggie Frank—and the ones who saved her.”

“I’ll remember,” Tim said. He waved to the door in a gesture of dismissal and got on the phone. Kate and Quinn walked out.

“What are we going to do?” Quinn asked.

“Now?” she responded. “We wait.”

Chapter 27

October 23, 2007

Kate had a plan. After so many days of feeling paralyzed, it was a relief to finally be
thinking
again. After talking with Tim, she and Quinn headed home. She pulled up maps on Google Earth and printed off the best location.

“There,” she pointed at a small clearing near a church.

“You still think the key to this is graveyards?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s the only place it’s worked before.”

“You transformed in this apartment,” he said. “And at the Loudoun Castle. I don’t think that’s tied to a cemetery.”

“Maybe not, but spirits are,” she said. “I don’t know where else to look.”

He nodded.

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” he said.

*****

Kate stood at the edge of Ashburn Presbyterian Cemetery, pacing back and forth.

Near her, the Headless Horseman sat in the saddle of his horse motionless, unyielding. He might have been stone instead of decayed flesh. He betrayed no hint of anxiety or fear. He only waited.

Kate envied him. Not for the first time, she wished
she
could turn into the Headless Horseman.  Instead, she was… what? She kept pondering the question over and over again. Tonight was the time to find out.

In a second, her reverie was interrupted. The Horseman’s steed flicked its ears toward the west and for the first time in several minutes, the figure moved.

They are coming
, the Horseman said in her mind. 

He turned and faced the woods.

She could sense them now, moving down the Washington and Old Dominion trail with incredible speed. The path was long, running for miles through Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington counties. It also went right through the heart of Ashburn, giving Sawyer’s band a chance to avoid most major roads—and whatever police presence there might be—and launch themselves into the heart of the local population.

Go
, she thought.
Stop them before they can hurt anyone. I’ll follow you in a moment.

The Horseman leapt from his spot and galloped through the trees directly toward the trail. He covered the ground remarkably quickly, but whatever was out there moved nearly as fast. The Horseman burst out of the forest to find three animals had already run past him along the trail. He wasn’t sure what they were, only that they ran at a lightning pace.

The Horseman galloped to catch up. He sensed one of them looking back and starting to run even faster. The Horseman kicked the sides of his horse for a burst of speed and gained ground. The three beasts kept glancing behind them, with one finally darting off to the left side, while the other two went to the right. They cut back in a circular motion, effectively surrounding the Headless Horseman, racing around him in a circle.

The creatures were unlike anything he had ever seen before. They were large, about half the size of a grizzly bear, but their faces and haunches were closer to a puma. When one opened its mouth, he could see rows of sharp, fanged teeth.

If a person had seen them, he or she would have reversed course and started running.

But the Horseman laughed as the three beasts raced around him. He brought the horse up short, dismounted and drew his sword.

The first one jumped so quickly, an observer would have never seen it coming. But the Horseman’s lack of traditional eyesight had advantages. He sensed it before it leapt, and when it did, he swung his left arm to knock it away.

The second animal flew at his back in the same blurred motion, knocking the Horseman to the ground. As it clawed at him with razor-sharp talons, he reached a large, gloved hand around its neck, grasped the thing by its shaggy fur, and threw it with all his force. There was a thump in the grass and a whimper.

As he stood up again, the third creature hit him with a frontal assault. It was a fatal mistake. As it launched itself, the Horseman dodged to the side and brought up his sword, slicing the thing in half. There was a sharp cry as it slumped to the ground.

The Headless Horseman let his laugh echo throughout the surrounding forest and turned to remount his horse.

*****

Kate was agitated.

The Horseman was out there fighting and yet nothing she did made a difference. She tried to transform and nothing happened. She tried to call the dead, but heard only faint whispers. Something was wrong.  Only a few minutes in and her plan was already falling apart.

In her mind, she saw him ride after the three beasts. She wanted nothing more to than to join him, but what good could she do? She was just the same Kate Tassel she always was.

She knew she could be more. Sanheim had said it and she had turned into Kyle in her apartment. It had all been so easy when she helped kill Lord Halloween last year.

Sanheim said she was holding back, but she didn’t understand how to let go.

From far away, she heard the sound of music. After a moment, she recognized the sound: someone was playing a flute. She thought of the symbol in Crowley’s books.

She heard a yelp—the sound of an animal in pain—and then a familiar cold laugh. Once upon a time, it would have filled her with dread. Now it just made her smile in spite of her frustration. Quinn had won whatever fight he was in.

She saw him ride off toward the sound of the flute. She was dangerously aware of time ticking away.

She kept thinking about her conversation with Sanheim. She had to embrace what she was, but what was the key to it all?

The moment her mind seized on it, she was interrupted by the sound of screaming in her head. Kate dropped to her knees and clutched her head.

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.